SAN ANTONIO – The Spurs lost the regular-season finale to the Nuggets, despite the sense that both organizations understood that it would be in their own best interest if San Antonio won.
On its face the avoidable loss went about as poorly as possible for a San Antonio team that saw a key player leave due to injury and missed out on an easier playoff bracket. But the result might not be as bad as it felt in the moment for fans who vented their frustrations and fears in living rooms, sports bars and tweets.
There was plenty to not like, but how bad was it on a scale from non-issue to complete disaster?
How Much Harder is the Playoff Bracket?
San Antonio could have sent Denver down to the four seed, which would have made their own lives easier and Oklahoma City’s path harder. The Spurs would have set up a potential second-round matchup with the Lakers/Timberwolves winner, and forced the incredibly-dangerous Nuggets into a collision course with defending champions before the conference finals.
Instead, the Spurs face the prospect of a path to the Finals that includes either the Nuggets or the Timberwolves and then the Thunder. Meanwhile, Oklahoma City would face the winner of Lakers versus Rockets in the second round.
A golden opportunity to force the two other true-blue title contenders into a grueling seven-game series is lost, replaced with the prospect of facing Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, and an incredibly-deep Nuggets team in the second round. After that would most likely be a Western Conference Finals against Oklahoma City.
A playoff series between Wembanyama’s Spurs and Jokic’s Nuggets is a basketball fan’s dream, but feels more nightmarish to anxious fans of either team. Since it could have been avoided by San Antonio, it feels a bit self inflicted.
Still, there’s no guarantee either of these teams will advance to the second round. If Denver did indeed prefer to face the Rockets over the Timberwolves, it’s probably for a reason.
Minnesota is regarded as a dangerous group with Anthony Edwards leading the offense, Rudy Gobert anchoring the defense, and plenty of depth and talent. If they had faced the Lakers in the first round, it might have been a quick series depending on how healthy Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves are.
If there’s any silver lining to the Silver and Black’s playoff path it’s that whether they’d see the Nuggets or Timberwolves in the second round, their opponent would have likely just played a hard-fought and very entertaining first-round series.
How Bad is Dylan Harper’s Injury?
Dylan Harper left the game in the third quarter with what the team called a left thumb injury. Harper returned to the bench with a light wrap on his shooting hand.
Mitch Johnson didn’t have any update on Harper’s status after the game, though reporters at the arena indicated that removing Harper from the game was more of a precaution than a cause for serious worry.
According to Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express News, Harper said he jammed the thumb and “didn’t seem too concerned going forward.”
As long as further tests don’t reveal anything more serious, it seems Harper avoided anything major. He’ll have a week to rest, recover, and prepare for the first round against either the Suns or Trail Blazers.
For anyone asking why Wembanyama didn’t play the answer is very clearly that the Spurs want to take the cautious approach with him and make absolutely sure that instead of picking up any new nicks or bruises he was resting up for his first playoff run.
Is the Execution a Concern?
On one hand, it’s disappointing that most of San Antonio’s core players couldn’t defeat a Denver squad that rested most of their rotation. The players all want to win regardless of the seeding situation, and this seemed a simple opportunity to improve this team’s chances at winning a title that would have seemed impossible at the start of the regular season.
On the other hand, any team missing their top two centers is bound to struggle against a squad with Nikola Jokic (for the first half) and Jonas Valanciunas, who always seems to rear his head in the 83rd game of San Antonio’s season. The Spurs don’t often get beaten on the glass or in the paint like they did in this one, and while they generated a lot of good looks they struggled to knock down outside shots.
There will be some film to go over, and if anything the loss serves as a good reminder that it’s a bad idea to take anything for granted at this level.
It wasn’t the most fun loss, and it came with a price, but nothing about how they played should impact how anyone thinks about this team as a contender. The Spurs will likely be favored in most games until the conference finals, only underdogs twice since the start of February.
In that stretch San Antonio went 30-4, and three of the losses came against the Nuggets. That doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that Denver has the Spurs’ number. Victor Wembanyama has only appeared in one of the four matchups between these teams this season, a classic overtime duel against Jokic. The tape from the rest of those games won’t be super useful to the Nuggets in terms of preparing for a potential playoff series.