mazerrackham
01-06-2011, 12:29 AM
On a back-to-back situation, the Spurs went to the East hoping to hold on to the league’s best record, the team’s that stood in their way had other plans.
That last play of the Celtics game was upsetting. If there's one move I don't like Ginobili to make it's the stepback three point shot. Even though he pumpfaked, its a slow move, and he was double teamed, so the pumpfake is unlikely to work on both....It was also weird though because though Dice was open, he gravitated behind Duncan's man, and though Duncan could've received a pass and then had a 2-on-1 against his man, he wasn't looking for the pass at all. I think that contributed to Ginobili having to take the shot.
Anyway on to some analysis.
Offensive thoughts:
In New York, the Spurs offense was pretty hot. They scored 1.16 points out of every possession, got to the free throw line 30 times, and shot nearly 54% from the field. They did a great job of attacking the basket, getting shots at the rim with regularity, and converting 74% of those shots. The only things you can nit-pick are missing some wide open three pointers and turnovers. In Boston, they didn’t let off the gas pedal much. While I don’t have the advanced statistics, they shot 45% from the field, 40% from the three point line, and only missed one of their 17 free throws. The offense wasn’t the problem in either of these games.
Defensive thoughts:
I don’t even know where to begin here…Against the Knicks, the Spurs came out with a gameplan to clog the lane and go under screens, then recover to shooters. It didn’t work. The Knicks were knocking down everything and using crisp ball movement to make the Spurs look silly when they tried to recover and started scrambling. The result was the worst defensive effort of the year. They didn’t force many turnovers (only 6), and the Knicks shot 55% from the field. In Boston, they didn’t do much better. I felt that their effort was much more apparent, and they did manage to create a fair number of turnovers (16), but Big Baby, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen shot 68.2% from the field and accounted for 72 points for the Celtics. The Spurs were constantly failing to make it through physical Celtic screens, and eventually started switching, creating mismatches and easy scores. Both defensive efforts were utterly forgettable.
Tim Duncan
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gX7CMGJiNNw/S8phZSVaGvI/AAAAAAAAA0w/Cw9Wn36twec/s1600/tim_duncan1.jpg
Knicks:
29:03 minutes, 14 points, 1 assist, 6 rebounds, 1 block, 1 steal
3 turnovers
5-for-14 from the field
Celtics:
31:56 minutes, 14 points, 1 assist, 5 rebounds, 2 blocks,
1 turnovers
8-for-15 from the field
Tim Duncan had a poor shooting night against the Knicks, but rebounded with a strong shooting night against the Celtics. It’s hard to me to evaluate any of the Spurs defensively in the Knicks game because nobody played defense in the Knicks game. I didn’t notice anything of note in that game, and to be honest, I certainly did not feel like going back and evaluating defensive plays in that game (I think I would’ve ended up gouging my eyes out). Against the Celtics, Duncan again didn’t stand out defensively. He had a couple of good plays and they resulted in 2 blocked shots. One thing worth mentioning is that I’ve felt the Spurs have done a pretty poor job on the defensive boards during this 2 game stretch, and Duncan has only managed 5.5 rebounds per game. Coincidence? Probably not.
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Tony Parker
http://www.inflexwetrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/p1_tony_parker_si.jpg
Knicks:
31:56 minutes, 26 points, 6 assists, 2 rebounds, 2 steals
2 turnovers
9-for-15 from the field
Celtics:
33:13 minutes, 18 points, 5 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 steals
4 turnovers
8-for-13 from the field
Tony played well offensively on this back-to-back, and he’s done it by putting pressure on the defense with his driving. He’s been finishing at the rim, and dropping in floaters when the help defense threatens to alter his layup path. Against the Celtics, he should’ve done a better job taking care of the ball, as a couple of his drives he got into no-man’s land and ended up with turnovers. But in both games he was aggressive, and I liked the aggression. On defense, there isn’t much to write home about for either of these games. Tony was executing a game plan for both games. In the Knicks game, he was going under screens of Raymond Felton and watching the ball go through the hoop when he couldn’t recover to contest the jumpshot. Against Rondo and the C’s, he was sagging off of Rondo and forcing him to shoot, which when he did, he made a couple, and when he didn’t, he managed to find somebody who would drain a shot anyway. He also spent a bit of time chasing Allen through screens, and didn’t have any success slowing him down (though no Spurs did). I don’t like sagging off of great distributors like Rondo, even if they do have a poor jumpshot. The reason I don’t like it is because they have a clear view of the floor, and it’s easy to make a pass. I’d much rather put some pressure on him and force him to make a contested pass, even if it means that he’ll get some drives to the hoop. However, this isn’t Tony’s fault, it is just my grievances with Pop’s game plans.
