Game Thread: Spurs vs. Grizzlies - January, 30th - 7:30 PM central time

[LeBowen]

Every time I get my hopes up...

Demar's personality is this team's identity.
It's either amazing or a full meltdown.

Can't have a single normal game.

On a more positive note, our best player is back.
Now we pray that a contender bites and gives up some assets for Demar.
He can take Rudy's lazy ass with him.

Lyles would be cut by any decent coach.

[Blackhaus]

Devin is probably a top 3 defender on the team, like 19 years old on a b2b and the old man decides to bench him for Trey Fucking Lyles, :lol

yeah, terrible pop

[FkLA]

Just more of Pop thinking he's smarter than everyone.

He really needs to groom his replacement like Riley did with Spo, and get his ass up in the stands as team president.

[siraulo23]

welp derozan trash again, he got frustrated again with the brooks little incident and once again played like dog shit

pop F - for playing Lyles 9+ minutes shoulda benched Aldridge who couldnt defend anything in the paint

[Blackhaus]

We get white back so extra minutes are at a premium and he gives Trey Fing Lyles crunch time minutes when that dude hasn’t left the bench all year. Senile old man

[Mugen]

Any game where Derrick shines and remains healthy + Dumbar shits the bed reminding everyone why he shouldn't be re-signed is a W in my book tbh.

[FkLA]

Dillon Brooks and Tre Jones brother have two of the Top 5.most punchable faces in the league, imo.

[Collins21]

welp derozan trash again, he got frustrated again with the brooks little incident and once again played like dog shit

pop F - for playing Lyles 9+ minutes shoulda benched Aldridge who couldnt defend anything in the paint

It's weird that today's game you choose to be critical of Aldridge's defense. His defense was fine in the paint tonight and he didn't get killed on the perimeter. The problem was the defense leaving open shooters. This team won't be better defensively until we stop that doubling shit and leaving one shooter open.

[ace3g]

Spurs might go right back to 9th seed after tonight if PHX and GS win, lol


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtCBKqhXYAI1EXT?format=png&name=large

[Blackhaus]

Dillon Brooks and Tre Jones brother have two of the Top 5.most punchable faces in the league, imo.

Add Clarke in there too. Hell that whole team is punchable esp with Grayson healthy

[daslicer]

Dillon Brooks and Tre Jones brother have two of the Top 5.most punchable faces in the league, imo.

Brooks is a shithead. I have seen him instigate skirmishes with other teams.

[Robz4000]

Spurs might go right back to 9th seed after tonight if PHX and GS win, lol


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtCBKqhXYAI1EXT?format=png&name=large

Still not too late to get the tank back on track tbh. If they lose these next few games they'll be around 11.

[siraulo23]

Looking at the boxscore, its really Melton, Bane and Dieng - 50 points from them three, fuck man

[td4mvp2k]

Aldridge absolute trash

[spurs1990]

Even if you tank and get a top 5 guy that is nullified if popovich returns for his 50th season. He's going to play vets with 3+ yrs under their belt

[Floyd Pacquiao]

Looking at the boxscore, its really Melton, Bane and Dieng - 50 points from them three, fuck man
3 scrubs getting hot and hitting wide open 3s. Happens a lot to the spurs

[GAustex]

How did the highest paid and second highest paid players do?

[FkLA]

Still not too late to get the tank back on track tbh. If they lose these next few games they'll be around 11.

Stop it bro. This team is too good to tank. Just sucks that Pop's coaching will cost them some games instead of helping them pull some off.

[offset formation]

It's weird that today's game you choose to be critical of Aldridge's defense. His defense was fine in the paint tonight and he didn't get killed on the perimeter. The problem was the defense leaving open shooters. This team won't be better defensively until we stop that doubling shit and leaving one shooter open.

Go to Twitter on any game night and it's an LMA bash party. It is what it is at this point. It's become the cool thing to do to get likes.

[Robz4000]

Stop it bro. This team is too good to tank. Just sucks that Pop's coaching will cost them some games instead of helping them pull some off.

