duncan228
05-22-2008, 11:57 PM
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA052308.ReviewPreview.en.1d76f0ca.html
Spurs: Mike Monroe's Review/Preview
Mike Monroe
LOS ANGELES — The Spurs gave their fans plenty of reason to believe they can prevail in their Western Conference finals series against the Lakers with their performance in the first 30 minutes of Game 1 on Wednesday at the Staples Center.
Then they left them agonizing about what might have been.
Here’s the scary part: That 20-point lead the Spurs forged midway through the third quarter likely had as much to do with the Lakers’ lack of focus as it did the Spurs’ excellence.
When you’re coming off a mini-vacation that included a team feast paid for by your superstar and you’ve spent hours admiring the expensive watch he bought for each of his teammates, can you really be focused on the task at hand?
Don’t count on the Spurs getting out to an early lead in Game 2, and certainly not a 20-point lead. Lakers coach Phil Jackson made it clear after his team’s escape from a game it deserved to lose that he would demand more attention to detail in tonight’s Game 2. There is little reason to believe he won’t get it.
Gregg Popovich wisely turned his team’s travel travail into another challenge to be overcome. His players responded with better effort than Jackson got from his Lakers.
There is no question the Spurs ran out of gas late Wednesday. Even Jackson acknowledged the effect of those hours the Spurs spent in cramped quarters on their broken charter plane Monday night.
The irony of Game 1 is this: Since a loss is a loss is a loss, the Spurs would have been better served by a blowout, so Popovich could have rested spent players like Manu Ginobili.
If the Spurs are behind big tonight, don’t criticize Popovich if he throws in the towel early to save the legs of his key players. It’s what he did in those blowout losses in the first three games his team played in New Orleans in the last series, and that worked out just fine.
Best of Seven
1: The excitement on the streets outside the arena is electric, avid fans buzzing about what is about to happen. Oh, wait, that’s the crowd arriving for !“American Idol.”
2: How do you know it’s a big game? It’s still an hour before tipoff, and Lou Adler is already at his seat. Who’s Lou? He’s the record producer in the porkpie hat who sits next to Jack Nicholson at every Lakers game.
3: The Lakers’ stat crew is doing its part to unnerve Gregg Popovich and the Spurs. On the first-quarter box score, the lead referee listed is Joey Crawford.
4: How tired are the Spurs? After using a tight player rotation in the Game 7 win over New Orleans, Gregg Popovich uses 11 players in the first half.
5: Could there have been a greater contrast in crowds from New Orleans to L.A.? Lakers fans began to boo when the Spurs took their 20-point lead.
6: The most devastating aspect of the Lakers’ 14-0 run in the third quarter that trimmed the Spurs’ lead from 20 points to six? That it took only three minutes and four seconds.
7: As much as he had struggled throughout the game, when Manu Ginobili got the ball in the right corner with 10 seconds left and the Spurs down two, the smart money was on a game-winning make.
Player Report
Ime Udoka: For the first time since the first round against Phoenix — the first playoff games of his career — Udoka looked a little tentative. He fired up two air-ball 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and committed a costly fourth-quarter turnover off a pass from Tim Duncan. He may have suffered from a bit of stage fright, but he has shown the toughness to handle such disappointment, and it seems unlikely his playing time will be cut.
Vladimir Radmanovic: Is Phil Jackson using a platoon system? Radmanovic played all 12 minutes of the first quarter and all 12 minutes of the third, but never left the bench in the second and fourth periods. He scored all 10 of his points in the first quarter, then disappeared. It will be interesting to see how Jackson uses him in Game 2.
Lamar Odom: He always has been one of the NBA’s most enigmatic players: so physically gifted, so maddeningly inconsistent. Odom missed nine of 12 shots in Game 1 but grabbed eight rebounds, and it was his finger-roll layin that tied the score at 81 in the fourth period. What is frightening for the Spurs: Odom is apt to play much better in Game 2.
Alterations
To jump-start their rally from 20 points down in Game 1, the Lakers trapped Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili on pick-and-roll plays in much the same manner the Hornets did in the Western Conference semifinals. The Spurs didn’t respond any better Wednesday than they had in their first three games at New Orleans Arena.
One thing you can look for them to try on occasion if the Lakers employ the same “hard hedge” on pick-and-roll plays will be “slipping” the pick and roll. In essence, it’s a fake pick and roll, with the screener breaking off the screening action before actually setting the screen and rolling towards the basket.
Since Tim Duncan typically is involved in about 75 percent of the Spurs’ pick-and-roll plays, if he slips a few of those, Parker and Ginobili can hit him with a bounce pass and he will be open for a mid-range jumper.
Then, if the Lakers adjust their defense to send a defender to contest the mid-range jumper, another big man — Fabricio Oberto, Robert Horry or Kurt Thomas — will be open for an easier shot, maybe even a layup.
