点击查看原文：A little adversity goes a long way
A little adversity goes a long way
Columnist Mike Finger and Spurs beat reporters Jeff McDonald and Tom Orsborn discuss the Spurs winning 25 of their last 27 games, who they could meet in the playoffs and while they keep winning big a little adversity could help the team before it heads to the playoffs this season.
Suggested reading:
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Does Victor Wembanyama need to score more to win MVP?
How Stephon Castle celebrated UConn’s miracle victory over Duke
Here is the transcript of the podcast:
Mike Finger: From a highly secure network of top-secret and possibly videotaped locations across South Texas, this is the Spurs Insider: Is This Too Easy Edition? I’m Mike Finger, joined as always by San Antonio Express-News Spurs beat writers Tom Orsborn and Jeff McDonald. Guys, at the top of the show, I just want to throw something out there. We could, if we wanted to, we could do yet another perfect show. We could spend the next 30, 40 minutes regaling our legions of viewers and or listeners with the best top-shelf analysis, witty banter, just the analytical utopia that they’re accustomed to seeing from us over and over and over again. We could put together another of the kind of shows that wins all kinds of awards—podcast Oscars, maybe the first-ever podcast Oscar. But what would be the fun in that? Like, what would be the challenge in that? Would that be the best thing for us, much like the local cagers who’ve won 25 of their last 27 games and blow everybody out? Like, do we need a little bit more adversity?
Should we have to deal with a little more, maybe like technical issues? Do we need to find what we’re made of when everything’s on the line? I think that’s what we should do this week. Should we make it just a little bit harder, face a little more difficulty to truly find out how good we really are? What do you think, Jeff and Tom?
Tom Orsborn: Isn’t that what life is, overcoming difficulties?
Mike Finger: Yeah.
Tom Orsborn: Yeah, so I’m up for that, Mike.
Mike Finger: To make it harder? To not just blow it out again this week, to not just blow out the competition like the Spurs do every night?
Tom Orsborn: Imperfections make things more interesting.
Mike Finger: From perfection, nothing new can be made, I’ve heard. And Jeff McDonald, speaking of perfection, Jeff McDonald has decided not to show his face this week, just to help us out because, you know, that would be unfair to the competition. It’s like Wemby. When Jeff McDonald shows his face and is on video, it’s like Wemby against the—who did they play last night—the Chicago Bulls. What hope do other podcasts have if Jeff McDonald is on video providing his analysis? Jeff, thank you so much for, much like Mitch Johnson, giving us something to overcome, giving us something to work with.
Jeff McDonald: All right. Can we cut the crap and just level with the listeners? We don’t need to pander to them or lie to them. This is by popular demand, right? We read our comments and we know we’ve done video podcasts for a couple in a row now, and the feedback was, “Get that guy’s face out of here. We like the other two guys’ faces, but get Jeff’s face—just make it a black screen or whatever. Just get his face out of here.” And we listen to our listeners. We take feedback and we make changes accordingly, and that’s what’s happening this week. No one wants to look at me.
Mike Finger: And we’ll see if our producer extraordinaire, Monty Bach, is able to even let you see Tom and my faces. Like, that may or may not happen; it’s going to require a lot of magic—digital magic—to make it happen. But this podcast, Jeff, is facing some adversity, some challenges, some hiccups that the San Antonio Spurs have not faced in a long, long time. What is going on with this team? Is it the best 27—did you confirm this with all your digital issues? Is this the best 27-game stretch in the storied history of the San Antonio Spurs to go 25 and 2?
Jeff McDonald: What do you mean no adversity? They lost those two games out of the last 27. That’s adverse.
Mike Finger: Yeah. But they are—I think you have a story coming out in the San Antonio Express-News, the print edition and online, about how they once, not so long ago, were worried about how to play on the road and to up their game on the road, and now they’re not just winning on the road, they’re winning in a historic fashion by historic margins on the road. Is that right?
