The real problem was Harper froze up when he got the ball and passed it back to Wemby instead of taking off as soon as the ball touched his hands. Ant tried to strip him from behind and Naz was between him and Wemby.

If Harper took off there down court isntead of panic passing to Victor, he probably gets all the way to the rim or at least has a 1:1 with McDaniels with Devin wide open on his left, which is the direction he would be heading.




But what we did got us a wide open shot. That's the goal. We just didn't convert. We are absolutely not getting a wide open shot if they get to set up their defense and we only have a few seconds.

I just don't see any situation where our best two players are shooting like **** where letting Chris Finch draw up a defense and sub in Gobert makes for an advantageous situation for the Spurs. On a night like tonight, we want Harper getting to the bucket or an open look from Julian or Devin. We got that with what we set up.

FTAG 2000 said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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The real problem was Harper froze up when he got the ball and passed it back to Wemby instead of taking off as soon as the ball touched his hands. Ant tried to strip him from behind and Naz was between him and Wemby.

If Harper took off there down court isntead of panic passing to Victor, he probably gets all the way to the rim or at least has a 1:1 with McDaniels with Devin wide open on his left, which is the direction he would be heading.




But what we did got us a wide open shot. That's the goal. We just didn't convert. We are absolutely not getting a wide open shot if they get to set up their defense and we only have a few seconds.

I just don't see any situation where our best two players are shooting like **** where letting Chris Finch draw up a defense and sub in Gobert makes for an advantageous situation for the Spurs. On a night like tonight, we want Harper getting to the bucket or an open look from Julian or Devin. We got that with what we set up.

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We didnt get a truly open look. We got Julian having to do a pump fake side step three. I don't know what his percentage of makes are on those, maybe 20-30 percent?

And nice to see you recognize Mitch wouldn't be able to come up with a better play than Finch could a defense.

Dylan was expecting to call a timeout but then Mitch didnt And it turned into oh crap gotta get that ball up with the clock running down. Shouldn't it be on the coach to tell them in the last timeout that we aren't taking a timeout and they gotta go if they get a stop?

Dylan wasn't the only one who stopped. Our entire team pauses and looked at the bench and then the fire drill was on. As noted, Wemby didnt even make it across midcourt. We were playing four on five for our last shot.

That's **** coaching.

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As noted your ridiculous and unfounded hate for Mitch has you completely unable to actually be honest.



Wemby was at the FT line when Julian took the shot.

Actual coaches, even OKC glazers like Coach Nick, say it was a good look.

It's a good look. But I'm very surprised Wemby didn't take off down the court immediately. A shot needed to be taken earlier to give them a chance at the rebound... pic.twitter.com/t5LTXhvDXY

— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) May 5, 2026

But somehow you think you know better than the guy that led the Spurs to 62 wins. You look like Kevin OKeefe leading the charge to fire Pop in 99 right now.

Dylan wasn't expecting a time out, we've done this same thing in the past. He just panicked when he got the ball and was between Naz and Ant, even though he had a clear path to the basket. Dylan could have called timeout if he thought that was what we were doing. He didn't.

The only mistake was Dylan not taking off as soon as he got the rebound. McDaniels dropped back and was at the logo before Ant shot it, but Vassell had position on Randle and Fox was in better position than Shannon (who was deep in the corner.) If Dylan took off as soon as he rebounded it like he was supposed to, he would have had at worst a 3-on-2 because maybe Randle would have made it back, but no one else would have.

It's a good look, no matter how much you want to argue otherwise. You'll just use any excuse to justify your ridiculous Mitch hate.

FWIW...Julian Champagnie hit the same shot from nearly the exact same spot last game

Don't mind the timeout not being called when you get a look like that to win the game#Porvida | #GSG pic.twitter.com/BDUdwbyfsm

— Cory Mose (@Cory_Mose) May 5, 2026

I hate to keep piling on Fox, and he did well to help close out Portland the last couple games, but 10 pts on 5-14 shooting, 0-4 from 3, 6 assists but 6 turnovers is just nowhere near good enough.

He's paid to be a star. He was probably the 5th or 6th best guard on the court last night (Castle, Harper, Ant, McDaniels and Conley all played better). That's the kind of game you need a high end veteran guard and he came up small.

