Initial Reaction: Spurs vs. Warriors - Mar. 24

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Given the scenario of no Manu Ginobili and a limited Tim Duncan, typically any win would be a good win. But I'm disappointed in the Spurs despite their 107-106 victory over the Warriors. A combination of careless coaching by Pop and listless defense by the Spurs almost resulted in an embarrassing loss. On pure luck, San Antonio was able to avoid a three-game losing streak.

My main beef is with Pop, but I'll get into that later. I also thought the players as a whole weren't nearly as focused as the should have been in this situation. It's as if the Spurs simply don't care about the standings, which I believe would be a costly mistake.

As for the Warriors, they gave a good fight. By next season, Nellie should be able to start getting wins out of his very talented roster. If even one of their big, young athletes such as Brandan Wright or Anthony Randolph develop into a consistent threat, there's enough surrounding talent to get Golden State back into the playoff picture by next year.

Overall, the Spurs should just be thankful they ended up with a W. However, if there isn't much improvement, tomorrow night against the Hawks isn't going to end so happily.

-Could Tim Duncan be on the road to recovery? We saw some of the first signs that he's feeling better in the game against the Warriors. In the fourth quarter, he had his first dominant stretch since he returned from the right quad tendonosis. He played tough and put the team on his back. Hopefully this was the break in his recovery we've been hoping to see out of #21.

-Tony Parker going for 30 points and 10 assists on only 20 field goal attempts is commendable. He once again illustrated a good balance between patience and attacking. When the Warriors started showing him extra attention, he made Golden State pay with the smart pass. His defense was mostly good but his intensity on that end waned at times. I also thought he got too loose with the ball during key moments of the game. That said, the Spurs obviously wouldn't have been anywhere near a victory without him.

-It was good to finally see Roger Mason, Jr. have a positive outing. The one asterisk on his performance is that it came against the pitiful pick-and-roll defense of the Warriors. Outside of Phoenix, there's probably not a team worse in the league at defending Mason's go-to play. His work at point guard still wasn't pretty and his defense was average at best. Good showing but considering the circumstances this game doesn't tell us much.

-Michael Finley played slightly better than he did last game against the Rockets but was still far from helpful. He passed up a number of shots offensively and wasn't doing nearly enough defensively to even out his production. Despite not showing anything, Pop once again went to him in the fourth. And not surprisingly, that coincided with when the Spurs almost coughed up the win.

-Matt Bonner finally shot with confidence again from beyond the arc. He took his time, had a smooth motion and held his release for the first time in weeks. Bonner also had another nice drive to the bucket for a deuce. Outside of his offensive output, Bonner did little else. His defense was below average and he only grabbed two boards in 22 minutes.

-Off the bench, Bowen provided solid energy on the defensive end. Though he had a couple of uncharacteristically bad decision on defense, his D overall was a bright spot. Offensively, Bowen forgot he was Bruce Bowen. He shot the ball too much and seemed to be playing in a hurry at that end.

-Ime Udoka was really good in some moments and a liability at other times. Though considering the lows we've seen from him this year, it was an above average performance. The best thing he had going the whole night was his activity. Udoka has gotten into a good groove and plays like he thinks he belongs on the court.

-Kurt Thomas missed two key free throws late in the fourth quarter that brought back memories of the Celtics game. Thankfully, the Warriors didn't cash in on the other end. Outside of those two misses, Thomas deserves props for pulling down more momentum-altering rebounds and playing good defense against players smaller and quicker.

-After the last two poor performances, it was good to see a bit of improvement out of Drew Gooden. His defense, though still bad, was better. And while he was still mostly getting in the way offensively, his six boards in nine minutes continue his very good rebounding rate in his stint in San Antonio. If he can learn enough on both ends to not be a liability, his big body and his rebounding should be an asset in the playoffs.

-George Hill played in the first half but never got on track. Shortly after checking in, Hill turned it over, missed a shot and committed a couple of bad fouls. The good news is that Hill's problems came out of aggression rather than being too passive. Usually it's the opposite.

-Jacque Vaughn even got some action tonight at the end of the third quarter. As can be expected with Vaughn, he appeared to be in very good shape and his energy was contagious in his short time on the hardwood.

