In Pictures: The Anatomy of the Game 3 Defeat

[timvp]

Defensively, the Spurs weren't very good in Game 3. In fact, they haven't been very good defensively in this series. To ultimately win this series, the Spurs are going to have to step it up on that end of the court.

That said, the most blatant errors in Game 3 occurred on the offensive end. For a team that has scored the ball so well over the last couple of months, it was shocking to see how many mistakes were made and how many opportunities were missed.

http://dailyelements.com/snap1.jpg
Early on, it was obvious that the Thunder were going to pack the paint to force the Spurs role players to win the game with outside shots. Here we see Boris Diaw wide, wide open yet he doesn't look to shoot. Considering that Diaw is 14 for his last 20 on three-pointers, there's no way he can pass up that shot.

http://dailyelements.com/snap2.jpg
In the next possession, Diaw is again ignored. But again, he fails to shoot the open shot. Instead he pump-faked and drove the ball to the basket. He has to shoot that to space the court.

http://dailyelements.com/snap3.jpg
Once Duncan caught the ball, the Thunder sent a lot of defenders his way. In this picture, we see Duncan with the ball surrounded by four defenders. He has Diaw wide open under the basket and Green open in the corner. Instead of finding one of those two players, Duncan turns the ball over when he tries to pass it back to Parker.

http://dailyelements.com/snap4.jpg
Here, Diaw drives the ball into the paint and the defense collapses on him. He decides on a close-quarters pass to Duncan but the right pass was to an open Green on the perimeter. The Spurs needed to make the Thunder pay for collapsing; Duncan shooting a contested eight footer doesn't do that.

http://dailyelements.com/snap5.jpg
On this possession, the Thunder send a double-team at Parker before Duncan even comes over to set the pick. With three defenders defending a pick-and-roll, there should be a wide open player. But the players on the weak-side -- namely Green -- are oblivious to the fact that the Thunder have overloaded the strong-side.

http://dailyelements.com/snap6.jpg
While I'm not a fan of using Bonner in the playoffs, I understand what Pop was thinking. With Diaw not shooting and the Thunder sagging everyone into the paint, Bonner hypothetically is the perfect solution. Unfortunately, that hypothetical doesn't account for Bonner not being a legit three-point threat in the playoffs. As you can see here, the Thunder don't respect Bonner's three-point shooting at all. His man plays as far away from him as he's legally allowed.

http://dailyelements.com/snap7.jpg
With Duncan in the low block, the Thunder sag all five defenders into the paint. Again, Bonner provides no extra spacing on the weak-side. The right play here is for Duncan to pass it to any of the open shooters -- preferably Jackson or Ginobili in this instance. Instead, Duncan forced a bad shot.

http://dailyelements.com/snap8.jpg
The Thunder's disrespect of Bonner reached a new low on this possession. His man is literally 15 feet away from him. Obviously, Parker should have passed it to the wide open Bonner ... but he didn't. This failure to make simple passes was a common theme this game.

http://dailyelements.com/snap9.jpg
Later in the first quarter, Bonner catches a pass on the wing and uncharacteristically forces a contested three-pointer. Jackson had just hit a three-pointer and was completely wide open in the corner. This is a pass Bonner almost always makes ... I have no idea what went wrong here. (Perhaps he was too worried about going 2-for-1 but there was enough time for one more pass.)

http://dailyelements.com/snap10.jpg
The lack of passing strikes again. Neal drives in, the Thunder sag and Ginobili is left wide open. Even worse, there's a direct passing lane to Ginobili so Neal has no excuse for not making that pass.

http://dailyelements.com/snap11.jpg
Even Ginobili, who is probably the best passing two-guard on the planet, wasn't immune to the poor passing. Here, he gets blocked attempting a mid-range shot over two defenders when he has Splitter and Bonner wide open. (Oh, and Bonner again not exactly spacing the court.)

http://dailyelements.com/snap12.jpg
Now begins the stretch of the second quarter where Duncan tried to take over via 4-down. On this play, the Thunder ignore Bonner while Duncan has a great view of what is happening. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, Duncan passes that to Bonner. This time, for reasons unknown, Duncan doesn't pass it and instead forces a bad shot. (The Spurs overlooking Bonner is becoming an epidemic at this point. Could it be that his teammates have lost hope in him being a legit three-point threat in the playoffs? I wouldn't think so but that's the story the pictures tell.)