Oh well, bounce back and get game 2!

Backcountry Birds said:

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I hate to keep piling on Fox, and he did well to help close out Portland the last couple games, but 10 pts on 5-14 shooting, 0-4 from 3, 6 assists but 6 turnovers is just nowhere near good enough.

He's paid to be a star. He was probably the 5th or 6th best guard on the court last night (Castle, Harper, Ant, McDaniels and Conley all played better). That's the kind of game you need a high end veteran guard and he came up small.

Oh well, bounce back and get game 2!

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It was Fox and Wemby on offense. Nothing went down for either. 0-12 on three from our two best offensive players and we lost by 2. Both were getting wide open looks. It sucks. Both have to do better.

As a team we shot below 30% from three. That's not likely to happen often. To shoot that bad AND deal with all those awful calls (refs completely took Steph out of the game) and only lose by 2 is wild.

Guitarsoup said:

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Backcountry Birds said:

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I hate to keep piling on Fox, and he did well to help close out Portland the last couple games, but 10 pts on 5-14 shooting, 0-4 from 3, 6 assists but 6 turnovers is just nowhere near good enough.

He's paid to be a star. He was probably the 5th or 6th best guard on the court last night (Castle, Harper, Ant, McDaniels and Conley all played better). That's the kind of game you need a high end veteran guard and he came up small.

Oh well, bounce back and get game 2!

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It was Fox and Wemby on offense. Nothing went down for either. 0-12 on three from our two best offensive players and we lost by 2. Both were getting wide open looks. It sucks. Both have to do better.

As a team we shot below 30% from three. That's not likely to happen often. To shoot that bad AND deal with all those awful calls (refs completely took Steph out of the game) and only lose by 2 is wild.

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This. If Wemby and Fox shoot even to their norm we win that game easily. Also the Wolves were amped with Ant coming back, you could tell the energy was different.

I think we will be fine, Spurs in 5/6

Matt_ag98 said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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Ok, how about this, if Wemby had called timeout, which he obviously could have, do you think we are going to get a cleaner look than an open three when Minnesota now has the opportunity to sub in their best defenders and set up a defense? We would have 5-6 seconds left and they get to put in a 4x DPOY that manhandled the best offensive player in the league in the 1st round.

This is something MANY teams do when the other team doesn't have in their best defenders. And it paid off in the sense that Minnesota was caught off guard and we got a clean look. That's what we wanted. Julian just didn't bury it.

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Yeah, if we had called a timeout the play probably would have resulted in a Minn foul...but not called and we would all still be pissed

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Exactly what I thought. Randle literally tackled Castle from behind and they called a foul on Castle for his 5th - Castle wasn't even facing Randle.

We call a timeout, go for the Wemby dunk/tip play but now they have Rudy, Gobert, and Naz Reid in the play and in position. They are free to hack the **** out of Wemby after packing the paint, because the refs wouldn't have called it anyway.

I have no clue why the Castle/Wemby whistles are so bad. Castle gets tackled and gets called for the foul or he gets thrown down in the paint with no call, but then they call the tickytack **** on him that is marginal contact at best.

Guitarsoup said:

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FTAG 2000 said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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The real problem was Harper froze up when he got the ball and passed it back to Wemby instead of taking off as soon as the ball touched his hands. Ant tried to strip him from behind and Naz was between him and Wemby.

If Harper took off there down court isntead of panic passing to Victor, he probably gets all the way to the rim or at least has a 1:1 with McDaniels with Devin wide open on his left, which is the direction he would be heading.




But what we did got us a wide open shot. That's the goal. We just didn't convert. We are absolutely not getting a wide open shot if they get to set up their defense and we only have a few seconds.

I just don't see any situation where our best two players are shooting like **** where letting Chris Finch draw up a defense and sub in Gobert makes for an advantageous situation for the Spurs. On a night like tonight, we want Harper getting to the bucket or an open look from Julian or Devin. We got that with what we set up.

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We didnt get a truly open look. We got Julian having to do a pump fake side step three. I don't know what his percentage of makes are on those, maybe 20-30 percent?