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Manu Ginobili
http://backseatfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Manu-Ginobili.jpg
Knicks:
33:35 minutes, 15 points, 5 assists, 5 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 block
3 turnovers
5-for-11 from the field
Celtics:
33:13 minutes, 24 points, 3 assists, 8 rebounds, 5 steals
4 turnovers
7-for-12 from the field
Manu Ginobili can be lumped into the players that I didn’t see anything out of defensively in the Knicks game. He did do anything note-able, and his man was burning him as much as the next Spur. He also didn’t do a good job of taking care of the ball in either game, with 7 turnovers combined. Against the Knicks, he had a ho-hum offensive night where he didn’t hit from three, but was able to hit all 5 of his shots from inside 15 feet. Against the Celtics, it seems Manu showed everyone that he is still a game changer when he really puts his mind to it. When the Celtics started pushing the Spurs around, got a couple stops and scores in the 4th quarter, Manu was the Spur who stepped up to the challenge, hitting back to back threes, throwing in all sort of floaters, getting to the line, and accounting for more than half of the Spurs steals. It was a great performance, but fell short in the end. It’s worth noting that along with the other Spurs, when the Celtics were able to run a play without a turnover, Ginobili had his share of time getting burned by Ray Allen and Paul Pierce dumping in shots in his face.
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Richard Jefferson
http://www.nbadunkers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/RichardJefferson-Spurs415x266.jpg
Knicks:
34:56 minutes, 13 points, 1 assist, 3 rebounds
2 turnovers
5-for-8 from the field
Celtics:
30:57 minutes, 14 points, 2 assists, 2 rebounds
2 turnovers
4-for-10 from the field
Offensively, it’s more apparent that Richard is comfortable with his role. Although 8 or 10 shots a game isn’t that many, he managed to get 13 and 14 points out of those possessions in both games, and I’m pretty happy with that. While he missed some open shots against the Knicks, he did a good job of knocking them down against the Celtics. You may be thinking, wait a minute, 4-for-10 is worse than 5-for-8, but 2 of Jefferson’s misses were tip shots being contested by Celtics, so I don’t really count those. Defensively, he was ran over like everyone else by the Knicks, and against the Celtics, though nothing was spectacular, I think he actually did an okay job. If I’m not mistaken, most of Pierce’s shots came when someone else other than RJ was guarding him, but I could be mistaken. RJ to me is doing a good job of staying involved in the game even though plays aren’t being run for him much, but over these games, he should be involved in rebounding more. It’s possible that he’s been given the green light to leak out more and initiate fast break offense and it’s affecting his rebounds. He has done a good job of filling the lanes on the fast break pretty often.
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DeJuan Blair
http://cdn0.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/674168/83447_timberwolves_spurs_basketball.jpg
Knicks:
17:35 minutes, 17 points, 8 rebounds, 1 steal
0 turnovers
8-for-12 from the field
Celtics:
11:26 minutes, 2 points, 1 assist, 4 rebounds
0 turnovers
1-for-7 from the field
Dejuan Blair came out very active in the Knicks game, aggressively taking it to the hoop and finishing in a variety of ways. He also rebounded well. In the Celtics game, however, he was unable to finish against the physical Celtic bigs (except for a strong layup in traffic), and didn’t rebound well either. This was disappointing for me, as the Celtics interior bigs should theoretically be the kind of game that Dejuan is suited for, rather than quicker perimeter bigs. However, Blair has been up and down against starters, and this was one of his down nights.