http://dailyelements.com/snap13.jpg
Duncan in the low block and the Thunder collapse again. Both Leonard and Parker are pretty damn open. Duncan, again, elects to shoot.

http://dailyelements.com/snap14.jpg
No, this isn't a replay. Duncan is in the same exact spot with the Thunder again sending extra help to the paint. This time, though, it wasn't as much Duncan's fault because no one else on the court took advantage of OKC's tactic. Parker, Leonard and Neal so bunched up on the weak-side is inexplicably poor.

http://dailyelements.com/snap15.jpg
On the next possession, Leonard drive middle. The Thunder collapse and leave Neal completely wide open. Leonard doesn't make the pass even though Neal is about as open as possible on a basketball court.

http://dailyelements.com/snap16.jpg
Here, Ginobili is defended by Perkins. He first gets his three-pointer blocked. When he gets the ball back, he puts his head down and drives right into four Thunder players. Jackson and Neal both were open but instead Ginobili turned it over.

http://dailyelements.com/snap17.jpg
In the second half, this is the play that got Leonard benched for good. Instead of passing it to a wide open Diaw, Leonard shot a step-back three-pointer.

http://dailyelements.com/snap18.jpg
In the final play we'll look at, we'll end things with Bonner again not spacing the court. Ibaka basically ignores Bonner on the perimeter yet the Spurs don't make the Thunder pay.




Conclusions:

-Diaw has to shoot the ball. If he doesn't shoot, the Thunder won't leave the paint. Plus, if he doesn't shoot, Pop will probably turn to Bonner.

-The Thunder don't respect Bonner. They are playing as far off of him as is allowed by the NBA rulebook. They literally couldn't pay him less respect. Bonner is going to have to hit some shots to change that. (In fairness to Bonner, he needs to receive more passes when he's open.)

-Parker, Duncan and Ginobili were all uncharacteristically poor at making simple passes to open players. It's difficult to blame the role players too much when the Big 3 was so bad at making passes that they usually make in their sleep.

-The players on the weak-side have to be more aware of what's going on. If the strong-side is overloaded, the players on the weak-side have to either cut to the hoop or space things out beyond the three-point line.

-The Thunder's defensive adjustments in Game 3 were gimmicky, to put it nicely. If the Spurs were anywhere near competent with their passes, they would have gotten at least a dozen more wide open shots. Now going forward if the Spurs fail to make these passes or players miss wide open shots, this gimmick defense will continue to be successful. But, personally, I believe these Spurs are simply too good at passing and too good at shooting for this style of defense to be effective once the Spurs have time to adjust. One look at the film and it'll be obvious what needs to be done.

[BlackSilver]

Excellent as always. My impression from watching was that the Spurs were pig-headedly trying to get their way, regardless of what the defense was giving them. I'll admit though that I didn't get the feeling we were as wide open as your film study shows, mainly because OKC seemed to be everywhere in their swarming style. But Timmy stubbornly shooting in horrible positions was a sad thing to see. Reminded me of last year when we had no bench and maybe the big 3 forgot they have teammates this year. Even Bonnet.

[benefactor]

:tu

Good stuff. Pretty much affirms what I thought initially...no big adjustments needed...just play better and they win the game.

[roycrikside]

I think Pop needs to show game film of that one game last year where Bonner went 7-of-7 from downtown at OKC. Maybe it will renew confidence both in the big three to pass it to him and for Bonner himself to take and make that shot.

[Reck]

The Spurs panicked early on.

They seen to have gotten their composure back midway through the first quarter but they lost it again in the second and never recovered.

That crowd was intense. I knew they were going to play a role on how the Thunder came out and play.

[Manudona]

I do not understand why (well I do...) singling out Bonner while it is BLATANTLY obvious that the Thunder were leaving EVERYONE open not just Bonner, just look at your pictures..., even before Bonner ever set foot on the court...

[gambit1990]

i think our ball movement stalled because our sloppy passes ended up as turnovers.

lack of ball movement means no spacing, which allowed okc to pack in the paint.

[RodNIc91]

Pictures worth one thousand words. I do remember them not passing as good, but this is just hideous. After taking a look at this Im much less worried. On any win of the 20 streak we wouldve played better. I think the referees got a bit in their head and they got desperate. The lack of energy was obvious as well.

[T Park]

I still think if Parker is going to be shut down driving the basketball the offense is going to falter.

Its almost 2004 all over again.

