San Antonio Spurs Poised to Shake Up Western Conference Playoff Race
The San Antonio Spurs are still a far cry from title favorites. But, with their impressive 14-point win over the Memphis Grizzlies last Sunday, the defending champions have officially shredded the last sliver of doubt concerning their ability to realistically repeat.
Though their slow start effectively ended their annual pursuit of the West's top seed , the Spurs have quietly tiptoed back into title talks. They don't merely sit on the edges of playoff contention, however.
Having seemingly caught their stride in the season's second half, the veteran team deserves more attention from pundits than any other Western Conference team, save for the top-seeded Golden State Warriors.
In characteristic Spurs fashion, their seeming return to the top tier has been under the radar. With other teams playing more integral roles in the season's developing storylines, San Antonio has found itself in a familiar spot—overlooked and underestimated.
However, as the Spurs have proven numerous times over the past few years, that's when they're the most dangerous.
The Second-Half Surge
The Spurs currently sit on a 47-26 record, good for sixth in the conference. Until recently, the team has danced between the West's fifth and seventh spots, but as it continues to distance itself from the Dallas Mavericks at No. 7, it's becoming increasingly unlikely that the Spurs will draw a top-two team in the first round.
Despite their relatively low seed, though, they've caught fire at the right time. While some of the league's "elite" teams have been unable to match high standards set after hot starts—i.e. the Atlanta Hawks, Memphis Grizzlies, Washington Wizards and Toronto Raptors—San Antonio has followed up a rough start to the season with far more impressive numbers since the turn of the year.
While it's shown flashes of brilliance throughout the entire season, it's begun to do so consistently since January 1.
Since that day (per the NBA's media site), the Spurs' 27-12 record is the fourth-best in the league and second in the West. Only the Warriors are outperforming them in that regard. They're also posting the second-best point differential in the conference, with Golden State leading them there as well.
The mark comes after the team has proven itself in a number of big games, most recently having bested Memphis by 14, Dallas by 18 and the Oklahoma City Thunder by 39—in a dominant performance that shows what the team is capable of when truly in a groove.
The Spurs have been powerhouses on both ends of the floor. Following a Defensive Player of the Year effort from Tim Duncan in the post and Kawhi Leonard's outstanding leadership along the perimeter, the team has posted a 99.5 defensive rating since the start of 2015—the fifth-best mark in the league.
Of the teams that rank ahead, however, only Golden State (surprise, surprise) also tops them in offensive rating. They score 106.2 points per 100 possessions, the third-best output by any Western Conference team.
But what makes San Antonio's offense success truly unique is the collectivistic culture in which it has been fostered.
Unlike Golden State—and a large handful of other teams—they haven't been reliant on consistent 25- or 30-point games from the same contributors every night. Leonard's rise as a scorer has been meteoric, and Duncan continues to impress as a leading man from time to time.
Most recently, Tony Parker has stepped up to give the team the superstar backbone that is often believed to be necessary for title contention. But the general balance in scoring—no player is averaging more than 17 points per game—proves that the Spurs have the depth to bother one-dimensional squads come playoff time.
Tony Parker's Turnaround
The Spurs' turnaround hasn't come out of the blue. Expectedly, they've hit their stride at the same time as their starting point guard, whose awakening has helped ignite the entire offense.
Parker missed a large chunk of time in December—the team's worst month of the season—with a hamstring injury, from which he hadn't fully recovered (per Yahoo's Marc J. Spears).
The effect on his play was evident. The first half of the season saw Parker attacking the rim with far less tenacity than usual. He had seemingly lost a step and wasn't finishing at his usual high rate at the rim.
The consequence of his increased inability to attack the basket was far-reaching. It created spacing problems and failed to create the mismatches, double-teams and open looks from the perimeter as it previously had.
But he's picked it up as of the late, perhaps finally healthy for the first time since December.
Now leading the Spurs offense, the floor general has emerged as the key to its success, per Bleacher Report's David Kenyon:
"Increased efficiency from the reserves would bolster the team, but it's still not advancing through the West without the elite version of Parker.
Although Tim Duncan and Kawhi Leonard have been fantastic, Parker is the key player in San Antonio's hopes to register a repeat title. March has shown he's capable of leading the Spurs to playoff glory once again, and Wednesday night [against the Thunder] provided more evidence to that.
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Over the past 15 contests, his scoring has improved to 17.2 points per game, bringing his season total to 14.9. And while he isn't shooting the ball at the same high rate from deep (as he did in the season's first half), he is finally getting to the rim at a consistent rate. Posting an overall 53.3 percent clip from the floor in that time span, he's finally back to his efficient ways.
San Antonio as a team, meanwhile, continues to shoot a top-10 three-point percentage as it beats up on vulnerable perimeter defenses.
Parker's return to the top has him finally playing at an All-Star level, but it's also opened doors for his teammates.
And, by limiting his playing time to around 30 minutes, coach Gregg Popovich is ensuring that his rise doesn't take its toll on his body, leaving him healthy to execute in similar fashion on the big stage.
In a conference full of great playmakers, Parker is finally proving he can both hang with them and outplay them. As long as he's in a groove, the same holds true regarding the Spurs in relation to the West's elite.
They have the stats, the momentum and the unmatched intangibles—namely their unrivaled postseason experience. They still have plenty to prove, but the Spurs are once again in a prominent position in the playoff conversation—regardless of what their seed might suggest.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats are courtesy of the NBA's media site.
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