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George Hill
http://highschoolbballnerd.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/mavsspurs-game4-1.jpg?w=450&h=450
Knicks:
29:39 minutes, 13 points, 1 assist, 2 rebounds
3 turnovers
5-for-6 from the field
Celtics:
33:38 minutes, 3 points, 3 assists, 2 rebounds
3 turnovers
1-for-9 from the field
George Hill was fine offensively in the Knicks game, but for someone who’s billed as the Spurs best perimeter defender, he’s got to find a way to get involved on the other end when your team is getting steamrolled like they were in the knicks game. Against the Celtics, he competed much harder on the defensive end, but it wasn’t enough. In my last write up, I mentioned how Hill gets lost behind screens at times, and the assignment of chasing around Ray Allen did nothing to quell my fears. There are times he simply gets caught on the wrong side of the screen, and then his man has created too much space for him to recover. Also, there were times when he was going under the screen on Nate Robinson and Von Wafer. Those guys may not be the purest shooters in the NBA, but both are capable enough, and once again I feel like he should be on the other side of the screen. I expect more out of George, as he’s one of my favorite players, but he was too invisible tonight against the Celtics.
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Gary Neal
http://d.yimg.com/a/p/sp/ap/2b/fullj.d1794860da623475000f053d27ebb9c3/ap-644a170e00634e0e9d6e613cc3aa2044.jpg
Knicks:
22:29 minutes, 8 points, 1 assist, 3 rebounds
0 turnovers
3-for-11 from the field
Celtics:
20:09 minutes, 10 points, 2 assists, 2 rebounds
0 turnovers
4-for-6 from the field
I don’t know if it’s a testament to how good Gary Neal has been that I’m disappointed in him, but I haven't been pleased with these last two games. Like I said in my last write up, I’m pleased that Neal doesn’t let his shooting slump affect his confidence, because that’s the mentality he needs to have to be a playoff performer and have the stones to hit difficult shots. However, against the knicks, he was one of the lone Spurs that struggled to score against the Knicks, and against the Celtics, his defense wasn’t good, though his offense got back on track a bit with some nice inside moves when he was driven off of the three point line. In fact, Neal’s inability to fight through screens had Pop put Parker on Allen when they were on the floor together. Though it wasn’t for too long, Pop clearly didn’t trust Neal to guard the hot Ray Allen tonight. Hopefully his confidence in himself will force him to keep working and he will come out of this back to back with a desire to keep working
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Matt Bonner
http://www.newhampshire.com/doclib/celebrity/bonner.jpg
Knicks:
12:49 minutes, 2 points, 3 assists, 3 rebounds
0 turnovers
1-for-1 from the field
Celtics:
30:16 minutes, 10 points, 1 assist, 3 rebounds, 1 steal
0 turnovers
4-for-10 from the field
Matt Bonner had a forgettable 2 nights. In the Knicks game, he wasn’t used much and so there’s not much to write home about. However, in the Celtics game, though he hit 3 three-pointers, he wasn’t guarding the Celtics bigs well, didn’t rebound, and overall came out with an average game. I was surprised that he got so many minutes. Though his shot was falling, the Celtics did a good enough job closing out on him that I would have preferred Dice much more, as he could defend the physical Celtic bigs much better.
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Gregg Popovich
http://danielvillarreal.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/pop-and-tony.jpg
I don’t know what to say about Pop here. Obviously he was the author, or at least had a big say in the Spurs defensive game plans against the Knicks and the Celtics, and those blew up in his face. He has done a pretty good job of spreading around guard/small forward minutes, but his big rotation puzzles me. I’m all for saving Dice for the playoffs if we have games in hand, but with the amount of times he’s been giving DNP-CD’s this season, I feel like he should be given more minutes in games like the Celtic game, where he could have a big impact. Also, I think it’s interesting that on the Celtics final possession of the game, he had the Spurs playing a zone defense that forced a miss, but then was unable to get the rebound as nobody knows which player to box out, and they all simply gravitate hoping that the rebound comes off to their area. This caused Big Baby to come down the lane for an easy put-back had Pierce’s shot missed short, and with the way the shot missed anyway, because the spurs were simply around the lane, it came off too far for them to grab it. I don’t like playing zone on a crunch-time play, even if your man defense has been burned. Use it as a change-up, but when the game is on the line, I don’t like it.
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Closing thoughts:
Hill still has a lot of improvement to make for being a consistent defensive presence.
Neal is having a slump, but I feel his confidence will help him break out of it.
I’ve been happy with Tony’s aggression, and decisions on the fast break.
