NEW YORK — The San Antonio Spurs don’t win Game 3, and stay alive in these NBA Finals against the New York Knicks in the process, without having a significant level of collective self-belief.
This was a young team coming off two painful losses at home and facing one of the most intimidating road environments of them all at Madison Square Garden on Monday night. No one would have been surprised if they had let go of the proverbial rope and gone down 3-0.
The job demanded extreme will. Focus. Force. Appropriate fear, of course, because that’s the Spurs’ way. They needed to muster all of the moxie that goes into meeting a moment like this, one that looked as if it had already passed.
Instead, these Victor Wembanyama-led Spurs now have a chance to turn the series on its head in Game 4 at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night. And as it turns out, the very traits that were required to respond so impressively were the focus of a speech given by legendary Gregg Popovich as the Spurs headed out of town two days before.
Not long after the Spurs’ bags were loaded onto their charter plane bound for the Big Apple, Popovich — who was not joining the team on the trip — made his way onto the plane and gave a rare rallying cry to remember. There was plenty of time to talk on the runway, as a flat tire on the plane ahead of San Antonio’s caused a significant delay. So Popovich, the 77-year-old whose coaching career was cut short by a stroke in November 2024 and who now serves as the team’s basketball president, decided to get on the plane for the first time all season and remind them all that this series wasn’t over just yet.
“He basically said that even though we dug ourselves a hole, that we can dig ourselves out of it,” Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox shared with The Athletic. “He told us just to be confident — to come out here and be confident, that there’s a reason why we got here.”
With longtime Spurs executive R.C. Buford and general manager Brian Wright leading the way in the front office, and Mitch Johnson running the show on the bench after taking over last season, Popovich has mostly stayed in the background of late. But he appears to be picking his spots to make a mark with his voice behind the scenes in these playoffs, including a locker room visit after Game 3 in the Western Conference finals against Oklahoma City, where he took a much tougher tone when the Spurs fell behind 2-1 in that series.
This time around, Fox said, Popovich was reminding them all that they deserved to believe. He spoke to the group for nearly 10 minutes, then spent an additional 20 minutes individually with players and coaches while seated next to star big man Wembanyama. He then left the plane before the Spurs finally embarked for New York.
As Fox sees it, the deliberate and thoughtful nature of Popovich’s occasional messages has made them all the more meaningful.
“It’s always good when he comes around,” said Fox, whose midrange dagger over OG Anunoby with 12.2 seconds left put the Spurs up five and all but sealed it. “He doesn’t talk to the group all the time whenever he’s around. He’ll talk to individuals every once in a while. But yeah, it definitely feels good whenever Pop addresses the group. (He doesn’t) just address the group just to talk.”
As Johnson shared during the Spurs’ media availability on Tuesday, this group, which didn’t make the playoffs last year, has shown the ability to parlay belief into elite basketball all season. The Vegas oddsmakers had them pegged for 44.5 wins, only to see them finish just two games behind the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder for the league’s best mark (62-20 vs. 64-18).
Even in this series, there was a strange — almost delusional — sense of calm when they dropped the first two games. Wembanyama insisted he “wasn’t worried in the slightest” after the Game 1 loss and remained upbeat in defeat even after San Antonio dropped Game 2. And now, with the Spurs well aware that a win in Game 4 would spark panic in Gotham City while putting them in prime position to take control of the series at home in Game 5, they’ll try to keep that trend going.
“We’ve played over a hundred games now,” Johnson said. “We knew that the belief was going to be there. That doesn’t mean you’re going to win or lose a game, just because you believe or not. There’s a lot of things that go into it. But we’ve just been honest all year. So, every time we keep getting asked — ‘Do we believe? Are we confident? Can we do this?’ — we do. That doesn’t mean we always play our best. Doesn’t mean that we don’t make mistakes. Doesn’t mean we don’t lose games.
“(But) we believe in what we put into this deal, and each other, and how we go about and how we operate and how we’re going to respond. That’s been through adversity and success throughout the season. …That’s not an age thing or an experience thing. That’s a makeup and a personality thing.”
Castle’s ascent and a Rockets what-might-have-been
When second-year Spurs guard Stephon Castle looked at the lottery landscape heading into the 2024 Draft, there was one prevailing thought that played a pivotal part in how he handled the process.
“I was just looking on the defensive side of things (in San Antonio), where being able to pair with Victor was definitely a plus in my eyes,” Castle told The Athletic recently. “I just thought it would have been a perfect fit, and I feel like it was.”
While the UConn product saw himself as the best player in the draft, he was less focused on going No. 1 and more concerned with fit. At the time, there were reports that Castle’s choice not to conduct private workouts with several teams was driven by his desire to avoid teams that already had an established starting point guard.
One of those teams was the Houston Rockets, who ultimately took Reed Sheppard out of Kentucky with the third pick (after Zaccharie Risacher went to Atlanta with the first pick and Alex Sarr went to the Wizards at No. 2). Per league sources, Rockets coach and former Spurs assistant Ime Udoka was a huge fan of Castle’s (which Castle said he was well aware of). But with veteran Fred VanVleet manning the point guard position and young Jalen Green at the two-guard spot, Castle and his camp sent the kinds of signals Houston’s way that eventually led to him landing in San Antonio. Just as he’d hoped.
“I think being (in San Antonio) was always number one on my list,” said Castle, who won Rookie of the Year in 2025. “Internally, I always felt like I was the best player in that draft. (But) I didn’t know what could happen. My agent always told me, like, anything can happen in a draft. Like, you could not work out for a team, not have talked to a team, and they can still take you. So, I mean, I wasn’t really planning on playing in Houston. I didn’t really know how any of that worked. I was kind of hoping I could slide my way to San Antonio. It kind of worked out for me.”
To say the least.
The irony, of course, is that the Spurs have added two lead guards since adding Castle to their roster (Fox and Dylan Harper, who they took second last year out of Rutgers). But as Castle showed in Game 3 against the Knicks, when he finished with 23 points (8-of-14 shooting), five rebounds, five assists, just two turnovers and a plus-six mark, he’s as important to their program as ever.
Trade chatter and a few thoughts
- Per league sources, Sacramento and Charlotte have had recent talks about Kings big man Domantas Sabonis. While a deal is not imminent and appears unlikely before the June 23 draft, sources say the Hornets have some interest in the 30-year-old, three-time All-Star. The problem for now, it seems, is that the Kings have been hoping to land one of Charlotte’s two first-round picks (they have Nos. 14 and 18) in the deal, and the Hornets have signaled a desire to retain their picks and discuss Sabonis later in the summer. Sabonis has two seasons left on his deal ($45.4 million next season and $48.6 million in 2027-28).
- This nonsense on the streets of New York, where several Spurs fans were attacked after Game 3 and NYPD reported that five of their officers were injured, simply has to stop. The guilty parties don’t represent the fanbase at large, but it’s both disgraceful and terrifying to think that the simple act of wearing the opposing team’s jersey might leave you bloodied and battered. Good on the players and coaches, from both sides, for speaking out against it on Tuesday (story here).
- As Wembanyama has often said, he is a young man who greatly values his routine. To that end, he has a habit of visiting with his two agents, Bouna Ndiaye and Jeremy Medjana, immediately after every postgame press conference. The informal gathering is typically off to the side in the back of the arena, with media members milling around but not encroaching on their space. Not in New York, though, the media capital of the world, where the three men were surrounded by cameras of every shape and kind after Game 3. The impressive part, from this vantage point, is that the three men managed to act as if the spotlights weren’t even there as they (presumably) discussed that night’s series-changing events.
