Twelve games into the season, the Spurs sit at 8–4. If they keep that pace, they’d finish with 56 wins and 28 losses – strong enough for home-court advantage. Not bad, is it?

Not bad indeed. But the Spurs may not win twice as many games as they lose. The good news is: they don’t have to.

In the last two seasons, 49 wins were enough for the sixth seed in the West; the season before, 44 wins did the job. Landing somewhere between 44 and 49 feels doable for this team.

A likely first-round opponent could be the Golden State Warriors – incidentally, the team they’ve just lost to twice in a row at home. If those were playoff games, the Spurs would basically be gone. So let’s look at last night’s matchup through a playoff lens.

Takeaways • Lack of adjustment: The Spurs didn’t take Steph Cur

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