Jeff McDonald: This is true. They beat Chicago last night at home; they go on the road again for three more. They do that having won their last four road games, each by 25 points or more a piece, which apparently, according to the numbers geeks in the NBA, has never been done before—four straight road victories by 25 plus points. We’ve always been told it doesn’t matter the opponent, it’s hard to win in the NBA on the road by any margin, and the Spurs are doing it by historical margins. Now, they’re not going out there and beating the Thunder and the Nuggets and the Celtics on the road by 25. It’s been a little scheduling and missing some guys, but winning by 25 on the road is winning by 25 on the road, and they’re doing it. Now they have a road trip coming up, which I guess we’ll discuss later, but maybe the degree of difficulty goes up a little more on this next one.
Mike Finger: We’ll see. I want to get into the degree of difficulty because the opening was ridiculous on-brand for our podcast, but there was just like a shred of relevance to what I was getting at, which is, as the Spurs approach their first postseason in six years—their first playoff, true playoff, in six years—are they in clutch game shape? This is one of those stupid sports writer/podcaster rhetorical questions that probably is way more complex than it needs to be, but they haven’t been playing close games, Tom. They’ve been blowing teams out. Are they going to be ready whenever the close games come? Or maybe the close games don’t come; maybe they’re this good. What do you make of this whole thing, Tom?
Tom Orsborn: Well, Jeff was being kind. Memphis and Milwaukee—nobody. They were down to nobody. Now Miami was a pretty stout outfit they blew out, too. Sacramento before that, they were pretty thin also. But yeah, that’s a good point, Mike. They’re not—well, they played Phoenix. Phoenix was a down-to-the-wire game that they pulled out.
Mike Finger: That was a good one. And that’s been almost two weeks ago.
Tom Orsborn: Two weeks ago, yeah. No, you want to have some tough ones, I think. I think that is something to be looked at, to be maybe concerned about, yeah, is that they’re not getting in playoff game shape, maybe.
Mike Finger: And again, this might be over the top. When you’re covering a team that’s won 25 of the last 27 and is blowing teams out by 25 points a night, you’re looking for teaching points. And Jeff, you asked Coach Mitch Johnson a question last night after the Chicago game about the timeout he called—a very Gregg Popovich-esque timeout a minute into the game. I followed that up asking Mitch, “Are you just looking for stuff to coach when you’re blowing teams out like this?” He did not buy into that at all. He said, “No, there’s legitimate standards that we have to live up to, and we’re not living up to them. I want to call them out on it and make sure that we address it.” But I do think there’s something to the fact that, much like Gregg Popovich in those days when things were going well in the regular season, there’s a sense of unease in Mitch, I think in any coach, where you don’t want guys to get relaxed, too fat and happy, and you’re looking to make sure you hammer on every mistake. Is that kind of what you got from that timeout last night, Jeff?
Jeff McDonald: Yeah, a little bit, and it’s also because they began the game a little unfocused, not really executing on offense really the way Mitch would want them to. I think that is a danger when you’re in this situation where you’re blowing people out—you can kind of lose focus or tiptoe into games a little bit against teams that you know you’re probably going to end up blowing out anyway. That’s a mindset Mitch has got to beat out of them before the playoffs come. They have some games coming up that will help them. They don’t have the world’s toughest schedule down the stretch, but they’ve got two against Denver, who’s going to be fighting for seeding. They’ve got one against the Clippers on the road here on the second night of a back-to-back coming up. That’s another team that’s playing well and might be the first-round opponent for the Spurs if it shakes out.
Tom Orsborn: And Portland will be a good game.
Jeff McDonald: Portland could be a good game. They’ve got some teams that will test them. They don’t have those upper-crust teams, except for Denver. Denver, actually, those two games will probably be very important. It’s almost a shame one of them is the very last game of the year, I think, the very last game of the regular season. It’s almost a shame—I mean, on the one hand, you’d want to play that one at full throttle just to get a taste of the playoffs, but you hate to do that the very last game of the regular season. So once we get there, it’ll be interesting to see how they approach that one.
Mike Finger: I wonder, too, with those Denver games—correct me if I’m wrong—but Jokic did not play in that rousing victory the Spurs had on their way to the Cup Finals. Is that the last time the Spurs and Nuggets played? I wonder if there’s going to be some gamesmanship in terms of—
Tom Orsborn: Well, Denver beat them at home not too long ago. Denver beat them at home March 12th.
