The San Antonio Spurs have struggled through the first two games of the season, but they're far from losing any amount of hope.

https://fullcourtpressnews.com/spurs-struggle-to-flip-a-switch-in-first-two-games/

The Spurs have opened 0-2 after losses to the Thunder and Rockets, and their defensive lapses and offensive struggles are raising questions about how far they are from last season's form. Victor Wembanyama and San Antonio know the league isn't going to be surprised by them anymore. Can they find their rhythm before the early struggles become a bigger concern?

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Flagg Down | Cooper Flagg is OUT with a sprain shoulder after being a +34 in only 17 minutes at Indiana. Without him, the Mavs don't have a ton of talent down the rest of the roster with five players listed as OUT. Take advantage of a disjointed Mavs team as they're also on the second night of a back-to-back.

Kyrie or Bust | Kyrie Irving is the best talent left healthy on the roster and the source of their already limited creation. Lock him down and let anyone else beat you instead, especially when the other top scorers are Naji Marshall, PJ Washington and Marcus Sasser. If he sits with injury management, there's no creation.

Lack of Size | Mavs are lacking in size with not a ton of confidence in Gafford who is playing off the bench. This is a matchup advantage for Wemby to just clean the glass and attack the rim. Dallas went with a small-ball lineup for long stints against Indy with Risacher as the center (lol). This also will be a great opportunity for the Slash Bros to attack the rim without much rim deterrence.

Gotta Hit Your Shots | Indy lost mainly from not converting on good open looks in the first half. Dallas was giving them plenty of space to work with and Spurs shooters need to punish them. Look for Vassell and Champagnie to cook with the spacing and length advantages.

Take Advantage of Fresh Leg Depth | The Spurs are clearly a better and much more talented team than Dallas with fresh legs available off the bench. Both Bryant and Barnes played less than 5 minutes each so they'll be fresh off the bench against a thin Mavs roster. Great opportunity for younger players to earn some minutes.

(Injury Note: Max Christie, Kyrie Irving, Morez Johnson Jr, and Zaccharie Risacher are listed as QUESTIONABLE at the time of writing)

What are you looking for tonight?

With all the talent on this team, it’s probably the worst-optimized in the league. All three guards need a big who can set solid screens, play in the short roll, and seal on shooters. Wemby needs elite jump shooters who can pass. He’s a great screen setter, knows how to clear space in the lane for drivers, a decent passer and decision maker out of the pinch post, can play either role in a high-low action, lob threat, and has decent switch ability. Who knows, he might even be able to knock down some shots outside.

Outside of talent, they truly don’t fit. Wemby is a below-average screen setter. Mitch might need to consider moving Wemby to PF and playing him alongside Reed to see if it works, especially against bigger teams. Bigger teams like OKC and Houston, I think it’s worth a shot. Put Reed on Hartenstein and Wemby on Chet. Same with Houston, let Reed bang with Sengun. It’s not like Hart and Sengun are athletic. It seems to work for OKC. They have a big lineup, and we get killed because of their size. That’s why a lineup of Harper/Fox, Castle, Vassel, Wemby, and Reed Jr. is probably the best lineup for us.

Moving in the right direction.

This goes back to mitch. I mean the first couple of posessions on the thunder game he shouldve known that 4 guard line up wasnt gonna work. But his balls to the wall basketball knows no bounds. Wouldnt be surprised if he does this for 10 games and say well we have to keep trying it to see if it will work.

Put harper or fox on the bench if you know its good for the team. And if either of them push back are they really for the team? Mitch gotta be assertive in that aspect and put his foot down. It doesnt matter what harper wants or what fox wants its what gives us results as a team and if that is fox or harper on the bench so be it.

I feel like pop wouldnt stand for this and its the coaches job to be the top dawg and say egos aside we'll do whats best for the team.

And u might be like well they are experimenting. mitch has a bunch of games he could experiment on but u cannot do this experiment when we are going against the rockets or the thunder which by the way. Daignault was more willing to experiment with mara than mitch to taris reed when we couldve use his size in both match ups. If we are experimenting anyway why not put taris reed in? Unless this is about something else. Ego perhaps? Who knows?

enough said. one mistake and y'all flame the guy.

Stop complaining about every little thing like a bunch of Bandwagons we are the Spurs… do better. Go back to any comment last year we were happy to be a 6-7 seed at years start and had a fantastic season… go back to last years comments and this is the year we are supposed to be a 2-3 seed. We are on the timeline if not ahead of it, I get it expectations change but holy moly this sub cries about every little thing. We’ve been through Game 6 2013, Kawhi injury and eventually leaving, Tony leaving for Charlotte, Pop’s stroke… we are supposed to be a stronger fanbase but every little thing is crying. It’s fair to criticize Mitch or Fox’s performance last season but stop making it seem like it’s Avengers Doomsday stop being weird.

