Spurs at Knicks Previews

[duncan228]

Game is Tuesday, 6:30 CST.


San Antonio (29-4) at New York (19-14) (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/preview?gid=2011010418)
Tipoff: 7:30 pm EST Tue Jan 4, 2011
TV: FSSW, MSG
By Matt Becker

Over this past week, the San Antonio Spurs have shut down some of the league’s top offenses during a remarkable defensive turnaround.

The Spurs hope to keep this going against the NBA’s highest-scoring team and become the first club to reach 30 wins Tuesday night against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

San Antonio (29-4) didn’t win its 30th game last season until Feb. 11, but is now one away from that mark following Saturday’s 101-74 victory over Oklahoma City. Tim Duncan had 21 points and nine rebounds and Tony Parker had 14 points and 10 assists as the Spurs won for the 14th time in 15 games.

Although San Antonio is off to one of the 10 best starts in NBA history and is poised to become the first team since the 2007-08 Boston Celtics to win 30 of its first 34 games, Gregg Popovich wasn’t happy with his team’s defense a week ago.

He has emphasized more focus on the defensive end, and the Spurs seem to have gotten the message.

They held the high-powered Thunder to a season low in scoring and field-goal percentage (32.9 percent) and limited NBA leading scorer Kevin Durant to 16 points.

“I hope it’s an indication that we’re getting better at (defense), because it was impressive,” Popovich said.

San Antonio has had a couple of performances similar to this over the past week, allowing an average of 82.3 points on 37.1 percent shooting in winning its last four games - which includes holding the Lakers to 82 points on Tuesday. This outstanding stretch came immediately after the Spurs surrendered an average of 110.8 points on 50.0 percent shooting in their previous five games.

“Hopefully it turns into a trend,” Manu Ginobili said. “We are very happy with the way we’ve played the last few games. Hopefully we just don’t relax. We’ll try to keep it up.”

The Spurs did a good job defensively against New York in sweeping last season’s series, limiting the Knicks (19-14) to 88 and 87 points in the two games. It could be a different story this time around, however, with Amare Stoudemire powering New York’s offense.

The Knicks, 1-9 against San Antonio since 2005-06, have the league’s top-ranked offense at 107.2 points - a 5.1-point improvement from last season - and Stoudemire is averaging 28.7 points in his last three games.

“They want to score points,” Duncan said of the Knicks. “They want to get up and down, and we’re going to have to try to control that.”

Stoudemire has also given the Spurs trouble from his days with Phoenix, averaging 32.7 points and 11.3 rebounds in three meetings last season.

The star forward had 26 points, including six of New York’s last seven, in Sunday’s 98-92 win over Indiana to lead six Knick players in double figures.

New York also came up with a strong defensive effort Sunday, limiting the Pacers to 15 fourth-quarter points in its third straight home victory.

“This was definitely huge,” Stoudemire said. “This was a big game for us. Indiana is right behind us as far as the playoff race, so it was important for us to get this win. We understand how big this game was for us and in the fourth quarter, we played with a sense of urgency and we were able to get the win.”

The victory may have come at a price, however, as starting forward Danilo Gallinari left in the fourth quarter with a sprained left knee after scoring 19 points. X-rays were negative and he will have an MRI to determine its severity.

*********************

Team Stat Leaders

Points
Manu Ginobili SA 18.7
Amar'e Stoudemire NY 26.4

Rebounds
Tim Duncan SA 9.4
Amar'e Stoudemire NY 9.0

Assists
Tony Parker SA 7.1
Raymond Felton NY 8.7

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/preview?gid=2011010418

[Mel_13]

With Gallinari out 2-3 weeks, Turiaf gets the start

An MRI Monday afternoon on Danilo Gallinari didn’t confirm the worst for the Knicks _ but it wasn’t the best news, either,

The team said the third-year forward suffered a “mild sprained left knee” that would require a recovery time of 2-3 weeks.

That means, starting with tonight’s Garden game against the 29-4 Spurs, which precedes the Knicks’ four-game trip west (Suns, Lakers, Blazers, Jazz), the Knicks’ fourth-leading scorer (15.6) could miss as many as 10 games if he sits out three weeks.

