Falling in love with the 3, too many shot last night?

[Rummpd]

Last night granted the Spurs had some problems on defense and sloppy play, however, I was screaming into the set to get the ball inside more.

Instead 28 3's were flung up last night - too,too many, especially on a night when they were not on fire from out there - the Spurs missed 17. Many were also jacked up relatively quick and not as a result of the Spurs classic in and out game that is more effective.

What was especially troubling is that the Bulls were in potential foul trouble and the ball kept going outside.

Did anyone else think this was a major issue last night?

[ambchang]

No question, whenever the score was tied, or the Spurs down by 2-3 points, they hoist a 3 up. What was going on with them.
Also, the defense wasn't even close to what it should be, too many layups at critical points, and they lost the rebounding battle.
I have a feeling the Bulls will lose a few games in a row though.

[Bruno]

The issue was the poor D we play.
We should a lot of 3 because they mainly defend the paint.
11-28 is good, it's 39.3%. If you look at team's 3PT%, only 3 teams average more than that.
We are very inconsitent this year on D : maybe it's motivation, maybe are we not physicaly ready, maybe it's the loss of Devin and the injury of Manu that made us weak to defend SG/SF. I don't know but D was the key of this loss.

[TDMVPDPOY]

this team is da bomb

[bigbendbruisebrother]

Last night granted the Spurs had some problems on defense and sloppy play, however, I was screaming into the set to get the ball inside more.

Instead 28 3's were flung up last night - too,too many, especially on a night when they were not on fire from out there - the Spurs missed 17. Many were also jacked up relatively quick and not as a result of the Spurs classic in and out game that is more effective.

What was especially troubling is that the Bulls were in potential foul trouble and the ball kept going outside.

Did anyone else think this was a major issue last night?

I'm not reading a whole lot into this loss. PJ Carlisimo predicted a game like this in the pregame chat. He said they got in at 5:00 am and were tired. The team looked drained, and it showed significantly on defense.

Van Exel's offensive contributions come with a price. He was scoring well, but as soon as he'd hit a big shot, Heinrich or whoever NVE was guarding would answer, usually by nailing a jumper off a high screen. The same was true with Finley. NVE and Finley have got a lot of work to do to get in tune with Pop's defense. That having been said, the help defense in general was a step behind all night long.

[boutons]

"got in at 5:00 am"

... but wasn't that 5AM _Thurs_ morning from Oakland? and not Friday morning?

That's sounds like the B2B excuse, when there was no B2B.
I heard him say that and don't know why they couldn't get some sleep Thu night?

[boutons]

Spurs shot a lot of 3Gs, but shot a good %age, and scored 33 pts on 3Gs.

But they got beat in 3G%, as well in ALL other stat categories.

Too many 3Gs was hardly the Spurs only problem.

[Despot]

More importantly,the effects of Pop's tongue lashing did not last more than the Warrior game. Usually after a pop motivational speech we can expect to see a few more well played games than just one.

[dbreiden83080]

Well we played bad D, on top of which they really were the first team to control Parker's penetration to the basket. Spurs have trouble with their young athletic guards, all of which can really shoot the ball.

[Spurologist]

Doesn't it seem that the spurs always run into a team that gets on fire and shoots well from the perimeter. I can't really say what the spurs are doing wrong (don't watch most of spurs games) but they need to tighten up their perimeter D. The interior D has been solid for the most part.

[T Park]

That's sounds like the B2B excuse, when there was no B2B.
I heard him say that and don't know why they couldn't get some sleep Thu night

Yeah,

damn those guys for being tired.

WHO THE HELL ARE THEY!!!

STRING EM UP!!!

ARGGG!!!

[Kori Ellis]

Last night granted the Spurs had some problems on defense and sloppy play, however, I was screaming into the set to get the ball inside more.

Instead 28 3's were flung up last night - too,too many, especially on a night when they were not on fire from out there - the Spurs missed 17. Many were also jacked up relatively quick and not as a result of the Spurs classic in and out game that is more effective.

What was especially troubling is that the Bulls were in potential foul trouble and the ball kept going outside.

Did anyone else think this was a major issue last night?

