Grade: Pop @ Pelicans play in game - Apr. 13, 2022

[MultiTroll]

Like to see what everyone thinks.

[KingKev]

Starting Primo was an automatic D…

I know KBD is a a deep bench player but he could have been given 5-10 mins defending BI.

[MultiTroll]

D

Started off well, team did look ready to compete.
Lots of good plays thru out the game.
Otherwise....

The high school, really more like Jr. High zone D that gave up 3 pointers to Alvaro with no one 15 feet from him. Pathetic. And it's not like the off guard was off doubling a big. One sequence Tre Jones was standing in the paint guarding NO ONE when they flipped to Alvaro for the easy uncontested trey.

Failure to put limits on Keldons pathetic Kobme style chucking. Sure he came back and hit several to help the comeback but FFS the hole dug by The Keldon Show. Call a fucking time out and make him adjust. Ditto 4-17 DJ to a lesser extent. Install an offensive strategy rather then having Kobme 1 and 2 doing mindless forces to the tune of 11-39 / 1-10.

The silly "Do it the right way" rah rah speech in crunch time timeout. That's all he had.

Talking about rebounds while you leave Landale on the bench. :lol Was Collins and 4 players 6 6 or under for quite a spell, also Poodle with a small ball lineup. The need for a PF or at least a SF with length and athleticism has been glaring for 3 years. Maybe Pop will catch up to that before 2032.

[K...]

A......pity post. He's coming back too. No assistant, just pop.

[MultiTroll]

^ pity post

[SAGirl]

Gave it a B. The team scrapped and didn’t quit. The roster is limited. I didn’t personally mind Primo minutes if that helped him get a sense for playoff like basketball intensity and also how your better plans fall to the side with the star in foul trouble Murray and KJ taken out of the game by Pelicans defense. It gave the opportunity for something unexpected happening like Primo surprising with some shots. After he didn’t cash in his opportunity his minutes were cut. Don’t see the harm in that.

Outside if perhaps playing Landale a little to see if he could replicate his play in the prior matchup I don’t know what else he could have done in this one.

[Chinook]

Thought it was a B. Not having Johnson and Murray ready to play keeps it from being an A, but the team fought well and I thought he made good adjustments. This was one of his better games, but he can't do anything if Johnson is going to be a turtle for half the game and Murray and Jakob getting into foul trouble off bad mistakes.

[MultiTroll]

Gave it a B. The team scrapped and didn’t quit. The roster is limited. I didn’t personally mind Primo minutes if that helped him get a sense for playoff like basketball intensity and also how your better plans fall to the side with the star in foul trouble Murray and KJ taken out of the game by Pelicans defense. It gave the opportunity for something unexpected happening like Primo surprising with some shots. After he didn’t cash in his opportunity his minutes were cut. Don’t see the harm in that.

Outside if perhaps playing Landale a little to see if he could replicate his play in the prior matchup I don’t know what else he could have done in this one.


Thought it was a B. Not having Johnson and Murray ready to play keeps it from being an A, but the team fought well and I thought he made good adjustments. This was one of his better games, but he can't do anything if Johnson is going to be a turtle for half the game and Murray and Jakob getting into foul trouble off bad mistakes.
All votes are viewpoints are welcome.
How does "not having Murray and KJ ready to play", to the tune of their chucking 11-39 and 1-10 not fall on offensive strategy, aka as coaching?
"Taken out of the game by Pels D" or taken out of the game by insanely chucking vs working some team ball.
Again, coaching, hello.

Landale not getting a sniff while outrebounded by 19. Ya think maybe Small Ball chucking by two players was a bad move and maybe give Landale a sniff?
Coaching.

After all that i felt if DJ makes the driving layup at 97-91 to make it 97-93 the Spurs would have seized momentum 100% and Pels choke would have been completed.

[R. DeMurre]

Holy shit... Paul George has covid and is out for tonight's play in against the Pelicans.

[Chinook]

All votes are viewpoints are welcome.
How does "not having Murray and KJ ready to play", to the tune of their chucking 11-39 and 1-10 not fall on offensive strategy, aka as coaching?.

Pretty sure I listed it as a negative, hence why he got a B and not an A.