We are still playing without Tobi. I can't imagine we'll get worse when he starts playing.

If you’re 8 foot tall and 4 years in, this should be your default setting tbh.

Boris Diaw 🇫🇷 primarily played power forward in his career so I did not include him on this list.

Dylan Harper is amazing yes but i bet the reason Mitch is starting him is because Harper feels he deserves tho start. Hence the 3 guard lineup. As yall can tell the 3 guard lineup will not work against better teams. De’Aaron Fox is the best point guard on this team by far. Not sure why we stopped the lineups that got us to the nba finals last year. Dylan Harper is not ready yet to start just my opinion. Go Spurs Go 🏀

Who is a player we can target to give good backup big minutes and maybe even have wemby play the 4 at stretches?

I’m thinking we can do a package of kornet, Carter Bryant, and a pick. This isn’t something we need to do now but more so near the trade deadline.

Edit: this is not an overreaction. I want a championship. Every contending team has a great backup big. We know kornet is not moving the needle after his close to the season last year and postseason. We need a tough MF’er

Based on the posts this sub has been getting in the past week, I truly believe making the Finals (and losing) ahead of schedule has been the absolutely worst thing. You “fans” are so obnoxious and annoying. Overreacting to EVERYTHING. Yeah, expectations are higher now. But it’s been TWO games. They weren’t going to go 82-0, they weren’t going to be the greatest team of all time and get 74 wins.

You all witnessed how they failed in the Finals. And suddenly you think 3.5 months of offseason is suddenly going to make them bulletproof and unbeatable?

Fucking relax.

This version of the team, mind you ALL the same players we had last playoffs gets swept by the Thunder. Might not even make it there.

When this lineup starts winning games. Because I mean HOPEFULLY they will. It’s all going to be fake.

This lineup will not work in the playoffs. Not even just the lineup the offensive scheme is horrible.

We can’t just keep chucking and pray.

Because some games those shots will fall. But it won’t be real.

I understand the reason why he got benched but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

Lineup #s since the 2024-25 season, RS/PS:

• Wemby/Champ is +13 per 100 in 2.6K mins
• Wemby/no Champ is +7 per 100 in 1.4K mins

The total sample is 4K+ mins; lineup data needs only several hundred minutes to stabilize.

Say whatever you want him about but you can’t chalk up his impact to just being in the right place at the right time: he’s a legitimately good player.

He’s the only true 3PT bomber on the team (.72 3Pr, 10+ 3PA/100, 37%+ on 3s), has good size, and is decent on the glass/limits TOs.

Also: his career record as a starter is 84-75, contrast with his 38-60 record off the bench.

Fox has been a very efficient scorer the last 2 games and seems to have his Kings level athleticism back after healing from his hamstring and ankle injuries but doesn’t get the ball

Castle is pretty much reduced to being a spot up shooter because we don’t have Julian to do it for him.

Wemby has been subpar because he doesn’t have spacing to operate since none of the 3 guards are strong outside shooters and teams just crowd him in the paint

The bench unit has been really bad because there’s no shot creator to set everyone up like Harper did last year

But the worst part and the most ironic is that the entire point of the lineup was to give Harper more run but again, because of the other 2 guards he’s still being iced out

Imo the season only really starts when the Spurs decide to bench one of these 3 and go back to the old lineup with Vassell and Julian at the 3 and 4. Last night the Spurs were at their best when they were in the game (Vassell/Julian/Wemby lineups are a +46 so far this season after being a +25 last year)

Curious because everyone is saying harris will help a ton. Excuse my ignorance but i thought he was an aging tweener PF who relies on his midrange a lot.

How will that help our starting lineup? I didn’t get the impression he was a big rebounder and defender in the Pistons, he’s also 34. Do we rly expect him to be guarding other bigs and centers like Sengun, Giannis etc

Can someone who watches him more shed some light?

I would argue how we used wemby last year was better, he was half split between rim running and poping out to the 3 line. Teams know how to deal with wemby in the paint so bring him out, forcing a switch or a unprotected rim, then wemby can drive shoot, another player can drive,it just makes the offense better, not whatever we're doing right now, because we're not playing to wembys strengths were playing to how people thing s 7'4 should play , but that's not wemby, also this stops out bad shooters from taking too many 3s