De'Aaron said Thursday morning that he can play through the right ankle sprain that has followed him through the Western Conference Finals, giving the San Antonio Spurs a late check on one of their most important ballhandlers before Game 4 against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Fox did not try to dress up the injury. He said he did not feel great, but was able to suit up, a plain answer that mattered because his status has shifted the Spurs’ approach all series. San Antonio listed him as questionable for the first two games before downgrading him before tipoff each time, and the team has spent the matchup trying to manage a player whose presence changes both the pace and the turnover count.
That is why the search for Fox’s status matters on Game 4 day. The Spurs turned the ball over 44 times across Games 1 and 2, when he was unavailable, then had 28 turnovers in the two games he played after returning. The numbers are not a perfect straight line, but they point to the same thing: when Fox is on the floor, San Antonio has a steadier handle on the game.
The problem is that Fox is not the only one playing through discomfort. Ahead of Game 3 in San Antonio, he and Dylan Harper were both tagged questionable, and both took the floor even though neither looked fully right. Stephon Castle put the challenge plainly, saying one player cannot make up for what Fox or Harper brings. That is the friction in San Antonio’s postseason so far: availability has been enough to get them on the court, but not enough to make them whole.
The other side of the series has lived with its own injury swing. The Thunder lost Jalen Williams to a re-aggravated left hamstring in Game 2, and he has been ruled out since, even as Oklahoma City tries to absorb the absence of a player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander called a caliber of talent whose loss hurts no matter how strong the roster is otherwise. San Antonio, meanwhile, has already shown it can survive one Fox absence, winning a double-overtime game at Paycom Center behind Victor Wembanyama’s first 40-20 outing of his career.
What remains unanswered is the part that will decide whether Fox’s availability really changes the game: how much he can do if he does play, and for how long. The Spurs know he can answer the bell. Game 4 will show whether his ankle lets him do much more than that.
