timvp
01-13-2008, 01:42 AM
The best thing about this game against the Timberwolves is the Spurs got another W for their win column. And really, that’s about all you can take out of this game. The Spurs didn’t play too much better – they just played against the worst team in the NBA.
Regarding the T’Wolves, Al Jefferson once again impressed. He has a very polished low post game and should develop into a top flight scorer down low. The team has a couple of decent other prospects but right now that team is just playing for lottery balls.
The Spurs, on the other hand, were actually trying to win but didn’t do a good job of that for much of the game. Their offense had no rhythm and was sloppy. Their defense was porous and largely ineffective. The T’Wolves shot 48.6% from the floor and had a lot of good looks rim out. Really, the Spurs won because they got 23 more trips to the free throw line and they recorded an uncharacteristically high amount of steals (15).
This game certainly wasn’t a game that will get the Spurs back into their rhythm. For that, we still have to wait.
-Tim Duncan had a decent night. He didn’t do anything too amazing but some aspects of his games were improved. He had three blocked shots in his 31 minutes of action, which were the same amount of blocked shots he had in 154 minutes over his last four games. His 15 points and nine rebounds weren’t too special, but at least he was an efficient 7-for-12 from the field. After hitting 22-of-25 free throws over the last two games, he was 1-for-6 tonight. Overall, it was basically the type of ho-hum yet effective game Duncan can play in his sleep.
-Manu Ginobili seemed more comfortable shooting the ball than anytime since he returned from his finger injury. Ginobili hit 6-of-10 shots from the floor, including 3-of-5 from three-point range. In total, five of his six baskets were on jumpers. Ginobili’s all-around game was good as he finished with five rebounds, five steals and three assists to go along with his 22 points. He was, on the other hand, a bit loose with the ball (four turnovers) and his defense was more gimmicky than solid. This was a step in the right direction for Ginobili in terms of getting back to how he was playing earlier in the season, but there’s still room for improvement.
-Tony Parker’s stats look acceptable but it was another patchy outing for the Spurs’ point guard. He finished with 21 points and 8 assists, while shooting 7-for-14 from the floor. However, Parker had six turnovers and didn’t pull down a rebound in his 29 minutes of play. Parker’s energy was only satisfactory and he’s having trouble jumpstarting this mostly snoozing squad. In Parker’s favor, he did lead the team in plus/minus with a +21 and he was competitive on the defensive end.
-Bruce Bowen wasn’t of much use in this game as the T’Wolves don’t have a dominant perimeter scorer. In the 20 minutes he did play, Bowen didn’t do much of anything. He scored one point, handed out one assist and missed his only two attempts.
-After a rough stretch of games, Michael Finley played much better. He settled back into his role and wasn’t forcing the issue as much. In 20 minutes, Finley had 11 points on 4-for-8 shooting and hit 3-of-5 from downtown. This was the first game since Ginobili returned that Finley looked comfortable on the offensive end of the court for the Spurs.
-Fabricio Oberto had his second straight very solid performance. In a starting role, Oberto totaled six points, seven rebounds, two steals and an assist, while hitting all three of his shots from the floor. Most notable, however, were his three blocked shots in 20 minutes played. Oberto was much more active than usual in terms of jumping and trying to block shots. Perhaps it was by design since the Spurs are currently second to last in the NBA in blocked shots – ahead of only the lowly New York Knicks. Coming into this game, Oberto hadn’t blocked a shot in his last six games. In fact, his last three blocks came over a span of 13 games and 268 minutes.
-The best player on the court for the Spurs tonight was Jacque Vaughn, hands down. His energy was beyond compare. He had a handful of jaw dropping hustle plays throughout the game. Without Vaughn, the Spurs might have sleepwalked their way to a loss. Vaughn finished with a season-high eight assists, a season-high three steals and zero turnovers. Perhaps just as important, Vaughn wasn’t looking for his own offense. He went scoreless while missing his only two shot attempts, but really that’s when Vaughn is at his best. A Vaughn who goes onto the court to play defense, hustle and distribute the ball is a very valuable Vaughn.
-Ime Udoka has done a good job of recovering from the rough shooting stretch he had a couple weeks ago. He gave the Spurs 19 solid minutes in which he hit half of his four three-point attempts and scored nine points. Since shooting 3-for-18 over a three game stretch, Udoka is now 12-for-22 since that time. Defensively, Udoka is learning the system at a fast rate and was very effective tonight.
-Francisco Elson is apparently back into the rotation and played 19 minutes tonight – the most minutes he has played since the day after Christmas. He wasn’t great against the T’Wolves but he was relatively decent, finishing with six points and four rebounds. On the negative end of the spectrum, Elson hit only 2-of-6 shots from the floor and made a couple of mistakes on the both ends of the court. That said, he wasn’t as bad as he’s been for much of the season.
