No Sloppy Seconds in San Antonio

The San Antonio Spurs will enter the 2016 NBA playoffs as the No. 2 seed–and that’s a good thing.

The San Antonio Spurs managed to beat a banged-up Memphis Grizzlies team on March 25 to lock down the second seed in the 2016 NBA playoffs. This win, which occurred at home, also kept the Spurs’ home streak alive at 37 regular-season games and counting.

This 37th home win also ties the Silver and Black with the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls for the second-best regular-season home start in NBA history.

The Spurs were in legitimate striking distance of first place in the Western Conference, currently owned by the Golden State Warriors, after beating the Warriors at AT&T Center on March 20. Then this happened:

The stunning blowout by the Charlotte Hornets, courtesy of a dose of Linsanity 2.0, was the second-worst of the Tim Duncan-era Spurs (guess which was the first), and negated the one-game gain bestowed by win over Golden State.

After Saturday’s loss against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Spurs are 4.5 games behind Golden State with nine games left in the season, and have pretty much relegated themselves to staying at No. 2 in the Western Conference.

Which may turn out to be a good thing.

Related Story: 25 Best Players to Play for the San Antonio Spurs

As of Easter Sunday (March 27), the Houston Rockets and the Utah Jazz are battling for eighth place in the Western Conference, with the Rockets currenty at No. 8 after losing on Sunday to the Indiana Pacers.

Yet with nine more games for the Jazz against teams which they mostly own winning records this season, and the Rockets having a more challenging nine games, there very well may be another Texas Triangle showdown come May (especially if the Dallas Mavericks, who are now a half game behind Houston at No. 9, make a last-ditch effort over their last six games of the season).

Including the Christmas Day smackdown (which was a lot less close than the 88-84 score indicated), the Spurs have gone 3-1 against the Rockets this season, and 103-82 overall.

(I know, I know. Every playoff team’s record starts at 0-0 when the playoffs begin. But still …)

Then again, the Spurs are 6-10 against the Rockets in the playoffs.

However, that was when they had a quality coach on the sidelines (no disrespect to J.B. Bickerstaff, but let’s just put it on out there). Also, the Spurs and Rockets last met in the playoffs in 1995, two years before Duncan arrived in San Antonio; 17 years before James Harden got booted out of OKC and landed in Houston; and 18 years before Dwight Howard left Los Angeles (and Kobe Bryant) for Space City.

The Spurs were last in the Western Conference Finals in 2014, when they won their fifth championship; the Rockets, a mere year ago, when they were defeated by the current champions, the Warriors.

To put it mildly, the current iteration of the Houston Rockets is beyond a hot mess–it’s a radioactive FUBAR situation. On a scale of world disasters, the Rockets clock in somewhere north of Hiroshima and just south of Chernobyl, what with surprising coaching changes,  allegations of cheating, agent firings, ego bruises and clashes, exit strategies, and just overall inconsistency and lack of effort.

While the Rockets aren’t the first team to face any of these issues, they are in the rarefied air of having all of them hit within one season, and usually around the same time. Granted, they’ve been playing a lot better lately and managed to keep hovering around the .500 mark, but internal issues keep this team off-kilter despite its successes.

(To put it in perspective: the Sacramento Kings are Chernobyl. But I digress.)

The Spurs, despite adding new folks to the mix while maintaining the aging bodies of the rest, still remain relatively drama-free. The flesh may be weak, but the spirits are willing and the minds are as sharp as ever, from head coach Gregg Popovich on down.

While physical health is important for a playoff run, mental health is even more crucial. Games are won or lost due to focus (or lack thereof) and psychological warfare–and no one is better at mind games than Popovich, or more mentally sound than the Spurs.

Houston doesn’t have the mental fortitude to outlast the Spurs over seven games–and the schizophrenic level of play speaks for itself–but the Spurs would have to work a bit.

If the tables turn and the Spurs have to play the Jazz, that might be a tougher road. The Jazz are not only younger, but have been a quiet upstart this season despite losing point guard Dante Exum to a preseason knee injury that kept him on the sidelines all season, and then other players–most notably center linchpin Rudy Gobert–to various injuries.

Now that everyone except Exum is back, the Jazz continue their quest for a playoff run under the leadership of head coach Quin Snyder and team captain Gordon Hayward. The Jazz are actually 12-12 against the Spurs overall in the playoffs and last met in 2012, when they were swept the Spurs in the first round. The Spurs have won all three of their games against Utah this season, with their final meeting to occur on April 5.

But the basketball gods are notoriously fickle. It is not outside of the realm of possibility for the Portland Trail Blazers, currently sixth in the Western Conference, to end up seventh, given their remaining schedule. Of their eight upcoming games, the Damian Lillard-led Blazers have winning season records against the Kings (whom they play twice), the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the Denver Nuggets.

They have to face the Boston Celtics, Miami Heat, Thunder, and Warriors as well, against whom they post losing records.

A seven-game series against the Blazers normally wouldn’t be too much of a concern for the Spurs (especially since they have homecourt advantage), but the lethal backcourt duo of Lillard and C.J. McCollum has been known to go off without warning, and are the reason the Blazers are in playoff contention instead of a projected rebuilding project (and possible lottery team) at the beginning of the season.

Lillard is especially known for his clutch plays, and the contributions of Allan Crabbe, Ed Davis, and rookie Noah Vonleh have helped keep the team on a fairly even keel.

Still, the Spurs are 14-6 overall against Portland in the playoffs (and actually 80-79 overall in the regular season; the Spurs swept the Blazers this season), with the two teams last meeting in the second round of the 2014 Western Conference playoffs (the Spurs swept the round and went on to win the championship).

Whoever the Spurs end up playing, they’ll survive to play the Thunder or *gasp* Portland (OKC can be inconsistent as well so this result is also not outside the realm of possibility. Because: Lillard/McCollum and despite Kevin Durant/Russell Westbrook). Again, Spurs with homecourt advantage in the second round.

More hoops habit: 25 Best NBA Free Agent Signings of All-Time

The next two weeks are going to be interesting around the league as the lower seeds are cemented in each conference, but make no mistake: the Spurs may be a second seed, and the second-best team in the league, but they are no one’s sloppy seconds. May the odds be ever in their favor.