Message to the West: the Spurs are ahead of schedule

Let’s bring it back full circle, baby.

The last time the San Antonio Spurs were genuinely feared in the Western Conference, Kawhi Leonard was arguably the most dangerous two-way player on the planet and the Warriors were the only thing standing between San Antonio and another dynastic chapter. Then came the 2017 Western Conference Finals when Kawhi’s tender ankle buckled on Zaza Pachulia’s foot, the series ended before it really started, and a dynasty died in the cruelest possible way. Not in a Game 7 or in a shootout. On a hardwood floor in Oakland, in a moment that still makes Spurs fans go quiet.

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We always knew the Spurs would come back though. That is what San Antonio does. And they roared back last night in the Western Conference Finals when that young team walked into the building of the reigning champions and refused to blink.

Now here is the part that should genuinely terrify the rest of the league. Victor Wembanyama is 22. Stephon Castle is 21. Dylan Harper is 20. Most contenders spend their first deep playoff run figuring out whether they belong. The Spurs spent theirs taking the entire conference and breaking their back over their knee. They are not arriving on schedule. They are arriving ahead of it, and that gap between expectation and reality is exactly what makes San Antonio dangerous right now.

What their coach Mitch Johnson built this season should not exist yet, with a locker room where the future is old enough to rent a car but not old enough to remember most of Tim Duncan’s championships. And somehow they walked into Oklahoma City and took a Game 7 from the defending champs. Julian Champagnie, 22 years old, made six threes and scored 20 points when the Spurs needed someone fearless to be exactly that. De’Aaron Fox, the veteran in the room at 28, steadied a group of 20-year-olds when the crowd was shaking the walls. Keldon Johnson drained back-to-back threes in the fourth quarter to end any real conversation about a Thunder comeback. And Luke Kornet materialized out of nowhere to block an Isaiah Hartenstein dunk with six minutes left, a play Champagnie called the biggest…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/message-west-spurs-ahead-schedule-185000700.html

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Publish date : 2026-05-31 18:50:00

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