Mike Finger: See, I’m making mistakes to help the team. We need to overcome some adversity, and I did that for a teaching moment there. But Victor has not had a lot of showdowns with Jokic this year. I think that’s one of the most unknown matchups in the playoffs. Victor doesn’t have that track record against him. I know there’s been a couple. Go ahead and enlighten me on the details there.
Jeff McDonald: I mean, they had two amazing duels back-to-back last season, before Victor went down with the—you remember they went up to Denver and Victor had one of those massive 30-point-something rebounds nights and beats them there, and then they come to San Antonio and they both go—I think one of them went to overtime even. They go head-to-head, toe-to-toe again, and Jokic gets them. That was last season. That part of your point is correct; they haven’t really had a lot of that this season so far, but they’ll have two chances now in the final eight games.
Mike Finger: On the broadcast recently—I guess it was when we’d retreated to our workroom last night and got to hear the excellent Jacob Toby and Sean Elliott call the final few minutes of that game on the TV broadcast—Sean, I think, had noted that one of the opponents that he thought the Spurs might least be looking forward to playing early in the playoffs were those aforementioned Denver Nuggets. Now that we’re looking forward to the playoffs, what are the matchups that you like? What are the matchups that you don’t like? What are the matchups that the Spurs might be looking out for, not just in the first round? Obviously, this is all leading towards a possible one versus two matchup in the Western Conference Finals. The Spurs probably will not face the Thunder, even if they win a couple series, until the third round of the playoffs. But in those first two rounds, what peaks your interest there, Jeff?
Jeff McDonald: Before we get to that, I want to read you something because, as you know, I’m one of the guys that reads the comments. I love to delve into the comments.
Mike Finger: Oh, the comments about the podcast?
Jeff McDonald: Yes, I was interested in what people were thinking about the video—they’ve been mostly positive. But I want to read you this one because it kind of made me laugh based on what we’ve been talking about so far on this podcast. This fellow last week—which, I don’t know if you remember last week, but I kind of in the middle decided it was way too—like, I was not comfortable with the level of positivity we were exuding. Like, just everything was peaches and roses. I thought it was a way too positive podcast. But this fellow, he did not. He says that, “I’ve been a Spurs fan for 25 years, I love our team, but man, these guys’ entitlement and negativity at times is really hard to listen to.” Entitlement! So I thought about that comment while we’re sitting here going, “They’ve won 25 of their last 27, but man, they’re not being tested, they’re not getting playoff experience, they’re not getting crunch-time reps, it’s going to be a problem when the playoffs come.” So maybe this guy—it says his name is Maxine—he would now be my third favorite Maxine that I know. But maybe he’s correct. Maybe we are a little cynical in looking for negativity.
Mike Finger: Can I ask a question about that? And I appreciate the feedback, even though I’m never, ever, ever going to read the comments, but I appreciate the feedback. How can you be entitled and negative? Doesn’t entitlement mean something like you expect success? Maybe that’s a different connotation of it.
Tom Orsborn: You expect certain treatment, I guess.
Mike Finger: So we’re entitled and we’re—I kind of took it as we think we know better than everybody else.
Jeff McDonald: Which, I mean, that’s true. That’s true.
Mike Finger: Yes, yes. And so, yeah, Maxine, I tip my hat to you. We are entitled because we think we know better, and we are negative because, obviously, we’re negative. So yeah, accurate review, no notes, well point, well taken. We might put that on the advertisement for the podcast: Entitled Negativity. Now, you asked me who they’re going to lose to in the—
Jeff McDonald: Yeah, go ahead with your entitled negativity and answer my question.
Mike Finger: You’re asking who, just any teams they might—
Jeff McDonald: First two rounds, which matchups do you like? Which matchups give you pause?