[ginobilized]

Super duper breakdown!

Tomorrow will be a different story, I bet.

[Trimble87]

I do not understand why (well I do...) singling out Bonner while it is BLATANTLY obvious that the Thunder were leaving EVERYONE open not just Bonner, just look at your pictures..., even before Bonner ever set foot on the court...

Because the only thing Bonner brings to this team is his ability to "spread the floor." Everyone else brings other things: Kawhi is a great defender, hustler, and rebounder. Neal can create shots for himself and at times run the pick and rolls / orchestrate the offense to give TP/Gino a break. Jackson brings toughness, some nasty, defense and rebounding.

ETC ETC ETC.

Bonner brings nothing but 3 point shooting, and not only is he shooting badly but he isn't spreading the floor. If he isn't spacing the floor we might as well bench him for Blair or just more of Tim/Tiago/Diaw/smallball.

[timvp]

I do not understand why (well I do...) singling out Bonner while it is BLATANTLY obvious that the Thunder were leaving EVERYONE open not just Bonner, just look at your pictures..., even before Bonner ever set foot on the court...


Because the only thing Bonner brings to this team is his ability to "spread the floor." Everyone else brings other things: Kawhi is a great defender, hustler, and rebounder. Neal can create shots for himself and at times run the pick and rolls / orchestrate the offense to give TP/Gino a break. Jackson brings toughness, some nasty, defense and rebounding.

ETC ETC ETC.

Bonner brings nothing but 3 point shooting, and not only is he shooting badly but he isn't spreading the floor.

Exactly. If Bonner isn't spreading the floor, what exactly is his purpose on the basketball court?

[100%duncan]

:tu

Good stuff. Pretty much affirms what I thought initially...no big adjustments needed...just play better and they win the game.

I agree.

[Capt Bringdown]

In other words, Spurs are still betting that Bonner will be a productive player in the playoffs.

That's a bet they're gonna lose. Hope there's a plan B.

[freetiago]

would running a double pick and roll work
by double i mean 2 guys coming to set a pick

it could be either duncan/diaw
duncan/splitter
duncan/blair
splitter/diaw

where one guy rolls and one pops
it could give parker more room to operate since its less predictable where hes going and id imagine its harder to switch/keep up with 3 guys who could all do 3 different things
it would also create more mismatches

[DMC]

Great analysis, but what the photos do not show is that Bonner needs more room than 10-15 feet separation before he will even attempt a shot. There were many times Bonner caught the ball with plenty room to shoot and he instead pump fakes and drives the lane.

When you pass the ball to a guy with plenty of room to shoot and he doesn't shoot (all year basically), you don't feel he's going to suddenly start shooting the ball in the playoffs, especially when he's a proven choke artist in the post season. Still, you would think they would want to move the ball through him just to spread the defense some, but all those shots of people sagging off Bonner are times when Bonner does not have the ball. Can you show a photo of the easiest shot he actually got? It takes him a couple of seconds at least to get a shot up, and those defenders can cover that ground in a short amount of time, and like I said, you only have to get close to Bonner, you don't have to actually contest the shot.

[ElNono]

Thank you for putting it in pictures. Spurs played poorly, and that was evident watching the game... here's to hoping we don't lay another egg saturday...

[ginobili fan]

you're absolutly right on every points.
the spurs need to spread the floor. create more spacing.
but this won't happen if they play like an afraid little girl like they did last night, cheap passes, lost confident quickly on what the spurs are usually very strong overall.
looking simplicity, keep shooting, not forcing the ultra extreme extra pass, they don't need that to be strong.
I expect an offensive explosion from the spurs.
if they score more than 100 points this one is for the spurs.
Maybe for the game 4, the key is more offense than defense...

[ginobili fan]

make it happen pleaseeee....
and I'll keep my post number 1000 for tomorrow night game blog, hoping this gonna bring some luck to the spurs.

[ElNono]

One other thing that stands out: Who guards Matty? In 3 of those pictures, it's a big... Ibaka or Collison... in the other 3? perimeter guys... Harden or Durant... which means that in half of those instances, even if Matty would be drawing a guy on him, he wouldn't necessarily be creating space inside...

[mouse]

You only need one picture to describe last nights ass waxing.
:lmao
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6wjEnha9Uf4/S1R53CFQzyI/AAAAAAAAAqg/ZlgIpttYP6w/s400/delivnd.jpg

[Budkin]

Barkley would be totally right about Bonner having a huge series... if he could make a shot.

