I’m starting to think the Spurs might just be that dude, you know?

Look, I don’t know exactly what to do with my hands at this point. Two wins over the Thunder in as many weeks has me feeling like an insane person. This isn’t supposed to be happening like this. Not yet. Not right now. We aren’t ready and, by “we,” I mean the people out here emotionally invested in the success of the San Antonio Spurs. We’re ahead of schedule and I don’t know what that means. I’m confused. I’m happy. I’m wary. I’m trying not to panic.

Because, like, let’s go through it real quick. These wins, impressive as they are, probably mean less than we want them to. It’s the regular season. The middle of the regular season. The idea that these two games will translate cleanly into playoff success is unrealistic because, frankly, the playoffs are a different animal. The intensity is different. The lights are brighter. Everyone has a few more miles on their odometer. You would obviously rather win these games than lose them, but let’s not pretend this means more than it does. It’s a good win. A fine win. But the champs are still the champs until they aren’t.

And we should probably acknowledge the elephant in the room: the very next game the Spurs play is tomorrow afternoon. In Oklahoma City. On Christmas. On national television. The Thunder are a very large bear we’ve now poked in the eye twice, and the entire basketball world is turning around in its seat to see what happens next. My guess is that the bear is going to be pretty pissed off.

So, with all that in mind, and considering that at the time of this posting we have less than 24 hours to keep marinating in this confusing yet joyful little stew we’ve got going on, let’s try to keep our wits about us and sort through exactly what we think we think.

We think the Spurs can hang. With the Thunder, the Nuggets, the Rockets… you name it. No matter what happens tomorrow, we can rest assured that this team, as it is currently constructed, can compete with whoever the league has to throw at them. They might not win, but also… they might? That’s different. That’s a whole new level to be operating on, and it’s not one we’ve had the pleasure of enjoying in South Texas for almost a decade now. Job’s not done, obviously, but I think it’s okay to be excited about that. This season is no longer a cute little trial run. It matters now. The stakes are real.

Another thing I think we can probably sit with now is that the Spurs don’t need Victor Wembanyama to be a superhero every night anymore just to compete. Last night he had 12 points, five rebounds, a handful of assists, and didn’t block a shot. The Spurs won by twenty. That’s new. He can absolutely go full alien when he wants to, but this team no longer feels dependent on it just to function. It’s not Wemby dragging a roster behind him. It’s the Spurs, operating as an actual team. It’s no longer Wemby and the fellas out there duking it out. It’s the Spurs, the whole Spurs, and nothing but the Spurs.

It just feels like the margins of the game are being handled elsewhere. When he’s not scoring, someone else is. When he’s not blocking shots, someone else is disrupting passing lanes. When he’s not bending the defense, there are enough capable bodies on the floor to make sure possessions don’t die on the vine. This team doesn’t feel top-heavy anymore. It feels layered. And last night, that layering showed up in waves, not just in the box score, but in how relentless this team was, battering away at the Thunder up and down the court.

That’s how you end up with a night where you can sense guys like Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper being completely unbothered by the moment unfolding in front of them. You see De’Aaron Fox casually darting around the court, directing traffic and picking his spots. Devin Vassell is quietly stepping into shots and confidently draining them. And then, without much warning, a switch flips and all of a sudden it doesn’t feel weird at all that Keldon Johnson has turned into an apex basketball predator.

So once again, let’s enjoy this. It’s a fun crest at the top of a hill that, hopefully, will be just one of many we look back on fondly. We have a real, live basketball team on our hands now. We don’t have to imagine it. They aren’t perfect. They aren’t finished. But they are real. That’s something to be excited about.

Tomorrow might go sideways. The Spurs might lose, and they might lose by a lot. That’s okay. I mean, it certainly wouldn’t be fun, but it would be okay. It wouldn’t undo anything. It doesn’t have to break the spell. It doesn’t have to ruin Christmas (even if it does).

This season was supposed to be about learning how to win and then, somewhere along the way, it quietly became about learning how to live with expectations again. I don’t know if any of us are ready for that but, ready or not, it’s time to saddle up Spurs fans.

The Fiesta logo on the court looks good. It makes me happy every single time I see it. Are you happy? Have you gotten what you wanted out of me? I am an elder millennial who claps like a trained seal whenever a scrap of nostalgia is dangled in front of my face. I’m cooked. I’m chopped. I’m unc. 6–7. Shoot me into the sun and play Mr. Brightside while you do it.Seriously, what happened out there with Keldon Johnson. I kept waiting for whatever he was doing to wear off and it just never did. He was bullying the Thunder. He was burying threes. 25 points on 10 of 16 shooting doesn’t feel like a lot in hindsight, but every single point felt huge. It’s impossible to quantify something like this, but every Shai Gilgeous-Alexander bucket felt subtle and every KJ bucket was loud as hell. I fully acknowledge this might be recency bias, but I’m also not ruling out the possibility that Keldon Johnson is the greatest basketball player who has ever lived. Is there a number I can call to confirm whether that’s recency bias? A hotline? Anything?It is extremely cool that even when Victor has a “quiet” game, he can still do things like hit a step-back dagger three over Alex Caruso that makes me collapse onto my fainting couch like one of those little old southern ladies in the movies.It’s also cool that the thing we all yell about with Victor — “My guy! Stop settling for threes all the time!” — now feels like something he’s actively weaponizing. That fourth-quarter sequence where he upfakes, steps back, upfakes again, and then fires an absolute laser down low to Keldon felt important. That’s not settling. That’s manipulation. That’s the type of of play that simply makes me feel like everything in the world might turn out alright.No one in the league gets hit in the face more than Chet Holmgren. Hate to see that. Thoughts and prayers to his family.

WWL Post Game Press Conference

– Do you think the Spurs losing on Christmas day would actually ruin your Christmas?

– Doesn’t matter, they aren’t going to lose.

– Okay, but hypothetically, let’s say they do.

– Right, but they won’t.

– Sure, I get that you’re confident, but I’m asking if like, on the off chance they were to lose.

– In the off chance that they lose I would simply wake up because I would realize I was in a bad dream instead of reality.

– Because in reality they wouldn’t be losing?

– Now you’re getting it!