Way back in 2014, when former San Antonio Spurs assistant coach Brett Brown was the Head Coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, the Sixers traveled to San Antonio to face the Spurs in November. Brown had commented that evening about one of the timelines the Spurs used to evaluate their team during Gregg Popovich’s tenure as head coach.
“We sort of look to Christmas, and what goes on after Christmas to the All-Star break,” said Brown on that November day in 2014. “We always talked about ramping stuff up right before the All-Star break, when people were getting used to going on holidays. We felt like there was a weakness then, (and) you could just jump on it. The mindset of Post-All-Star break, that’s sort of been the rhythm with him for me, since I was here.”
12 years later, Coach Pop and Brown are in front-office roles with the Spurs organization, and Mitch Johnson is now the Head Coach of the Spurs, guiding them to a 38-16 record at the All-Star break, good for second-best in the Western Conference by record.
With the All-Star break here, I wanted to take a look at two of those timelines Brown mentioned, how the Spurs and the other top teams in the league played from the start of the season to Christmas, and then after Christmas to the All-Star break.
From there, I checked in to see how the Spurs are performing against some of the top teams in the league, where ESPN’s BPI model has the Spurs’ playoff odds, and how close they are to meeting one of the objectives for title teams: the 40-20 rule.
Before and After Christmas
Here are the top 9 teams, ranked by record, before and after Christmas.