[Budkin]

You only need one picture to describe last nights ass waxing.
:lmao
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6wjEnha9Uf4/S1R53CFQzyI/AAAAAAAAAqg/ZlgIpttYP6w/s400/delivnd.jpg

Yup! Good to see you back mouse!

[UZER]

Great analysis, but what the photos do not show is that Bonner needs more room than 10-15 feet separation before he will even attempt a shot. There were many times Bonner caught the ball with plenty room to shoot and he instead pump fakes and drives the lane.

When you pass the ball to a guy with plenty of room to shoot and he doesn't shoot (all year basically), you don't feel he's going to suddenly start shooting the ball in the playoffs, especially when he's a proven choke artist in the post season. Still, you would think they would want to move the ball through him just to spread the defense some, but all those shots of people sagging off Bonner are times when Bonner does not have the ball. Can you show a photo of the easiest shot he actually got? It takes him a couple of seconds at least to get a shot up, and those defenders can cover that ground in a short amount of time, and like I said, you only have to get close to Bonner, you don't have to actually contest the shot.


So yes Bonner or no Bonner? Which one is it now?

[PublicOption]

no bonner. he sits. jax takes his minutes from now on.

[Richie]

Great analysis, but what the photos do not show is that Bonner needs more room than 10-15 feet separation before he will even attempt a shot. There were many times Bonner caught the ball with plenty room to shoot and he instead pump fakes and drives the lane.

When you pass the ball to a guy with plenty of room to shoot and he doesn't shoot (all year basically), you don't feel he's going to suddenly start shooting the ball in the playoffs, especially when he's a proven choke artist in the post season. Still, you would think they would want to move the ball through him just to spread the defense some, but all those shots of people sagging off Bonner are times when Bonner does not have the ball. Can you show a photo of the easiest shot he actually got? It takes him a couple of seconds at least to get a shot up, and those defenders can cover that ground in a short amount of time, and like I said, you only have to get close to Bonner, you don't have to actually contest the shot.

This is an important post. Thunder were good at closing out our shooters, and with Bonner and jaxs slow motion release they can afford to give more space to them

[SA210]

In other words, Spurs are still betting that Bonner will be a productive player in the playoffs.

That's a bet they're gonna lose. Hope there's a plan B.

Plan B is more Bonner than before. Bonner starts, Bonner comes in for Bonner, Bonner shoots all technicals, Bonner, Bonner, Bonner

Plan Bonner

[Fat boy]

You only need one picture to describe last nights ass waxing.
:lmao
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6wjEnha9Uf4/S1R53CFQzyI/AAAAAAAAAqg/ZlgIpttYP6w/s400/delivnd.jpg

:lmao
























:flipoff

[Fat boy]

:bang

[mouse]

Yup! Good to see you back mouse!



next ST GTG at TimVp and Kori's for game 4
I got your beer!

http://rajagee007.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/comederos-y-bebederos-gif.gif?w=431


It would be cool to make a slide show of these photos put them music.

[rmt]

Bonner - disgusting. Makes me want to puke everytime I see Novak lighting it up in NY. To think, Pop sent Novak on his way and kept Bonner. Can you imagine if it were Novak with all that space instead of Bonner?

[-21-]

Great stuff, timvp. I agree that OKC made good adjustments but the Spurs made a lot of mistakes that look easily correctable and they should be back in business in Game 4. I'm not sure if Pop will make any adjustments to the rotation (don't fix what ain't broken, one loss doesn't mean it is broken) but if he will, one move I'd like to see is getting Blair some minutes. Somehow, he plays really well against the Thunder.

[DMC]

Bonner - disgusting. Makes me want to puke everytime I see Novak lighting it up in NY. To think, Pop sent Novak on his way and kept Bonner. Can you imagine if it were Novak with all that space instead of Bonner?
Novak couldn't hold Bonner's jock on defense and that's pretty awful.

How's Novak doing in the ECF? Oh wait...

Sure he can get regular season looks with Melo, Amare and TC on the floor. So could Lin. Big deal.

[benstanfield]

Boner is reaching Dick Jefferson levels of uselessness. We are literally playing 5 on 4 when he's on the court.








Although he out-rebounded Tim Motherfucking Duncan in game 3.

[therealtruth]

Bonner - disgusting. Makes me want to puke everytime I see Novak lighting it up in NY. To think, Pop sent Novak on his way and kept Bonner. Can you imagine if it were Novak with all that space instead of Bonner?