And One
Ground Control to Champion Air: You may be in the air tomorrow, but the champions won’t be with you.
Spurs: Mike Monroe's Review/Preview
Mike Monroe
LOS ANGELES — The Spurs gave their fans plenty of reason to believe they can prevail in their Western Conference finals series against the Lakers with their performance in the first 30 minutes of Game 1 on Wednesday at the Staples Center.
Then they left them agonizing about what might have been.
Here’s the scary part: That 20-point lead the Spurs forged midway through the third quarter likely had as much to do with the Lakers’ lack of focus as it did the Spurs’ excellence.
When you’re coming off a mini-vacation that included a team feast paid for by your superstar and you’ve spent hours admiring the expensive watch he bought for each of his teammates, can you really be focused on the task at hand?
Don’t count on the Spurs getting out to an early lead in Game 2, and certainly not a 20-point lead. Lakers coach Phil Jackson made it clear after his team’s escape from a game it deserved to lose that he would demand more attention to detail in tonight’s Game 2. There is little reason to believe he won’t get it.
Gregg Popovich wisely turned his team’s travel travail into another challenge to be overcome. His players responded with better effort than Jackson got from his Lakers.
There is no question the Spurs ran out of gas late Wednesday. Even Jackson acknowledged the effect of those hours the Spurs spent in cramped quarters on their broken charter plane Monday night.
The irony of Game 1 is this: Since a loss is a loss is a loss, the Spurs would have been better served by a blowout, so Popovich could have rested spent players like Manu Ginobili.
If the Spurs are behind big tonight, don’t criticize Popovich if he throws in the towel early to save the legs of his key players. It’s what he did in those blowout losses in the first three games his team played in New Orleans in the last series, and that worked out just fine.
Best of Seven
1: The excitement on the streets outside the arena is electric, avid fans buzzing about what is about to happen. Oh, wait, that’s the crowd arriving for !“American Idol.”
2: How do you know it’s a big game? It’s still an hour before tipoff, and Lou Adler is already at his seat. Who’s Lou? He’s the record producer in the porkpie hat who sits next to Jack Nicholson at every Lakers game.
3: The Lakers’ stat crew is doing its part to unnerve Gregg Popovich and the Spurs. On the first-quarter box score, the lead referee listed is Joey Crawford.
4: How tired are the Spurs? After using a tight player rotation in the Game 7 win over New Orleans, Gregg Popovich uses 11 players in the first half.
5: Could there have been a greater contrast in crowds from New Orleans to L.A.? Lakers fans began to boo when the Spurs took their 20-point lead.
6: The most devastating aspect of the Lakers’ 14-0 run in the third quarter that trimmed the Spurs’ lead from 20 points to six? That it took only three minutes and four seconds.
7: As much as he had struggled throughout the game, when Manu Ginobili got the ball in the right corner with 10 seconds left and the Spurs down two, the smart money was on a game-winning make.
Player Report
Ime Udoka: For the first time since the first round against Phoenix — the first playoff games of his career — Udoka looked a little tentative. He fired up two air-ball 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and committed a costly fourth-quarter turnover off a pass from Tim Duncan. He may have suffered from a bit of stage fright, but he has shown the toughness to handle such disappointment, and it seems unlikely his playing time will be cut.
Vladimir Radmanovic: Is Phil Jackson using a platoon system? Radmanovic played all 12 minutes of the first quarter and all 12 minutes of the third, but never left the bench in the second and fourth periods. He scored all 10 of his points in the first quarter, then disappeared. It will be interesting to see how Jackson uses him in Game 2.
Lamar Odom: He always has been one of the NBA’s most enigmatic players: so physically gifted, so maddeningly inconsistent. Odom missed nine of 12 shots in Game 1 but grabbed eight rebounds, and it was his finger-roll layin that tied the score at 81 in the fourth period. What is frightening for the Spurs: Odom is apt to play much better in Game 2.
Alterations
To jump-start their rally from 20 points down in Game 1, the Lakers trapped Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili on pick-and-roll plays in much the same manner the Hornets did in the Western Conference semifinals. The Spurs didn’t respond any better Wednesday than they had in their first three games at New Orleans Arena.
One thing you can look for them to try on occasion if the Lakers employ the same “hard hedge” on pick-and-roll plays will be “slipping” the pick and roll. In essence, it’s a fake pick and roll, with the screener breaking off the screening action before actually setting the screen and rolling towards the basket.
Since Tim Duncan typically is involved in about 75 percent of the Spurs’ pick-and-roll plays, if he slips a few of those, Parker and Ginobili can hit him with a bounce pass and he will be open for a mid-range jumper.
Then, if the Lakers adjust their defense to send a defender to contest the mid-range jumper, another big man — Fabricio Oberto, Robert Horry or Kurt Thomas — will be open for an easier shot, maybe even a layup.
And One
Ground Control to Champion Air: You may be in the air tomorrow, but the champions won’t be with you.