Only three games separate them from the 13th seed with a lot of season left. Spurs have also been fortunate so far with COVID/injuries.

[ezau]

Expected a loss, tbh. We're playing the second game of a back-to-back against a team that hasn't played in two weeks.

[Capt Bringdown]

A winnable game if Rozen and LMA bothered to compete and Lyles kept his ass glued to the bench. Just another game, but still disappointing.

[tbdog]

he looked fine to me, a lot better than giving Lyles 5 min in crunch time. He’ll give those minutes to Devon

He wasn't boxing out, was sloppy with the ball and out of position. Lyles was brought it to add some rebounds. Pop was desperate to do something and secure the boards.

[paperboy77]

Chalk it up to a back to back. Serious issue is the minutes now that White is back

[DeRozan m8]

LMA just doesn't give a fuck.

Needs his shitty touches

[ace3g]

and just like that , lol

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtCUZ5UXUAEqCDu?format=png&name=large

[Atl Spur]

One loss:) You boys are a bit unreasonable.....

[cjw]

Chalk it up to a back to back. Serious issue is the minutes now that White is back

That’s how I look at it. Interesting to see how minutes get divided up going forward as there are 10 guys firmly in the rotation plus Lyles against some teams.

Big takeaway is how much White can raise the ceiling. Forget how good he is out there when you don’t see him.

[MannyIsGod]

Only three games separate them from the 13th seed with a lot of season left. Spurs have also been fortunate so far with COVID/injuries.

The Spurs best player has literally played 2 fucking games this season and we've been fortunate with injuries?

What the fuck?

[jbspurs]

This was the last time we saw Keldon...

3rd Quarter


4:59
https://a1.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=/i/teamlogos/nba/500/sa.png&h=100&w=100
Trey Lyles enters the game for Keldon Johnson



Keldon needs to bring his uncle to their next practice. I bet Pop will not let the 4th qtr. benching happen again. :)

[PhantomDashCam]

One loss:) You boys are a bit unreasonable.....

I agree. The true test will be next game.
Grizzlies played well. Spurs clearly put a lot into the Denver game.

If the Grizz win Monday, then you can bring the torches.

[daslicer]

Still not too late to get the tank back on track tbh. If they lose these next few games they'll be around 11.

Spurs will have to be below .500 to miss the playoffs. Even at this teams worst I still see them finishing a few games above .500 whenever this season ends.

[daslicer]

2 things I hate about this Covid Era NBA is how some teams can have nearly 2 weeks off due to Covid protocols and if you face them there is a high chance of losing due to the rest advantage. The other thing I hate is playing a bunch of mini-series. Those 2 things make schedule losses likely.

[daslicer]

Looking at the boxscore, its really Melton, Bane and Dieng - 50 points from them three, fuck man

They are all a product Morant's gravity. Spurs have to do a much better job of rotating on these scrubs.

[daslicer]

On a sidenote Ja Morant has ridiculous hangtime that I haven't seen since MJ. He can hang longer in the air which allows him to have ridiculous finishes. It's one of the reasons he is difficult to guard.

[Robz4000]

The Spurs best player has literally played 2 fucking games this season and we've been fortunate with injuries?

What the fuck?

Other teams have literally lost half their players to COVID for weeks at a time. I love White but he isn't a superstar or even all star (at least consistently).

[Thomas82]

Too many guards on this team

This team has more guards than a penitentiary.

[ragas]

Eubanks is on this team for 2 more years. Someone in the front office needs to lose their jobs over that decision.

I remember that the majority of ST posters wanted this signing so badly after the bubble.

[SpurPadre]

2 things I hate about this Covid Era NBA is how some teams can have nearly 2 weeks off due to Covid protocols and if you face them there is a high chance of losing due to the rest advantage. The other thing I hate is playing a bunch of mini-series. Those 2 things make schedule losses likely.

You mean RUST disadvantage? Facing a team that had two weeks off could've worked to our favor. There's no guarantee that would benefit a team.

