timvp
02-22-2008, 10:04 AM
Riding the back of yet another Manu Ginobili offensive explosion, the Spurs won their fourth game in a row – this one against the Timberwolves in Minnesota. While the T’Wolves entered the game with the second worst record in the NBA, they gave a good fight and almost came away with the win.
Thankfully for the Spurs, Ginobili hit a step-back jumper from the free throw line with six seconds to go and Sebastian Telfair missed an open three-pointer at the buzzer. The 100-99 win was far from dominant but considering the circumstances, it was a decent enough win nonetheless.
Perhaps the best news for the Spurs was the return of Tony Parker. After missing over three weeks with an ankle injury, Parker came off the bench for the Spurs. The Spurs still weren’t whole as the newly acquired Kurt Thomas wasn’t with the team yet.
As far as the T’Wolves are concerned, Al Jefferson continues to look like a superstar in the making. In the low block, he might already be the toughest bigman to guard in the entire NBA next to Tim Duncan. He has a ton of moves and great touch around the basket.
Overall, the win was ugly and there really wasn’t much to take away from the victory. The defense was extremely poor and the offense didn’t have much flow. If it weren’t for Ginobili, this would have been an ugly loss. I’ll take the ugly win instead.
-Tim Duncan defensively was lit up repeatedly by Jefferson. In one-on-one situations, Duncan was simply abused. His team defense was actually pretty good, it was just his one-on-one post defense that suffered. Perhaps Duncan was just showing Kurt Thomas why the Spurs traded for him. Offensively, Duncan was good. He hit half of his 16 shot attempts on his way to 24 points, 14 rebounds, seven assists, four blocks and three steals. Duncan was also 8-for-8 from the free throw line. Overall, outside of his post defense against Jefferson, Duncan had a quality outing.
-Manu Ginobili was awesome yet again. In the second quarter, he might have been more on fire than I’ve ever seen him. After checking into the game with ten minutes to go in the quarter, Ginobili went 8-for-8 from the field and scored 22 points. His final six baskets were three pointers. The rest of the game wasn’t too shabby as Ginobili finished with 44 points, four assists and three rebounds, while shooting 13-18 from the field, 7-for-9 from beyond the three-point line and 11-for-12 from the free throw line. Add in the game winning jumper with six seconds to go and the Spurs couldn’t ask for anything more out of Ginobili. It was just another legendary performance.
-Tony Parker was back in action and the best news of the night is he looked healthy. He showed bursts of speed and could attack the basket. We’ll see if he’s able to make a full recovery, however the first game back appeared to be a success. In his 18 minutes of playing time, he was obviously rusty and didn’t perform overly well. He finished with eight points, two rebounds and an assist, while hitting 3-of-7 shots from the field. Going forward, the Spurs need him to return to health if they want to remain championship hopefuls.
-Bruce Bowen continued his post All-Star break shooting slump. His 0-for-5 showing makes him now 2-for-14 after the All-Star break. Defensively he was mostly on Randy Foye and Foye was held in check for most of the game. But really, Bowen didn’t have too much of a positive impact on either end of the court. It’s not time to sound the alarm on the 36-year-old Bowen, but a quality showing in the next few games would help ease any fears that age has caught up to him.
-Fabricio Oberto didn’t exactly make a strong case for himself to remain a starter with Thomas waiting in the wings. In 18 mostly uninspired minutes, Oberto had three points, two rebounds and one assist. The few times he was matched up against Jefferson he was torched. Oberto will likely remain the starter as long as he’s playing well but a performance like this won’t be as easy for Pop to live with now that he has another quality option to turn to in Thomas.
-Damon Stoudamire got the start and posted his second consecutive good outing. He seems to be really comfortable with what the Spurs are trying to do. Stoudamire also seems to be in much better shape. In 23 minutes, he had four points, four rebounds and four assists and hit two of his four shots from the floor. Once Parker gets his starting job back, it appears that Pop will allow Stoudamire a chance to earn the backup minutes.
-Michael Finley continues to play some of the best basketball of his Spurs career. In 31 minutes, Finley had 13 points, two rebounds, one assist and one block, while hitting 6-of-11 shots from the field. He’s playing well enough off the bench that Pop likely won’t have to put Ginobili back on the bench when Parker is inserted into the starting lineup. Perhaps that will change at some point but Finley is producing instant offense off the bench right now. Outside of Duncan and Ginobili, Finley was the only other Spur in double figures on Thursday night.