Mike Finger: Again, because I’m entitled and negative, you could talk yourself into almost any matchup being tough in the West. Like, there’s always some reason to be scared—not scared, scared’s not the word, but just appropriately fearful. But if you look—starting in the first round, the way it’s looking like it’s shaking out, it’s probably going to be either Phoenix or the Clippers. Which one would be the toughest first-round matchup for the Spurs? Because my knee-jerk is the Clippers, and I think that’s mostly a Kawhi thing—like, you don’t want to get into a duel with a guy that can just go nuclear on you like that. But top to bottom, it feels like Phoenix matches up with the Spurs in a weird way. The Spurs haven’t really—I mean, they’ve won some games against the Suns, but one of them was when—they haven’t played the Suns with Dillon Brooks now twice in a row, like in a long time. And they haven’t beaten the Suns with Dillon Brooks on the floor. Now, the wins the Suns did have against the Spurs early in the season, the Spurs had some key players out; I think even Victor might have missed one of those.
Tom Orsborn: He was hurt in one of those.
Mike Finger: Yeah, it’s really hard to tell how full strength they might matchup. But to answer your question, I don’t know which of those I would choose. I would probably think the Spurs might have an easier time with Phoenix, just again because I kind of worry about the star power, and I guess I’ve seen Kawhi, even against the Spurs this year, even in games the Spurs have won, just Kawhi be just a complete handful of a guy to try to get a hold of. So that would be my first-round answer is I don’t know.
Jeff McDonald: Let’s go through this piece by piece before you get to the second round, because that’s worth exploring there. Friend of the podcast, Matthew Tynan, who has a new podcast of his own, by the way—congrats to Matt on that—has sort of given us some grief based on previous podcasts we’ve done where we’ve talked about this briefly about how the Spurs would rather face Phoenix than the Clippers. And Mr. Tynan was pushing back on that, pointing out that the Suns really have a great defensive game plan, they have those big guys—I think that’s the position that worries you if you’re a Spurs fan going into the playoffs, a team that has a big four, a physical four, a four that can punish the power forward spot that the Spurs don’t necessarily have. Phoenix does some cool stuff against the Spurs, and maybe we’re not showing enough appropriate respect or fear for the Phoenix Suns. That could be tough.
But I tend to agree with you on the Kawhi factor, and not just that Kawhi is an All-NBA talent still this far into his career, and not just that he can just have MVP moments, but there’s the vibe thing would not be great if for the first playoff series that the Spurs have hosted in six years—the first time they’re back on this level again—to have the crowd booing the other guy the whole game, to make it more of a negative vibe than a positive vibe. Like, I wouldn’t be excited about that. And this isn’t criticizing the fans who do it or anything; it’s just that maybe I’m making too much of this, but instead of turning it into that Kawhi sideshow, you want it to be more about the playoffs themselves. And I just think over the course of a seven-game series, the Spurs would figure out the Phoenix stuff and to not have to deal with that All-Star MVP-type player. I’d rather have Phoenix there, but I’ll open this part of it to Tom: Phoenix or LA, what’s a better matchup for the Spurs?
Tom Orsborn: You think Phoenix by that time will figure out to keep Rosier Fleming off the court in clutch situations? That could be the key right there. Yeah, I kind of thought LA would be the tougher matchup, but yeah, Phoenix—Booker, yeah, and Brooks. We just haven’t seen him lately and he is a thorn in Wemby’s side. So yeah, I’m kind of leaning toward what Matthew said, that Phoenix would be the tougher matchup.
Mike Finger: There’s a lot going on there. Like, now that the Clippers have traded Zubac, they’re a little low in the size department, which could play in the Spurs’ favor in that matchup. When you talk about the stars on both teams, Castle has really shown that he can handle Devin Booker. Like, I almost think of it the other way around: Devin Booker wants no part of Stephon Castle in a playoff series. So that’s a tick on the Spurs’ side in that matchup. And I don’t really know how to weigh all the pros and cons. I think they’d both be tough; that’s what I’m getting at. The West is ridiculous. Like, it would be nice to play like a wounded Golden State team in the first round, but it doesn’t seem like that’s going to be possible for anybody. So whoever the Spurs get in the first round is going to be a tough out, especially for a team that hasn’t been there before. Like, you just have one little slip up, one bad game, almost one bad moment of one game early in that series, and all of a sudden you’re in a dogfight. So it’s going to be rough either way, I think. I wouldn’t predict the Spurs would win that series, whoever it is, but I don’t think it’s going to be a cakewalk by any stretch of the imagination.