If you didn't notice the Heat made Novak invisible in the first round. But you make a good point that Bonner basically hurts the Spurs by allowing his defender to cheat and not making him pay. In fact what's killing our spacing is the Thunder sagging off guys who they don't think can beat them.

[Manudona]

Because the only thing Bonner brings to this team is his ability to "spread the floor." Everyone else brings other things: Kawhi is a great defender, hustler, and rebounder. Neal can create shots for himself and at times run the pick and rolls / orchestrate the offense to give TP/Gino a break. Jackson brings toughness, some nasty, defense and rebounding.

ETC ETC ETC.

Bonner brings nothing but 3 point shooting, and not only is he shooting badly but he isn't spreading the floor. If he isn't spacing the floor we might as well bench him for Blair or just more of Tim/Tiago/Diaw/smallball.


Exactly. If Bonner isn't spreading the floor, what exactly is his purpose on the basketball court?


ETC ETC ETC... BS, that is not what I am challenging

Of all the photos TIMVP posted, plus if you watched the game, you choose to single out Bonner as been dis-respected and given space by the Thunder defense, seriously?. Look again at all those pictures, they were giving the same space to all, inclusive Neal, whom I dare you to say is he is not a cold blooded shooter.

But of course why waste a golden opportunity to bash Bonner, who I agree played like shit, just like every other Spur, but guess what? This is not Bonner's team so if Tim (OUTREBOUNDED BY BONNER) Tony and Manu play like shit, then put the fucking blame in its place.

Anyways, next game none of the Big 3 will play this bad, at least if they want a chance to play the finals.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Awesome job LJ.

And I think it was very apparent the spurs players have given up on Bonner.

It's just such an obvious truth, it makes Pop's lineup decisions with Bonner so much more erroneous

[Spur|n|Austin]

Thanks, LJ; though these stills do make us seem much more open than I remember. Even when we were open last night, OKC's disruption of the passing lanes killed us. Mix that with a plethora of sloppy passes and you have yourself a disaster cocktail.

[therealtruth]

Awesome job LJ.

And I think it was very apparent the spurs players have given up on Bonner.

It's just such an obvious truth, it makes Pop's lineup decisions with Bonner so much more erroneous

You can only give a guy so many chances. In the Finals last year Rick Carslile gave Stojakovic up to game 3 to see if he could contribute. Once he saw he couldn't he took him out of the rotation. Matt's had 3 games to show up and still hasn't. If Pop wants to play him at all he has to put him on a super short leash.

[polandprzem]

You want to kill me timvp with your threads ...

I really do not like to read sometime but do have to now and I have limited time :)


OK let's read this.

[Typical London Boy]

Good analysis, but do you really want to be rushing a three-point shot just 8 seconds into your first possession of the game, when you're just two points down?

[DBMethos]

Gawd, I knew it was bad but I didn't know it was THAT bad. Pictures don't lie.

[polandprzem]

OKay thx LJ

I would love to come on a GTG and watch some games!


On this topic you showed clearly that spurs were not spurs.

Brooks was ahead of Pop, as the spurs way to win was obvious to gain inside presents.


Spurs were afraid of making TO and the motion was dead.
Spurs needs to make a better on pnr's
The most important thing is spurs perfectionism in making plays

[Spurs Brazil]

Thunder find ways to keep Bonner out of rhythm
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 9:18 pm by Mike Monroe

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnation/2012/06/01/thunder-find-ways-to-keep-bonner-out-of-rhythm/

[pikkiwoki]

Good analysis, but do you really want to be rushing a three-point shot just 8 seconds into your first possession of the game, when you're just two points down?

I was thinking the same.


Defensively, the Spurs weren't very good in Game 3. In fact, they haven't been very good defensively in this series. To ultimately win this series, the Spurs are going to have to step it up on that end of the court.

That said, the most blatant errors in Game 3 occurred on the offensive end. For a team that has scored the ball so well over the last couple of months, it was shocking to see how many mistakes were made and how many opportunities were missed.

http://dailyelements.com/snap1.jpg
Early on, it was obvious that the Thunder were going to pack the paint to force the Spurs role players to win the game with outside shots. Here we see Boris Diaw wide, wide open yet he doesn't look to shoot. Considering that Diaw is 14 for his last 20 on three-pointers, there's no way he can pass up that shot.