-With Brent Barry traded, Ime Udoka is going to have to pick up the slack. Against Minnesota, Udoka was only 1-for-5 from the floor and finished with two points, three rebounds and two steals. The final step for Udoka to become a solid rotation player is consistency. To date, Udoka has been highly inconsistent, especially with his jumper. Hopefully that is something that improves as the postseason approaches.
-Robert Horry is another player who could see a loss of minutes with Thomas coming to town. Against the T’Wolves, Horry didn’t score but had six rebounds and an assist in 16 minutes of action. It will be interesting to see how much playing time Horry will get once Thomas is acclimated. There’s a chance that Horry will be on the outside of the rotation looking in.
-Jacque Vaughn was the third point guard this game. He came in after Stoudamire and after Parker. Truth be told, Vaughn has always been better suited to be a third point guard rather than a starting point guard. He’s the perfect player to have at the end of the bench who can be called upon when needed. That said, there’s no guarantee that Stoudamire will play well enough to remain the backup guard so Vaughn might find himself back in the rotation before too long.
-Matt Bonner played his first meaningful minutes in a while and finished with two points, one rebound and one blocked shot in six minutes. Bonner hasn’t hit a three-pointer in over a month and is 0-for-9 in that stretch. With the addition of Thomas, Bonner likely won’t see the light of day for a while.
-I don’t think Pop did anything that warrants him getting credit for the win. Ginobili played like a superstar and he got a quality showing by Duncan. That’s about all that happened that allowed the Spurs to win.
In fact, Pop didn’t help matters by going with an 11-man rotation in the first half. Usually this is the time of year that Pop starts setting his rotation. In this game, the rotations were as jumbled as ever.
Perhaps Pop thought that his rotation didn’t matter because Thomas wasn’t with the team. With Thomas, Pop will probably need to carve out a 20 minute niche for him. Will those minutes come from Oberto? Will those minutes come from Horry? Will the Spurs just play less small ball? It will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
The bottomline against the Timberwolves is the Spurs avoided what would have been a tough loss. With the New Orleans Hornets coming back to the AT&T Center on Saturday, the Spurs will be looking for revenge. In the last game between the two teams, the Hornets destroyed the Spurs 102-78. We’ll get a good feel for what the Spurs are made out of after that game.
Thankfully for the Spurs, Ginobili hit a step-back jumper from the free throw line with six seconds to go and Sebastian Telfair missed an open three-pointer at the buzzer. The 100-99 win was far from dominant but considering the circumstances, it was a decent enough win nonetheless.
Perhaps the best news for the Spurs was the return of Tony Parker. After missing over three weeks with an ankle injury, Parker came off the bench for the Spurs. The Spurs still weren’t whole as the newly acquired Kurt Thomas wasn’t with the team yet.
As far as the T’Wolves are concerned, Al Jefferson continues to look like a superstar in the making. In the low block, he might already be the toughest bigman to guard in the entire NBA next to Tim Duncan. He has a ton of moves and great touch around the basket.
Overall, the win was ugly and there really wasn’t much to take away from the victory. The defense was extremely poor and the offense didn’t have much flow. If it weren’t for Ginobili, this would have been an ugly loss. I’ll take the ugly win instead.
-Tim Duncan defensively was lit up repeatedly by Jefferson. In one-on-one situations, Duncan was simply abused. His team defense was actually pretty good, it was just his one-on-one post defense that suffered. Perhaps Duncan was just showing Kurt Thomas why the Spurs traded for him. Offensively, Duncan was good. He hit half of his 16 shot attempts on his way to 24 points, 14 rebounds, seven assists, four blocks and three steals. Duncan was also 8-for-8 from the free throw line. Overall, outside of his post defense against Jefferson, Duncan had a quality outing.
-Manu Ginobili was awesome yet again. In the second quarter, he might have been more on fire than I’ve ever seen him. After checking into the game with ten minutes to go in the quarter, Ginobili went 8-for-8 from the field and scored 22 points. His final six baskets were three pointers. The rest of the game wasn’t too shabby as Ginobili finished with 44 points, four assists and three rebounds, while shooting 13-18 from the field, 7-for-9 from beyond the three-point line and 11-for-12 from the free throw line. Add in the game winning jumper with six seconds to go and the Spurs couldn’t ask for anything more out of Ginobili. It was just another legendary performance.