The first-round possibilities seem pretty straightforward; I think it’s one of those two teams. You would need Portland—I mean, they’re going to have to make basically three games up in the loss column on the Clippers. I don’t know if they can do that. And then the other option would be if the Spurs would make up two losses on the Thunder to get into the first seed, and then that would bring Portland or Golden State possibly into play, and probably not. The problem with that is Oklahoma City has to lose, and they don’t seem to be wanting to do that at all. The second-round possibilities are a little more wide open; I think there’s four teams in that jumble from three to six that could all be in that group that you could see in the three or six. And that includes the Los Angeles Lakers, the Denver Nuggets, the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the Houston Rockets. Who is your dream second-round opponent for the Spurs? Who is your worst-case second-round opponent for the Spurs?
Jeff McDonald: I mean, based on what we’ve seen in the regular season, I think of that group and the matchups with the Spurs, I mean, it’s the Rockets who the Spurs would want. Sorry, Rockets fans, I don’t think it’s going to be an issue. The Rockets seem to be in a bad way right now, and I don’t know if Ime gets that turned around in time to make a second round of the playoffs. But if they do get there, then they’re playing better and all of a sudden they’re a tougher opponent. But the way it looks now, that’s the team the Spurs really seem to have figured out and knows how to play against, especially—again, it’s all about personnel sometimes—the Rockets just aren’t the same team and they aren’t the same team against the Spurs now that Steven Adams is out. They just don’t have enough size in the front court to really contend with what the Spurs will throw at you. Look at that! Look at that! People asked about—there’s a book, that’s literally a book off the shelf. Literary.
We’re assuming a healthy—the Nuggets are scary if you’re assuming a healthy Aaron Gordon, but he’s the key to the whole deal against the Spurs, I think. And he’s back and playing now, but he’s just been in and out so much that if anything happens to him, I think the Nuggets don’t have enough defensive chops to really slow down the Spurs. I’m talking in circles now. At full strength, I think Denver is probably the toughest matchup of them all, but if you just take one piece away, all of a sudden I like that a lot. The Lakers—it’s hard to sit here and root for a playoff series against Luka Doncic and LeBron James, but I think the Spurs will really have an edge athletically there, just young and running. The Spurs have never played Minnesota well, and again, it’s that matchups thing—Minnesota has enough big guys, enough big fours, that they really give the Spurs problems. I don’t really super like that.
Mike Finger: An issue there—I think if we would have done this podcast a day ago, I might have said that the Timberwolves were the worst matchup for the Spurs, but I think there’s a Jaden McDaniels issue now where he’s week-to-week. And he plays a big role in giving the Spurs problems. And so, if he’s not healthy, that’s a big check in the Spurs’ favor. But I think you’re right: Denver at full strength provides a lot of issues, a lot of problems for the Spurs. Minnesota at full strength provides a lot of problems for the Spurs. That’s kind of what the playoffs are. We’re getting reacquainted with the postseason after not covering them for six years. But a lot of it has to do with timing of injuries and things like that. So that will play into it, and it’s hard to sit here in the middle of, or the very end of March, and project a month from now who will be the toughest matchup for this team. This might be a silly exercise, but when a team has won 25 of 27, it’s tough to break down each play of the last three 25-point blowouts. So I thought this would be sort of fun.
Here’s another thing to consider, and probably something we’ll explore between now and the playoffs—probably write stories about, ask Mitch Johnson about: so much of the Spurs’ success since the All-Star break has been due to an uptick in pace. They’re playing super fast and pushing everything and getting you into mismatches and disadvantages on the break. Even if they’re not scoring transition points, they’re getting you in bad situations that they can exploit quickly in the half-court. And the adage we’ve heard for 3,000 years is the game slows down in the playoffs. It just does. You have to be able to execute in the half-court, and does that take away the Spurs’ greatest strength on offense? That’ll be something worth watching and worth investigating as we get closer to it.
