Grades: San Antonio Spurs vs. Utah Jazz - Jan. 29, 2020

[timvp]

https://www.spurstalk.com/grades-san-antonio-spurs-utah-jazz-january-29-2020/

tl;dr: Good team? Not a problem.

[John B]

Thanks Timvp. I still have problem with closing with Mills, and at one point, Beli when Spurs had the lead. The only difference was Demar hitting the last few baskets. Why doesn’t Pop close with the best defenders with the lead? This team could be winning more games if they close better bottomline.

[heyheymymy]

Thanks for the grades.

Just one little bit that I noticed tonight but White has the body language of a veteran out there. It's crazy, watch a loose ball and White is just out there prowling for it, body limber and cool.

[vavvi]

Forbes with almost the same grade as Mills and White

[sananspursfan21]

Seems like our guys can only beat the good teams. Under .500? They play like scared little girls :lol

[Seventyniner]

Good stuff timvp :bobo

One pet peeve: you mention DeRozan scoring 38 on 19 shots. It's better to count how many possessions he used, not how many field goals he attempted. FT attempts and turnovers comprise the difference.

I would have to look at the play-by-play to see how many possessions DeRozan used for his 19 FT attempts, but 0.44 per attempt is a decent proxy (I think this is what the PER formula uses). That rounds down to 8 in this case.

DeRozan's 38 points came on 28 used possessions (19 FGA + 8 from FTs + 1 turnover). This is still really good, and he played a great game. It's just that the "he scored 2 points per shot attempt" doesn't tell the whole story. Points per FGA are always going to look better for low-turnover guys and especially three-point specialists. On the other end of that scale is Russell Westbrook.

[rjv]

despite the veteran presence of LMA, derozan, marco and mills, this team still has the personality of a younger team and thus the Jekyll and Hyde persona of the team

[NASpurs]

Seems like our guys can only beat the good teams. Under .500? They play like scared little girls :lol

9-15 record against above .500 teams, 12-11 vs below .500 teams

[BillMc]

Thanks for the grades OP!

[Ed Helicopter Jones]

Timvp-
Pop
Pop apparently paid attention to the scouting report, as the Jazz lost their last game to a Rockets team that played microscopic ball; Houston’s tallest starter was 6-foot-6. This evening, Pop also used some of his smallest lineups of the year (Gay at center, for example) — and it was probably on purpose and not just because Aldridge was out. Going small against the Jazz works because, while they have big centers, they aren’t post up threats. Good coaching. Beyond that, I didn’t have an issue with the rotation. Murray getting more minutes was justified. Belinelli played a lot but it didn’t hurt too much on this night.
Grade: A-

:tu Nice grades overall Timvp.


I've been hard on Pop lately, but last night I saw glimpses of the Ghost of Popovich Past. This was the first time in a while where I thought Pop didn't stubbornly stick to the same rotations regardless of the situation and was actively making in-game adjustments. He quickly pulled Forbes at one point in the 4th quarter when Utah started exploiting him, rather than idly sit and watch the lead disappear. When Clarkson started burning us in the 4th he pulled Gay and put Poetl back in and made some adjustments to force Clarkson back onto the perimeter. He actually was coaching.

The team was engaged, it was just an all-around good showing by the team and Pop. To beat Utah on a night when you are shooting horrible from 3-point land is pretty impressive. I wish this team could tweak the roster a little bit, because maybe they could get some momentum going.

[sananspursfan21]

9-15 record against above .500 teams, 12-11 vs below .500 teams

Huh. Sure doesn’t feel like it, especially recently. I guess the numbers have spoken

[Mugen]

:lol this just means they are going to lose to the Hornets

[RC_Drunkford]

:lol this just means they are going to lose to the Hornets

I just wanted to post this. You know Pop will bend over for Borrego. He already lost both games against him last season

[FkLA]

9-15 record against above .500 teams, 12-11 vs below .500 teams

coasting tbh

[Coach X]

Spurs wins vs good teams usually happen after Spurs loosing. I think good teams are relaxing playing Spurs in these situations. These games usually become loose, a scoring competition where Spurs defensive vulnerability doesn't count too much.

[ZeusWillJudge]

It looked pretty clear to me that Pop decided that they weren't going to let Gobert get in a groove. They came out of the gate playing him hard, and he validated the strategy by missing FT's.

I still have two big beefs with Pop

1) Forbinelli in the fourth is the biggest, and will be until it stops.
2) Execution and clock management in the final minutes. The Spurs just keep taking shots too early in the clock when all they should be doing is running clock. But bigger than that, they had the game wrapped up with an 8 point lead and 22 seconds to go. Then a foul before the ball was inbounded and an easy dunk put the game back into play. If there had been a little more time on the clock, the Spurs could have easily blown another game.

If the players don't understand when to run the shot clock down, it's on Pop. And even though Pop wasn't on the floor committing the dead ball foul, he put one of the no-defense midgets on the floor in that situation. Pop did some good things last night, but it's still a poorly-coached team. I would say the same about any other team in the league that continues to have clock management problems in the last minute or two.