-If you look at Matt Bonner’s statline, the first thing you see are his five turnovers. To be fair, I don’t think he was as careless as that number indicates. Besides his turnovers, Bonner had a very good outing. In 17 minutes, Bonner finished with nine points, six rebounds and a blocked shot, while draining 3-of-5 shots from the field and 2-of-3 shots from three-point land. When the Spurs were struggling in the second quarter, Bonner hit a pair of threes to spark the Spurs.
-Jeremy Richardson got eight minutes of playing time, with more than half of those minutes coming in the first half while the game was still up for grabs. While it’s unfair to judge him based on such a small sample size, I wasn’t too impressed with what I saw. Since he’s on a ten-day contract, he only has a short amount of time to make an impact. In his eight minutes, it didn’t appear as if he was laying it all out on the line. He seemed to struggle with physical play and his defense obviously needs a lot to work. He did knock down a straight away three-pointer, but I thought his release point was quite low for an NBA player. Hopefully he gets another attempts to show what he can do but as of now, Richardson didn’t give the Spurs much a reason to keep him around for the long haul.
-If you’ve read this far, congratulations, you have just stumbled upon a juicy tidbit. Robert Horry only played six minutes but the story is what happened when he left the game. Pop called a timeout soon after the second quarter began after a botched offensive play and a turnover. Pop in the timeout simply told four players from off the bench to enter the game and then walked away. Horry obviously wasn’t pleased with getting pulled and there was a minor Horry versus Pop squabble. The squabble ended with Horry saying (if my lip-reading skills are accurate) "that’s not right, man, that’s not right". It wasn’t anything major but on a team that prides itself on chemistry, it was at least noteworthy. It was also noteworthy that Horry never went back into the game. However, I’m not sure how much you can read into that since Horry’s playing time has been erratic as of late.
-As the Spurs have struggled, Pop has mostly tried to let the team figure it out on their own. He’s not calling timeouts to stop the bleeding and he’s not getting overly animated on the sideline. In fact, Pop probably doesn’t really care that the Spurs are struggling. He’s from the Larry Brown School as far as he’s most comfortable when things are going wrong because he knows there are things the team can work on in practice. Pop becomes most uncomfortable when the Spurs are dominating in the regular season.
After this game, Pop had more reason to gush about the play of Vaughn. Praising Vaughn is Pop’s subtle way of telling the rest of the team that they need to pick up their energy level. In a way, this was a perfect January game for Pop since the Spurs struggled yet won the game and his prized bench hustle player shone brightest.
The bottomline is this game was basically a yawner. The Spurs broke their two game losing streak by beating a horrible team that wasn’t trying to win. Whoop de doo.
Regarding the T’Wolves, Al Jefferson once again impressed. He has a very polished low post game and should develop into a top flight scorer down low. The team has a couple of decent other prospects but right now that team is just playing for lottery balls.
The Spurs, on the other hand, were actually trying to win but didn’t do a good job of that for much of the game. Their offense had no rhythm and was sloppy. Their defense was porous and largely ineffective. The T’Wolves shot 48.6% from the floor and had a lot of good looks rim out. Really, the Spurs won because they got 23 more trips to the free throw line and they recorded an uncharacteristically high amount of steals (15).
This game certainly wasn’t a game that will get the Spurs back into their rhythm. For that, we still have to wait.
-Tim Duncan had a decent night. He didn’t do anything too amazing but some aspects of his games were improved. He had three blocked shots in his 31 minutes of action, which were the same amount of blocked shots he had in 154 minutes over his last four games. His 15 points and nine rebounds weren’t too special, but at least he was an efficient 7-for-12 from the field. After hitting 22-of-25 free throws over the last two games, he was 1-for-6 tonight. Overall, it was basically the type of ho-hum yet effective game Duncan can play in his sleep.
-Manu Ginobili seemed more comfortable shooting the ball than anytime since he returned from his finger injury. Ginobili hit 6-of-10 shots from the floor, including 3-of-5 from three-point range. In total, five of his six baskets were on jumpers. Ginobili’s all-around game was good as he finished with five rebounds, five steals and three assists to go along with his 22 points. He was, on the other hand, a bit loose with the ball (four turnovers) and his defense was more gimmicky than solid. This was a step in the right direction for Ginobili in terms of getting back to how he was playing earlier in the season, but there’s still room for improvement.
-Tony Parker’s stats look acceptable but it was another patchy outing for the Spurs’ point guard. He finished with 21 points and 8 assists, while shooting 7-for-14 from the floor. However, Parker had six turnovers and didn’t pull down a rebound in his 29 minutes of play. Parker’s energy was only satisfactory and he’s having trouble jumpstarting this mostly snoozing squad. In Parker’s favor, he did lead the team in plus/minus with a +21 and he was competitive on the defensive end.
-Bruce Bowen wasn’t of much use in this game as the T’Wolves don’t have a dominant perimeter scorer. In the 20 minutes he did play, Bowen didn’t do much of anything. He scored one point, handed out one assist and missed his only two attempts.