They had to settle for more outside shots than normal because Chicago D was clogging the lane. That's going to happen from time to time. But still the bottom line is that they gave up way too many points to the Bulls. Chicago only averages 94 points per game.

[FromWayDowntown]

The Spurs love affair with long jumpshots is troubling, but it wasn't the cause of the loss last night. Aside from the Spurs' lethargic effort, the Bulls beat the Spurs by exploiting the Spurs' defensive weakness.

The Spurs have a significant defensive problem, which Seattle really exploited in the last 4 games of that playoff series, in defending screen-roll plays. People can pretend like it doesn't exist, but the Spurs are routinely torched by teams that have good guards and enough patience to move the ball. Until the Spurs resolve the problem, they will continue to have rocky 4th Quarters and will struggle to win games like the Chicago game.

I'll try to keep this short on x's and o's, since some could care less about the how's and why's of the game. But, if you watch closely, you'll see that on every pick and roll play involving Tony Parker on defense, the Spurs have to "switch" the play. In simple terms, this means that if you have a point guard and a power forward involved in the pick and roll, Tim Duncan ends up guarding the point guard while Tony Parker ends up on the power forward.

The Spurs generally compensate for the mismatch by bringing another big guy to the power forward. But bringing another big guy does 2 things: (1) it eliminates the availability of the 2nd big to cut off the penetration of the point guard, if the point guard can beat Duncan; and/or (2) it requires the Spurs perimeter defense to rotate, since the big guy who helps Tony has to come off of a player to do so.

In my estimation, the Spurs defensive problems really crop up in slow rotations to shooters. With enough ball movement, teams can get the ball to an open player against a scrambling defense which affords huge seams and little help at the rim. Even if the open guy doesn't put the ball on the deck and attack the hole, he's got an open shot or enough time to find another teammate who is about to become open because of the late rotations.

In the past, with guards like Avery Johnson, the Spurs didn't have to "switch" because AJ was strong enough to fight over the top of the screen and to stay with the ball. AJ also had the assistence of David Robinson, who may have been the best big man in the history of basketball in terms of his ablility to "hedge" the ball and recover to his own man. Tony Parker lacks the physical strength to fight over screens and, as good as Tim Duncan is defensively, he's not David Robinson in terms of his ability to hedge and recover. The difference is gigantic: if your PG and PF/C can defend the pick-and-roll without switching, the need for help is diminished, which allows the rest of the defense to maintain its integrity. That means no open shooters plus help at the rim. That's the type of defense that wins titles.

Teams that can run screen-roll at the Spurs and patiently move the ball are successful. The Sonics showed that; the Suns had some success with it in the WCF (but their defensive liabilities and lack of depth allowed the Spurs to minimize the problem); the Pistons had some success in Games 3 and 4 of the Finals (the side pick-and-roll with McDyess was unstoppable in those games); and of late, teams like Houston and Sacramento have had nice success with screen-roll plays in half-court sets in 4th quarters.

Couple that problem with the slow weakside rotations on dribble-drives, and you get a night where the Spurs give up 106 points. Getting to 99 points should be enough to guarantee plenty of Spurs wins, but when the defensive problems can be exploited to the tune of 105+, the Spurs have big-time problems.

[gospursgojas]

I agree that they shot too many 3's, but there were some open ones at the end that I was screaming for them to shoot. Unfortunatly, Pop had probably already laid into them about the number of threes they had already shot, you could tell b/c no one wanted to shoot the open three.

[spurster]

Agree with FWD. It would help if the Spurs big men would give a good hedge in the first place. Only Rasho seemed to want to do it last night.

As for 3 pointers, the team was avoiding shooting a lot more 3 pointers than they did. There was at least one possession where 4 players had a wide open 3-point look, but didn't let it fly.

[z0sa]

First of all, I think other than Rasho's couple of 2inch shots, he was a huge problem. They could leave him open and he wouldn't hit shit. Also, I liked the amount of three's we shot, just I didn't like the defense we played. The reason though, is that Duncan etc are used to hanging back in the paint as a shot blocker because Parker/Manu/Bowen etc are defending as hard as they can on those screen and rolls. NVE and Finley were often caught in screens and that left open players.