I’m glad Ginobili showed some game-changing ability again.
Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. The Spurs need to cut them down big time.
That last play of the Celtics game was upsetting. If there's one move I don't like Ginobili to make it's the stepback three point shot. Even though he pumpfaked, its a slow move, and he was double teamed, so the pumpfake is unlikely to work on both....It was also weird though because though Dice was open, he gravitated behind Duncan's man, and though Duncan could've received a pass and then had a 2-on-1 against his man, he wasn't looking for the pass at all. I think that contributed to Ginobili having to take the shot.
Anyway on to some analysis.
Offensive thoughts:
In New York, the Spurs offense was pretty hot. They scored 1.16 points out of every possession, got to the free throw line 30 times, and shot nearly 54% from the field. They did a great job of attacking the basket, getting shots at the rim with regularity, and converting 74% of those shots. The only things you can nit-pick are missing some wide open three pointers and turnovers. In Boston, they didn’t let off the gas pedal much. While I don’t have the advanced statistics, they shot 45% from the field, 40% from the three point line, and only missed one of their 17 free throws. The offense wasn’t the problem in either of these games.
Defensive thoughts:
I don’t even know where to begin here…Against the Knicks, the Spurs came out with a gameplan to clog the lane and go under screens, then recover to shooters. It didn’t work. The Knicks were knocking down everything and using crisp ball movement to make the Spurs look silly when they tried to recover and started scrambling. The result was the worst defensive effort of the year. They didn’t force many turnovers (only 6), and the Knicks shot 55% from the field. In Boston, they didn’t do much better. I felt that their effort was much more apparent, and they did manage to create a fair number of turnovers (16), but Big Baby, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen shot 68.2% from the field and accounted for 72 points for the Celtics. The Spurs were constantly failing to make it through physical Celtic screens, and eventually started switching, creating mismatches and easy scores. Both defensive efforts were utterly forgettable.
Tim Duncan
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gX7CMGJiNNw/S8phZSVaGvI/AAAAAAAAA0w/Cw9Wn36twec/s1600/tim_duncan1.jpg
Knicks:
29:03 minutes, 14 points, 1 assist, 6 rebounds, 1 block, 1 steal
3 turnovers
5-for-14 from the field
Celtics:
31:56 minutes, 14 points, 1 assist, 5 rebounds, 2 blocks,
1 turnovers
8-for-15 from the field
Tim Duncan had a poor shooting night against the Knicks, but rebounded with a strong shooting night against the Celtics. It’s hard to me to evaluate any of the Spurs defensively in the Knicks game because nobody played defense in the Knicks game. I didn’t notice anything of note in that game, and to be honest, I certainly did not feel like going back and evaluating defensive plays in that game (I think I would’ve ended up gouging my eyes out). Against the Celtics, Duncan again didn’t stand out defensively. He had a couple of good plays and they resulted in 2 blocked shots. One thing worth mentioning is that I’ve felt the Spurs have done a pretty poor job on the defensive boards during this 2 game stretch, and Duncan has only managed 5.5 rebounds per game. Coincidence? Probably not.
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Tony Parker
http://www.inflexwetrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/p1_tony_parker_si.jpg
Knicks:
31:56 minutes, 26 points, 6 assists, 2 rebounds, 2 steals
2 turnovers
9-for-15 from the field
Celtics:
33:13 minutes, 18 points, 5 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 steals
4 turnovers
8-for-13 from the field
Tony played well offensively on this back-to-back, and he’s done it by putting pressure on the defense with his driving. He’s been finishing at the rim, and dropping in floaters when the help defense threatens to alter his layup path. Against the Celtics, he should’ve done a better job taking care of the ball, as a couple of his drives he got into no-man’s land and ended up with turnovers. But in both games he was aggressive, and I liked the aggression. On defense, there isn’t much to write home about for either of these games. Tony was executing a game plan for both games. In the Knicks game, he was going under screens of Raymond Felton and watching the ball go through the hoop when he couldn’t recover to contest the jumpshot. Against Rondo and the C’s, he was sagging off of Rondo and forcing him to shoot, which when he did, he made a couple, and when he didn’t, he managed to find somebody who would drain a shot anyway. He also spent a bit of time chasing Allen through screens, and didn’t have any success slowing him down (though no Spurs did). I don’t like sagging off of great distributors like Rondo, even if they do have a poor jumpshot. The reason I don’t like it is because they have a clear view of the floor, and it’s easy to make a pass. I’d much rather put some pressure on him and force him to make a contested pass, even if it means that he’ll get some drives to the hoop. However, this isn’t Tony’s fault, it is just my grievances with Pop’s game plans.
