{"id":1973762,"date":"2026-06-05T10:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T07:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1973762"},"modified":"2026-06-05T10:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T07:30:11","slug":"how-can-spurs-have-a-more-normal-offense-in-game-2-by-looking-to-the-recent-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1973762","title":{"rendered":"How can Spurs have a more \u2018normal\u2019 offense in Game 2? By looking to the recent past"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SAN ANTONIO \u2013 The San Antonio Spurs\u2019 five starters may not have any NBA Finals experience among them, but you\u2019ll forgive them for having a familiar feeling after a second-half offensive meltdown led to a 105-95 loss to New York in Game 1.<\/p>\n

In the words of a famous New York legend in a different sport, it\u2019s like d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu all over again. They\u2019ve been here before.<\/p>\n

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San Antonio\u2019s lowest-scoring game in the first round, of the three full games Victor Wembanyama played, was 111 points in Game 1 against Portland. San Antonio\u2019s lowest-scoring game in the second round was 102, in Game 1 against Minnesota. And the Spurs\u2019 lowest-scoring regulation total in the conference finals against Oklahoma City was 101 in Game 1 (they finished with 122 in double overtime).<\/p>\n

So if the Spurs\u2019 95 points in Game 1 ends up as their low point of these Finals, it would be par for the course.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the counterpoint: It had better <\/em>be the low point. The Spurs have little chance of rallying to win four of the next six games unless they deliver far better offensive performances than Wednesday\u2019s measly 99.0 Offensive Rating. After the dud in the opener, holding court at home in Game 2 is all but essential.<\/p>\n

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That said, the parallels to the Spurs\u2019 previous rounds are hard to ignore, particularly the opener against Minnesota in the second round. Like that game, the offensive shortcomings resulted from cold 3-point shooting (10-of-36 that night, 11-of-42 Wednesday), a struggling Wembanyama (5-of-17 that night, 6-of-21 Wednesday) and offensive short-circuits that felt \u2014 with due respect to the opponent \u2014 as heavily self-inflicted, at least to some Spurs staffers.<\/p>\n

With a day to digest the defeat, the Spurs\u2019 message at Thursday\u2019s media session was that their play in Game 1 was out of character, especially in a 40-point quagmire of a second half. In particular, there was too much hero-ball and not enough cutting and screening. Yes, some Xs and Os adjustments following the opener are inevitable, but the core reason behind the Spurs\u2019 woes felt simpler.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the reason we lost the game isn\u2019t even technical,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cWe need to approach the game with a better mental state. And we just need to play our game, you know? We just need it to be normal. We don\u2019t need to do anything incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The lack of ball movement and reliance on one-pass possessions was a notable sore point. San Antonio finished with just 16 assists, which wasn\u2019t just the team\u2019s fewest this season, but actually the lowest number in Wembanyama\u2019s entire time as a Spur. The last time they had fewer assists in a game was March 11, 2022, a year and half before the French phenom\u2019s NBA debut.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>Sixteen assists is not a reflection of this program ever since I\u2019ve been here, and decades before I was,\u201d Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not the Spurs way,\u201d Devin Vassell said Wednesday after the game.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing, though: You can\u2019t get an assist unless a teammate makes a shot. And thus begins the series of chicken-and-egg questions about the San Antonio Spurs\u2019 shooting performance in the loss.<\/p>\n

Was San Antonio\u2019s ghastly second-half shooting the result of poor ball movement and thirsty shot attempts? Or was the Spurs\u2019 low assist total a consequence of make-or-miss variance on a torrent of otherwise desirable catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts?<\/p>\n

One way or another, here\u2019s a hot prediction for you: Game 2 will have more points than Game 1.<\/p>\n

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I say that because both sides looked ragged for long stretches in the opener. The best way to say that is in the horrifying shooting numbers they posted from the perimeter, despite both having lineups with decent shooters in the game.<\/p>\n

Remember, this loss might have been far worse for the Spurs if the Knicks hadn\u2019t also shot poorly on a diet of relatively makeable shots. New York, despite winning by 10, shot just 14-of-52 on shots outside the paint, including an execrable 3-of-23 on above-the-break 3s.<\/p>\n

San Antonio, alas, said \u201cHold my beer.\u201d The Spurs were a ghastly 11-of-46 from the perimeter, sullying an otherwise analytically pristine shot chart that included only four non-paint 2s.<\/p>\n

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So yes, the ol\u2019 \u201cplay better adjustment\u201d should figure prominently in Friday\u2019s Game 2 for both sides.<\/p>\n

This takes us to a second prediction for Game 2: Those jump shots are going to be there. All season long, the Knicks\u2019 defense has prioritized paint protection while accepting\u00a0 corner 3s as a trade-off; only three teams gave up a higher proportion of opponent shots from 3 than the 44.8 percent the Knicks allowed. Against the ever-present rim gravity of Wembanyama and the Spurs\u2019 trio of athletic guards, New York doubled down on that trait. Maybe the Knicks can close out a bit better to the 3-point line rather than relying on the provenance of the fickle 3-point gods, but they\u2019ll live with the Spurs\u2019 Game 1 shot chart.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always want to try to get a little bit better with what we\u2019re doing, including the 3-point line,\u201d Knicks coach Mike Brown said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, this team will kill you if you allow their guards, as big and athletic and long and quick as they are, to get to the paint and finish.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI know we can\u2019t allow them to live in the paint against us, because they\u2019ll destroy us if they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s core defensive strategy worked. The Knicks only gave up 42 paint points in Game 1, including just eight from Wembanyama. On the other hand, it\u2019s not like this is a new tactic to the Spurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve played a couple of teams similar that are very committed to guarding the paint with bodies,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to make sure we don\u2019t fight the game. You know, if a team is going to be very active and committed to taking away something, typically that means it\u2019s opening something else up elsewhere \u2026 But we have to make sure we pass the ball to the guys. We\u2019ve got to make sure we continue to put pressure on the rim. That\u2019s not always for ourselves. It can be with the roll, it can be with the cut, it can be with the drive. And I think last night we got a little away from that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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Of course, all perimeter shots are not created equal. The feeling from San Antonio staffers was that even though nearly all 42 3s were catch-and-shoot attempts, that didn\u2019t necessarily mean they were great shots. Which was, perhaps, a familiar story from their openers in previous rounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we rushed some of our shots,\u201d Vassell said.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>I just think we can do a better job with moving the ball around a little bit, and just playing a little more together,\u201d Julian Champagnie said Wednesday (he made 5 3s in the first half but had only one point after the break). \u201cI think in the first half, we were really, really connected.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

The Spurs will hope for a more normal game for themselves in Game 2, much as they were able to conjure up in the previous rounds. San Antonio suffered a home loss in each of those series, but followed them with wins by 12, 38 and 21, respectively. With New York likely to shoot better itself, the pressure is on San Antonio\u2019s offense to deliver a \u201cnormal\u201d performance, as Wembanyama put it.<\/p>\n

And what, exactly, does normal mean?<\/p>\n

\u201cNormal means trusting each other, trusting the basketball gods trusting the game plan, executing, and not relying on talent so much to make shots or to save the day,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been playing a certain way all season, and we\u2019ve been successful this way. There\u2019s no reason to change the day the finals start.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO \u2013 The San Antonio Spurs\u2019 five starters may not have any NBA Finals experience among them, but you\u2019ll forgive them for having a familiar feeling after a second-half offensive meltdown led to a 105-95 loss to New York in Game 1. In the words of a famous New York legend in a different […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1973762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1973762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1973762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1973762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1973762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}