Anyway, Murray and Johnson are both way more limited than folks might think. I think the overall offensive strategy was pretty good considering how well they could score despite their high-usage guys being ineffective.


Landale not getting a sniff while outrebounded by 19. Ya think maybe Small Ball chucking by two players was a bad move and maybe give Landale a sniff?
Coaching.

Basically, the entire rebounding difference can be explained by two factors: 1) The Spurs shot 10 more shots than NOP did and 2) The Spurs scored seven fewer baskets. That means NOP had 17 more misses to rebound than the Spurs did. It's not a surprise they got more rebounds. It would be one thing if the stats said they got more offensive boards, but they didn't. That said, the Spurs were out-hustled, according to advanced stats. They didn't box out well and didn't get deflections, and both of those are explanations for why the Spurs are an even worse rebounding team than their personnel would suggest. That's not an argument for putting in Landale, nor is it an argument for not playing small even. But if the team is going to play small, they'll have to change their mentality. That even Murray has become a net-negative rebounder for the team is concerning.


After all that i felt if DJ makes the driving layup at 97-91 to make it 97-93 the Spurs would have seized momentum 100% and Pels choke would have been completed.

So how is that not a credit to the coaching? The Spurs were outmatched in this game. It looked like a loss on paper, and they came within a couple of buckets of a late lead. Murray was still recovering from his illness. Walker could only play spot minutes. You can't blame Pop for not winning a game that he almost won and give a bunch of credit to the players who supposedly didn't play well because they weren't coached well. It's a contradiction.

[K...]

Holy shit... Paul George has covid and is out for tonight's play in against the Pelicans.

Have to give that coach an F for not stopping Covid before his player got it. A good coach would have kept the contagion limited in January. 2020.

[Ariel]

A+
Made sure we got the result we needed. :lol

[Ariel]

Holy shit... Paul George has covid and is out for tonight's play in against the Pelicans.
Uhhh... I would not give a F, except it if the Pelicans win that'd mean OKC's pick would rise from 15 to 12, and I hate their shenanigans.

[R. DeMurre]

I'm kind of amazed how often people in this thread talk about Dejounte and Keldon having poor shooting performances, but without referencing Herb Jones. He's not as under-the-radar as he was a month or two ago, but I think lots of people still don't realize that he's one of the best defenders in the NBA right now.

[SAGirl]

Holy shit... Paul George has covid and is out for tonight's play in against the Pelicans.
Ha ha. I didn’t like the Clippers anyways, while the Pelicans are likeable with them playing their rookies, and McCollum giving them such a lift after the rumors swirling about Zion and the vultures already picking apart a small franchise again. Go Pellies go.

[SAGirl]

I'm kind of amazed how often people in this thread talk about Dejounte and Keldon having poor shooting performances, but without referencing Herb Jones. He's not as under-the-radar as he was a month or two ago, but I think lots of people still don't realize that he's one of the best defenders in the NBA right now.

He was fantastic and this Pelicans team will spell trouble next season from the get go, should they leave the drama behind them.

I simply pay attention to what the Spurs have and focus on what they are because one night is Herb Jones, another night it’s Gobert, another night is who knows… That’s the value of playoff like games and atmosphere. These are not the regular season games in which Keldon can keep his 20 point streak against bad defenders, tanking teams, and teams that are in general not ready to counter what he does specifically.

You just generally made the argument for why these kinds of games are valuable. Some would say its at least part of the reason why some regular season performers like Derozan melt in the postseason.

The Spurs production against these kind of defenses matter and both the coach and players needed to figure things out offensively. Most of the better teams have All D caliber players in their rosters. There will always be ace defensive players in the league that you need to figure out, either how to screen them, how to get away from them, etc. You have to be smarter too. That’s what all stars do. I rewatched a little of the game, and one play stood out, McCollum at the top of the key, asked for screens until he got Keldon on him. Then he proceeded to give him the smallest hesi move and took the ball all the way to the rack for a dunk.

