Victor Wembanyama’s first career playoff opponent has now been set, and it’s a team that’s also having its own moment in the spotlight. The Portland Trail Blazers are back in the playoffs for the first time in half a decade after storming into Phoenix to defeat the Suns in a thrilling NBA Play-In Tournament showdown. Now, these two rising teams will face off in an intriguing first-round matchup.
As Wembanyama’s Spurs have surged to the top of the NBA standings with shocking speed, the question so many NBA fans have asked throughout the season can finally be answered: Just how will he, and his young San Antonio Spurs team, hold up under the pressure of the postseason?
As well as the Spurs have played this season, amassing 62 wins while winning four of five against their West rivals from Oklahoma City, they enter the playoffs as one of the most inexperienced top-two seeds in league history. The only key rotation players with more than seven games of playoff experience are reserves Harrison Barnes and Luke Kornet. Otherwise, this young nucleus of Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, De’Aaron Fox, Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson and Dylan Harper is largely untested in the spring.
The same is true of these young Trail Blazers, who have rode a late-season surge all the way to their first playoff appearance since 2021, when Damian Lillard was still electrifying Rip City with his logo 3s. (Lillard is actually on the roster, having returned this summer to rehab a torn Achilles.) These Blazers, coached by former Spurs big man Tiago Splitter, play far differently than the teams Lillard once led. Led by forward Deni Avdija, a 25-year-old Israeli who has emerged as a star after being traded by the Washington Wizards, the Trail Blazers are big, tough and aggressive enough to make life difficult for Wembanyama, having finished third in the league in offensive rebound percentage. They have their own budding core that features recent draft picks Donovan Clingan, Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe, Swiss Army Knife wings like Toumani Camara and Matisse Thybulle, and veterans like two-time champion Jrue Holiday and forward Jermai Grant.
But competing with the 7-foot-4 Wembanyama and this rising Spurs team? That will be a tall order, even if the Blazers have shown they won’t back down from the challenge.
What can we expect from this series? We have Jared Weiss (Spurs) and Jason Quick (Blazers) here to guide you.
What is the biggest storyline for each of these teams headed into the playoffs?
Jared Weiss: For the Spurs, it’s obviously Wembanyama. But the aspect of the league’s new megastar that will actually hang in the balance is whether he can withstand the rigors of an NBA title run. It’s not just that he has to play more minutes than he is used to playing. It’s the fact that every single defense will be trying to beat him down all night long.
Wembanyama will have to go through physical defense after physical defense, each of which will spend an entire series finding every little intricate way to knock him out of his comfort zone and hope they can wear him down over the course of a long series. We’ve seen Wembanyama do just about everything in his short NBA career, but we haven’t seen him consistently face that level of opposition night and night out.
He should be up for the challenge, but it is still the great unknown with the guy who could end up being the greatest player in the game.
Jason Quick: Is Portland for real?
The Blazers finished the season surging, winning 10 of the final 14 games. Since the All-Star break, they are tied with San Antonio with the league’s third-best defensive rating, behind only Oklahoma City and Atlanta. But it was tough to decipher just how good the Blazers were really playing. During that 10-4 close to the season, their only victories against teams with winning records were at Minnesota (without Anthony Edwards), and twice against the Clippers.
What should be encouraging for the Blazers is their roster is finally healthy. The instant offense of Shaedon Sharpe returned for the final two regular season games after after missing 28 games with a stress fracture in his lower left leg, Scoot Henderson ((hamstring) didn’t play until February but has come back and averaged 14.2 points, 3.7 assists in 30 games. Forward Jerami Grant, who hit several key shots in the Play-In victory, is also back after missing the season’s final seven games with a calf strain.
The trends we’re watching closest
Jared Weiss: The Spurs have been playing at an incredible level for months now but they haven’t faced consistent playoff competition much in the last couple months. How do they react when it’s a real battle every night and the litany of tanking or injured teams aren’t sprinkled throughout their schedule?
The funny thing is that Wembanyama hasn’t faced the Blazers yet this season, so we don’t have any tape to parse through. How does Wembanyama handle Donovan Clingan — a player who will undoubtedly meet the fight above the rim and wrestle him for position all night long — for an entire series? The Blazers have a ton of other players who can play Wembanyama physically and some great perimeter defenders in Toumani Camara and Jrue Holiday who can make it hard for Wembanyama to dribble through traffic.
But as much as the Blazers will make it tough for Wembanyama to find an offensive comfort zone, he has shown he is up for the challenge.
Jason Quick: How does Portland shoot from 3-point range?
While the Blazers finished the season ranked 28th out of 30 teams in 3-point percentage (34.3), they have looked formidable as they heated up from behind the arc in the past month. In the season’s final three weeks, Toumani Camara had games where he hit nine, eight and six 3-pointers, while Jrue Holiday had consecutive games of seven, seven and five 3-pointers. If you are looking for signs that the Blazers can pull off an upset of the Spurs, look first to how they are shooting from 3.
Toumani Camara’s shooting will be critical to the Blazers’ chances of springing an upset. (Troy Wayrynen / Imagn)
The matchups that most intrigue us
Jared Weiss: The games where Wembanyama has to go up against another big center and fight for every inch have been so much fun this year. That epic clash against Nikola Jokić a few weeks ago was one of the hallmark moments of the NBA season.
So I’m excited to see how Clingan drives him crazy. Clingan is already one of the disruptive paint patrollers in the league and is a force around the rim. He doesn’t have Wembanyama’s length or flexibility, but he has the power advantage and is probably going to bury Wemby under the rim a few times. There is something about the possibility of an opposing player making Wembanyama look human that is so enticing about this series, even if Wembanyama will likely win the individual matchup in the aggregate.
Jason Quick: How does Clingan fare against Wembanyama — on either end?
The Spurs’ 7-foot-4 star didn’t play against the Blazers this season, and in Clingan’s rookie season last year, the two were on the court at the same time for just 25 minutes over three games, during which Wembanyama fared well but wasn’t dominant by any means.
Clingan has made the most significant jump of Portland’s youngsters and is probably the biggest reason the team has progressed this far. He is an elite rim protector, superb rebounder and consistently alters shots. His offensive game has also blossomed, as he made 84 3-pointers this season and has become a consistent lob threat.
The X-factor here is not only whether Clingan can neutralize Wembanyama on defense, but whether Wembanyama can contain the 7-foot-2 behemoth that is Clingan on offense.
Predictions for the series
Jared Weiss: This is a Spurs sweep. Wembanyama’s defense counters Portland’s rim attack effectively, and the Spurs have the depth of perimeter defenders to stifle the Blazers offense. It will be exciting to watch Wembanyama try to score over Clingan and Robert Williams, two centers who can actually affect his drives and release points. Holiday and Camara will make it hard for the Spurs’ point guards to run the offense smoothly. But the Spurs have too much firepower and depth for the Blazers. When they get out and run, it’ll be lights out.
Jason Quick: San Antonio in a sweep. The Blazers are coming, but not right now. The Spurs are one of the most complete teams I’ve seen this season, and Wembanyama is unlike any player the game has seen. He has a myriad of ways to impact a game, and not all of them are reflected in the box score. If the Blazers have one of those nights where Camara is hitting everything in sight and Sharpe gets on a roll, I can see them sneaking in a game. But the Spurs are so tough, so disciplined and so deep that I can’t see it being a competitive series.