When we watch that first-round series, can they play at the pace—can they play at and sustain the pace that has fueled so much of those 25 wins in 27 games? The thing they have in their favor is they’re also really rooted in defense. They’ve got the best or one of the best defenses in the league, and that should translate and travel; like, that doesn’t have to change. And that defense is what fuels their break a lot of times. So all that will be just interesting cat-and-mouse, or just kind of seeing how the game itself changes once we get to the playoffs. And when we talk about how the Spurs don’t have a lot of playoff experience and that’s something we’re kind of concerned about going to the playoffs, that’s kind of what we mean: the game changes. It becomes a different game that they have not played. Can they exert their own will on the game and play fast anyway? Maybe, and that would be very helpful, but we’ll just have to see how they adjust to all that.
Tom Orsborn: That’s exactly one of the things Doc Rivers talked about in Milwaukee; he used that exact phrase, “defense travels,” and pointed out how well they play defensively not only outside of Wemby—you know, the perimeter guys. Castle is so tough. But he used that as a bullet point in talking about why he doesn’t think their inexperience will be much of a factor in the playoffs. The other thing working in their favor is how well Castle and Harper are shooting outside, too; that’ll bode well in the half-court game, I think.
Mike Finger: To piggyback off of that, something that I’ve really enjoyed watching lately—and it’s been a slow burn, slow build over the course of the season—is the interplay between Stephon Castle and Victor Wembanyama on pick-and-rolls, and especially the variety of angles and ways that young Stephon Castle is pulling off these lob passes to Victor at the front of the rim, at the side of the rim, above the rim, below the rim. Victor’s finishing them in so many different ways. And some of it’s transition, yes, but some of it is just in the half-court in the pick-and-roll. Talked to Victor and Steph both about that last night, and I think Victor had a comment like, “I expect to have thousands of these.” He wants to play with Steph for 15 years. And you just sort of sit back and imagine what that’s going to look like two years from now, three years from now, four years from now when these guys have some games under their belts. Jeff, last night in that Chicago game, some of them—what struck me is how quickly they develop. And it’s not just a fast-break runout where he’s throwing acrobatic lob passes to Victor; sometimes they just develop in a snap in the course of the half-court offense. And that’s a huge weapon when games do slow down. If you can just pull that out the second you see a matchup edge, that’s a great way to get easy buckets. The playoffs are about getting easy buckets instead of hard ones. Is there something there?
Jeff McDonald: Not to kind of compare Stephon Castle to arguably—not arguably, to one of the best point guards of all time—but I do think back to that second playoff series I ever covered on the Spurs beat where they’re playing the New Orleans—I think they were the Hornets at the time—and just how frustrating that was for the Spurs to see Chris Paul throw lob after lob to Tyson Chandler. You’d finally get one thing settled and then here comes a lob, and then of course David West was involved in that, just hitting those pick-and-pops. But it was just lob after lob after dunk after dunk. Stephon Castle, I guess, isn’t Chris Paul, but Victor Wembanyama isn’t Tyson Chandler—he’s taller than that.
Mike Finger: And Steph’s learned from Chris Paul.
Jeff McDonald: He did. How devastating that weapon can be and, not even devastating, demoralizing that weapon can be in a playoff series where you’re just like, “Good god!” The game last night, it’s the Bulls; they’re terrible, they’re almost trying to be terrible, but it was amazing how easy some of that was last night for the Spurs, just getting the ball anywhere near the rim and Victor just dunks it. It’s kind of the thing that everyone wanted the Spurs to do from day one, and we all said it’s not always that easy. Last night against Chicago, it really was that easy.
Tom Orsborn: It’s just amazing that we’re having this discussion—57 wins, 25 out of 27. It’s just amazing. Spurs fans, it’s my entitled opinion: enjoy this and just relish this. Wemby just changed everything. I know I’m being so negative.
Mike Finger: Being so negative.
Tom Orsborn: I know, but it’s just mind-blowing really where we’re at.
Mike Finger: It really is. I mean, and we’ve discussed it before, it really is, but you go back to where we were in October on this podcast, where we thought they’d be doing really good to get in that play-in.