-Pop had countless coaching moves that I disagreed with. His rotation was lunacy at its finest. It was literally like he had a hat with every player's name in it and he would just randomly pick names out of the hat to form his lineup. Neither rhyme nor reason were with Pop on this night. Here are some problems I had with his coaching:

1) Mason goes off for 17 in the first half after getting off to a hot start at shooting guard and using that momentum to score off of pick-and-rolls when it was his time to play point guard. So what does Pop do in the second half? He brings Mason off the bench. He runs almost no plays for him in the second half and when it's time for Parker to rest, he puts Vaughn on the court instead of playing Mason at point. Oh, but come the fourth quarter, he suddenly expects Mason to be able to run the show to begin the stanza.

2) The Spurs are rolling late with Duncan and Thomas beating up the Warriors. Instead of doing something silly like try to win the game, he puts Finley in for Thomas. Not surprisingly, the Warriors then go on a 6-0 run to take the lead with under a half a minute remaining.

3) All year Pop has been begging Hill to be aggressive. He even stated that he's fine with Hill making mistakes as long as he's aggressive. Hill enters the game and plays aggressive basketball. After a few mistakes, the rookie is sent to the bench, never to be seen again.

4) If you are going to go with Vaughn as the backup point guard in the second half, just go ahead and follow through with that plan. Pop putting in Vaughn for two minutes and then seemingly changing his mind made little sense.

5) I actually liked the strategy of sitting Duncan all but five minutes in the first half. Pop was obviously trying to see if he could get an easy win while keeping Duncan in his back pocket. But to actually succeed in that plan, Pop has to use a rotation that would actually allow his team to gain some sort of cohesion and try to build a lead. For some reason, Pop was trying to win easily to rest Duncan but at the same time he junked his rotation. The result was Duncan being forced to come back into the game in the fourth and put even more wear and tear on his body.

Bottomline is that Pop obviously doesn't care much if the Spurs win. The Spurs winning or losing is secondary to his tinkering at the moment. Hopefully he knows what he's doing and the experimenting is about to come to an end because right now it is maddening to watch.

Rant Over.

Initial Reaction: Spurs vs. Warriors - Mar. 24 :p:

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Originally Posted by Typhoon

Initial Reaction: Spurs vs. Warriors - Mar. 24 :p:

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Thanks. Pop has me messing up copy and pastes :madrun

Pop owning that winery is the problem. He's hitting the bottle.

CIA Pop is still the dominant personality. Hope Manu and Timmy at 70%+ each with TP staying on fire changes that.

I guess I should have probably posted this in here instead of starting my own thread...

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I did go to the game tonight (thanks Ryvin) and I have a few observations:

As mentioned before, Pops rotations are all out of whack. I have some thoughts on this though:

- You can not really blame Pop for some of this. He had to plan for the distinct possibility that he would not have Manu for the playoffs. He had to tinker with multitude of different line-up combination's and see what he had and who can handle what.

- He has gone too far with some of the experiments though. Mason is clearly not the answer at point guard, no matter the match-up, no matter who you put him out there with. Teams have adjusted to him and Pop needs to adjust. At this point, if you are going to fail, fail with Hill. Hill struggled tonight, but Mason has failed as well. If that is the case, go with youth and defense and that is what Hill brings.

The team seemed to coast again tonight. It was strange to see Tim's minutes monitored. It almost seemed as if Pop started Tim, thought he could win the game without him, and then had to re-insert Tim in order to exploit match-ups. It makes me wonder what the plan is for Tim tomorrow??

- Tim looked slow to start (movement wise, not effectiveness against small line-up wise) then it was kind of like he knew he would be playing limited minutes. Tim completely dominated the game in the 2nd half though. Turiaf had no answer for him, and with Rappin' Biedrins out, the Warriors did not have the size to match-up. Spurs did not play big though, so it negated any advantage.

Thank God for Tony Parker. What a quiet, solid game (especially assists wise). You could see him scoring easily every time he was in the game, but you hardly noticed him setting up the offense so smoothly.

- The Spurs were pretty much getting to where ever they wanted on the floor. It was a pretty simple plan; screen off the first defender, then you can decide what you want: pull up jumper, drive to the rim or pass to open man.

- Credit to the Warriors they played with good energy, did not get rattled and kept making timely shots/plays.


All-in-all, it was a win. Not the most impressive, but a necessary win. We will see how they respond tomorrow against a tougher team on the road. I really wonder what the rotations will be and it will be interesting to see if Tim plays considering how he was used this evening. The energy was fairly good for a Tuesday night game and the team seemed in good spirits except for the moments where they made some silly turnovers (especially Tim when Azubuike stole it for the lead with 30 seconds left).

