Victor Wembanyama and most of his San Antonio teammates will make their playoff debut Sunday against Portland, giving the Spurs their first postseason series since 2019. Gregg Popovich spoke to the team earlier this week as it prepared for the opener.
Stephon Castle said Popovich’s message was simple: be themselves and do nothing different from what they had done all season. Castle said the coach also reminded them how well they have played and the position they earned.
That position was built over 82 games and backed by results that turned San Antonio into one of the league’s most complete teams. The Spurs finished 62-20, won the Southwest Division for the first time since 2017 and ended the regular season third in both offensive and defensive efficiency.
The roster reaching this point is young, and for several key players the moment is new. Veterans Keldon Johnson, Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie are in the postseason for the first time, while Wembanyama, Castle, Champagnie, Vassell, Dylan Harper and Carter Bryant form the core of a group that has spent the season learning how good it can be.
Vassell said the mood inside the team is eager rather than cautious. “Me and KJ are super excited,” he said, adding that the group had been talking about the playoffs repeatedly, even that morning. “It’s just good to be in this position, not only just for us, but for the community and for the fans that’s been here and kind of waiting. Its been a long time, overdue, but we’re here and ready to go.”
San Antonio is not entering the series empty-handed, either. De’Aaron said he does not believe the group is carrying nerves, and he pointed to the team’s overall quality rather than the usual talk about inexperience. “Obviously, people talk about experience and all those things, whatever it may be, we’ve to go out there and play basketball and I think we have an extremely good basketball team,” he said.
Portland arrives with momentum of its own after Deni Avdija scored 41 points and added 12 assists in a 114-110 win over the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday to secure the seventh seed. That sets up a first-round meeting between a young Spurs team trying to prove it belongs and a Trail Blazers group that earned its way in the hard way.
There is also an unusual sidelight in the matchup. Portland coach Tiago Splitter spent five seasons in San Antonio starting in 2010 and was a key reserve on the Spurs’ 2014 championship team. Splitter shrugged off the nostalgia, saying, “I think there is a romantic feeling about it, but that’s it.” He then joked that Manu Ginobili is “Spurs for sure” and that Boris Diaw might need an invitation for a couple glasses of wine.
Popovich’s presence this week carried its own weight. He has been at the team’s practice facility while rehabilitating from the stroke he suffered Nov. 2, 2024, and the message he delivered fit the way the Spurs have played all season: no reinvention, no panic, just the same basketball that carried them to the top of the West. Now the only thing left is whether that formula travels in the postseason.
