{"id":13893,"date":"2025-05-06T17:48:24","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T17:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/13893\/"},"modified":"2025-05-06T17:48:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T17:48:24","slug":"game-preview-san-antonio-spurs-vs-toronto-raptors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/13893\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Preview: San Antonio Spurs vs. Toronto Raptors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The final day of the NBA season is a time for reflection. It\u2019s a time when fan bases (the ones that haven\u2019t checked out already) look at what went right and wrong at the end of the 82-game marathon. The San Antonio Spurs<\/a> can very clearly point to what went wrong. Untimely injuries to Victor Wembanyama and De\u2019Aaron Fox ruined their chance of competing for a spot in the Play-In Tournament. You could easily point to the development of rookie Stephon Castle and the good play from Devin Vassell and Keldon Johnson down the stretch as what went right. <\/p>\n

Now they\u2019ll wrap up their season with nothing to gain and nothing to lose. At 33-48, the Spurs are locked into the 8th-best odds at the number-one overall pick in the draft. Their opponent, the Toronto Raptors<\/a>, is just a step ahead of them in the lottery standings and is locked in with the 7th best odds. <\/p>\n

Both teams will rest key players to their franchises. The players on the court have nothing to gain but pride, leaving some good tape for teams across the league to assess. San Antonio will get to wrap up this roller coaster of a campaign at home amongst their fans. <\/p>\n

April 13th, 2025 | 2:30 PM CT
\nWatch: Fan Duel | Listen: WOAI (1200 AM)<\/p>\n

Spurs Injuries: De\u2019Aaron Fox \u2013 Out (finger), Riley Minix \u2013 Out (shoulder), Jeremy Sochan \u2013 Out (back), Devin Vassell \u2013 Out (ankle), Victor Wembanyama \u2013 Out (shoulder)<\/p>\n

Raptors Injuries: RJ Barrett \u2013 Out (rest), Ulrich Chomche \u2013 Out (knee), Gradey Dick \u2013 Out (knee), Brandon Ingram \u2013 Out (ankle), Jakob Poeltl \u2013 Out (hand), Immanuel Quickley \u2013 Out (rest), Jared Rhoden \u2013 Out (shoulder), Ja\u2019Kobe Walter \u2013 Out (hip)<\/p>\n

What to watch for:
\nEnd of the bench<\/p>\n

San Antonio will likely give a lot of minutes to players at the end of the bench like Malaki Branham and David Duke Jr. on Sunday. This is the last chance for these young players to make an impression before contract negotiations this summer. Toronto will have plenty of players in a similar situation. If you\u2019re looking for meaning in a fairly meaningless game, this is the best place to look.<\/p>\n

Stephon Castle ends strong<\/p>\n

The Spurs have an opportunity to take home their second-straight Rookie of the Year award thanks to Castle. He\u2019s the front-runner for the award and has been one of the Spurs\u2019 most consistent bright spots throughout the season. He\u2019ll look to end the season with a bang against the Raptors. Castle has cemented himself as a core piece of San Antonio\u2019s future. Spurs\u2019 General Manager, Brian Wright, and the rest of the front office have to feel good about their draft selections right now.<\/p>\n

Iron Man seasons<\/p>\n

In the NBA, availability is the best ability. The Spurs will have three players who have logged minutes in all 82 games. Chris Paul, Harrison Barnes, and Julian Champagnie will have played in every regular season game after playing on Sunday. The trio have been mainstays for the Spurs this season. In a turbulent year filled with untimely injuries, you could argue players like Barnes and Paul have been the rocks of the squad. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The final day of the NBA season is a time for reflection. It\u2019s a time when fan bases…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3770],"tags":[673,7,28,142,6,538,1366,681,539,672,534,5595,64,680,476,3820,143],"class_list":{"0":"post-13893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-raptors","8":"tag-antonio","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-front-page","11":"tag-game","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-pounding","14":"tag-preview","15":"tag-raptors","16":"tag-rock","17":"tag-san","18":"tag-spurs","19":"tag-spurs-game-previews","20":"tag-the","21":"tag-toronto","22":"tag-toronto-raptors","23":"tag-torontoraptors","24":"tag-vs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114462150118833855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}