I had fun and enjoyed my time with my fellow Spurs fans, wish you guys were there with me.

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I think we can be sure now that Bowen will be part of the crunch time lineup. Other than concerns over Manu's health, the 3 spot was the only question mark in that lineup due to the limited minutes Bowen has seen this year. He played the whole final stretch and did well. He did go a bit out of his range on offense, but none of that was in crunch time and I think he freelanced there out of desperation because of how poor the offense is without TP on the floor. Instead of ball movement, the Spurs look like they're playing hot potato.

I like the win we got tonight anyway we could have gotten it. Though I do agree pretty much with everything you said timvp. Why yank Hill when he was being aggressive? Why start Bowen and Udoka ahead of Mason who was on fire in the 1st half? Alot of questions asked...hopefully Pop is playing CIA games and knows what he is doing though.

fuck pop playing mind games with the fans on ST, then again its worst when his playing mind games with the rotations.....

what wouldve happen had the spurs loss this game = ST MELTDOWN

backup that with another loss on a b2b tommarow = ST deregister

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Originally Posted by VI_Massive

I think we can be sure now that Bowen will be part of the crunch time lineup. Other than concerns over Manu's health, the 3 spot was the only question mark in that lineup due to the limited minutes Bowen has seen this year. He played the whole final stretch and did well. He did go a bit out of his range on offense, but none of that was in crunch time and I think he freelanced there out of desperation because of how poor the offense is without TP on the floor. Instead of ball movement, the Spurs look like they're playing hot potato.

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Bowen is coming around on D at the right time. He even had a nice hesitation move for an and-1! :lol.

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Originally Posted by crc21209

Bowen is coming around on D at the right time. He even had a nice hesitation move for an and-1! :lol.

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when was the last time bruce had an and-1 at the rim???

I'm with you that I don't understand what Pop is doing rotation-wise. If he didn't really care about winning, then he would have not played Tim and/or Tony, but he did, so it's not that.
I don't get what he's trying to accomplish with Hill either. He gets yanked out of the game, and next time up he calls up Vaughn? When everybody is sucking on defense? Pop is either giving him the tough love treatment, or somehow convinced himself that George hit the proverbial rookie wall.
Whatever it is, I doubt we're going to see much of him in the playoffs, and instead we get to enjoy watching Finley closing games...

Obviously, I fully expect Pop to put a new wrinkle tomorrow by sitting Timmy now that Utah beat the Rockets... You heard it here first!

Again, great thoughts.

Like you, I still don't get why Pop plays Finley a lot even though he isn't producing ANYTHING on offense and play below-avg defense. Finley is at best a 15min guard who get his shots off set plays.

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Originally Posted by timvp

Bottomline is that Pop obviously doesn't care much if the Spurs win. The Spurs winning or losing is secondary to his tinkering at the moment. Hopefully he knows what he's doing and the experimenting is about to come to an end because right now it is maddening to watch.
Rant Over.

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This is what I've felt for the past 10-15 games...It seems like Pop is gathering data about match-ups, player behavior under certain situations, play scenarios, etc., more than trying to win games...i think his disregard for regular season games has reached a new career low this year...it used to be that he treated games before the All-Star break as extended pre-season games, but looks like he's treating the entire regular season as extended pre-season this year...perhaps that's due to all the injuries, but I have a feeling that it won't be until the early rounds of playoffs that he tightens up his coaching...

A side note, but of the big 3, i think Manu is the only one who cares about winning every single game, regular season or otherwise...

I swear I saw Oberto playing in this match :rolleyes

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Originally Posted by TDMVPDPOY

fuck pop playing mind games with the fans on ST, then again its worst when his playing mind games with the rotations.....

what wouldve happen had the spurs loss this game = ST MELTDOWN

backup that with another loss on a b2b tommarow = ST deregister

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Pop caring about ST's bipolar opinions=ZERO

I can accept that Pop is tinkering with the lineup so he can find his rotations..I have no problems with that if he actually has a plan for the end..he's trying to find out which rotations work, and which ones don't..but we can always count on Finley playing more minutes than he should be playing, and I REALLY hope that it won't be a reason for our potential downfall..

Pop's obsession with Finley is a mystery that nobody will ever understand, except for the 2 of them..we should really raise some $ here to get an investigation going, it's at the point where I absolutely have to know the reason..

