3 Things we’ve learned from the Spurs’ losing streak

If you witnessed the San Antonio Spurs‘ overtime loss to the Boston Celtics on Friday and you’re like me, you may have been at a bit of a loss for words by the end of the game. The team’s complete and utter collapse in the second half was understandably pretty unbearable for Spurs fans if Twitter and Reddit are any good indicators. According to ESPN, the 29-point halftime deficit was the second-largest comeback win in NBA history.

The Spurs then went on to meet the 76ers in San Antonio with the team resting DeMar DeRozan, Dejounte Murray, and Jakob Poeltl. While the depleted Spurs were able to remain competitive until the end of the game, yet again, they were dealt with a heartbreaking loss in overtime off a last-second tip-in by Ben Simmons.

It’s worth noting that the Boston Celtics are deserving of a lot of credit for their win. Jayson Tatum had a career night, tying Celtics legend Larry Bird for the highest-scoring game by a Celtic in their entire history as a team.

The Celtics, as a whole, scored 80 points in the second half, shooting nearly 56 percent from the field and 71 percent from beyond the arc on 17 attempts. When a team is able to have that kind of production on offense, it’s going to be tough for the opposing team to win no matter how huge the halftime lead was.

Similarly, Joel Embiid showed the Spurs why he is still one of the frontrunners for league MVP, posting 34 points and 12 rebounds with relative ease. Seth Curry also had himself a fantastic shooting night, posting 22 points on 6/6 from beyond the arc and shooting 80 percent from the field overall.

That said, the Spurs had some serious struggles on both sides of the floor that are also very much to blame for their last-second losses. Here, I plan to discuss the most blatantly obvious issues that the Spurs had in their games against the Celtics and 76ers and what adjustments need to be made for the remainder of their schedule.

I’ll additionally discuss a couple of the bright spots in two otherwise disheartening games that the Spurs could build on in the near future.

1. The San Antonio Spurs need help defending size

This lesson is not so much a lesson for the team per se, but more of a lesson for the front office. In terms of defensive prowess, the Spurs’ lack of depth at the 3-5 positions becomes very evident in games like these.

The fact of the matter is, for the time being, players like Jayson Tatum, Joel Embiid, and even Dwight Howard are matchup nightmares for the Spurs on defense, even with a defensive anchor like Jakob Poeltl in the game. In his record-breaking game against the Spurs, Jayson Tatum put up 60 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists.

The Spurs coaching staff and front office should be well-aware by now that at some point in the near future, if the Spurs are to have any meaningful success moving forward, they will need to acquire more players to help defend skilled forwards and athletic bigs. Specifically, the addition of a defensively skilled power forward to accompany Poeltl in the frontcourt could tremendously help.

Unfortunately, it will likely be difficult for the Spurs to address the lesson learned here until after the season is over purely because of available personnel. While someone like Keldon Johnson should be able to handle the size and strength of forwards like Tatum, overall, his defense is still very much a work-in-progress, particularly when he’s off the ball.

Similarly, while Lonnie Walker has shown that he is a very capable on-ball defender, he’s still too small to reliably defend players like Tatum. While I think that someone like Devin Vassell could eventually become one of the solutions to this issue and potentially become an elite wing defender, he will need to gain weight to reliably guard strong forwards like Tatum.

Even then though, the Spurs will also need to prioritize finding strong and versatile defenders through the draft, especially if they can help with the Spurs’ very underwhelming perimeter defense. Some of the players in the upcoming draft that could potentially help to fill this void were featured on my two top 5 lists of Spurs 2021 draft prospects for both the first round and second round.

Because of the Spurs’ need for a power forward, Kevin O’Connor’s draft suggestion for the Spurs also makes a lot of sense.

2. The San Antonio Spurs need a better rebounding effort

While the Celtics were able to completely shoot the lights out of the building, what I think ultimately made the difference was that the Celtics were also able to out-rebound the Spurs.

While the Celtics only out-rebounded the Spurs by nine, (52 to 43), seven of those extra rebounds came in the second half. While both Dejounte Murray and Keldon Johnson have proven themselves to be very good rebounders for their respective positions, other than Jakob Poeltl, the rest of the team is only average at best when it comes to getting boards.