The offense was just coming out of transition and getting set up. If Diaw shoots that everyone would be outraged at the shot selection (unless he made it of course, in which case it would've been one of those "No! No! No!...Yessssss!" type shots). Instead, Diaw ran the offense and looked for a better shot, which they got in a Kawhi floater in the lane, which he clanked unfortunately.



http://dailyelements.com/snap2.jpg
In the next possession, Diaw is again ignored. But again, he fails to shoot the open shot. Instead he pump-faked and drove the ball to the basket. He has to shoot that to space the court. Agreed, he should've shot that.



http://dailyelements.com/snap3.jpg
Once Duncan caught the ball, the Thunder sent a lot of defenders his way. In this picture, we see Duncan with the ball surrounded by four defenders. He has Diaw wide open under the basket and Green open in the corner. Instead of finding one of those two players, Duncan turns the ball over when he tries to pass it back to Parker. Agreed. This is one of the plays that Zach Lowe used in order to illustrate how the Thunder made such a "brilliant adjustment" by having Ibaka rotate to Duncan. I disagree with Zach that it was brilliant or genius or anything like that. It was nothing more than a routine rotation that you always see on PnR defense. Duncan was just hesitant to pass for whatever reason.



http://dailyelements.com/snap4.jpg
Here, Diaw drives the ball into the paint and the defense collapses on him. He decides on a close-quarters pass to Duncan but the right pass was to an open Green on the perimeter. The Spurs needed to make the Thunder pay for collapsing; Duncan shooting a contested eight footer doesn't do that.Diaw fumbled the ball in the lane here. Passing to Duncan was reasonable. I don't think he had enough of a handle on the ball to get it all the way out to Green.



http://dailyelements.com/snap5.jpg
On this possession, the Thunder send a double-team at Parker before Duncan even comes over to set the pick. With three defenders defending a pick-and-roll, there should be a wide open player. But the players on the weak-side -- namely Green -- are oblivious to the fact that the Thunder have overloaded the strong-side.Spurs were just coming out of transition. Green was sprinting to his spot on the weakside corner. Westbrook was trailing him, but paused momentarily on the way to give Duncan a nudge. Not sure how Green is at fault here.



http://dailyelements.com/snap6.jpg
While I'm not a fan of using Bonner in the playoffs, I understand what Pop was thinking. With Diaw not shooting and the Thunder sagging everyone into the paint, Bonner hypothetically is the perfect solution. Unfortunately, that hypothetical doesn't account for Bonner not being a legit three-point threat in the playoffs. As you can see here, the Thunder don't respect Bonner's three-point shooting at all. His man plays as far away from him as he's legally allowed.On this play the pass that Duncan just received was tipped, giving the defense time to react. Harden is headed towards Bonner at that moment. Duncan faked a pass to Bonner, but the window had closed thanks to the deflection, so Duncan decided not to make that pass.



http://dailyelements.com/snap7.jpg
With Duncan in the low block, the Thunder sag all five defenders into the paint. Again, Bonner provides no extra spacing on the weak-side. The right play here is for Duncan to pass it to any of the open shooters -- preferably Jackson or Ginobili in this instance. Instead, Duncan forced a bad shot.

Agreed. A skip pass to Bonner was also an option there.



http://dailyelements.com/snap8.jpg
The Thunder's disrespect of Bonner reached a new low on this possession. His man is literally 15 feet away from him. Obviously, Parker should have passed it to the wide open Bonner ... but he didn't. This failure to make simple passes was a common theme this game.

Agreed.



http://dailyelements.com/snap9.jpg
Later in the first quarter, Bonner catches a pass on the wing and uncharacteristically forces a contested three-pointer. Jackson had just hit a three-pointer and was completely wide open in the corner. This is a pass Bonner almost always makes ... I have no idea what went wrong here. (Perhaps he was too worried about going 2-for-1 but there was enough time for one more pass.)

Agreed.



http://dailyelements.com/snap10.jpg
The lack of passing strikes again. Neal drives in, the Thunder sag and Ginobili is left wide open. Even worse, there's a direct passing lane to Ginobili so Neal has no excuse for not making that pass.

Watching the video, that was a difficult cross court pass with a high chance of being a turnover. Also, Neal had already started his shooting motion.



http://dailyelements.com/snap11.jpg
Even Ginobili, who is probably the best passing two-guard on the planet, wasn't immune to the poor passing. Here, he gets blocked attempting a mid-range shot over two defenders when he has Splitter and Bonner wide open. (Oh, and Bonner again not exactly spacing the court.)

