I'll take the W but...

[TwoHandJam]

I was not overly impressed with the effort tonight. Spurs looked like they were coasting and weren't careful with the ball. Parker and Manu were the only Spurs I thought played exceptionally well tonight.

The Raptors were tenacious but I expected a better margin of victory at home against a team of their caliber.

[TheWriter]

29-35

11-19


Explains the closeness of the game. And probably the reason the Spurs seemed to not want to play tougher and tighter D. The refs sucked.

[Experiment2100]

The refs sucked.
That's three straight games

[TwoHandJam]

I agree the refs stunk but I still expected better. You have to just put your head down and play through that bullshit as much as possible.

[SpursChampsIII]

Pop f'd up by keeping Devin Brown in the game to cover Marshall. Why not Horry? Pop is a great coach, but he is capable of brain farts...was almost a brain shit tonight.

[TwoHandJam]

Yeah, he tried to go small but Marshall was a real mismatch.

[SequSpur]

Its the Malik factor. The heart is gone.

:lol

[Manu20]

The spurs have been making to many turnovers this past few games.
They had 17 tonight.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

I think they're bored, and ready for the post-season.

[T Park]

Im hoping the team didn't peak too early.

BTW Pop, whats wrong with playing Mohammed, he cant learn to play the D unless you freakin play him.


Also, someone put Brent Barry's face on a milk carton, hes been MIA lately.


Same with Devin Brown's jump shot.

[Kori Ellis]

I thought this was a horrible game. I really wanted them to destroy the Raptors. It's time to start putting away teams. The Spurs perimeter D was good, turning the Raptors all into drivers, but then they just fouled them in the interior resulting in the 35 FT attempts for Toronto. Also, I don't care if the Raptors only shot 30-odd percent, you shouldn't let them score 50 points in a half (second half).

[MannyIsGod]

This team does not have the killer instinct of other title teams. They don't have the intensity or passion to simply flip a switch during the playoffs. It's not their personality, yet the effort they've been giving for months seems to indicate thats what they think.

I honestly think a lot of this falls on Pop. I've not really been critical of him in the past, but this year he's pissed me off quite a bit. Who on this team is going to lead them and fire them up? WHO?

[T Park]

what is pop supposed to do, produce a player like this out of thin air?

[MannyIsGod]

No, but trading away the biggest contributer of what your team lacks most, heart, is a bad move to begin with.

However, since there's no use crying over spilled milk, I think he should stick with a damn lineup to begin with. Maybe being on a the damn bench for a week or 2 will fire Devin up. Same for Rasho. I'm tired of the babying.

[timvp]

As Sequ said, without Malik the heart, toughness, fight, attitude and courage is gone.

:drunk

Now the Spurs have a 12th man center who the Spurs are trying to ease into everything so they don't hurt his feelings.

Nice.

:shootme

[T Park]

Rasho played well tonight, what the fuck.

BTW, the SPurs blew a huge lead in November vs Toronto and lost, and Malik was on the team then, whats the excuse there.

[timvp]

I'm talking about Nazr. Pop is acting like he's Jack Haley or something.

[MannyIsGod]

Rasho played well tonight, what the fuck.

BTW, the SPurs blew a huge lead in November vs Toronto and lost, and Malik was on the team then, whats the excuse there.

This team has been lacking heart all year, but you don't subtract what heart you do have.

[CosmicCowboy]

In case you guys haven't noticed the Spurs have the best record in the NBA and Pop was trying to make sure it got extended last night. Nazr will get his minutes in garbage time till Pop is confident he has padding on home court. He is not "coddling" Mohammed...just being smart and giving the guy time to learn the system before relying on him in crunch time to make game winning/losing decisions...


as far as "heart" goes this team has nothing to worry about...The Raptors played a scrappy game despite poor shooting...and give the Spurs a little credit for that...Spurs got beat by these guys last time because they got hot on the perimeter and the game plan was to take that away from them this time...and it worked...but extending the perimeter opens up holes for the man on man drives to the basket and the fouls that come from that with the new defensive rules...The Raptors MADE 29 free throws...10 more than the Spurs even TOOK...that is the ONLY thing that kept this game close despite the Spurs turnovers...

[ChumpDumper]

IMO Pop is trying out shit like small ball to see if he can force mismatches the way teams always do to us. One would think if the players we have play the way we all know they can, it wouldn't look that bad. I guess when more than one player isn't playing to his potential, it's easier to blame the coach.

[S4Spur21]

Duncan 13 pts... man..