Spurs lose their starter before the season, now Derrick White gives them 7 seeds of hope | Bleacher's report

Even before the start of the San Antonio Spurs' 2018-19 campaign, the injury virus hit the mark in a team already surrounded by question marks. In pre-season, starting goaltender Dejounte Murray was injured at the end of the season when he tore his ACL.

Haley O 'Shaughnessy, of The Ringer, then wrote: "Without Murray, the youngest and youngest of the known faces of San Antonio, the one who should leap, the optimism that prevails for him. one of those Popovich playoff classics is starting to empty, your mom's Spurs. "

And yet, we find ourselves after San Antonio's 118-108 third-game win to take a 2-1 lead over the Denver Nuggets, potentially on the precipice of another "one of those classics playoffs of Popovich ".

This is largely thanks to the replacement of Murray, the sophomore pro, Derrick White.

After totaling 139 minutes in 17 games during his 2017-18 rookie season, White is suddenly found in one of the most important roles of basketball: the starting goaltender. On Thursday, after nearly six months of on-the-job training, he gave us an exclamation point for the story he's been writing all season.

Against the Nuggets, the second-seeded, 24-year-old athlete scored a career-high 36 points on 15 out of 21 shots, plus five rebounds, five assists, three interceptions and a block in the win Spurs.

In the first period alone, whites scored 26 points while constantly reaching the goal.

"We could not stop it," said Nuggets coach Mike Malone for Mile High Sports. T.J. McBride. "They had 62 points in our painting and we gave 16 losses, which is an individual confinement."

Take a look at his firing chart, as seen on NBA.com:

White was so dominant in the first period that Denver was forced to move from Jamal Murray to Gary Harris. Sometimes they even gave him double teams. In response, White went ahead and handed out four of his five assists in the second half.

While San Antonio advances with the stolen advantage of the series' field in the series, he does so with a rising star who already controls adjustments in the game and thwarts them with flying colors.

If we go back to its full game score, the overall contributions are not unusual. During the season, he averaged 14.1 points, 5.6 assists, 5.2 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.0 blocks per 75 possessions (think of this as an adjusted version of the pace statistics by 36 minutes).

The notation is what is different. White was single-digit for 34 of his 67 appearances in the regular season in 2018-19. In a team with LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan, the newcomer to the league was naturally deferential.

But in this series against Denver, he was much more aggressive. After scoring 16 points on 7 out of 10 shots in San Antonio's first game win, the young goalkeeper was congratulated by head coach Gregg Popovich.

"It's spectacular for someone who has been put in this position," said Popovich, of Ohm Youngmisuk, of ESPN. "Learning this position with a group of new players is really remarkable when he did what he did, so hopefully he will continue to play this way because it's going to be a long series."

He has.

In fact, it keeps getting better. After three playoff games, whites now have an average of 23 points on 69% of shots. San Antonio beat Denver by 23 points in his minutes and 17 points in all the others.

This offensive improvement did not come from nowhere.

"White initiate more pick-and-roll and burn through more readers than all the others than DeMar DeRozan, "wrote Dan Favale of Bleacher Report when he identified White as the post-season Spurs X factor".His attendance percentage in these downhill attacks is 12.5%, a top in the team, and he has increased his volume in pull-up jumps on this side of the break from the stars.

The numbers in this series are consistent with what White did during the season. According to Basketball Reference, San Antonio was over-5.8 points for 100 possessions when White was on the ground and less than 0.6 when he was absent, a move of 6.4 points.

Do you know who else had that kind of impact during his second season? Murray, who improved San Antonio's net score by 5.6 points per 100 possessions in 2017-18.

Both guards have a larger size for the leader position, which should further pique the interest of Spurs fans. Together, Murray and White can help bring the Spurs into the basketball era without a stance while tormenting backcourt opponents with their defense.

This season, White was second among the leaders of the ESPN ESPN's more-less ESPN defender. Last year, Dejounte Murray was the first. If you place these two 1 of the size of a wing next to DeRozan, the defense of the latter may suddenly stop provoking anger. White and Murray will cover a multitude of ailments.

And with White's recent emergence as a scorer, answering questions about Murray's offensive limits may not be as critical. The trio has the potential for synergy at both ends of the room and the average age of its members is 25 years. This is a group on which the Spurs can potentially count for a while.

In the now? With Murray out, the Spurs will continue to rely on whites.

After the match 3 win, Popovich called it "spectacular," according to the NBA on ESPN's Twitter account:

It will probably have to be for the rest of the series if San Antonio finishes the game. But even if this series ends earlier than some Popovich classics to which O & # 39; Shaughnessy To do this, White sheds light on the future for an organization that has dominated the past.