Dion Waiters says LaMarcus Aldridge alone can't beat OKC

[GSH]

I wonder if they gave the other players those wide-open shots on purpose? The ones that they just missed?

[BillMc]

He was a sequence of bad calls/plays away from beating them by himself on Monday. In a fluke game where everybody else was cold, OKC was hot, and where he didn't see a "one-man show" number of touches.... He literally was an Ibaka jersey grab and hack away from putting in a game winning layup for his 43rd point on just 22 shots.

I really think he could beat them by himself, but he won't have to.

This. That's why the "let LaMarcus get his" theory doesn't hold up. He's not scoring so much by being a volume shooter, he's doing it efficiently. Tim had 8 shots (which is par for the course for him these days) , Kawhi 18, Danny 11, Patty 9, Tony 9, West 8, Manu 8. No major player had only 3 or 4 except Boris, it was fairly distributed. Make ONE more of them and we're good.

And if LMA had made that last shot for 43 and the win, what an epic performance this would have been. Legendary. Shame it didn't happen.

[DMC]

Win or lose, it has nothing to do with what any of these clowns say before or after the game.

[LongtimeSpursFan]

Yeah and it the Spurs would have scored two more points in game 2 the Thunder wwould be talking about how Aldridge is dominating series and what they need to do to make him uncomfortable

[Spurs da champs]

The team is leaning too much on LMA.

Need to get everyone involved

They didnt lean enough on him in the 2nd half.

[spurs10]

He was a sequence of bad calls/plays away from beating them by himself on Monday. In a fluke game where everybody else was cold, OKC was hot, and where he didn't see a "one-man show" number of touches.... He literally was an Ibaka jersey grab and hack away from putting in a game winning layup for his 43rd point on just 22 shots.

I really think he could beat them by himself, but he won't have to.

Kawhi gonna have to choke a .

[Mnky]

Gameplay is fine. LMA shots are fine. Rest of the spurs need to step up. Take away lma shooting percentage and the spurs had an embaressing night shooting for a home playoff game. They were 40% with his percentage. That's 4 in 10 shots with lma. And then lost by 1 pt. Waiters and the thunder wish the spurs would change it up. If the spurs are dumb enough to do it, they deserve to lose.

[spurraider21]

Kawhi gonna have to choke a .

don't be jinxing

[Horse]

So he admits they almost got beat by one guy. More important who gives a what he thinks?

[DPG21920]

Dion Waiters talking is the classic over confident scrub talking that you see every single year. Who cares. He will talk all the way up until the end of the series whether OKC win's or loses & whether or not he plays a role in that as long as there is a mic in his face.

[Gervin44Silas13]

It's quite possible they know SA is a two man team and so long as they have one of them under wraps, the other alone going nuclear along with some scattered scoring from the committee won't kill them they think and of the two, Kawhi going off is probably the most dangerous to them bc Kawhi gets in a zone that can kill you with the 3.

But it's clear they don't want any role player to get it going off doubling so they will live with LMA, rather than giving up 3s to Danny or Kawhi for example. They risked the 3 with Tony and Tony didn't make those open 3s, but they were selective to not allow Tony to get in a rhythm either. They didn't dare him all night bc bottom line Tony can make those shots and if he gets the jumpshot going all of a sudden they need to worry about Tony too.

It's been a solid srategy so far.

To me that spells trouble for the bench and the roleplayers. If they execute well none of those guys will get anything easy. D west and Dias need to play better or Boban needs minutes with the bench.

They Just need to effn Show up!!!

[SpursDynasty]

What does Waiters call 124-92? And who has even heard of Steven Adams before this series? You get blown out in Game 1, win Game 2 by one point and speak as if you've played at least as good as SA the entire series.

Aldridge is getting easy points because OKC are soft defenders.

[hooperflash]

This is why I prefer Kawhi doing interviews his way and not Dion's way

[timtonymanurich]

Who is "Dion Waiters"?