Yet, instead of simply plugging in another small forward for Gallinari, who injured the knee midway through the fourth quarter of Sunday’s 98-92 victory over Indiana when Brandon Rush, falling on a drive to the basket, rolled into his knee and bent it backward, coach Mike D’Antoni actually came up with the same thought as yours truly had a hunch about earlier Monday _ which only makes “yours truly” a blind squirrel finding an acorn.

He’s going to start Ronny Turiaf at the 5 and move Amar’e Stoudemire back to the 4,plus Wilson Chandler to the 3.

Which were our thoughts exactly after watching how the Knicks’ defense performed during the fourth quarter of Sunday’s otherwise unsightly victory when both Turiaf and Stoudemire were on the floor.

What would happen when Gallo returns, if MD’A likes the bigger lineup, he wouldn’t say Monday, although our suggestion would be to put Chandler back on the bench as the sixth man.

D’Antoni, though, liked how Stoudemire and Turiaf clogged up the inside Sunday, as Turiaf (six blocks overall) and Stoudemire (two) gave the Knicks better interior defense than they’ve had in awhile.

Which lately (our opinion) has been virtually none, especially when Stoudemire picks up an early foul and goes soft to avoid a second.

That shouldn’t happen out of the box if it’s Turiaf, and not Stoudemire, starting out on the opposition’s big man, such as Dwight Howard _ .or, Tuesday, Tim Duncan.

“Both of us our great shot-blockers, so it’s tough for them to get to the basket,” Stoudemire said of pairing with Turiaf after Sunday’s game in a tone that all-but-endorsed the idea _ for he considers himself a 4, not a 5.

Our thinking going forward if MD’A sticks with that lineup: Turiaf and Stoudemire could alternate at the 5, while from either the bench or as starting 3, Chandler could also move up to the 4 for some minutes. So could Shawne Williams.

And if Chandler’s on the bench, he and Toney Douglas (if he can keep figuring out a way to play without raising his right arm above his sprained right shoulder), plus Williams are a decent reserve rotation from an offensive standpoint. Decent defensively, too.

D’Antoni, though, also noted that with Turiaf and Stoudemire starting together (before Turiaf’s second injury hiatus of the season), the Knicks went 5-1 to christen their eventual 14-1 season-changing run.

Turiaf still probably won’t play more than 20-25 minutes a night, MD’A acknowledged, even though he’s tossed the heavy brace he was wearing to protect his left knee and looks livelier.

But with the Knicks headed west to play some size (the Lakers’ Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum, Portland’s Marcus Camby and LaMarcus Aldridge, and Utah’s Al Jefferson), a Turiaf-Stoudemire pairing could get a decent test.

Meanwhile, Gallinari will now miss significant time for the second season in his three in the NBA. He played only 28 games as a rookie because of back problems that eventually required surgery. Last season, however, he missed just one game because of a sore right forearm.

***

http://blogs.northjersey.com/blogs/knickknacks/

[TimmehC]

Damnit, another short-handed team?

[ohmwrecker]

Should be a good one since the Knicks are all fired up about RJ's comments.

[DieHardSpursFan1537]

I gotta go with the Spurs in this one. Spurs have always dominated the Knicks, they just have got to stop Stodamire.

[TampaDude]

I gotta go with the Spurs in this one. Spurs have always dominated the Knicks, they just have got to stop Stodamire.

Actually, we just have to let Amare get his, and shut down the rest. Easy win for the Spurs.

[Old School 44]

With the league and the media starting to take note of the Spurs gaudy record, everyone will be gunning for us even more so than usual, especially teams like the Knicks who I'm sure are looking for some credibility.

Also, more than probably any other coach, D'Antoni would love to cool down the Spurs. After all, the Spurs practically relocated him to NY.

[DieHardSpursFan1537]

Actually, we just have to let Amare get his, and shut down the rest. Easy win for the Spurs.
You speak the truth. I think there really is no solution. He's always going to score 20 points a game. Spurs should let him have his points.

[Martin R]

I think SPURS are gonna win by +10.
Some players will be partially rested for the Boston game the day after. I expect the big 3 to play -5min vs current average.

[WeNeedLength]

Spurs should take care of business early so they don't have a disaster like against the Clippers a month ago on a B2B only this time it will be Celtics who are no Clippers. Ginobili definitely should not be over-extended minutes wise because he'll be needed Wednesday. Amare is going to dunk all over us but why not, we'll shut everyone else down instead. Spurs by 14. :hat

[janetcn12]

This will be a Spurs game. Win by 15. Go Spurs Go

[Fireball]

Celtics beat the Wolves by 3 tonight. So yeah, they're really good.

