To all NBA playoff-bound squads, to all postseason hopefuls, to all those teams scrapping and clawing and battling through injuries as the league’s Big Dance nears, the San Antonio Spurs have a message:
They don’t care.
Just 2.5 games separate the Spurs from a top-four playoff spot. Only 3.5 stand between them and the Western Conference’s No. 3 seed.
Shit, the slumping, second-place Memphis Grizzlies are just 4.5 games away.
And the Spurs don’t care.
Clearly.
We know this because Manu Ginobili sprained his right ankle in Sunday’s win over the Minnesota Timberwolves and is expected to miss extended time, per the San Antonio Express-News‘ Dan McCarney:
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said reserve guard Manu Ginobili will be out “a good week to 10 days” after spraining his right ankle late in the third quarter of Sunday’s home rout of Minnesota.
Ginobili left the locker room after the game in crutches. But that appears to have been better than what the Spurs initially feared when Ginobili first went down, and was unable to put any weight on his right foot as Tim Duncan and trainer Will Sevening helped him off the court.
“Fortunately, I don’t think it’s as bad as they thought,” Duncan said. “Hopefully he can be back pretty quickly…because we need what he brings to the team.”
Some teams (read: most teams) might give a hot damn that there are less than 20 games remaining in the regular season and ask or expect or force one of their key pieces to play through a seemingly minor injury. But not the Spurs, because they don’t give a hot damn. They’ve been around the block a time or two or 50, and they know the importance of being as healthy as possible entering the postseason.
Especially this year.
Seeds don’t matter as much in the ultra-brutal Western Conference. The Warriors are the NBA’s best team since Michael Jordan’s 72-win Chicago Bulls. Their potential reward? Facing a healthy Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round.
That’s the reality of the Western Conference. From first place through eighth place, every team is dangerous, even if that eighth-place outfit winds up being Anthony Davis’ New Orleans Pelicans. There’s little point in the Spurs putting Ginobili—or, for that matter, anyone—at risk when it could merely be the difference between playing the Houston Rockets or Portland Trail Blazers or Los Angeles Clippers or Grizzlies. If they were in danger of falling to eighth and squaring off with the Warriors, then maybe they care. But they are not; so they don’t.
Nor would they ever, regardless of circumstance or possible first-round foes. The Spurs have sustained their dominant model for this long by prioritizing player health over everything, including the most seemingly imperative regular-season wins. That’s an intrinsic responsibility when title hopes are tethered to numerous over-30, over-35 stars, but it’s also the Spurs’ way. They’re not a team that ever truly, really, wholly invests in their regular-season finish. They’re talented enough, deep enough, experienced enough to contend with any one contingent. That’s a fact, and they know it. And so, they don’t give two flying F-bombs about postseason seeding.
Everyone else can take second or third or fourth place.
The Spurs will take their health, their depth, and the booming championship hopes that continue to come with it.