Duncan looked great..his D continues to be big for us, and it appears that he has turned it on..great to see that he can still be a huge factor defensively, even with the injuries..I loved how he was patient and actually used pump fakes tonight, instead of forcing bad shots..

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Originally Posted by HarlemHeat37

Pop's obsession with Finley is a mystery that nobody will ever understand, except for the 2 of them..we should really raise some $ here to get an investigation going, it's at the point where I absolutely have to know the reason..

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When I become a detective I'll investigate this on the side.:king

It's funny...I could almost hear the collective "why is Pop taking out Thomas and putting in Finley?" from up here in Tyler.

Overall I agree with just about everything you said. Our players played well but were victims of Pop's bizzaro tactics. The Finley thing has gotten so far out of hand that I am at a loss for any rational explaination.

As if Pop gives a shit about your collective opinions...

Again, I will keep saying this until Finley gets less than 15 minutes of action in a game. He must have some dirt on Pop for Popto keep playing him more than 15 minutes a game unless he's hot.

It is funny, but other than Pop trying out different combinations all the time to see what he has on the bench, the team seems to manage to keep the game close. Now most teams with this much messing with players playing time would equal a losing record. Yet, the Spurs are still in it and in 2nd place of all things.
This makes me wonder sometimes if Pop tells the team to keep the score close for 3 quarters because he wants to see how they close out tough games. He seems to want to keep it competitive to perhaps 'forge' this team with the extra pressure.
Of course, if this is the case, the team is privately building up to a monster play off year. If not, the team has a lot to do in putting their foot on the throat of teams when they have them down. Who knows with Pop?

I'm like you guys. I want to think of a rational explanation of why Pop plays finely so much, but the fact is, it isn't rational so one can not help but come up with irrational conclusions like "Finley must have dirt on Pop" I just can not understand it.

I agree with most everything timvp and others have said. What is the deal with Pop not wanting to teach Hill. Does Pop really think Hill will learn by benching him only after a few minutes of play, and then not letting him get back out on the floor for the rest of the game so that he might have a chance to work thru it and show that he is learning from the past mistake? I just can not understand where Pop is wanting to go with this. All this will do to a rookie is loose his confidence.

As for Mason, there isn't really anything else to say other then what you guys have.

I suppose I wouldn't mind the mind games so much from Pop had this been a couple of months ago, but in 15 games the playoffs are about to start. I believe Pop needs to stop this and let the team get into a cohesive rhythm or else he is going to have one confused bunch as they all seem to be now in the playoffs.

We all know Pop an Elite coach but maybe, just maybe he has finaly lost his mind.

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Originally Posted by Chomag

I'm like you guys. I want to think of a rational explanation of why Pop plays finely so much, but the fact is, it isn't rational so one can not help but come up with irrational conclusions like "Finley must have dirt on Pop" I just can not understand it.

I agree with most everything timvp and others have said. What is the deal with Pop not wanting to teach Hill. Does Pop really think Hill will learn by benching him only after a few minutes of play, and then not letting him get back out on the floor for the rest of the game so that he might have a chance to work thru it and show that he is learning from the past mistake? I just can not understand where Pop is wanting to go with this. All this will do to a rookie is loose his confidence.

As for Mason, there isn't really anything else to say other then what you guys have.

I suppose I wouldn't mind the mind games so much from Pop had this been a couple of months ago, but in 15 games the playoffs are about to start. I believe Pop needs to stop this and let the team get into a cohesive rhythm or else he is going to have one confused bunch as they all seem to be now in the playoffs.

We all know Pop an Elite coach but maybe, just maybe he has finaly lost his mind.

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I really think it just comes down to Pop liking his vets and Finely is one of the most consistent ones. He wants the team to execute down the stretch and Finely will normally do that without hesitating. Hell, even when Fin is off, he still plays like a professional and seems confident. Pop just has one less guy to monitor.

It won't work in the playoffs but I like the idea of Pop trying to rest Duncan in the first half then unleashing him in the 2nd half. I know it was the Warriors but I haven't seen Duncan look that good like he was in the 4th quarter in a while.

It would help keep him rested and from being banged around in the 1st half and tiring in the 2nd half. Of course it will all depend on which team we're playing and if Pop will use a logical lineup to succeed while Duncan is on the bench. Something to think about for next season.

Really good points on Pop, LJ :tu

It seems like his experiments went way too far. Pop used to change many things and watch the players in different situations. But what he is doing now it's a pure chaos.

I was watching the second half and mostly I was pissed by lack of agression and stupid mistakes.