We struggled against the T-Wolves as well, so yeah, the Celtics are very good even without KG. But lets not get ahead of ourselves and beat the Knicks first. I agree to let Amare have his way. Good thing Gallinari is out, he is dangerous if he is on fire ...

:flag: :flag: :flag:

[100%duncan]

Actually, we just have to let Amare get his, and shut down the rest. Easy win for the Spurs.

[spurs50_]

Is that red head dude they show sometimes in a bonner jersey, is that bonner's brother?

[Brazil]

I hope the players are not overlooking the knicks like the fans because the confidence level is IMO absurd.

Spurs are the favorite but the Knicks at home is not an easy task. Felton is playing extremely well, with Danilo out, Ronny will make the knicks tougher inside: if spurs go for weak lay-ups he is gonna blk everything, Chandler will play at 3 and can be very tough to guard and play and lol at letting Amare scoring 40 yeah right we are so powerful we can let a guy like Amare scoring at will. ridiculous.

[mathbzh]

Ronny will make the knicks tougher inside: if spurs go for weak lay-ups he is gonna blk everything

A couple of pump-fake and Turiaf should be in foul trouble.

[elec99]

I have no idea how NY plays but you cant really stop amare. He's a foul machine. Brush up against him slightly as he slips a pnr and you've just earned a foul. He can put timmy on the bench pretty fast, but thats with nash running the show. Not sure if felton and amare are a pnr machine. I'm actually hoping to rest enough of the starters legs for tomorrow's game, but one game at a time...

[shelshor]

http://www.nba.com/news/referee.html
Referee Assignments
Tue. Jan. 4
San Antonio @ New York: Jason Phillips; Tommy Nunez Jr.; Sean Wright

[GrandeDavid]

If the Spurs are clangin' it, they'll probably lose. I hope that the couple days off and overall health of the team will prevent that. I'd like to state that I think Jefferson's comments are way blown out of proportion. He didn't say anything remotely insulting about the Knicks, he just stated his opinion which indicates that league-wide balance is better than just the big cities being good. Comments are not, I look for the Spurs to win tonight handily.

[Cessation]

I think blue means sarcasm.

[buttsR4rebounding]

I have no idea how NY plays but you cant really stop amare. He's a foul machine. Brush up against him slightly as he slips a pnr and you've just earned a foul. He can put timmy on the bench pretty fast, but thats with nash running the show. Not sure if felton and amare are a pnr machine. I'm actually hoping to rest enough of the starters legs for tomorrow's game, but one game at a time...

I have watched 3 games this year that the Knicks have played in. In each game Amare's points came primarily on one-on-one post up moves and 15 to 20 foot jumpers. The guy is super fast with that baseline spin for a lay up, dunk or little 2 foot shot. He and Felton do not run the pick-and-roll anywhere near as much as Nash and Amare did on the Suns. Turiaf is a defensive stud, but is darn near invisible on offense. I look for Timmy to guard him and come with the weak side help on Amare.

[duncan228]

Advanced Scouting: San Antonio Spurs at New York Knicks (http://www.48minutesofhell.com/spurs-stats-advanced-scouting-san-antonio-spurs-new-york-knicks)
by Scott Sereday
48 Minutes of Hell

http://www.48minutesofhell.com/spurs-stats-advanced-scouting-san-antonio-spurs-new-york-knicks

[ajballer4]

Is that red head dude they show sometimes in a bonner jersey, is that bonner's brother?

No, Bonners brother plays, or did play, for the Toros

[duncan228]

Spurs prep for raucous Garden party (http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnation/2011/01/04/spurs-prep-for-raucous-garden-party/)
Jeff McDonald

..."Madison Square Garden, that’s the place,” Popovich said. “You think about playing basketball, the Garden is like the pinnacle. Like some actors have charisma and some don’t, that place has got it.”