-Tony Parker was back in action and the best news of the night is he looked healthy. He showed bursts of speed and could attack the basket. We’ll see if he’s able to make a full recovery, however the first game back appeared to be a success. In his 18 minutes of playing time, he was obviously rusty and didn’t perform overly well. He finished with eight points, two rebounds and an assist, while hitting 3-of-7 shots from the field. Going forward, the Spurs need him to return to health if they want to remain championship hopefuls.
-Bruce Bowen continued his post All-Star break shooting slump. His 0-for-5 showing makes him now 2-for-14 after the All-Star break. Defensively he was mostly on Randy Foye and Foye was held in check for most of the game. But really, Bowen didn’t have too much of a positive impact on either end of the court. It’s not time to sound the alarm on the 36-year-old Bowen, but a quality showing in the next few games would help ease any fears that age has caught up to him.
-Fabricio Oberto didn’t exactly make a strong case for himself to remain a starter with Thomas waiting in the wings. In 18 mostly uninspired minutes, Oberto had three points, two rebounds and one assist. The few times he was matched up against Jefferson he was torched. Oberto will likely remain the starter as long as he’s playing well but a performance like this won’t be as easy for Pop to live with now that he has another quality option to turn to in Thomas.
-Damon Stoudamire got the start and posted his second consecutive good outing. He seems to be really comfortable with what the Spurs are trying to do. Stoudamire also seems to be in much better shape. In 23 minutes, he had four points, four rebounds and four assists and hit two of his four shots from the floor. Once Parker gets his starting job back, it appears that Pop will allow Stoudamire a chance to earn the backup minutes.
-Michael Finley continues to play some of the best basketball of his Spurs career. In 31 minutes, Finley had 13 points, two rebounds, one assist and one block, while hitting 6-of-11 shots from the field. He’s playing well enough off the bench that Pop likely won’t have to put Ginobili back on the bench when Parker is inserted into the starting lineup. Perhaps that will change at some point but Finley is producing instant offense off the bench right now. Outside of Duncan and Ginobili, Finley was the only other Spur in double figures on Thursday night.
-With Brent Barry traded, Ime Udoka is going to have to pick up the slack. Against Minnesota, Udoka was only 1-for-5 from the floor and finished with two points, three rebounds and two steals. The final step for Udoka to become a solid rotation player is consistency. To date, Udoka has been highly inconsistent, especially with his jumper. Hopefully that is something that improves as the postseason approaches.
-Robert Horry is another player who could see a loss of minutes with Thomas coming to town. Against the T’Wolves, Horry didn’t score but had six rebounds and an assist in 16 minutes of action. It will be interesting to see how much playing time Horry will get once Thomas is acclimated. There’s a chance that Horry will be on the outside of the rotation looking in.
-Jacque Vaughn was the third point guard this game. He came in after Stoudamire and after Parker. Truth be told, Vaughn has always been better suited to be a third point guard rather than a starting point guard. He’s the perfect player to have at the end of the bench who can be called upon when needed. That said, there’s no guarantee that Stoudamire will play well enough to remain the backup guard so Vaughn might find himself back in the rotation before too long.
-Matt Bonner played his first meaningful minutes in a while and finished with two points, one rebound and one blocked shot in six minutes. Bonner hasn’t hit a three-pointer in over a month and is 0-for-9 in that stretch. With the addition of Thomas, Bonner likely won’t see the light of day for a while.
-I don’t think Pop did anything that warrants him getting credit for the win. Ginobili played like a superstar and he got a quality showing by Duncan. That’s about all that happened that allowed the Spurs to win.
In fact, Pop didn’t help matters by going with an 11-man rotation in the first half. Usually this is the time of year that Pop starts setting his rotation. In this game, the rotations were as jumbled as ever.
Perhaps Pop thought that his rotation didn’t matter because Thomas wasn’t with the team. With Thomas, Pop will probably need to carve out a 20 minute niche for him. Will those minutes come from Oberto? Will those minutes come from Horry? Will the Spurs just play less small ball? It will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
The bottomline against the Timberwolves is the Spurs avoided what would have been a tough loss. With the New Orleans Hornets coming back to the AT&T Center on Saturday, the Spurs will be looking for revenge. In the last game between the two teams, the Hornets destroyed the Spurs 102-78. We’ll get a good feel for what the Spurs are made out of after that game.