Enzo The Baker said:

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On an off shooting night, Juju was big. We had no business winning that game.

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At some point, we may need to concede that a bad shooting night for most teams is just a slightly below average night for the Spurs.

Hopefully getting Devin back will help.

Now 2 games up on everyone else for the 2nd seed.

1 game back from Detroit for 2nd best record in the NBA.

Hope we can move Olynyk to land a guy like Hauser, Royce ONeale or ideally Isaiah Stewart, but I don't think the Spurs are going to make any moves, especially with Sochan playing better. We just need like one more shooter. Devin coming back will help for sure and I think he might be back tomorrow.

And Mitch showed some trust in Sochan by putting him in for the last possession of the 1st half and Sochan rewarded him with perfect defense.

Enzo The Baker said:

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On an off shooting night, Juju was big. We had no business winning that game.

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This is when you know you have a god team. They find ways to win games they have no business winning.

Left Jaylen Brown crying about fouls.

You all can be the judge https://t.co/rChccfF2z4 pic.twitter.com/7X0riKVPmd

— Josh Paredes (@Josh810) January 11, 2026

jteagle said:

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You all can be the judge https://t.co/rChccfF2z4 pic.twitter.com/7X0riKVPmd

— Josh Paredes (@Josh810) January 11, 2026

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Spurs have made their defense without committing shooting fouls their calling card. We saw it especially against OKC when SGA went in looking for contact and Steph and Harper would lay off and he didn't get the foul or the push that he expected.

We don't get the forced turnovers that a team like OKC does with their "they can't call them all" method of hacking the **** out of wrists all game.

But we are 1st in the NBA FTs allowed per FGA. We are second in the NBA in total FTA by opponents - we have given up 10 more FTA than Houston, but Houston has played 3 fewer games this year.

Despite getting bodied by Nurkic, Mitchell Robinson, and some other bigs, Spurs are 1st in the NBA in fewest offensive rebounds given up and 1st in defensive rebound percentage.

We are surprisingly one of just 6 teams committing 14 or fewer turnovers per game. Five of those six are the top 6 teams in the league: OKC, SAN, NYK, Denver, and Boston. The other team is Toronto, who is pretty good. Detroit has extremely high turnovers.

Biggest shortcoming is the 3pt shooting. We've dropped to 22nd and we had previously been top ten.

I can't find the stats now but I know that the Spurs have the highest FT differential in the league this year and the Celtics have on we of the lowest.
Celtics have shot fewer FTs than any team in the league for sure. They just start whining when they lose.

jteagle said:

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I can't find the stats now but I know that the Spurs have the highest FT differential in the league this year and the Celtics have on we of the lowest.
Celtics have shot fewer FTs than any team in the league for sure. They just start whining when they lose.

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Yeah, Celtics are averaging 18.9 FTA/game. Next lowest is Milwaukee at 20.7. They are last by a wide margin. Average is 24.2.

Spurs are 7th at 26FTA/game and 2nd best after Charlotte's no defense team at 21.3FTA/game on defense.

Spurs +156 (1st)
Celtics -134 (29th)

— Dan Weiss (@DanWeissPBP) January 11, 2026

FT differential from Dan-alytics!

Spurs Injury Report - @ Timberwolves, 1.11.26 pic.twitter.com/8aDfo6QiBE

— Josh Paredes (@Josh810) January 11, 2026

LawHall88 said:

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Spurs Injury Report - @ Timberwolves, 1.11.26 pic.twitter.com/8aDfo6QiBE

— Josh Paredes (@Josh810) January 11, 2026

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Sad no Devin.

Last game of the road trip is OKC. Maybe back for that. He's traveling with the team

jteagle said:

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You all can be the judge https://t.co/rChccfF2z4 pic.twitter.com/7X0riKVPmd

— Josh Paredes (@Josh810) January 11, 2026

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Fine me I’m sick of this shit

— Jaylen Brown (@FCHWPO) January 11, 2026

Barring something unforeseen between now and tipoff, Victor Wembanyama is expected to play at Minnesota.

He woke up feeling good after last night's win in Boston, Mitch Johnson said.

— Jeff McDonald (@JMcDonald_SAEN) January 11, 2026

This might be one of Victor's best games this season. An absolute monster on both ends.

I hate to be a "blame the refs" guy, especially after last night, but man.

Up 19….lost ugh

wtf was Mitch thinking? How do you have Fox standing in the corner while Wemby tried to win it?

Idiotic.

Have to feel like we coulda gotten a better shot than that

They need to figure out what offense works best with Wemby on the court. It gets very stagnant right now.

Castle with 7 turnovers. Eeeesh.

Ag Natural said:

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They need to figure out what offense works best with Wemby on the court. It gets very stagnant right now.

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It's a black hole.

Im almost okay with losses like this. They made a lot of bone headed mistakes and they need to see what can happen. Its crazy because they played really well down the stretch in Boston last night.

I feel like we should have lost the Boston game and we should have won this one. I'm okay with the split.

Enzo The Baker said:

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Castle with 7 turnovers. Eeeesh.