The pass to Bonner would've been difficult. Collison wasn't that far off of him a split second before your screenshot. Collison was also in the passing lane, so it would've been a high risk pass. The pass to Splitter would've also been difficult since Manu and Splitter were too close together, but maybe easier than the Bonner pass. I think the problem there was Manu driving into three defenders.



http://dailyelements.com/snap12.jpg
Now begins the stretch of the second quarter where Duncan tried to take over via 4-down. On this play, the Thunder ignore Bonner while Duncan has a great view of what is happening. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, Duncan passes that to Bonner. This time, for reasons unknown, Duncan doesn't pass it and instead forces a bad shot. (The Spurs overlooking Bonner is becoming an epidemic at this point. Could it be that his teammates have lost hope in him being a legit three-point threat in the playoffs? I wouldn't think so but that's the story the pictures tell.)

Agreed.



http://dailyelements.com/snap13.jpg
Duncan in the low block and the Thunder collapse again. Both Leonard and Parker are pretty damn open. Duncan, again, elects to shoot.

Agreed.



http://dailyelements.com/snap14.jpg
No, this isn't a replay. Duncan is in the same exact spot with the Thunder again sending extra help to the paint. This time, though, it wasn't as much Duncan's fault because no one else on the court took advantage of OKC's tactic. Parker, Leonard and Neal so bunched up on the weak-side is inexplicably poor.

Agreed.



http://dailyelements.com/snap15.jpg
On the next possession, Leonard drive middle. The Thunder collapse and leave Neal completely wide open. Leonard doesn't make the pass even though Neal is about as open as possible on a basketball court.

Actually he did pass it to him a second after your screenshot, after first faking it to Neal and taking another step. Fisher closed out on Neal, Neal swung it to TP in the corner, TP pump faked the closeout defender and drove, but was called for traveling.



http://dailyelements.com/snap16.jpg
Here, Ginobili is defended by Perkins. He first gets his three-pointer blocked. When he gets the ball back, he puts his head down and drives right into four Thunder players. Jackson and Neal both were open but instead Ginobili turned it over.

Agreed. That possession was one big clusterfuck.



http://dailyelements.com/snap17.jpg
In the second half, this is the play that got Leonard benched for good. Instead of passing it to a wide open Diaw, Leonard shot a step-back three-pointer.

Agreed.



http://dailyelements.com/snap18.jpg
In the final play we'll look at, we'll end things with Bonner again not spacing the court. Ibaka basically ignores Bonner on the perimeter yet the Spurs don't make the Thunder pay.

Agreed.



Conclusions:

-Diaw has to shoot the ball. If he doesn't shoot, the Thunder won't leave the paint. Plus, if he doesn't shoot, Pop will probably turn to Bonner.

-The Thunder don't respect Bonner. They are playing as far off of him as is allowed by the NBA rulebook. They literally couldn't pay him less respect. Bonner is going to have to hit some shots to change that. (In fairness to Bonner, he needs to receive more passes when he's open.)

-Parker, Duncan and Ginobili were all uncharacteristically poor at making simple passes to open players. It's difficult to blame the role players too much when the Big 3 was so bad at making passes that they usually make in their sleep.

-The players on the weak-side have to be more aware of what's going on. If the strong-side is overloaded, the players on the weak-side have to either cut to the hoop or space things out beyond the three-point line.

-The Thunder's defensive adjustments in Game 3 were gimmicky, to put it nicely. If the Spurs were anywhere near competent with their passes, they would have gotten at least a dozen more wide open shots. Now going forward if the Spurs fail to make these passes or players miss wide open shots, this gimmick defense will continue to be successful. But, personally, I believe these Spurs are simply too good at passing and too good at shooting for this style of defense to be effective once the Spurs have time to adjust. One look at the film and it'll be obvious what needs to be done.


Agree overall. Not trying to be critical and I appreciate your effort, but single still frames don't always tell the whole story. Animated gifs would be nice but yeah I realize those are time consuming and could make the page really slow to load. But yeah overall I agree with your points, just extremely bored and wanted to add some commentary from the peanut gallery.

Again thanks for the effort, I love this type of play analysis.

