Daily NBA Fix: The San Antonio Spurs Are Historically Great Again

It makes perfect sense that the San Antonio Spurs are quietly and very unassumingly making their case for the best team in the Western Conference.

In case you missed it last night, the San Antonio Spurs led by as much as 46 points in their 118-81 victory over the Utah Jazz. It was only 20 seconds into the fourth quarter when the Spurs broke into triple-digits but what’s been overlooked is how dominant their defense has been all season, as well as last night.

The Golden State Warriors 24-game win streak rightly had stolen the spotlight in their first month or so of the season as Stephen Curry and their offense continues to knock down three-pointers at a historic rate. But on the defensive side of things, the San Antonio Spurs are the ones doing something historic.

With a defensive rating of 93.7 according to Basketball-Reference, San Antonio is playing some of the best defense we’ve seen since… well, 2004 when they finished the season with a 94.1 rating. NBA.com currently has them at 91.8, but for the sake of consistency, we’ll be using the BR numbers for now. Out of the 11 teams that have finished the season with a defensive under 95, the Spurs are already on the list twice and hoping this year will make a third time.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 12/15/2015.

You could easily pick between Tim Duncan or Kawhi Leonard for Defensive Player of the Year so far, but I’d give Kawhi a slight edge thanks to him playing more minutes than Duncan and having a bigger direct impact.

Both they and the Warriors are flirting with +14 net rating as well, matching their exceptionalism on both sides of the ball. But if you were hoping to see them duke it out anytime soon you’ll be disappointed to know they don’t have their first meeting until Jan. 22.

Until then you’ll have to settle for watching the Spurs bring down the hammer with their defense in particular while the Warriors use their offense as the tip of the spear in their assault on history.

Clippers Outlast Pistons

The Detroit Pistons missed a chance to pick up a win at home as they had the Los Angeles Clippers on the ropes at the Palace of Auburn Hills. J.J. Redick helped close a six-point gap in the final two minutes with a pair of three-pointers and in overtime. Detroit had a chance to force a second OT, but three missed shots in the final seconds allowed Los Angeles to take home the 105-103 victory.

What might have been lost in some of the late-game heroics and failures is that Blake Griffin and Reggie Jackson went toe-to-toe with 34 points each, but Jackson bested his counterpart with an 11 rebound effort for the double-double.

The Pistons 14-12 record isn’t overwhelming, but at this point last year, they were 5-20. Stan Van Gundy is slowly turning them into a playoff team and we’re seeing players like Jackson flourish this season as SVG rewires the team’s DNA.

Pacers Make Huge Rally to Rout Raptors

So sum up what happened, I’m just going to use a few tweets.

Things couldn’t have started worse for the Indiana Pacers, but somehow they rallied to level things out with the Toronto Raptors.

Then things got bad for the Raptors.

Then things got worse for the Raptors.

The Pacers won 106-90.

After seeing Golden State put on a 22-0 run against this same Indiana team last week, I didn’t think we’d see anything like it this soon, much less from the team that was on the wrong end of the last one.

Next: NBA Power Rankings

The Pacers had a rough stretch of games over the past week or so losing four of their last five before this, but Monday night proved their ceiling is still pretty high in this young season.