Tim played good game, but still this is Golden State. Most bigs in NBA having season or life games against them.

Tony was fantastic but how much more he can run the spurs having all team on his shoulders? IMO he should get a night off the next b2b.

Atlanta is having great stretch right now, and they are really hot. And what's worst for the spurs - they are athletic as hell.

I will be watching today and hopefully I will see the spurs I want to see.
Because now I'm all dissapointed. I see the spurs from last year and I see the same concerns I had then and damn I was right last year.
This year it all looked good utlil ASB came. Then Manu, Tim and blown rotations and no agression and no "on the mission" attitude. The offense is looking horrible and now defense is going back to November and December.

I posted this elsewhere, but the decisions with Vaughn last night made me finally punt on the notion that I can understand what Pop is doing. I'm sure there were some smallish things that I missed, but this much certainly seemed to make sense: the Spurs offense has been in disarray for a number of games now when Parker sits; a solution to that is putting a reliable point guard on the floor in those stages of the game; Pop turns to Vaughn in the third and the Spurs seem to find some offensive fluidity and make a little spurt to create some distance. Would seem to say to me that Vaughn deserves a chance in that role, no matter his other limitations.

But pulling Vaughn almost immediately and going back to what hasn't worked very well of late -- only to see the Warriors make an immediate push at that juncture -- left me scratching my head.

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Originally Posted by FromWayDowntown

But pulling Vaughn almost immediately and going back to what hasn't worked very well of late -- only to see the Warriors make an immediate push at that juncture -- left me scratching my head.

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Pop's mad scientist routine is really confusing the board! Maybe, his basketball genius is beyond our mortal comprehension. :hat

Hopefully, whatever he's doing now makes the small difference that wins a game/series in the post-season.

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Originally Posted by timvp

Pop had countless coaching moves that I disagreed with. His rotation was lunacy at its finest. It was literally like he had a hat with every player's name in it and he would just randomly pick names out of the hat to form his lineup. Neither rhyme nor reason were with Pop on this night. Here are some problems I had with his coaching:

1) Mason goes off for 17 in the first half after getting off to a hot start at shooting guard and using that momentum to score off of pick-and-rolls when it was his time to play point guard. So what does Pop do in the second half? He brings Mason off the bench. He runs almost no plays for him in the second half and when it's time for Parker to rest, he puts Vaughn on the court instead of playing Mason at point. Oh, but come the fourth quarter, he suddenly expects Mason to be able to run the show to begin the stanza.

2) The Spurs are rolling late with Duncan and Thomas beating up the Warriors. Instead of doing something silly like try to win the game, he puts Finley in for Thomas. Not surprisingly, the Warriors then go on a 6-0 run to take the lead with under a half a minute remaining.

3) All year Pop has been begging Hill to be aggressive. He even stated that he's fine with Hill making mistakes as long as he's aggressive. Hill enters the game and plays aggressive basketball. After a few mistakes, the rookie is sent to the bench, never to be seen again.

4) If you are going to go with Vaughn as the backup point guard in the second half, just go ahead and follow through with that plan. Pop putting in Vaughn for two minutes and then seemingly changing his mind made little sense.

5) I actually liked the strategy of sitting Duncan all but five minutes in the first half. Pop was obviously trying to see if he could get an easy win while keeping Duncan in his back pocket. But to actually succeed in that plan, Pop has to use a rotation that would actually allow his team to gain some sort of cohesion and try to build a lead. For some reason, Pop was trying to win easily to rest Duncan but at the same time he junked his rotation. The result was Duncan being forced to come back into the game in the fourth and put even more wear and tear on his body.

Bottomline is that Pop obviously doesn't care much if the Spurs win. The Spurs winning or losing is secondary to his tinkering at the moment. Hopefully he knows what he's doing and the experimenting is about to come to an end because right now it is maddening to watch.

Rant Over.

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Eeking out a slim victory versus a lottery-bound team, on your home court? Very unimpressive.

If Pop is truly coaching as if he doesn't care about these regular season games, he's sending a terrible message to his troops, especially to the young players. Obviously, the preservation of health is always a concern and that's one thing, but any appearances that he doesn't care about these games is quite another. Again, the team needs to be tuning up and steadily gaining momentum. They're not doing that at all. It seems as though Pop is expecting his team to "flip the switch" come April. I don't like this "Robert Horry" approach to the regular season. By now, he should know it can't work that way.