The Spurs’ run to the NBA Finals exposed one clear flaw: when the game tightened, San Antonio didn’t have enough answers. That issue is supposed to look a lot different next season.
The Finals loss to the Knicks came by a combined 16 points, and every game turned into a late-fourth-quarter grind. New York simply handled those moments better, putting together cleaner possessions and executing with more polish when it mattered most. For a young Spurs group, that was a harsh lesson - but one the team can use.
A big part of the problem landed on Victor Wembanyama. As brilliant as he is, he wasn’t at his sharpest in the clutch.
Missing free throws, turning the ball over, and having trouble getting to his spots all made San Antonio’s late-game offense harder to run. The source of that wear showed up in his workload, which was heavy throughout the postseason and eventually caught up to him.
With the Spurs thin at center, he had to carry too much.
San Antonio has already started addressing that. By deepening the interior rotation, the Spurs should be able to take some pressure off Wembanyama and keep him fresher for the closing minutes. The other half of the equation is on him: he still needs to make real offensive strides this summer if he’s going to become an even more dangerous finisher.
Then there’s Tobias Harris, who could end up being the piece that changes the feel of these games entirely. The Spurs signed him to a two-year, $31M deal, and he brings exactly what a young team needs in the postseason - experience, composure, and another player who can score when the offense starts to stall.
Harris gives San Antonio options. He can space the floor as a catch-and-shoot threat, or he can create a bucket for himself by getting to his spots off the dribble.
He doesn’t have to be an All-Star scorer to matter here. Next to Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, and Dylan Harper, he fits as a reliable complementary weapon.
That matters because the Spurs had a brutal scoring drought late in the second half of Game 4 against the Knicks, the kind of stretch that can sink a series. With Harris in the mix, San Antonio has a much better answer for nights when Wembanyama and the rest of the offense aren’t getting clean looks.
This is why so many people see the Spurs as a team on the rise. They identified the biggest problem from last season and went after solutions directly.
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