Thus far into the San Antonio Spurs championship defense season, they’ve managed to accrue an underwhelming 3-3 record if you look at it by the numbers, although, they’ve played four playoff teams from last season and two squads with realistic chances of sneaking their way in this season after suffering losses to both the New Orleans Pelicans and Phoenix Suns.
Most should know there’s no reason to be worried about the defending champs this early into the season, but there’s always those who like to over-analyze and throw reasons together on why San Antonio is in early season trouble.
But all that can be put to rest before it even starts, especially with the stretch in their schedule the Spurs will be entering beginning Friday against the Lakers in Los Angeles. There’s just short of a one-month period where San Antonio could easily go undefeated, or drop only two or three games at the most.
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After beginning with the Lakers, San Antonio will have a tough road test in Sacramento, but the Kings have now dropped two in a row and that will likely become three before the Spurs play them again with the Kings having to face the Grizzlies in Memphis first.
From there, San Antonio heads to Philadelphia, which is as close to a guaranteed win as you can possibly get and follows that up with a trip to Cleveland, which should be a Spurs win assuming Popovich doesn’t rest anybody.
After the Cleveland game is when the schedule starts to get pretty manageable. The Spurs will face Minnesota, Brooklyn, Indiana, Sacramento, Boston and then Philadelphia and Brooklyn again, which makes for a stretch where San Antonio should go undefeated.
After a tough matchup on the road in Memphis, the Spurs will again have it easy and see Minnesota again, the Jazz in Utah and the Knicks and Lakers in San Antonio, which are all expected to be wins, outside of the Grizzlies, of course.
Assuming the Spurs knock off each of the mediocre and bottom-feeding teams they’re expected to beat during this stretch and winning two or three of their tougher matchups, we can expect the Spurs to make it through this stretch going 14-2, which will bring their season record to 17-5, giving San Antonio a record we’re much more accustomed to seeing.
And if you’ve seen the schedule that follows, you know it becomes a much more rugged pursuit for wins after this stretch, as the Spurs will then see Denver, Portland, Memphis, Portland again, Dallas, the Clippers, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Houston, Memphis and finally, the Pelicans again.
San Antonio better take their easy wins while they can because they will enter the gauntlet of their schedule in mid-December, but they’re the defending champs for a reason and it’s not like they’re going to start dropping game after game, but in the grueling Western Conference, taking full advantage of this stretch in November and December could come to be a deciding factor in playoff seeding once that time of year rolls around.
You can view the Spurs full schedule here.
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