In Loss to Clips, Spurs Fall Victim to What Could Be Their Undoing: Satisfaction
As wonderful as it is to be popular, a danger lurks in going mainstream.
It means so many people have noticed what you do that they might become tired of what you do.
Including yourself.
The San Antonio Spurs, who have caught everyone's fancy in becoming champions anew, opened the NBA playoffs Sunday night.
The Spurs were uninspired, complacent...and defeated.
The Los Angeles Clippers took it to the Spurs, 107-92, and served as a stark contrast. The Clippers have been hungry for this championship opportunity all season, and beyond that, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan are in what amounts to their senior year as Clippers pillars. It's Year Four together with nothing to show, and these guys aren't taking this lightly.
Here's what was reinforced Sunday night in the start of this heavyweight first-round series between a defending champion and a team with the elite talent to make that leap:
The Clippers have the kind of talent that can push to a higher level come playoff time. And even though it was only one game, it's right to doubt the defending champion Spurs' reservoir.
They've dug deep to plow through series after series and win the Western Conference once and then again—and it was the ultimate satisfaction last year to deliver NBA Finals redemption after falling just short in 2013.
The mental and physical toll it takes to go that deep in the playoffs for what would now be a third consecutive season is tremendous—and it makes it inherently difficult to want it again as much as all these teams that didn't already put in such work and achieve such success.
The team that collapsed in front of the Spurs in those 2014 NBA Finals was rather spent, too: LeBron James' Miami Heat were marking their fourth consecutive year of max-output grind through all four playoff rounds.
It leads one to wonder whether James has enough in the well for another long run with his new Cleveland team this season, even after his fresh start. But the Spurs aren't new in any respect.
They put together a predictable hot streak late in the regular season when the standings dictated it was time to get more serious. But when it came down to beating an inexperienced New Orleans Pelicans team on the final day of the regular season to seal the deal and lock up the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, the Spurs let it slide.
The Pelicans wanted it more, got it...and the Spurs figured they could still get what they wanted some other way.
Then in Game 1 of the playoffs Sunday night, the Clippers wanted it more, got it...and the Spurs were left to accept a lesson about how they'll have to bring more energy in Game 2, which they very well might.
Yet that's the problem with complacency: It always feels like the work can get done some other day, because hey, we've done it before, right?
Back in late January, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich lambasted his team's entire attitude as wrong, describing the erroneous belief perfectly in four faulty words:
Bear in mind that Popovich has seen this before. For all his team's titles in the Tim Duncan era, San Antonio has never repeated as NBA champions.
It's hardly damning to lose Game 1 of any series. And the Spurs lost their playoff openers in 2003, '05 and '07 and still went on to win the title each of those years. Starting with a loss now isn't the biggest deal.
But we have to add this Spurs' no-show to all the previous evidence presented to the court.
The seemingly good matchup of the Spurs' movement-based offense against a Clippers defense both slow and shoddy in its rotations got blown up Sunday night. The Clippers' hunger led so many of their players to scramble through multiple efforts on defense, even if the rotations still weren't the sharpest—and Popovich called it the difference in the game.
Clippers coach Doc Rivers said his team won "just because we had more energy."
While the Spurs have been celebrated ever since last spring, Paul has been living with his failures in the second round against Oklahoma City and recounting his legacy of having never advanced to a third round in his career.
"We as a team have a sense of urgency," Paul said late Sunday night.
And it's true that this is a critical moment for a Clippers franchise hoping to capitalize on Donald Sterling's departure, Steve Ballmer's arrival, the crosstown Lakers' malaise and this fourth season of Paul, Griffin and Jordan together.
Meanwhile, the Spurs went to the top of the charts in more ways than one last season. Not only did the small-market, black-and-white team win the NBA title again, it was resoundingly appreciated and heralded for the all-for-one, professional manner in which it was done.
That's all good, and it's right there are knockoffs of the Spurs' thing coming up now with Atlanta or even Golden State to some extent. But the Hawks only went that route because superstars wouldn't come to play for them.
Although prevailing opinion now is that democratic teamwork is king today, it is historically undeniable that star players raise their games and become even more dominant in playoff series.
Hungry star players are even better.
It's just not possible for Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Kawhi Leonard to be starving right now. It's even more worrisome when the Spurs' system depends on sharp execution that San Antonio's role players can't possibly be as locked in anymore.
Put it in a broader context, and rest assured that the flags are red and raised.
Not only do the Spurs have to rally against the Clippers' top-shelf talent now, but faltering that final regular-season night in New Orleans means the Spurs potentially must win three Western Conference series without home-court advantage just to make it to the NBA Finals again.
Even though after last season the masses have come to believe the Spurs' savvy and skill should never be questioned anymore, let's be honest.
There's always a tipping point in the mainstream where fresh turns stale.
It can happen quite suddenly, too.
Kevin Ding covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @KevinDing.
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