[daslicer]

You mean RUST disadvantage? Facing a team that had two weeks off could've worked to our favor. There's no guarantee that would benefit a team.

Most of the time it's going to benefit the team that has rest especially if they play a team coming off of a back to back.

[tim_duncan_fan]

This is going to keep happening as long as they insist on sagging 8ft off the man they are guarding to double-team literally every opposing player with the slightest ability to dribble a basketball. Just leaving players open all game and hoping they don't hit open shots or that the guard neglects to pass them the ball is a retarded strategy.

We'll get some wins because sometimes guys miss shots, like Denver did, but we won't beat anyone consistently.

[tbdog]

2 things I hate about this Covid Era NBA is how some teams can have nearly 2 weeks off due to Covid protocols and if you face them there is a high chance of losing due to the rest advantage. The other thing I hate is playing a bunch of mini-series. Those 2 things make schedule losses likely.

I love the mini series. It's imo, great for the game and as a fan.

[Ice009]

This is going to keep happening as long as they insist on sagging 8ft off the man they are guarding to double-team literally every opposing player with the slightest ability to dribble a basketball. Just leaving players open all game and hoping they don't hit open shots or that the guard neglects to pass them the ball is a retarded strategy.

We'll get some wins because sometimes guys miss shots, like Denver did, but we won't beat anyone consistently.

I just watched the game and can't believe we got lit up and lost.

And yeah, you're right, I can't stand this strategy at all. Stop leaving shooters wide open all the time. If you get beat off the dribble, no need to double-team and leave guys open all the time. Teams seem to hit such a high amount of open shots Vs the Spurs this season. Use the double team sparingly for when a guy is hot and can't be stopped one on one. You don't use this strategy for large portions of the game. Also, in years past, our own players such as Danny Green couldn't hit a wide open shot, yet somehow, nearly everyone seems to be swishing wide open shots against the Spurs. Doesn't seem to matter if it's the opposing team's center, guard, power forward, whoever, they're all nailing threes against us. Whoever came up with this defensive strategy to double and leave shooters wide open, needs to rethink it and try something else.

Also, why was Trey Lyles playing and both Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell not playing at all in the 4th quarter? I don't understand that decision, either. Now that Derrick White is back, we needed defense, so Devin should have played in place of Lyles and Keldon could have also played in place of Mills in the 4th quarter. Mills can't stop anyone and was exactly on enough to justify playing him over Keldon when defense and toughness and rebounding was needed to try and slow the Grizzlies down. Pop is going to have to learn that Mills should not be closing games and Lyles shouldn't be playing in the 4th quarter if he was not in the rotation for most of game. He doesn't bring enough offense to justify playing him.

As for Jakob, although he does some good things, sorry to say, this guy is soft, soft, soft! I am so sorry that I used to think Rasho is a soft back when he was on the team. I judged him too harshly, as Jakob is making him look like Ben Wallace in the toughness department, and at least Rasho could hit a free throw. I never thought I'd say this, but give me Chris Dudley at the free throw line. It's absolutely embarrassing. Free throws are like layups to me, so I am finding it so hard to fathom how he can be this bad, especially without fans there. I know for sure the fans could cause him to miss a few as they are a factor for poor shooters, but there isn't even any fans out there to heckle and yell at him. How in the hell is he managing to shooter 23% from the line. Spurs made a huge mistake paying this guy what they paid if. If other teams wanted to pay him similar or more, they should have let him walk.

Oh, and I may as well mention Demar. My god is this guy terrible when he gets angry or upset out there. It seems that when at any time he feels some negative emotion, it's all over for him. It's hard to watch him crumble and be taken out of his game so easily when this happens. He's got to be mentally tougher. Show something. Use it to fuel you. Get mad and take it out on the other team. Crank up your defense if your offense isn't on, just do something positive out there. It doesn't always have to be scoring, you can do other things to help the team win. I am so used to seeing guys like TD and especially Manu dominate when they're mad. I don't really want to use this analogy, but Manu, in comparison used to detonate out there and nuke the other team, whereas Demar, is like a guy that walks into the nuclear radiation zone after the nuke goes off and gets fucked up.

