The San Antonio Spurs now know who is standing between them and the second round.
After Portland’s play-in win over Phoenix, the Spurs are set to face the Trail Blazers in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs. That gives San Antonio, which finished 62-20 and earned the West’s No. 2 seed, a young, athletic opponent that had to fight through the play-in just to get here.
On paper, this is a matchup the Spurs should feel good about. San Antonio finished 20 games ahead of Portland in the standings, and the Trail Blazers entered the postseason as the West’s No. 8 team at 42-40 before the play-in bracket began. But for a Spurs team making its long-awaited playoff return, the bigger story is less about the bracket and more about handling the moment.
Portland is dangerous enough to make San Antonio work. The Blazers split late-season games with the Spurs and finished 1-2 against them in the regular season, which is enough to keep this from feeling like a total walkthrough. San Antonio won the most recent meeting, 112-101, even while missing Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle, with De’Aaron Fox scoring 25 points.
San Antonio Will Officially Face the Portland Trail Blazers In the First Round
This is not the kind of No. 7 or No. 8 seed that simply rolls the ball out and hopes for the best.
Portland earned its spot by staying competitive all season, finishing in the play-in field and leaning on a younger core that has given teams problems with pace, size, and activity on the glass. One preview entering the play-in noted that the Blazers ranked sixth in rebounding and second in offensive rebounds, a detail that matters against any playoff team, including San Antonio.
That gives the Spurs a real first-round challenge instead of an empty-calorie matchup. San Antonio should still be favored because of its top-end talent and its season-long consistency, but Portland’s style can test discipline. A team that crashes the boards and keeps possessions alive can make even a superior defense look vulnerable for stretches.
For San Antonio, that means this series could become an early gut check in all the areas that matter in April: gang rebounding, transition defense, and avoiding the kind of careless possessions that let an underdog hang around.
The matchup still starts with Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox
Everything about this series will orbit around San Antonio’s stars.
The Spurs are back in the playoffs after a seven-year absence, and they did not back into the bracket. They won 62 games, finished second in the West behind only Oklahoma City, and have emerged as one of the league’s fastest-rising contenders. Wembanyama is the obvious headliner, but Fox’s arrival and steadying presence have changed the shape of the team in meaningful ways.
That matters against Portland because the Blazers have enough young talent to make individual matchups interesting, but they do not have the same margin for error. If Wembanyama controls the paint and Fox dictates tempo, San Antonio should be able to keep Portland from turning this into a possession-by-possession grind.
The Spurs also have one quiet advantage here: they already showed they can beat this team without full strength. That does not guarantee anything in a playoff setting, but it does reinforce how many lineup answers San Antonio has compared to a Portland group still trying to prove it belongs on this stage.
What fans should watch first
The first thing to watch is whether the Spurs look comfortable, not whether they look perfect.
This is a team with title-level expectations in some corners, but also one stepping into a new environment. Mitch Johnson is leading his first playoff run as head coach, and several key Spurs are about to get their first taste of postseason basketball in significant roles. That makes the opening game especially important.
If San Antonio controls the glass, protects the ball, and gets its usual defensive impact from Wembanyama, the series should tilt quickly. If Portland turns games ugly and extends possessions, the Blazers have enough fight to make the Spurs earn every bit of this.
Either way, the bracket is now official. The Spurs wanted a playoff series. Now they have one.
San Antonio Spurs Get Major NBA Playoffs News