Tom Orsborn: I don’t think they’d be doing good to get in the play-in. I think the idea is they’d be doing really well to make the playoffs. The play-in, I think we all took as something that was going to happen.
Mike Finger: Yeah, I don’t know, I think we thought that was the next step. It was more like if they don’t make the play-in, it’s a bad season, but if they do, they’ve taken the step. And that’s where we were, and that’s kind of the bar we set. Because when Wemby said, “Our goal is to be—”
Jeff McDonald: You have a mouse in your pocket? I don’t know about “we.”
Mike Finger: Well, we’re going to have to go back and listen to those from October, because I was here when they clinched that playoff birth. Dillon Harper in the locker room was telling some of us or just talking out loud, “I called it! I called it before anyone! That Saturday, when me and Carter—the rookie thing. I said we were going to—” That’s true, he did call it. All those two know are playoffs, man. Jeff, if we want to get the real podcast numbers, we need the update from the other player in the locker room that you checked in with last night—one of the fan favorites.
Jeff McDonald: I don’t know what you’re referring to. Tell me again.
Mike Finger: David Jones Garcia, who was scooting around the building after that Phoenix win when they clinched the playoffs and was predicting—he predicted 60 that night. He was on his scooter up and down the hallway saying, “Next to 60, next to 60.” And they’re going to do it. So all the predictions came from Dillon Harper, Carter Bryant, and David Jones Garcia; those were the ones who were ahead of all the analysts on this.
Jeff McDonald: That’s true. And anyway, David Jones Garcia is doing well. He was on that scooter—he wasn’t riding a motor scooter through the Frost Bank Center; he was rehabbing this ankle surgery, and it’s a deal where you can’t walk, so he had to have that left leg up, riding that on his knee and he could put one leg on the ground. But he’s off that scooter now, we found out last night, and walking around. He’s a biped again. Probably will not be on any playoff roster, but good to see him recovering. Good guy. The vibes in there are so strong, as you’d expect from a team that’s won 25 of 27. Do we want to tell the viewers and listeners what it’s like trying to have a conversation with a Spurs player in the pre-game locker room, and how that is virtually impossible now? The Keldon boombox thing has gone mainstream; everyone’s talking about it because, I guess, fans can see it. Can we be entitled and negative and say how much we hate that in the pre-game locker room?
One thing Keldon does—and do people like this inside into our boring, entitled lives? Doesn’t matter, they’re going to get it. NBA mandates that the locker rooms are open to the entitled negative media for 45 minutes before every game, basically from an hour and a half before the game tips to 45 minutes before the game tips. And this is a chance for the entitled negative media/podcasters to go in and possibly get some quotes for stories you might be working on long-term. Jeff and Tom have plenty of those. Get a chance to, in a relaxed environment, check in with some guys, see how they’re doing, ask them about defense, ask them about—name the story that Jeff and Tom have been working on; it’s a good interview opportunity. But there’s this guy, the longest-tenured Spur, this guy called Keldon Johnson, who will often come in during this 45-minute window. You hear him coming about two and a half to three minutes before he’s actually in the room, because the music he is playing in his giant boombox that everyone has now seen on the television—the music he’s blaring, he’ll be in the back somewhere getting ready, getting stretched, getting taped, whatever, and you can just hear the music getting closer and closer and closer to the heretofore quiet locker room that we were in having very nice conversations with your Julian Champagnies and Mason Plumlees and Carter Bryants and Dillon Harpers and Bizmack Biyombos. You hear the music getting closer and closer, and you just realize, even though the mandated interview time is not over, the interview time is over. Like, you can be there, but you can’t even have a conversation with anybody. It’s deafening. It’s deafening! But the fun part is it’s not all the hits of the day. You’re going back to Darius Rucker.
Jeff McDonald: The fun part is it’s charming. We’re not complaining. Yes, we are; this is kind of fun, curmudgeonly complaining, and we know Keldon this way so we can be a little fun with it. But then what he will do is he will be in the locker room for about 30 seconds with that and just leave—like it’s time for him to go shoot. He doesn’t turn it down. We can’t turn it down; that’s not our job. We would be overstepping so many boundaries to touch it. So what happens then? He just leaves the boombox behind him to continue to just make every conversation in the locker room, even if you’re standing next to someone, inaudible because it’s so loud. And I don’t think anybody enjoys it. Like, I don’t think even the players are enjoying this. They’d be fine if it were turned down.
