Spurs’ deadliest five-man lineup is cementing their contender status

The Spurs' starting lineup picked up in the playoffs where they left off in the regular season. They were ranked sixth among all five-man groups with a minimum of 250 minutes played and maintain a top spot when you expand the parameters to 150 minutes. The biggest question surrounding the team entering the playoffs was whether they could maintain their production. Well, here's your answer.

Besides their disappointing offensive performance in Game 1 of the Timberwolves series, San Antonio has been consistently impressive from the start of the playoffs. Their vicious defense is the main reason for that. Ironically, as successful as they've been together, their offense has mostly been unpredictable, and not in the sense we're used to. They've yet to all have great games simultaneously.

They've gotten close and have explosive stretches, but Spurs Nation has watched this team reach higher heights than we've seen so far. There's still another level of domination to unlock, and if we don't see it in this series, I have a feeling we will in the next round when the opponent is the Oklahoma City Thunder. Minnesota may not be worthy of it.

The Spurs' dominance is not a fluke

The Silver and Black have the third-highest plus/minus in the postseason (+14), behind the New York Knicks (+18.8) and OKC (+17.5). They're the only three teams in the double-digits, suggesting they're dominating their opponents. The Timberwolves aren't even in the positive (-1.1). We don't need advanced metrics to tell us what our eyes are showing, though—they're just slightly better than Portland.

The Trail Blazers looked like they didn't belong on the same floor as the number two seed from South Texas when they got rolling. Every win was a blowout. It would have been a sweep had Victor Wembanyama not suffered a concussion. We can assume that confidently because it's more than safe to say that the Alien is worth way more than the three-point margin they won Game 2 by.

It's not a coincidence that they, again, had a chance to steal Game 1 this series after the worst offensive performance of the postseason for Vic and Swipa. Wemby and De'Aaron Fox were both admittedly awful, and the Timberwolves got a major emotional lift from Anthony Edwards' surprise availability status. San Antonio still ended the night with a shot to leave with a win.

Everything we're seeing indicates that the Spurs' C-game is almost good enough to beat Minnesota. They can't handle the A-game. We just saw what happened when they got the B+. I know they'll come out with more urgency tonight, and most people believe we're going to get a long series. After all, it was only one game, right? Wrong.

It was a herald. It was the Silver Surfer. And Galactus is coming to Minneapolis.

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