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Manu Ginobili
http://backseatfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Manu-Ginobili.jpg
Knicks:
33:35 minutes, 15 points, 5 assists, 5 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 block
3 turnovers
5-for-11 from the field
Celtics:
33:13 minutes, 24 points, 3 assists, 8 rebounds, 5 steals
4 turnovers
7-for-12 from the field
Manu Ginobili can be lumped into the players that I didn’t see anything out of defensively in the Knicks game. He did do anything note-able, and his man was burning him as much as the next Spur. He also didn’t do a good job of taking care of the ball in either game, with 7 turnovers combined. Against the Knicks, he had a ho-hum offensive night where he didn’t hit from three, but was able to hit all 5 of his shots from inside 15 feet. Against the Celtics, it seems Manu showed everyone that he is still a game changer when he really puts his mind to it. When the Celtics started pushing the Spurs around, got a couple stops and scores in the 4th quarter, Manu was the Spur who stepped up to the challenge, hitting back to back threes, throwing in all sort of floaters, getting to the line, and accounting for more than half of the Spurs steals. It was a great performance, but fell short in the end. It’s worth noting that along with the other Spurs, when the Celtics were able to run a play without a turnover, Ginobili had his share of time getting burned by Ray Allen and Paul Pierce dumping in shots in his face.
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Richard Jefferson
http://www.nbadunkers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/RichardJefferson-Spurs415x266.jpg
Knicks:
34:56 minutes, 13 points, 1 assist, 3 rebounds
2 turnovers
5-for-8 from the field
Celtics:
30:57 minutes, 14 points, 2 assists, 2 rebounds
2 turnovers
4-for-10 from the field
Offensively, it’s more apparent that Richard is comfortable with his role. Although 8 or 10 shots a game isn’t that many, he managed to get 13 and 14 points out of those possessions in both games, and I’m pretty happy with that. While he missed some open shots against the Knicks, he did a good job of knocking them down against the Celtics. You may be thinking, wait a minute, 4-for-10 is worse than 5-for-8, but 2 of Jefferson’s misses were tip shots being contested by Celtics, so I don’t really count those. Defensively, he was ran over like everyone else by the Knicks, and against the Celtics, though nothing was spectacular, I think he actually did an okay job. If I’m not mistaken, most of Pierce’s shots came when someone else other than RJ was guarding him, but I could be mistaken. RJ to me is doing a good job of staying involved in the game even though plays aren’t being run for him much, but over these games, he should be involved in rebounding more. It’s possible that he’s been given the green light to leak out more and initiate fast break offense and it’s affecting his rebounds. He has done a good job of filling the lanes on the fast break pretty often.
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DeJuan Blair
http://cdn0.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/674168/83447_timberwolves_spurs_basketball.jpg
Knicks:
17:35 minutes, 17 points, 8 rebounds, 1 steal
0 turnovers
8-for-12 from the field
Celtics:
11:26 minutes, 2 points, 1 assist, 4 rebounds
0 turnovers
1-for-7 from the field
Dejuan Blair came out very active in the Knicks game, aggressively taking it to the hoop and finishing in a variety of ways. He also rebounded well. In the Celtics game, however, he was unable to finish against the physical Celtic bigs (except for a strong layup in traffic), and didn’t rebound well either. This was disappointing for me, as the Celtics interior bigs should theoretically be the kind of game that Dejuan is suited for, rather than quicker perimeter bigs. However, Blair has been up and down against starters, and this was one of his down nights.