And nice to see you recognize Mitch wouldn't be able to come up with a better play than Finch could a defense.

Dylan was expecting to call a timeout but then Mitch didnt And it turned into oh crap gotta get that ball up with the clock running down. Shouldn't it be on the coach to tell them in the last timeout that we aren't taking a timeout and they gotta go if they get a stop?

Dylan wasn't the only one who stopped. Our entire team pauses and looked at the bench and then the fire drill was on. As noted, Wemby didnt even make it across midcourt. We were playing four on five for our last shot.

That's **** coaching.

---

As noted your ridiculous and unfounded hate for Mitch has you completely unable to actually be honest.



Wemby was at the FT line when Julian took the shot.

It's a good look. But I'm very surprised Wemby didn't take off down the court immediately. A shot needed to be taken earlier to give them a chance at the rebound... pic.twitter.com/t5LTXhvDXY

— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) May 5, 2026

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LOL, watch the video you linked there. You want to post a still shot of Wemby at the line? Wemby was just running into frame to end up at the FT line when Julian was releasing his shot. He was nowhere near the offensive end of the court on that play unless you wanted them to pass back to him to take a three from midcourt. Come on man.

And yeah, I said what I said. Mitch got circles run around him all night long. And that was at both ends.

Once they started screening Wemby at the offensive end so he couldn't roam late in the fourth, they got basket after basket. No counter. And Mitch puts Fox on the weakside block as if that little midget is going to protect the rim. LOL.

All season we had that beautiful flow on offense. Completely abandoned in the postseason for this iso chucker bull**** that is so easy to defend, especially when Castle can't get a whistle and Fox is showing the handles of Boban.

Letting Wemby brick away from three when every time he went to the hole on Rudy he got a bucket.

Where was Kornet when we were getting abused inside? Sitting on the bench watching Barnes getting pushed underneath the basket, lol.

Going away from Harper when he was cooking in favor of Fox's turnover and brick fest. Isoing Fox when Devin was hitting in the second and third.

Having guys double off shooters to help Wemby in the lane on TWolves drives for some idiotic reason.

Yeah, Mitch was awesome last night, put that coaching performance in the Hall of Fame.

Just so entirely predictable from you.

Bad coaches don't lead young teams to 62+ wins (20 games above projections) with an 8-1 record against the other top 3 teams in the league with an extremely young and inexperienced core.

Complete no-win situation and you will never bring yourself to give him credit when it is due. If the Spurs lose, you put 100% of the blame on Mitch. If the Spurs win, it is in spite of Mitch. If players mess up, this team usually owns up to it, as Fox did last night. But your blame is still on Mitch. Lose-Lose situation.

Here's the case in point:

Quote:

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Where was Kornet when we were getting abused inside? Sitting on the bench watching Barnes getting pushed underneath the basket, lol.

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Kornet SUCKED when he played last night. -7 in 8 minutes with 2 turnovers. Barnes was +4 with 3 offensive rebounds and a block in 10 minutes. But Mitch's fault for not playing Kornet more when Kornet was playing awful? Sure.


Kevin '00'Keefe.

Fox was awful. So was Wemby. I mean literally halftime here last night I was complaining about those two bricking away from three.

But you know what? They kept doing it second half too while Pop's pet stood over there with his arms crossed and no answers.

We have a very talented team. They deserve a lot of the credit for 62 wins. Mitch gets some too. But if you can't win in the playoffs who gives a **** about the regular season?

Many of the same problems that plagued us against Portland were there again last night. He's shown so far that he has an inability to adapt. He proves me wrong, I'll give him credit for it.

And for the love find someone else to do challenges too. Two coaches pulling down a combined 1.6 million a year and can't see what's on their ipads right in front of them.

jr15aggie said:

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I'm a casual watcher of BB so I won't pretend to be all knowing... but you don't have to be an expert to watch that game and ask basic questions such as "Why are they not even trying to set up lob passes for Wemby"!?!

The Wolves spent so much freaking energy chasing the ball on defense... feels like we could have shut that crap down real quick after they chased the decoy who was simply setting up an easy lob to the rim.