-After a rough stretch of games, Michael Finley played much better. He settled back into his role and wasn’t forcing the issue as much. In 20 minutes, Finley had 11 points on 4-for-8 shooting and hit 3-of-5 from downtown. This was the first game since Ginobili returned that Finley looked comfortable on the offensive end of the court for the Spurs.
-Fabricio Oberto had his second straight very solid performance. In a starting role, Oberto totaled six points, seven rebounds, two steals and an assist, while hitting all three of his shots from the floor. Most notable, however, were his three blocked shots in 20 minutes played. Oberto was much more active than usual in terms of jumping and trying to block shots. Perhaps it was by design since the Spurs are currently second to last in the NBA in blocked shots – ahead of only the lowly New York Knicks. Coming into this game, Oberto hadn’t blocked a shot in his last six games. In fact, his last three blocks came over a span of 13 games and 268 minutes.
-The best player on the court for the Spurs tonight was Jacque Vaughn, hands down. His energy was beyond compare. He had a handful of jaw dropping hustle plays throughout the game. Without Vaughn, the Spurs might have sleepwalked their way to a loss. Vaughn finished with a season-high eight assists, a season-high three steals and zero turnovers. Perhaps just as important, Vaughn wasn’t looking for his own offense. He went scoreless while missing his only two shot attempts, but really that’s when Vaughn is at his best. A Vaughn who goes onto the court to play defense, hustle and distribute the ball is a very valuable Vaughn.
-Ime Udoka has done a good job of recovering from the rough shooting stretch he had a couple weeks ago. He gave the Spurs 19 solid minutes in which he hit half of his four three-point attempts and scored nine points. Since shooting 3-for-18 over a three game stretch, Udoka is now 12-for-22 since that time. Defensively, Udoka is learning the system at a fast rate and was very effective tonight.
-Francisco Elson is apparently back into the rotation and played 19 minutes tonight – the most minutes he has played since the day after Christmas. He wasn’t great against the T’Wolves but he was relatively decent, finishing with six points and four rebounds. On the negative end of the spectrum, Elson hit only 2-of-6 shots from the floor and made a couple of mistakes on the both ends of the court. That said, he wasn’t as bad as he’s been for much of the season.
-If you look at Matt Bonner’s statline, the first thing you see are his five turnovers. To be fair, I don’t think he was as careless as that number indicates. Besides his turnovers, Bonner had a very good outing. In 17 minutes, Bonner finished with nine points, six rebounds and a blocked shot, while draining 3-of-5 shots from the field and 2-of-3 shots from three-point land. When the Spurs were struggling in the second quarter, Bonner hit a pair of threes to spark the Spurs.
-Jeremy Richardson got eight minutes of playing time, with more than half of those minutes coming in the first half while the game was still up for grabs. While it’s unfair to judge him based on such a small sample size, I wasn’t too impressed with what I saw. Since he’s on a ten-day contract, he only has a short amount of time to make an impact. In his eight minutes, it didn’t appear as if he was laying it all out on the line. He seemed to struggle with physical play and his defense obviously needs a lot to work. He did knock down a straight away three-pointer, but I thought his release point was quite low for an NBA player. Hopefully he gets another attempts to show what he can do but as of now, Richardson didn’t give the Spurs much a reason to keep him around for the long haul.
-If you’ve read this far, congratulations, you have just stumbled upon a juicy tidbit. Robert Horry only played six minutes but the story is what happened when he left the game. Pop called a timeout soon after the second quarter began after a botched offensive play and a turnover. Pop in the timeout simply told four players from off the bench to enter the game and then walked away. Horry obviously wasn’t pleased with getting pulled and there was a minor Horry versus Pop squabble. The squabble ended with Horry saying (if my lip-reading skills are accurate) "that’s not right, man, that’s not right". It wasn’t anything major but on a team that prides itself on chemistry, it was at least noteworthy. It was also noteworthy that Horry never went back into the game. However, I’m not sure how much you can read into that since Horry’s playing time has been erratic as of late.
-As the Spurs have struggled, Pop has mostly tried to let the team figure it out on their own. He’s not calling timeouts to stop the bleeding and he’s not getting overly animated on the sideline. In fact, Pop probably doesn’t really care that the Spurs are struggling. He’s from the Larry Brown School as far as he’s most comfortable when things are going wrong because he knows there are things the team can work on in practice. Pop becomes most uncomfortable when the Spurs are dominating in the regular season.
After this game, Pop had more reason to gush about the play of Vaughn. Praising Vaughn is Pop’s subtle way of telling the rest of the team that they need to pick up their energy level. In a way, this was a perfect January game for Pop since the Spurs struggled yet won the game and his prized bench hustle player shone brightest.
The bottomline is this game was basically a yawner. The Spurs broke their two game losing streak by beating a horrible team that wasn’t trying to win. Whoop de doo.