San Antonio is back in the second round. The Spurs dismantled the Portland Trail Blazers 114-95 on Tuesday. It sealed a 4-1 series win and ended a nine-year wait.
Their last playoff series victory came in 2017. This one was different. This one had De’Aaron Fox.
Fox Delivers When It Counts
Fox has been the best player in this series. Full stop. He finished Game 5 with 21 points and nine assists in 34 minutes, but the number that really matters is 13. That is how many points he scored in the fourth quarter alone, when Portland was threatening to make things uncomfortable.
The Trail Blazers had clawed back to within nine points after an 11-0 run midway through the final quarter. The momentum had shifted. Fox put a stop to it. He checked back in with 6:17 left on the clock and scored nine consecutive San Antonio (5.48) points. The lead stretched to 13. Portland never recovered.
Across the full game, Fox scored or assisted on 42 points. His teammates converted 9 of 12 shots from his passes, worth 21 points on their own. That kind of playmaking is what separates good players from great ones.
“De’Aaron is nice,” said forward Julian Champagnie. “I’ve been on the opposite side, and it’s not fun to guard him. It’s his world, and we’re kind of living in it.”
Coach Mitch Johnson was equally effusive. “He was a Clutch Player of the Year for a reason,” Johnson said after the game. “He may be as good as any player I’ve ever seen at balancing when to play off it and when to go on it. When he gets on it, he doesn’t mess around.” Fox won that Clutch Player of the Year award back in the 2022-23 season. On Tuesday night, he looked every bit worthy of it.
Champagnie and a Fast Start
The Spurs did not wait around in Game 5. They led by 10 in the first quarter, pushed that to 20 early in the second, and had stretched the advantage to 28 late in the half. It looked like a procession.
Champagnie was at the heart of that early dominance. He had not exceeded nine points in any of the previous four games in this series. Tuesday was different. He shot 5-of-7 in the first half, converting four of five attempts from three-point range, and finished the game with 19 points, seven rebounds and three assists.
The Spurs as a team shot 67% from the field in the opening half. That matched their best shooting performance in any half this entire season, including the playoffs. Six San Antonio players finished in double figures. Portland simply had no answer.
Wembanyama Shuts Portland Down
If Fox was the offensive engine, Victor Wembanyama was the defensive backbone. The 20-year-old finished with 17 points, 14 rebounds and six blocks. Portland shot just 3-of-12 on shots he contested in Game 5 alone. Across the full series, the Blazers converted only 19% of shots when Wembanyama was the nearest defender. He finished the series with 16 blocks in total.
Those numbers place him in rare company. He became just the third player since blocks became an official statistic in 1973-74 to average 20 points and four blocks over his first four career playoff games. Brook Lopez managed it in 2013. Alonzo Mourning did it in 1993. Wembanyama has done it now, in his first taste of the postseason.
He also became the first player since Patrick Ewing in 1994 to record back-to-back double-doubles with six or more blocks in the playoffs. For a player still learning the game at this level, that is a staggering achievement.
“We gained experience,” Wembanyama said simply. “I’m still hungry for even better matchups.”
Portland Runs Out of Steam
The Trail Blazers never really found their feet in this series. They shot 35.1% from the field in Game 5 and managed just 23.4% from three-point range. They scored fewer than 100 points in three of the five games, which tells its own story.
Stephon Castle was a nightmare to deal with throughout. As Portland’s primary ball-handler, he held the Blazers to 4-of-13 from the field and 2-of-10 from deep. Portland were physical with Fox throughout the series too, denying him off the ball. It did not matter. San Antonio found answers everywhere they looked.
To their credit, the Blazers did not give up. They cut the deficit to nine late in the fourth quarter and had the Spurs looking over their shoulders briefly. Fox ended that conversation quickly.
What Comes Next
San Antonio now waits on either the Denver Nuggets or the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Timberwolves currently lead that series 3-2, so a second-round clash is close.
The Spurs are the Western Conference’s second seed and have looked the part throughout this series. They are deep, disciplined and have a closer in Fox who thrives under pressure. The second round should suit them.
For Portland, the focus shifts to the future. Deni Avdija, Jrue Holiday, Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe and Damian Lillard — still recovering from an Achilles injury — are all contracted for next season. The core is there. But the Blazers ranked 29th in field-goal percentage during the regular season and hold no picks in either round of the 2026 NBA Draft. There is work to do.
The head coaching position also remains vacant after Tiago Splitter served in an interim capacity. He guided Portland to a 42-40 record and the seventh seed, which is a decent return. Whether he gets the permanent role remains to be seen.
San Antonio, though, is not thinking about any of that. They have their first playoff series win in nine years. The young Spurs are only getting started.
