Timberwolves present clear Stephon Castle challenge fans should have seen coming

Almost every Spur left something on the table in last night’s Game 1 loss to Minnesota. Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox have caught a lot of the flak, given they’re the All-Stars of the team, but Stephon Castle’s performance was less than ideal, too.

On paper, his stat line was solid, but the numbers don’t tell the story. His inexperience and youth reared their heads last night, raising concerns for how the rest of the series will play out.

Stephon Castle wasn’t at his best when the Spurs needed him to be

Castle scored 17 points last night, adding five rebounds and five assists while finishing with a +4 plus/minus in 28 minutes. On top of that, he didn’t cough up a single turnover, a sight for sore eyes after watching him crack the top 10 in turnovers per game during the regular season.

As mentioned, those aren’t bad stats by any means, especially for a third option. Look a little deeper, though, and the ugliness shows up. You may have noticed he played just 28 minutes—that's because he fouled out. Castle was erratic defensively last night. At times, he looked overmatched on the ball, and he struggled to get through screens in a couple of instances as well.

Simply put, the Spurs need Castle for more than 28 minutes every game, especially in a back-and-forth high-stakes battle like last night. Unfortunately, this wasn’t just a one-off problem, as he’s averaged 4.0 fouls throughout the postseason so far, and he hit the limit in Game 5 versus the Trail Blazers. The young star has to clean up his hacking moving forward.

Spurs fans should have seen this coming

The other major red flag from Castle’s box score last night was that he only attempted eight field goals, with five of them being threes (although he did shoot eight free throws). In a game where Wemby and Fox are struggling, Castle has to produce more in the scoring column, and he didn’t do that. Extra concerning is the fact that it wasn't really an aggression problem.

Minnesota was very willing to let Castle shoot threes, and when he tried to force the issue and get inside, he had a tough time getting around his man more often than not. The Wolves are tough defensively and clearly had a game plan to limit Castle’s strengths in place. The Spurs have to find a way to get him more looks inside the arc. He won't shoot 3-5 from deep consistently.

Castle’s weaknesses as a scorer were no secret heading into the playoffs, nor was his lack of experience. As good as he was in the regular season, it would have been unfair to expect him not to have some growing pains in the postseason. Moving forward, the question is, can Castle adjust and rise to the moment as the stakes get higher? San Antonio will certainly need the answer to be yes.

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