[timtonymanurich]

Good thing there's 4 other Spurs that play simultaneously WITH Aldridge.
Probably one of the dumbest things an opponent has said. Next to anything that came/comes out of Rasheed Wallace's halitosis-riddled chompers.

[BillMc]

I guess Dion blocked out Game 1 when Kawhi and Green did a number on them in addition to LMA.

[UZER]

It's a shot at Kawhi because he was guarding him in game 2.

[daslicer]

This guy is either going to look good by saying what he said or look like a fool depending on how the series turns out. Hopefully the Spurs win the series just for the comedy of seeing this guy fall apart.

[HarlemHeat37]

Waiters is on fire, tbh..he is the same genius that pulled off a move that NBA officials and most people involved with the NBA had never seen before, and it helped his team get a playoff W

He's just riding the momentum..

[Horry Hipcheck]

Unfortunately Pop has some kinda minutes restriction for Leonard.

He sat for stretches with Westbrook on the floor in G2 because he picked up two fouls with like 6 minutes remaining in the first half. If the Thunderefs would let him ing play he could reasonably stay with Westbrook more frequently.

[Horry Hipcheck]

Good thing there's 4 other Spurs that play simultaneously WITH Aldridge.
Probably one of the dumbest things an opponent has said. Next to anything that came/comes out of Rasheed Wallace's halitosis-riddled chompers.

He said like Aldridge was the only one responsible for the s acking they got handed in Game 1. Aldridge with 38, sure, but Kawhi had 25 and Danny had 18. Pick and pop with Aldridge worked wonders against them, so it makes sense to go to it somewhat frequently. Had Aldridge won Game 1 by himself and Game 2 played out the way it did, I could see this remark holding some weight. As it stands, Aldridge is torching them on offense and it took the entire rest of the team ting the bed to give OKC a one point win.

[Ice009]

The team is leaning too much on LMA.

Need to get everyone involved

They are actually not. He's just been insanely efficient. He should have gotten the ball even more in game 2. His teammates really need to step up big time and help him out.

[Horry Hipcheck]

They are actually not. He's just been insanely efficient. He should have gotten the ball even more in game 2. His teammates really need to step up big time and help him out.

Agreed. Through two games he's only attempted 44 field goals. It's that he's scored 79 combined points on 33 makes and some converted FTs that make it look like he's the only offense the Spurs have. Tbh I feel like 2013 Finals Danny was the last time a Spurs player was so efficient on offense in at least two consecutive games.

[weebo]

Westbrook shot about about as well as he could, he hardly missed a jump shot. Durant didn't miss many either. Adams had a great game and they won by 1.....

The Spurs on the other hand outside of Aldridge shat the bed, got behind big, but came back to LEAD, only to crap that away.

I mean, had the Thunder won that game by 10, Spurs didn't play their starters much in the fourth, then I'd be worried.

They'd played a C- game and damn near won....

All great points. Not worried here.

[YGWHI]

Backhanded shot a Kawhi.

Not really. That's on Spurs Offense.

He said "So we're fine with that. If they want to continue to get out of their offense and throw the ball down there to him, we're fine with that. One guy can't beat us, no matter how much he scores."

That tells us more about our offense only feeding LMA, and not involving other players.

Their strategy is "let LMA get his and shut down every else", that's why they didn't double him that much.

It's the same Warriors tactic, let LMA gets his shots from the pick and pops...the Dubs didn't even try to defend those plays in the 3 games of the regular season.

I'd look this numbers from Moore's article.

-In the 42 minutes and 51 seconds that Aldridge was on the floor, the Spurs were outscored by four points.

-Since 2009, when San Antonio started to transition their offensive approach, the Spurs have had only two 40-point-plus performances. Tony Parker scored 43 in a 2009 game against the Mavericks, and Aldridge in Game 2 vs. the Thunder. The Spurs are 0-2 in those games.

His first point is just BS but the latter shows why that's Thunder strategy. A team who involves only one player on offense it's easier to beat.