[Ocotillo]

Yes to Demar letting his emotions get him out of the game. Manu didn't get angry, he got even. Demar is the anti-Manu in that regard.

[RD2191]

LMA and DDR are both mental midgets and losers. They can't get the fuck off this team soon enough.

[duncan2k5]

Other teams have literally lost half their players to COVID for weeks at a time. I love White but he isn't a superstar or even all star (at least consistently).

Not consistently? When has he ever played at an all star level? Lol

[duncan2k5]

I just watched the game and can't believe we got lit up and lost.

And yeah, you're right, I can't stand this strategy at all. Stop leaving shooters wide open all the time. If you get beat off the dribble, no need to double-team and leave guys open all the time. Teams seem to hit such a high amount of open shots Vs the Spurs this season. Use the double team sparingly for when a guy is hot and can't be stopped one on one. You don't use this strategy for large portions of the game. Also, in years past, our own players such as Danny Green couldn't hit a wide open shot, yet somehow, nearly everyone seems to be swishing wide open shots against the Spurs. Doesn't seem to matter if it's the opposing team's center, guard, power forward, whoever, they're all nailing threes against us. Whoever came up with this defensive strategy to double and leave shooters wide open, needs to rethink it and try something else.

Also, why was Trey Lyles playing and both Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell not playing at all in the 4th quarter? I don't understand that decision, either. Now that Derrick White is back, we needed defense, so Devin should have played in place of Lyles and Keldon could have also played in place of Mills in the 4th quarter. Mills can't stop anyone and was exactly on enough to justify playing him over Keldon when defense and toughness and rebounding was needed to try and slow the Grizzlies down. Pop is going to have to learn that Mills should not be closing games and Lyles shouldn't be playing in the 4th quarter if he was not in the rotation for most of game. He doesn't bring enough offense to justify playing him.

As for Jakob, although he does some good things, sorry to say, this guy is soft, soft, soft! I am so sorry that I used to think Rasho is a soft back when he was on the team. I judged him too harshly, as Jakob is making him look like Ben Wallace in the toughness department, and at least Rasho could hit a free throw. I never thought I'd say this, but give me Chris Dudley at the free throw line. It's absolutely embarrassing. Free throws are like layups to me, so I am finding it so hard to fathom how he can be this bad, especially without fans there. I know for sure the fans could cause him to miss a few as they are a factor for poor shooters, but there isn't even any fans out there to heckle and yell at him. How in the hell is he managing to shooter 23% from the line. Spurs made a huge mistake paying this guy what they paid if. If other teams wanted to pay him similar or more, they should have let him walk.

Oh, and I may as well mention Demar. My god is this guy terrible when he gets angry or upset out there. It seems that when at any time he feels some negative emotion, it's all over for him. It's hard to watch him crumble and be taken out of his game so easily when this happens. He's got to be mentally tougher. Show something. Use it to fuel you. Get mad and take it out on the other team. Crank up your defense if your offense isn't on, just do something positive out there. It doesn't always have to be scoring, you can do other things to help the team win. I am so used to seeing guys like TD and especially Manu dominate when they're mad. I don't really want to use this analogy, but Manu, in comparison used to detonate out there and nuke the other team, whereas Demar, is like a guy that walks into the nuclear radiation zone after the nuke goes off and gets fucked up.

Bro...DeRozan is over 30...that ship has sailed ..he isn't suddenly gonna be different...he is who he is

[duncan2k5]

LMA and DDR are both mental midgets and losers. They can't get the fuck off this team soon enough.

Someone gets it

[Ice009]

Bro...DeRozan is over 30...that ship has sailed ..he isn't suddenly gonna be different...he is who he is

Yeah, I am somehow hoping he changes, but like you said, that ship may have sailed a while ago. :(.

[look_at_g_shred]

Man fuck that game

[Dennis the Menace]

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[Dennis the Menace]

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