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George Hill
http://highschoolbballnerd.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/mavsspurs-game4-1.jpg?w=450&h=450
Knicks:
29:39 minutes, 13 points, 1 assist, 2 rebounds
3 turnovers
5-for-6 from the field
Celtics:
33:38 minutes, 3 points, 3 assists, 2 rebounds
3 turnovers
1-for-9 from the field
George Hill was fine offensively in the Knicks game, but for someone who’s billed as the Spurs best perimeter defender, he’s got to find a way to get involved on the other end when your team is getting steamrolled like they were in the knicks game. Against the Celtics, he competed much harder on the defensive end, but it wasn’t enough. In my last write up, I mentioned how Hill gets lost behind screens at times, and the assignment of chasing around Ray Allen did nothing to quell my fears. There are times he simply gets caught on the wrong side of the screen, and then his man has created too much space for him to recover. Also, there were times when he was going under the screen on Nate Robinson and Von Wafer. Those guys may not be the purest shooters in the NBA, but both are capable enough, and once again I feel like he should be on the other side of the screen. I expect more out of George, as he’s one of my favorite players, but he was too invisible tonight against the Celtics.
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Gary Neal
http://d.yimg.com/a/p/sp/ap/2b/fullj.d1794860da623475000f053d27ebb9c3/ap-644a170e00634e0e9d6e613cc3aa2044.jpg
Knicks:
22:29 minutes, 8 points, 1 assist, 3 rebounds
0 turnovers
3-for-11 from the field
Celtics:
20:09 minutes, 10 points, 2 assists, 2 rebounds
0 turnovers
4-for-6 from the field
I don’t know if it’s a testament to how good Gary Neal has been that I’m disappointed in him, but I haven't been pleased with these last two games. Like I said in my last write up, I’m pleased that Neal doesn’t let his shooting slump affect his confidence, because that’s the mentality he needs to have to be a playoff performer and have the stones to hit difficult shots. However, against the knicks, he was one of the lone Spurs that struggled to score against the Knicks, and against the Celtics, his defense wasn’t good, though his offense got back on track a bit with some nice inside moves when he was driven off of the three point line. In fact, Neal’s inability to fight through screens had Pop put Parker on Allen when they were on the floor together. Though it wasn’t for too long, Pop clearly didn’t trust Neal to guard the hot Ray Allen tonight. Hopefully his confidence in himself will force him to keep working and he will come out of this back to back with a desire to keep working
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Matt Bonner
http://www.newhampshire.com/doclib/celebrity/bonner.jpg
Knicks:
12:49 minutes, 2 points, 3 assists, 3 rebounds
0 turnovers
1-for-1 from the field
Celtics:
30:16 minutes, 10 points, 1 assist, 3 rebounds, 1 steal
0 turnovers
4-for-10 from the field
Matt Bonner had a forgettable 2 nights. In the Knicks game, he wasn’t used much and so there’s not much to write home about. However, in the Celtics game, though he hit 3 three-pointers, he wasn’t guarding the Celtics bigs well, didn’t rebound, and overall came out with an average game. I was surprised that he got so many minutes. Though his shot was falling, the Celtics did a good enough job closing out on him that I would have preferred Dice much more, as he could defend the physical Celtic bigs much better.
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Gregg Popovich
http://danielvillarreal.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/pop-and-tony.jpg
I don’t know what to say about Pop here. Obviously he was the author, or at least had a big say in the Spurs defensive game plans against the Knicks and the Celtics, and those blew up in his face. He has done a pretty good job of spreading around guard/small forward minutes, but his big rotation puzzles me. I’m all for saving Dice for the playoffs if we have games in hand, but with the amount of times he’s been giving DNP-CD’s this season, I feel like he should be given more minutes in games like the Celtic game, where he could have a big impact. Also, I think it’s interesting that on the Celtics final possession of the game, he had the Spurs playing a zone defense that forced a miss, but then was unable to get the rebound as nobody knows which player to box out, and they all simply gravitate hoping that the rebound comes off to their area. This caused Big Baby to come down the lane for an easy put-back had Pierce’s shot missed short, and with the way the shot missed anyway, because the spurs were simply around the lane, it came off too far for them to grab it. I don’t like playing zone on a crunch-time play, even if your man defense has been burned. Use it as a change-up, but when the game is on the line, I don’t like it.
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Closing thoughts:
Hill still has a lot of improvement to make for being a consistent defensive presence.
Neal is having a slump, but I feel his confidence will help him break out of it.
I’ve been happy with Tony’s aggression, and decisions on the fast break.
I’m glad Ginobili showed some game-changing ability again.
Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. The Spurs need to cut them down big time.