[DarrinS]

Really good analysis by timvp. It is glaring that OKC doesn't respect Bonner and, perhaps, his teammates don't trust him. Diaw needs to take his shot without hesitation. There is opportunity for Loanard and Green to attack the rim from the baseline. Also, lol at asking Gary Neal to make an extra pass. Once it gets to Neal, it ain't coming back out -- reminds me of Terry Cummings.

[Budkin]

Seeing stills of Bonner miles wide open over and over just makes it all the more painful. If the guy could even hit a 3rd of his 3s we'd be killin it.

[Mr.Bottomtooth]

Really awesome style of analysis, timvp. Spurs passing should be a not-so-difficult fix.

[Dr. John R. Brinkley]

More Diaw. Less Bonner.

If Tiago plays soft, then give Blair a try to run the PnR and rough it up.

Last game we couldn't even swing the ball to get a shot. Hopefully we can get the ball movement going again. And everyone needs to be prepared to shoot if open.

And of course, get nasty.

[DMC]

Thunder find ways to keep Bonner out of rhythm
Posted on June 1, 2012 at 9:18 pm by Mike Monroe

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnation/2012/06/01/thunder-find-ways-to-keep-bonner-out-of-rhythm/

Here I thought it was the change of seasons that kept Bonner out of rhythm, now I learn it's the weather.

[DMC]

Really good analysis by timvp. It is glaring that OKC doesn't respect Bonner and, perhaps, his teammates don't trust him. Diaw needs to take his shot without hesitation. There is opportunity for Loanard and Green to attack the rim from the baseline. Also, lol at asking Gary Neal to make an extra pass. Once it gets to Neal, it ain't coming back out -- reminds me of Terry Cummings.
That's on Pop. He tells Neal over and over "if you don't shoot, you're coming out of the game". He doesn't get fat money like the others (relatively speaking) so he's a worker. He wants another contract, wants to stay in the game, so he shoots. That why he was acquired. That's one of his very few NBA level skills, and he's a dead eye, cold blooded shooter.

[OZWIN]

Going to be interesting to see if Pop and the Spurs can turn things back around in game four.

[jag]

Incredible work. Good stuff, LJ

[Obstructed_View]

no bonner. he sits. Sjax takes his minutes from now on.

[therealtruth]

So according to Express News Pop still hasn't done a film review. I can understand that they didn't bring the effort but there were some legitimate changes that SB made that they need to adjust to. If they don't they're making it much harder for themselves. Not adjusting is how you end up losing playoff series. It's not just all about effort at this level. It's as much about matchups and strategies.

[Spurs9]

I'll wait for this post to be on ESPN.com :lmao

[wut]

would running a double pick and roll work
by double i mean 2 guys coming to set a pick

it could be either duncan/diaw
duncan/splitter
duncan/blair
splitter/diaw

where one guy rolls and one pops
it could give parker more room to operate since its less predictable where hes going and id imagine its harder to switch/keep up with 3 guys who could all do 3 different things
it would also create more mismatches
Yes. In fact I would shockingly say that it's a weakness of the Spurs coaches that don't recognize that this is EXACTLY what the Spurs need to do in games where Parker is having troubles penetrating.

Let's face it, if Parker is unable to penetrate our offense breaks down into isolation plays. Sometimes Manu will step up and run pick-n-rolls when Parker can't penetrate but outside of that, we're pretty much hosed if Parker isn't able to beat his man on a dribble.

In fact if you watch Orlando Magic's version of the double pick-n-roll...it could also be effective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eje1caq2_HA

Also another form of double pick-n-roll which could be used with Manu and Parker (Manu would be the 1, Parker the 3.... I'd add one more optional wrinkle in this play which is to bring the number 2 to the basket and the number 1 swinging right where number 2 left his spot...allowing the 3 to pass to an open shooter or attempt a drive to the basket):

http://kevineastmanbasketball.com/eastman/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Page-012-09-10-KEB-Kevin-Eastman-Basketball.jpeg

Seriously it just surprises me that the Spurs coaches don't have plays like this in their pocket for times when Parker is unable to beat his defender.

[tlongII]

tl;dr

[ElNono]

Seriously it just surprises me that the Spurs coaches don't have plays like this in their pocket for times when Parker is unable to beat his defender.

They probably do, it just doesn't matter when your guys are playing like shit and can't even execute their own plays properly.

[DarrinS]

They probably do, it just doesn't matter when your guys are playing like shit and can't even execute their own plays properly.

This.

And no 4 down (sorry Timmy).