But I suppose just firing away more 3's is a legit strategy too! And, in fairness, we just needed to hit 1 more and the game was ours.

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Minny has a 7'2", 4-time defensive player of the year on their team. There are no "easy lobs".

FTAG 2000 said:

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Fox was awful. So was Wemby. I mean literally halftime here last night I was complaining about those two bricking away from three.

But you know what? They kept doing it second half too while Pop's pet stood over there with his arms crossed and no answers.

We have a very talented team. They deserve a lot of the credit for 62 wins. Mitch gets some too. But if you can't win in the playoffs who gives a **** about the regular season?

Many of the same problems that plagued us against Portland were there again last night. He's shown so far that he has an inability to adapt. He proves me wrong, I'll give him credit for it.

And for the love find someone else to do challenges too. Two coaches pulling down a combined 1.6 million a year and can't see what's on their ipads right in front of them.

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I mean Mitch can get some heat, I have no problem with that but the Spurs won the Portland series 4-1 with the only loss coming without Wemby in the game lol.

Lets let this series play out before we crucify the guy. It was just 1 game. I think most people knew this was going to be a tough series before it started. They are a talented team. They also kept the Edwards playing news quiet until just a few hours before tip. Nobody thought he would be a go for Game 1.

The thing i hate most about a playoff loss is having to be mad for a couple days till the next game.

https://harvardsportsanalysis.org/2010/08/late-game-timeouts-if-the-game-is-tied-let-them-play/

Quote:

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Teams that called timeout scored an average of 0.773 points per possession whereas teams that did not call timeout scored an average of 1.06 PPP.

Thus teams that do not call timeout not only score more often, but also score more points on their possessions than teams that do.

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Guitarsoup said:

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https://harvardsportsanalysis.org/2010/08/late-game-timeouts-if-the-game-is-tied-let-them-play/

Quote:

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Teams that called timeout scored an average of 0.773 points per possession whereas teams that did not call timeout scored an average of 1.06 PPP.

Thus teams that do not call timeout not only score more often, but also score more points on their possessions than teams that do.

---

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Yeah, not calling the timeout was fine. Spurs best 3-point shooter got a clean look for the win, it just didn't go in.

It was a far bigger issue that Wemby took 8 3s compared to 9 two-point shots, and only got two free throws. Plus Fox just stank. That's what they need to fix.

It's hilarious to see all the new Spurs fans that showed up here over the last couple of days ready to complain and cliff jump.

Wemby and Fox had poor games offensively, yet we were still a wide open 3 away from winning. It was genius by Mitch not to call timeout there, we got an absolutely wide open look and there is almost no chance that he could have diagrammed a play to get a better look than that. As Guitarsoup mentioned, the only thing you'd have liked to see is Harper take off immediately to maybe put an offensive putback in play. Coaches love to call timeouts in those situations but I think it's better (and stats back it up) to rush it up in that situation and try to get an early look against a scrambled defense.

We did see some really interesting things play out in game one. Wemby still doesn't have a go to offensive move, and it really stood out with Gobert taking away our lobs and most of the easy stuff that Wemby usually gets. Easy fan complaint is to ask why Wemby is taking 8 threes, but it's pretty simple, Gobert took away some of the stuff we normally do and Wemby tried to make some outside shots to try and force Rudy to guard him closer out there and open up his ability to drive by him. The counter is that we can get Rudy in some switches on our guards and try to get him in foul trouble and get him off Wemby. Or Wemby can make some shots, also a good counter.

Also, it seems likely that McDaniels and Castle are going to be in foul trouble all series unless they get a bit smarter with their physicality. A couple of Castle's fouls were incorrectly called, but that's unfortunately become the norm so he has to be smarter.

Final things, I think we let Ant rest on defense way too much. In game 2 I'm mercilessly targeting him and getting physical with him. And as we all knew going in to this series, we could really use one more rugged post defender that can play alongside Wemby. Maybe CB can handle this when he comes back but we can't have Devin guarding Randle in crunch time.

Gregg Popovich was apparently involved in today's film session with Spurs

(Via: @Matthew_Tynan) pic.twitter.com/YYtWNn4arT

— Spurs Culture (@SpursCulture) May 6, 2026