duncan228
11-10-2008, 11:15 PM
Spurs can’t defend sluggish start (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/Spurs_cant_defend_sluggish_start.html)
By Jeff McDonald
Decked out in a sports coat and dress shoes, Manu Ginobili has watched each of the Spurs’ three home losses from the same spot behind the team’s bench. Tonight, Tony Parker will join him.
For those scoring at home — and, odds are, the Spurs won’t be — that’s last year’s leading scorer and this year’s leading scorer, both on the shelf with a bad left ankle.
Lost in the Spurs’ early-season injury-a-palooza, however, has been the notable absence of another star contributor to their championship pedigree. A suffocating defense, the ever-present backbone of the Spurs’ supremacy earlier this decade, has been largely MIA so far.
And yes, coach Gregg Popovich has noticed.
“If we don’t play good defense, it doesn’t matter if we score or not,” said Popovich, whose team is 1-4 for the first time in his 11-plus seasons. “We’re not going to score 110 points a game, so we have to keep people in the 80s or low 90s for wins. That’s how we’ve done it every year.”
The Spurs won four titles in 11 seasons on the back of a soul-choking defense, finishing in the top five in points and field-goal percentage allowed in each year of Popovich’s reign.
Five games into this season, all of that just seems like a pleasant dream.
The Spurs are giving up 98 points per contest, hardly an insurmountable number. But, in a statistic Popovich believes to be a truer measure of a team’s defensive prowess, the Spurs are also allowing opponents to shoot 47.8 percent from the field — fifth-worst in the league.
They have yet to keep any team in the 80s or low 90s, a streak likely to continue tonight, when Mike D’Antoni brings his new-look “Seven Seconds or Less” New York Knicks to the AT&T Center, fresh off a 107-99 upset of previously unbeaten Utah.
As the shorthanded Spurs soldier forward, this much is evident: If they are to survive the rest of the month with Parker and Ginobili in street clothes, the driving force will not be George Hill or Roger Mason Jr., the injured pair’s replacement parts.
It will be the Spurs’ team defense.
“Even if Manu and Tony were healthy, we can’t continue to play the defense we have been,” Tim Duncan said. “We’re going to try to get back to the old Spurs ways, where we keep the games in the 80s.”
To that end, the Spurs’ challenge tonight is easily quantified: The Knicks are 4-0 this season when topping 100 points, 0-2 when they don’t.
Now more than ever, the Spurs find themselves in need of a defensive flashback. Just five seasons ago, they set NBA single-season records by surrendering 84.3 points per game and allowing opponents to shoot an arctic 40.9 percent from the field.
Once as stingy as Ebenezer Scrooge in a bad economy, the Spurs have been uncommonly generous so far this season.
They have struggled to defend in transition. In the half-court, weak-side help has often arrived late or not at all, abandoning the rim to all brands of aerial assault.
In perhaps the most double-take inducing barometer of the Spurs’ defensive lapses to date, they have allowed an average of 22 points per game on dunks and layups.
“We can’t take defense for granted, just because we’ve been good at it the last couple of years,” Popovich said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
For an object lesson in the healing power of a lock-down defense, Spurs forward Bruce Bowen recalls his otherwise unmemorable stint with the Miami Heat in 2000-01.
Diagnosed with a kidney disease before the season began, star center Alonzo Mourning missed all but 13 games that year. Miami won 50 games anyway, because it held opponents to just 86.6 points per game.
“We weren’t an offensive juggernaut, but we defended,” Bowen said. “In this game, when you defend, you always give yourself a chance.”
And this must be the Spurs’ focus going forward.
Minus two prime scorers for at least the rest of the month, a return to defense could be their only chance.
By Jeff McDonald
Decked out in a sports coat and dress shoes, Manu Ginobili has watched each of the Spurs’ three home losses from the same spot behind the team’s bench. Tonight, Tony Parker will join him.
For those scoring at home — and, odds are, the Spurs won’t be — that’s last year’s leading scorer and this year’s leading scorer, both on the shelf with a bad left ankle.
Lost in the Spurs’ early-season injury-a-palooza, however, has been the notable absence of another star contributor to their championship pedigree. A suffocating defense, the ever-present backbone of the Spurs’ supremacy earlier this decade, has been largely MIA so far.
And yes, coach Gregg Popovich has noticed.
“If we don’t play good defense, it doesn’t matter if we score or not,” said Popovich, whose team is 1-4 for the first time in his 11-plus seasons. “We’re not going to score 110 points a game, so we have to keep people in the 80s or low 90s for wins. That’s how we’ve done it every year.”
The Spurs won four titles in 11 seasons on the back of a soul-choking defense, finishing in the top five in points and field-goal percentage allowed in each year of Popovich’s reign.
Five games into this season, all of that just seems like a pleasant dream.
The Spurs are giving up 98 points per contest, hardly an insurmountable number. But, in a statistic Popovich believes to be a truer measure of a team’s defensive prowess, the Spurs are also allowing opponents to shoot 47.8 percent from the field — fifth-worst in the league.
They have yet to keep any team in the 80s or low 90s, a streak likely to continue tonight, when Mike D’Antoni brings his new-look “Seven Seconds or Less” New York Knicks to the AT&T Center, fresh off a 107-99 upset of previously unbeaten Utah.
As the shorthanded Spurs soldier forward, this much is evident: If they are to survive the rest of the month with Parker and Ginobili in street clothes, the driving force will not be George Hill or Roger Mason Jr., the injured pair’s replacement parts.
It will be the Spurs’ team defense.
“Even if Manu and Tony were healthy, we can’t continue to play the defense we have been,” Tim Duncan said. “We’re going to try to get back to the old Spurs ways, where we keep the games in the 80s.”
To that end, the Spurs’ challenge tonight is easily quantified: The Knicks are 4-0 this season when topping 100 points, 0-2 when they don’t.
Now more than ever, the Spurs find themselves in need of a defensive flashback. Just five seasons ago, they set NBA single-season records by surrendering 84.3 points per game and allowing opponents to shoot an arctic 40.9 percent from the field.
Once as stingy as Ebenezer Scrooge in a bad economy, the Spurs have been uncommonly generous so far this season.
They have struggled to defend in transition. In the half-court, weak-side help has often arrived late or not at all, abandoning the rim to all brands of aerial assault.
In perhaps the most double-take inducing barometer of the Spurs’ defensive lapses to date, they have allowed an average of 22 points per game on dunks and layups.
“We can’t take defense for granted, just because we’ve been good at it the last couple of years,” Popovich said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
For an object lesson in the healing power of a lock-down defense, Spurs forward Bruce Bowen recalls his otherwise unmemorable stint with the Miami Heat in 2000-01.
Diagnosed with a kidney disease before the season began, star center Alonzo Mourning missed all but 13 games that year. Miami won 50 games anyway, because it held opponents to just 86.6 points per game.
“We weren’t an offensive juggernaut, but we defended,” Bowen said. “In this game, when you defend, you always give yourself a chance.”
And this must be the Spurs’ focus going forward.
Minus two prime scorers for at least the rest of the month, a return to defense could be their only chance.