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnation/2011/01/04/spurs-prep-for-raucous-garden-party/

*********************


Tuesday: Spurs (29-4) at Knicks (19-14) (http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnation/2011/01/04/tuesday-spurs-29-4-at-knicks-19-14/)
Jeff McDonald

...Knicks rank first in the league in scoring (107.2 ppg), one of only three teams ahead of Spurs (105.6). … Spurs have picked up their defense lately, allowing 82.3 points and 37.1 percent shooting over past four games. …

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnation/2011/01/04/tuesday-spurs-29-4-at-knicks-19-14/

[duncan228]

Knicks' keys against the Spurs (http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/knicks/post/_/id/1776/knicks-keys-against-the-spurs)
By Jared Zwerling
ESPN New York

It's not so much of a surprise that the Spurs, who enter the Garden tonight, have the best record in the league at 29-4. Since 1997, when the team drafted Tim Duncan, they've won at least 50 games each year and haven't missed the playoffs once. (During the half-season lockout in 1998-99, they won 37.) What's been a surprise is how they've amassed that record with Duncan being only the team's third-leading scorer (13.6 ppg, a career-low). Here's how they're doing it and how the Knicks have to stop it:


Gregg Popovich, who's now in his 15th season as Spurs head coach, has for the first time ditched his deliberate halfcourt offense in favor of an up-tempo attack. Since Duncan's arrival, the team has never been higher than 19th in possessions per 48 minutes; they now rank 10th. The Spurs' 105.6 points per game rank fourth in the league; the previous high for a Popovich-coached team was 10th. They have done it by moving away from Duncan as the focal point of the offense and targeting their guard play. As a result, Manu Ginobili has raised his scoring average from the past two seasons to 18.7 ppg and he's second in the league in three-pointers made per game (2.5). Also, Tony Parker is averaging a career-best 7.1 assists. Not to mention, the Spurs are spreading out their scoring. In addition to the double-figure Big 3 of Duncan, Ginobili and Parker, Richard Jefferson is averaging 13.4 points and George Hill is averaging 11.5 off the bench. From SI.com: "They're pushing the ball better than any team in the league," says a Western Conference scout. "They're unselfish, and the ball moves fluidly. It's like they were built to play like this." The Knicks' transition defense will have to be at its best tonight and they'll need to be aware of cross-court passes and quick look-aheads, which Popovich has stressed since training camp.


While the Spurs' defense is not picture-perfect like it was when they won four titles, it's still strong. They're holding opponents to 96.7 points per game, which is the 10th-best mark in the league. Now that Danilo Gallinari is out for two to three weeks with a mild left knee sprain, the Knicks will need a scoring boost. But their defense shouldn't have a big setback.

.....................W/ GALLINARI.........W/O GALLINARI
Pts/48 Mins..........108.9..............99.4 (937 in 452 min)
Opp Pts/48 Mins...106.9..............101.3 (955 in 452 min)
Pt diff/48 Mins......+2.0................-1.9 (-18 in 452 min)
FG pct..................48.0................43.1 (350-812)
3-pt FG pct...........38.6................34.1 (85-249)
Opp FG pct...........47.7................44.2 (353-799)
Opp 3-pt FG pct....38.9................32.2 (56-174)
Compiled by Mike Lynch, ESPN Research


Without Gallo, Toney Douglas needs to pick up right where he left off against the Pacers (12 points and seven assists in 29 minutes). It was arguably the backup point guard's best game as a scorer and playmaker. Also Shawne Williams will have to hit some big threes and if Landry Fields can create a little more off the dribble and get to the line, which he's capable of, that wouldn't hurt either. Overall, expect to see the starting five play more than their league-high 38.9 minutes per game average because the Knicks will need everything and more from them to stymie the Spurs.

Unfortunately, the Knicks' first unit needs to have a perfect game tonight to beat the Spurs because, right now, they don't have enough punch off the bench. When the Magic beat the Spurs 123-101 on December 23, even though they got outrebounded 46 vs. 39, which could eat up the Knicks tonight (from Duncan to DeJuan Blair), they got enough second-unit production to overcome the Spurs' fast-paced charge (44 points). After Douglas and Williams, the question becomes: Who else can step up offensively?

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/knicks/post/_/id/1776/knicks-keys-against-the-spurs

[TDMVPDPOY]

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/knicks/post/_/id/1776/knicks-keys-against-the-spurs

article is horseshit once again from horseshit site, 123-101 yeh 2nd half was mainly bench vs magics starting 5 still statpadding in a blowup win

[WeNeedLength]

article is horseshit once again from horseshit site, 123-101 yeh 2nd half was mainly bench vs magics starting 5 still statpadding in a blowup win


Tell us how you really feel lol...

[G-Nob]

Knicks 99
Spurs 84

Its a trap!