Rudy Gay, for example, had a grand total of one rebound in the entire game and is averaging less than five rebounds per game this year — the fewest since his rookie year. For being 6-8 with a 7-3 wingspan, that level of production on the boards is entirely unacceptable even with a good offensive showing.

Surprisingly, the Spurs actually had a much better showing in the rebounding department against the 76ers, only being out-rebounded by one. That said, there were noticeably a couple of occasions when either Joel Embiid or Dwight Howard were able to have their way on the glass, leading to some easy putbacks that could have been prevented. Even Ben Simmons’ game-winning tap-in could have been prevented had someone consciously put a body on him.

The Spurs are currently sitting at 18th in the league in rebounds which, while not necessarily terrible, is not particularly good either. In combination with their subpar defense and bottom-of-the-league 3-point shooting volume though, subpar rebounding can be (and was) the final piece of the puzzle in tight losses like the recent ones against Boston and Philly.

While the Spurs have managed to accumulate some of the better rebounding guards in the league, Jakob Poeltl cannot and should not be the only big man on the floor that can rebound.

Although it’s unlikely, the possible addition of John Collins as a restricted free agent this coming offseason could immediately help to solve this problem. Not only could he help with some of the Spurs’ defensive woes, but he would provide an immediate rebounding upgrade at his position, as he is currently the 24th leading rebounder in the league (only 3 spots behind Jakob).

I happen to also think that this could be an area of improvement for Lonnie Walker, given his speed and hops. If he could manage even 4-5 rebounds per game, that could help to solidify the Spurs backcourt as one of the best rebounding backcourts in the league.

3. The San Antonio Spurs’ future is brighter than it seems

Seeing that everything that could have gone wrong for the most part went wrong for the Spurs, particularly against the Celtics, there’s still something positive that was learned from recent games: good things happen when the Spurs’ young players touch the ball.

Yes, the Spurs will have to focus on building a talented frontcourt around Jakob Poeltl, among other things, before there’s any good chance of a deep playoff run. There’s also a decent chance that  DeRozan opts to leave the Spurs for a team that can give him a chance for a ring, which may initially feel like a step in the wrong direction.

But some of the Spurs’ young players like Dejounte Murray and Lonnie Walker IV have shown that there is still a lot to look forward to in the near future. Dejounte Murray has undoubtedly taken the next step in his career with his performance this season, breaking several franchise records, including recently becoming the only Spur in the Popovich era to record more than three triple-doubles in the same season.

In Boston, he was only two assists and two rebounds shy of recording his fifth of the season. Moreover, he’s increased his scoring production and maintained a respectable 3-point percentage of 34 percent on the season on nearly double the attempts compared to last season. If he can continue to improve his shooting and maintain his impressive defense, he will be a serious two-way threat for years to come.

Meanwhile, in the absence of Derrick White, Walker is continuing to prove that he has the potential to be one of, if not the best scorer on the team. It is becoming increasingly difficult not to see his potential as a scorer, floor-spacer, and even playmaker with some of the Manu-esque passes we’ve seen over the course of the season.

What was very disappointing to be me about the Spurs’ play, particularly in Boston, was how little the ball made it to Lonnie’s hands, as he only recorded 36 touches in the game– about six over his touches per game average this season.

To put that in perspective, when you look at touches per game over the course of the entire season, Lonnie trails Dejounte Murray, DeMar DeRozan, Derrick White, Keldon Johnson, Jakob Poeltl, Rudy Gay, and Patty Mills.

Simultaneously, including every player on the team that plays at least 15 minutes per game, Lonnie leads the team in points per touch. In other words, we may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of his scoring potential, and the Spurs need to work on finding him more often.

When accounting for the Spurs’ other young players that haven’t even been mentioned here, like Keldon Johnson, Derrick White, Devin Vassell, and Jakob Poeltl, the Spurs may be quietly building a young team with a ton of upside. It’s very possible, if not likely, that fans have only had a taste of that potential this season, and that the best is yet to come.