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And Fox, Castle and Harper shot a combined 8-35, 0-9 from 3. Seems like they are all slumping at the same time.

LawHall88 said:

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Enzo The Baker said:

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Castle with 7 turnovers. Eeeesh.

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And Fox, Castle and Harper shot a combined 8-35, 0-9 from 3. Seems like they are all slumping at the same time.

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Seems like most of the league is in a funk. Houston just lost to the Kings to drop to 7th place and become a play-in team.

It's tough to figure out exactly who Castle is game to game right now. Part of becoming a star is being able to guarantee the same type of production game in and game out, right now he goes from "wow, we are so lucky that Houston passed on that guy, he's the clear long term side kick to Wemby" to "this guy is unplayable, and single handedly lost the game with his TOs and inability to score efficiently."

I'm pretty level headed on these things, especially with a second year player, but there's got to be a way for some of this erratic game to game play to start fading away. Castle's now 6th in the league in TO/G, and the 5 guys above him bring more offensively (all over 25 PPG) to help compensate for their looseness with the ball.

Whatever the case, his slump is now 10+ games long, he's only averaging 14.4 PPG on 37/14 shooting during that span with 3.7 TO/G. That's unsustainable and hopefully the coaches are working to get him back to the more efficient version of him we saw earlier in the year.

Teams have started putting bigger players on Castle and having them dive under the screens and wait for him at the rim which negates both his drive and the roll man, and he has had a hard time adjusting. He doesn't have a super quick first step to make them pay and he can't overpower them like he can other guards. He's been pretty money on those short middies this year so I think the next step is to start popping some more of those true midrange shots.

After the Christmas game is where we as a team really started ****ting the bed in shooting. When teams know we aren't hitting our shots, Steph becomes easier to defend because they know he is going to drive and they don't have to stay tight on the perimeter. So they can collapse the paint and know that we can't make them pay for it.

Through Christmas, Steph was averaging:

52/30
18.6p
7a
5.3r
3.8TO

9 games after Christmas:

34/16
13.9p
6.3a
4.3r
3.7TO

Just him hitting his shots back at 30% and the team getting back to where they were (we were like 37% as a team instead of like 24%) will keep teams from collapsing on him.

Devin is desperately needed back, too.

I love Steph but I think we need to start exploring him as a slasher, rebounder secondary/tertiary playmaker. It's time to take the ball out of his hands or at least as much as he's getting it right now. His shooting really does limit him if he's not getting into the paint though.

Edit: And it's one thing to let him go through the growing pains but he is hurting a team with contention goals.

Earlier in the year, Fox did an interview where he talked about how he generally gets the primary POA defender and Steph will get a much weaker defender, so it makes sense to let Steph initiate because you can start with a weaker player on him, making it easier for everyone.

As things change, you obviously have to adjust.

I still think the team shooting like **** and not having Devin's spacing is having a huge impact.

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Hope we can be active in trade talks on the peripheral players that might be involved.

On Ant's game winning shot, the last two minute report said that Randle should have been called for a 3 second violation on his blatant moving screen to hold Castle back like a LT.

The team is in a rut and yet is treading water. I think a few tweaks and some rest at the all star break should set the team up for a nice finish.

LawHall88 said:

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jteagle said:

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You all can be the judge https://t.co/rChccfF2z4 pic.twitter.com/7X0riKVPmd

— Josh Paredes (@Josh810) January 11, 2026

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Fine me I’m sick of this shit

— Jaylen Brown (@FCHWPO) January 11, 2026

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The following has been released by the NBA. pic.twitter.com/kDUKMWWeRG

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) January 12, 2026

I'm sure the data is out there, but who starts on you defensively in a possession doesn't really mean much in a league with so many switches. So I have a hard time believing that bigger defenders can be neutralizing him alone unless I look back at the video and find that for some reason we aren't using PnRs as often as we should to force a switch when we want Steph to attack or that he's no longer attacking as much on the break.

Right around Christmas I noted that the team was selflessly taking what was there with no regard for individual numbers. In the past week we've had some brutal games from Fox and Castle where I think they forced the action a bit too much instead of staying inside the game plan. So it would seem that there are still going to be some legit growing pains. In particular as was pointed out by another poster, we need to learn to be more active when Wemby has the ball. The attention he attracts should get open looks for other guys, and earlier in the season that's what was happening. Wemby averaged 4.4 APG in November, that went down to 2.7 in December and now 1.8 in January. Some of that is Wemby playing more minutes in November, but the December and January minutes are comparable. Some of that is on Wemby to find open shooters and cutters when he's doubled, but part of it is also on the rest of the guys to not get stuck watching Wemby.

So basically since Christmas, these 3 Spurs players rank dead last in shooting efficiency. Fox is not far behind.

Jesus Christ pic.twitter.com/W4vtDeKSqX

— Spurs Legion (@SpursLegion) January 12, 2026

WEMBY JUST DUNKED ON CHET IN HIS FIRST POSSESSION 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/DLCdzHIoE2

— NBACentel (@TheNBACentel) January 14, 2026