Mike Finger: Don’t cause derision; don’t try to invent a rift in the locker room. Everybody loves Keldon. It’s charming, it’s lovely. How do we get the volume down?
Tom Orsborn: Well, you talk to Keldon. It’s the only way. I talked to Keldon in Memphis about the heart and soul—Mitch had a good anecdote in Miami about Pop, you know, in Keldon’s rookie year saying, “Hey, he’s in the G-League for a good stretch,” and he said, “Hey, we got to get this guy back to the big club. His vibes are too good. We need him around everyone.” So anyway, I talked to Keldon about that in Memphis, and they did turn the boombox down so I could talk to Mr. Boombox.
Mike Finger: Oh, so you’re saying to get it to be turned down, you need to talk to Keldon in particular and it will be turned down. Oh no, we’re too passive-aggressive for that. What do we do?
Tom Orsborn: Keldon said he’s been that way, he’s been the loudest guy in the room since he was born. No doubt about that. He asked his teachers—yeah, he admitted they weren’t too fond of it, and he learned to pick his spots, you know, who he could be boisterous around and who he couldn’t be. But he’s a pleasure; he’s a real great guy to have around.
Mike Finger: We had a question on social media, by the way, now that I’m thinking about it, from a listener who wanted us to pry into the headband thing. And Keldon basically explained last night that that started with De’Aaron Fox—is that right?—wanting to take it back to his high school days of wearing a headband, and then everybody followed. That’s how the vibes are on this team: De’Aaron decides to wear a headband, and then Keldon says he’s going to wear a headband, and then you have De’Aaron, Keldon, Harrison Barnes is a headband guy, Carter Bryant is a headband guy. HB stands for headband. Keldon also said pre-game—I mean post-game—that it’s also something they were bored and they needed something to—winning is not being a challenge, so they’re having to mess with their wardrobe.
Tom Orsborn: We should wear some kind of stuff next week on the podcast.
Mike Finger: I think us three should all show up in headbands with our heads shaved. Well, that would be an adjustment for some of us, some of us maybe not so much. I think that’s why Jeff’s camera doesn’t work this week. You don’t like headbands? You’re on this trip to the West Coast where do the good vibes continue? Does the streak continue? Does this unbelievable run continue? You’re about to head to the airport four hours before your flight and head to Golden State. The next day you will wake up early and fly to LAX on your way to El Segundo to see the Los Angeles Clippers, and after that you go to Denver. Those will be the three games before our next podcast. What are you looking for in those three games?
Jeff McDonald: Well, I think the good vibes will continue in San Francisco because last I checked—and I haven’t this morning, but I assume it’s still the same—Stephen Curry is not available for the Warriors. Of course Jimmy Butler’s been out all year, so they’re really down some star power, and that’s the kind of team the Spurs have feasted on, home and away. So I think the good vibes will continue there. I’m going to give them a loss in one of the last two; it just has to happen. And I think it might even be good for them to kind of take a punch, as we were talking about near the top of the show where they need to get into a game that isn’t just peaches and cream. Strawberry and cream? Butterflies and roses.
Mike Finger: Butterflies and roses.
Jeff McDonald: Yeah, that was Axl Rose’s band’s alternate name; that was when he was playing kids’ birthday parties. Anyway, I’m going to give them a loss in what either the Clippers or the Nuggets game; I’m not sure which.
Mike Finger: Tom, that sound like a good prognostication?
Tom Orsborn: Yeah, maybe they go one and two.
Mike Finger: Whoa! How entitled and negative are you? That could be good for them, too. You know, look for some adversity out there to overcome. All listeners and viewers: welcome it, embrace it, realize how lucky you could be to have a challenge to test yourself. That’s my assignment for the listeners for the rest of the week. Until we talk to you next time, take care of each other and keep it real.