Top 7 Storylines as the Spurs Return to the Playoffs
Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs begin their playoff journey (Photo via X)
The San Antonio Spurs finished with a record of 62-20, posted the second-best net rating in the NBA at plus-8.3 and advanced to the playoffs for the first time since the 2018-19 campaign. How will the second-seeded Spurs fare in their return to the postseason? Here are the top seven storylines.
7. How Legit Is the Defense?
San Antonio sported a defensive rating of 111.3 on the season, the third-best mark in the league. With defensive guru and associate head coach Sean Sweeney devising schemes on a nightly basis, the Spurs looked great on that end of the court for much of the season.
Victor Wembanyama, who will take home the Defensive Player of the Year award this season, is obviously the center of all the success. When he was on the floor, the Spurs held opponents to a 106.8 defensive rating. He changes angles, eliminates mistakes and turns the paint into an oops-yeah-no-nevermind zone for anyone who dares attack it.
But in the playoffs, opponents will be able to choreograph every movement. They will spend the series trying to work around Wembanyama. High ball screens, back picks, misdirections, forced rotations to pull him away from the basket on back-to-back actions — Wembanyama will see it all.
Furthermore, with the Frenchman on the bench, San Antonio’s defensive rating climbed to 116.5 during the regular season. That kind of gap does not disappear on its own in the playoffs. If anything, it shows up more because coaches are better at finding and targeting specific weaknesses.
The bottom line is that the defense should be a strength for the Spurs … but it just hasn’t been tested the way it’s about to be.
6. Will the Real Shooters Please Stand Up?
The Spurs shot 35.9% from three on the season, which ranked 14th in the league. That is respectable. But San Antonio’s streakiness beyond the arc is worth worrying about.
In January, the Spurs shot just 32.4% from three and posted a 112.2 offensive rating. In February, they shot 37.5% from deep and their offensive rating climbed to 121.9. In March, they hit 38.6% from long distance and their offensive rating peaked at 124.0. It’s clearly not a coincidence that San Antonio’s offense gets deadlier the better they shoot from downtown.
Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie are at the heart of this storyline. Vassell hit 38.4% from three, while Champagnie was right there at 38.1%. They are the two most important volume spacers on the roster — both shoot north of ten threes per 100 possessions to lead the ballclub.
If shots from deep are not falling, defenses will load the paint against Wembanyama, De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper. The Spurs have multiple players who want to get downhill but the lane would get crowded in a hurry if the help defenders can ignore San Antonio’s marksmen.
The win-loss split also says a lot. In wins, San Antonio shot 37.4% from three. In losses, it fell all the way to 31.5%. That does not mean every result comes down to outside shooting, but it does tell the basic story. When the Spurs are making enough threes, they can look almost unfair because the driving lanes open, the ball moves and Wembanyama becomes even more impossible to guard.
5. Mitch Johnson on the Big Stage
Mitch Johnson steered a 62-win team with poise, managed a roster full of young talent eager to prove themselves and did it with complicated injury timing. The Spurs appear to be in good hands in the post-Pop era.
However, playoff coaching is a different animal. In a seven-game series, the margin for error on lineup decisions shrinks. Rotations tighten. Opponents adjust from game to game. Timeout usage, challenges, late-game playcalling — all of that matters more when every possession could be the difference between a series lead and an emergency.
For Johnson, the primary challenge will likely be managing a mix of veterans and young contributors who have no playoff experience. Knowing who to trust in a fourth quarter that suddenly feels nothing like the regular season will be difficult. Dylan Harper or Keldon Johnson? Stephon Castle or Harrison Barnes? Coach Mitch and crew deserve a lot of credit for building this team into what it has become. Now he has to show he can coach under a different kind of pressure.
4. Dylan Harper — Too Much, Too Soon?
Dylan Harper averaged 11.8 points, 3.9 assists and 3.4 rebounds this season, shot 50.5% from the field, and posted a 57.4 true shooting percentage as a rookie guard. He looked composed and smart all year. He is dealing with a thumb injury but expected to play, so that bears watching, but the bigger adjustment will be mental.
Rookie guards in the playoffs tend to get punished. Defenses read their tendencies, physicality ramps up and the moments that felt manageable in March start arriving at a different speed. Sure, Kawhi Leonard contributed to winning Spurs playoff basketball as a rookie — but that was as a wing with a defined off-ball role … not as a point guard being asked to create in a slowed, intensified environment.
The Spurs do not need Harper to be a star. If he can give the second unit calm secondary creation, get the team into the right spots and score when the defense gives him driving lanes, that would be a genuine plus. If the lights prove to be too bright, that will be a troubling turn of events. Harper has the tools and the demeanor. We’ll see how cool he can stay when the pressure starts to rise.
3. Stephon Castle: Breakout Star?
Anyone who watched the Spurs down the stretch knows that Castle won’t be a secret for long. Over his final 20 games, he averaged 16.8 points, 8.6 assists and 6.1 rebounds. He was the team’s engine on a lot of nights, looked like the second-best player on the floor and carried himself like someone who had been in the league for a decade.
The full-season context matters though. Castle shot 33.2% from three-point territory on the year. That’s a number that quality playoff defenses will test. They’ll sag and force him to prove it.
Over his last 25 games, Castle was at 41.2% from deep, which suggests his shot is genuinely improving. But, nonetheless, his shooting question mark will arise again in the playoffs.
Then there are the turnovers. Castle averaged 3.3 per game this season. The aggressiveness that generates those turnovers is also what makes him so dangerous. He attacks, he pushes the issue and he plays with unrelenting force. But in a playoff series, loose possessions compound. A turnover in the third quarter of a regular season game in December is forgettable. The same turnover in a swing game in the playoffs is a different conversation.
That said, Castle’s defense, his downhill pressure and the way he competes feel made for this stage. If he keeps the turnovers from stacking and the jumper keeps trending in the right direction, he could prove to be this postseason’s breakout star.
2. De’Aaron Fox and the Reins
I was impressed by Fox’s play during the regular season. His effective field goal percentage of 51.4% last year jumped to 54.9% this year — moving from well below league average to above it. Just as importantly, his uncommon unselfishness allowed Castle and Harper room to grow. By dropping his usage rate from 28.3% to 24.9%, he let those two young guards learn to soar on the fly.
However, the playoffs may ask for something else. Fox may need to have a firmer grip on the reins. His only previous playoff appearance came with the Sacramento Kings in 2023 when he went for 27.4 points, 7.7 assists and 5.4 rebounds over seven games against the Golden State Warriors. That version of Fox — aggressive, relentless, willing to take the game over — may need to become more prevalent.
The Spurs do not need that version every night, but in close games, in elimination situations, in moments when the offense goes sideways and someone has to restore order, they are going to need Fox to seize control.
1. How Ready is Victor Wembanyama?
Wembanyama averaged 25.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 3.1 blocks and 1.0 steals per game this season. Over his final 10 games, those numbers jumped to 29.5 points, 13.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 3.5 blocks and 1.2 steals. He is a legitimate two-way force who is already in the conversation of the NBA’s best.
Despite the greatness, Wembanyama has never played in a playoff game. He is only 22 years old. He averaged less than 30 minutes per game. The regular season is not what the next few weeks will look like. Opposing coaches will have a plan built around making him work harder on both ends, getting him into foul trouble, forcing him into uncomfortable spots on the perimeter, being physical with him and seeing whether the brilliance he showed in the regular season survives that kind of sustained attention and weight.
Wembanyama is already great. The question is whether he is already great enough to drive championship-level basketball in the playoffs. So far, he’s given us no reason to do anything else but believe.