As the San Antonio Spurs prepare for the 2026-27 NBA season, they keep claiming variants of the same mantra: “we will be back.”
They’ve made it clear they’re going to use their loss in the 2026 NBA Finals as motivation moving forward. Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, and the rest of the roster have gone out of their way to express some sort of bitterness or agony after the Finals loss, and they don’t plan on being one of those teams that never makes it back.
Of course, returning to the Finals is an uphill battle, even with a roster as talented as San Antonio’s. In the playoffs, the Spurs struggled against physicality. Guys like Robert Williams, Naz Reid, Jaden McDaniels, Isaiah Hartenstein, Lu Dort, OG Anunoby, and Mitchell Robinson gave the Spurs fits.
So the players are saying “we’ll be back,” without revealing how they plan on going about doing that. The coaching staff is in the same boat as the rest of the roster, and Mitch Johnson is putting together a plan.
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Spurs to Increase Physicality in Regular Season
Between Wembanyama elbowing Naz Reid and shoving Jalen Brunson, the Spurs seem to have a pretty clear mentality: if we get hit, we’re hitting back twice as hard.
In the playoffs, referees generally swallow their whistle. In the regular season, the Spurs might not be able to get away with it, but the team is making it a point of emphasis, anyway.
“I think even obviously, the playoffs, because of the tension that they receive, rightfully so, and the style of play produces that, but I think we went through an evolution,” said Mitch Johnson of the Spurs increasing their physicality.
“I think there was a time last year where that was probably some teams’ approach to try to take advantage of how they thought they could beat us was to be physical with us. Obviously, we know the Victor conversations are at the top of that list, and I think even just some of our younger players, even the ones that are physical, do they know how to be physical? Can they be smart and physical, et cetera, et cetera? And I think that element of our team has grown tremendously even through the regular season. The playoffs are obviously highly enhanced and just more frequent.”
Castle, Wembanyama, Keldon Johnson, and Julian Champagnie can all bang in the paint with the best of them, and the Spurs made adding toughness a priority in the draft. Both Jayden Quaintance and Tarris Reed are burly, strong big men who can impose some punishment.
It seems the Spurs know why they lost. Now they just have to fix the problem.
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