Three Adjustments the Spurs Need to Make Before Game 3 in Portland

SAN ANTONIO - The first playoff series in seven years hasn't gone as smoothly as the San Antonio Spurs would have hoped.

Game 2 of the first round against the Portland Trail Blazers went off the rails, as Victor Wembanyama left the game with a concussion and the Spurs fell apart down the stretch in a 106-103 loss. The series heads to Portland knotted at 1-1, and San Antonio has a few things they need to clean up whether Wembanyama returns this weekend or not.

1. Win the Turnover Battle

The Blazers turned the ball over more than any other team during the regular season, but it's the Spurs who have struggled more with ball security so far. In fact, Portland has registered more assists and fewer turnovers in both games so far.

It didn't matter as much in Game 1 as the Spurs shot 45% from deep, but Game 2 featured poor shooting and one of the worst playmaking performances for San Antonio all season. The offense sputtered and shot 7-24 on 3-point attempts, logging 19 assists to 17 turnovers.

The Spurs averaged over 28 assists per game in the regular season, and only had three games with under 19. All of those games were in November. There were only two games where they hit fewer 3s, and five games where they attempted under 24, and none of them were after the start of February.

So why did San Antonio have one of their worst offensive games of the year, and what can they do to prevent it from happening again?

Losing Victor Wembanyama early in the second quarter hurt the cause in many ways, both obvious and understated. He's a bucket getter and an assist magnet when he's on the court, and because of that he commands attention and extra defenders to get his teammates open looks. With none of that happening in the last 33 minutes of the game, the offense took a severe hit.

But Portland deserves a lot of credit for the defense they played, especially down the stretch.

2. Hunt the Few Weak Links

The Trail Blazers have built their identity around defense, and they have a number of lock-down talents who make things difficult. Toumani Camara should be on an All-Defense team this year, and he got his gigantic hands on on a number of those turnovers. Matisse Thybulle is a defensive specialist off the bench. Jerami Grant and Jrue Holiday are savvy, hard-nosed veterans, and big men Donovan Clingan and Robert Williams III are sturdy rim protectors.

Over the series Camara has spent over eight minutes checking De'Aaron Fox, holding him to just 3-11 shooting. Holiday has drawn the primary assignment on Castle, holding him to 1-5 from the floor. The Blazers have also experimented with Donovan Clingan guarding his college teammate Castle and playing off him, but Castle has punished that with efficient scoring and a couple of open 3s.

The slashing trio of Fox, Castle, and Dylan Harper give the Spurs a playmaking advantage over most teams where one of them can usually beat the other team's second-best perimeter defender off the dribble, but the Blazers have the personnel to match up.

The Spurs missed 11 of their last 13 shots in the game as Portland put the clamps on, and Fox had a particularly rough time. He drove on Camara and got blocked at the rim, and then he missed two mid-range stepbacks and a stepback 3 late in the shot clock as the big wing hounded him. Add in a bad miss on a good floater, and Fox was 0-5 to close the game.

"They have long defenders, they're physical, I don't know what the numbers are but they don't help a whole lot, they have obviously Clingan down there and Robert Williams, they don't give up a lot of catch-and-shoot 3s, and that's the way they play. That's what we expected, we knew what we were coming into they did a better job of that tonight. We knew that they would try to play faster, they had more transition points, more offensive rebounds, more second-chance points. We knew they type of team that they were, they beat us at their game."

Fox knows he has to step up when Wembanyama is off the floor, and it's possible he tried to do a little too much when the individual matchup wasn't favorable.

San Antonio needs to attack the few weaker links in Portland's defense, and in the final few minutes it was clear that they understood that. Deni Avdija isn't an awful defender, but he has so much responsibility on the offensive end that you need to make him work defensively and try to get him into foul trouble. Devin Vassell went after him a few times, but as good a mid-range shooter as he is, the Blazers will probably be pleased with their defense if those are the shots they're giving up.

"They're physical, they got a lot of good guards who are right on the ball and are physical on the ball," Vassell said. "Late game execution we've just got to be better getting to our spots, getting good screens, getting the matchups that we want."

Whether Wembanyama is healthy for Game 3 or not, expect the Spurs to lean on the pick and roll to create advantages and mismatches. Luke Kornet can set a mean screen to get the guards moving downhill and spraying the ball out to shooters on the wing. If Portland guards Kornet with a center, those screens could pull the bigs away from the basket.

The Blazers would probably prefer to keep Avdija on Vassell and Scoot Henderson on Julian Champagnie, and the Spurs should have those floor-spacing wings set a bunch of screens to get those weaker defenders switched onto some of San Antonio's most dangerous off-the-dribble threats.

3. Handle Scoot (Or Let Him Shoot?)

On the other end the Spurs did a tremendous job of limiting Avdija as a scorer in Game 2, holding him to just 14 points and five free-throw attempts. The problem was that Henderson went off for 31 points.

"He's been shooting the ball really well, gotta be more physical with him, no catch and shoots, no easy off-the-dribble pull-ups," Vassell said. "I don't know how many he made today, but we're gonna make it a lot harder for him because obviously he's feeling way too comfortable."

Henderson is a career 35% 3-point shooter, but he's hit 7-13 from deep in the series so far.

"If he's gonna come out and shoot like that obviously that's a hard guy to stop, but we continue to play the way we play," Fox said. "If he's gotta get 30 and they win by 3, I think we're in a decent spot."

Every defense gives up something, and the math probably says it's better if Henderson shoots a high volume of perimeter shots. It'll be interesting to see if the Spurs ramp up the intensity on him or trust that he'll come back down to earth.

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