On the one hand it showed me that Keldon really is smaller than he seems (only a little bit taller than McCollum) and very slow laterally. He has no agility or fluidity sideways. McCollum made that look easy, but the point I wanted to make was about how smart he was to get away from Vassell, who is a lot peskier and rangier and Murray, who even with his fouls, is a hawk for steals or blocks from behind. He sought and went against who he wanted. Obviously you can’t play the entire game like this, and McCollum had to play all kind of defenders all game, but whenever he saw the opportunity to strike he did. The Spurs have to play smarter and figure out the defenses that are thrown at them.

Could Pop have done a little teaching here? In hindsight yea. Are the players smart in the BBIQ sense and receptive to spot mismatches and matches they want? I dont know. Keldon was bulldozing bigs, and tall forwards. I admire his heart, it’s what has gotten him this far, but if he wants to go farther, now he needs to bring his smarts into it.

Murray I think played better in the sense that he sought to pass and create for others as much as for himself. Some of the shots he missed, specially early, were jump shots that he can make. He started to force things at the end of the game, at which point I think the speed with which they were pllaying and the urgency to come back just overrode his better judgement. He and Keldon tried to hero ball at the end and that is not going to work against the defenders they had. They had to do it together… when they played together they were better. The hero balling backfired. There was a little guard getting playing time and he wasn’t exposed often, he was sometimes, but not like players used to take advantage of the Spurs smalls like Patty and Forbes. Even CJ himself is not ace defensively.

I do recognize Herb Jones was fantastic, he truly was, but if the Spurs plan to evolve to be better, they have to figure out the Herb Joneses of the NBA.

[R. DeMurre]

Ha ha. I didn’t like the Clippers anyways, while the Pelicans are likeable with them playing their rookies, and McCollum giving them such a lift after the rumors swirling about Zion and the vultures already picking apart a small franchise again. Go Pellies go.


A Pelican site I just looked at has the same draft vs playoffs debates going on that Spurstalk did, but in their case if they lose they have two shots at a #1 or top 4 pick: their own-- which goes to Portland if it falls between 5-14, or to Charlotte if it's 15-30-- plus the one owed to them from the Lakers. No matter what happens, they have one lottery pick, but if they lose and get lucky they could have a top 4 plus a top 10 pick, or even potentially two top 4 picks. The Lakers got that one championship but from this point forward that AD trade is probably going to be very painful for them.

[Dex]

B-

Pop did the best he could with what he had.

I'll say it again...Murray is supposed to be our star, and he shit the bed. He played 34 minutes and went 5/19...that tells the story. I know he was coming off "illness" and shaking off rust and yada yada...but either be ready to play, or don't play. This was the biggest game of the season, and he came up short, period.

Keldon also put up a terrible first half but finally put it together in the second...but the damage was done at that point.

Poeltl got into early foul trouble AGAIN and that is something he desperately needs to figure out. You can't blame the refs if this continues to happen time after time after time.

SO....Pop did the best with what he could. My main criticism is he should've played Lonnie more, who actually seemed to be in a groove and didn't get nearly enough minutes. I actually like that he stuck with Primo even though he didn't get much done...learning lesson for the youngster.

Pop isn't the reason that the Spurs lost this game. It's because the players on the court (namely Murray and Johnson) didn't execute.

But apparently I am a hater because I call out DJ all the time for acting like a leader then failing to meet the task, so what do I know? :rolleyes

[SAGirl]

A Pelican site I just looked at has the same draft vs playoffs debates going on that Spurstalk did, but in their case if they lose they have two shots at a #1 or top 4 pick: their own-- which goes to Portland if it falls between 5-14, or to Charlotte if it's 15-30-- plus the one owed to them from the Lakers. No matter what happens, they have one lottery pick, but if they lose and get lucky they could have a top 4 plus a top 10 pick, or even potentially two top 4 picks. The Lakers got that one championship but from this point forward that AD trade is probably going to be very painful for them.
I don’t know if you watched Pellies/Clippers. It’s still playing as I am typing this going into the 4th Q, Batum has locked up BI and the Clippers have also doubled and blitzed him. Spurs have a lot of work to do still. It’s interesting to see how other teams handle similar situations because of the different personnel they have.

[dbestpro]

All loses are a failure. I will give him some credit and give him an F+.