“Don’t get too excited”, Gregg Popovich reminded Spurs fans after his team’s preseason-opening blowout win of a Utah Jazz team that was sitting four main rotation players, including Rudy Gobert. Like always, the preseason comes with its cautionary tales and talking points, but darn it, Pop, we don’t care right now.
This was fun. It was fun seeing the team back and full of energy after an exhausting, COVID-condensed second half of the 2020-21 season that dragged them out of playoff contention and into limbo. It was fun seeing a new style of play centered around no one in particular, but rather pushing the ball in transition and finding the open man: the complete opposite of the slow, boring, midrange-style the Spurs have been married to for the last 3-5 years.