Spurs Poised to End Playoff Drought Behind NBA's Best Pick-and-Roll Pair

SAN ANTONIO - The Spurs are poised to end a six-year playoff drought, the longest in franchise history. They can punch their ticket to the postseason with a win over the visiting Phoenix Suns tonight.

San Antonio continues to check goals off of their list from the preseason, and they've added more goals to the list as they continue to outpace all reasonable projections. Victor Wembanyama is a legitimate contender for MVP, and the combination of young talent and veteran experience around him makes this group a true threat to win the title.

"It's growth... but it's still not enough," Wembanyama said after San Antonio secured their 50th victory for the first time in almost a decade. "I want to get to at least 60 to balance out my rookie season."

"Outside of my wife, he's the most competitive person that I've ever met, whether that's training camp, practice, shooting drill, All-Star Game, it doesn't matter, Vic's trying to win," said De'Aaron Fox.

"After some games he's like, 'Yeah, I wanna be the MVP,' and some guys don't say that," Fox said. "I don't think it's being humble or being cocky or anything like that, but that's the way that he is. He wants to be the best player on the floor every time he steps on the floor. Our job is to help him, our job is to make that easier, but he makes the game a world easier for us both offensively and defensively."

De'Aaron Fox, an All-Star himself this season, also isn't shy about his own lofty ambitions. When he made his way to San Antonio a little over a year ago, he said at the time that he wanted to form the best pick-and-roll pair in the league with Wembanyama. The Spurs are 19-2 since the start of February, and in that stretch Fox and Wemby are indeed the best in the league at the oldest play in basketball.

According to the All NBA Podcast, Fox and Wembanyama are scoring 1.39 points per possession when Wembanyama screens for Fox in that stretch. Pairing Fox's speed with Wemby's size, skill and shooting always made sense in theory, and now they're putting it into practice.

High-volume pick pairs that have had the most success over the last month and a half pic.twitter.com/VrISPZmByv
— ALL NBA Podcast (@ALLCITY_NBA) March 18, 2026

The Spurs aren't scary offensively solely because of Wembanyama or this one play he runs with the team's other All-Star. They're scary because they have a bunch of playmakers and a bunch of floor-spacing wings who can attack off the catch, and if they don't beat you in transition and the offense bogs down they can run the league's best pick and roll at you.

"I saw potential in it, I don't know if I'd say I thought it would happen that quickly, but coming into training camp, and obviously our staff kinda moved around a little bit, seeing how detail-oriented they were coming into the season, and then obviously I was out the first eight games and we won five in a row, I was like, 'We can be really, really good.' I got back in the lineup, and obviously that momentum kept going," Fox said.

"I feel like we always give ourselves a chance to win even when we're not playing well because of what we're able to do defensively," said Fox. "Obviously a lot of that has to do with Vic, and that's why we have so much confidence in ourselves because one, we have a lot of guys that can put the ball in the basket, and even when we're not making shots, and it's not every day that nobody on our team is making shots, but we give ourselves a chance to win because of the way that we guard."

The two-way, top-to-bottom dominance has brought the Spurs to where they are. With a victory against the Suns Thursday night, they'll achieve something that sounded aspirational when Wembanyama stated it as his mission at media day.

"My goal was never to make the play-in or win the play-in, it was to get into the playoffs with no question," Wembanyama reflected this week. "And that would have made a successful season at the time."

Given the success that he and the Spurs have had since, they've all adjusted their aim even higher.

"One of our goals was to win 50 games this season, and once we started getting close to that mark... it's funny because (Harrison Barnes) actually talked about it, he's like, 'Well what if we win 50 games and then lose in the first round, is that a successful season?' and the vast majority obviously said no," Fox said. "We're trying to play for something bigger than that, and people think that we're ahead of schedule, but we feel like with the guys that we have in the locker room and the coaching staff always has us prepared, we feel like we can play and compete for a championship."

Fox is one of the few guys on this team with playoff experience, and in that Beam Team year his Kings fell to the Warriors in the first round. Harrison Barnes and Luke Kornet have won titles with great organizations, and Wemby's international exploits are quite impressive at age 22. Fox knows there's no substitute for experience. But he also knows that this team will be a tough out when the postseason comes.

"People will talk about whatever experience we may or may not have, but at the end of the day you gotta lace em up, you gotta go out there and you gotta beat us," he said. "That's how we feel, and we feel confident against whatever team we play against."