Quick Grades: Spurs @ Jazz - Dec. 12

Tim Duncan A+
Monstrous effort. Carried the Spurs on his back for long stretches of the game. Amazing on the boards.

Manu Ginobili C
No energy. Seemed fatigued to the point that it was difficult for him to create. Very un-Manu-like.

Tony Parker B
Solid on defense. Took care of the ball. Had great stretches but wasn’t consistent.

Danny Green C
Shot well but his defense was lacking, didn’t rebound and made a few costly mental errors.

Gary Neal C-
Shot was off. Selection of shots was below average. Defense was definitely below average.

DeJuan Blair F
Simply horrible in all aspects of the game. It really looks like he’s injured or otherwise not 100%

Boris Diaw D
Utah dared him to score and he didn’t really take advantage. No rebounds and lackluster D.

Tiago Splitter B-
Defense was a roller-coaster. More physicality would have helped. Offense was mostly a positive.

Matt Bonner B-
Quiet in his seven minutes of plays. Hustle and rebounding remain his main strengths right now.

Nando De Colo C-
Again lost a ton of usefulness due to being unable to create plays when pressured.

Patrick Mills A-
Entered the game in the second half and provided instant offense and a dosage of adrenaline.

Cory Joseph Inc.
Surprisingly played some minutes in the first half. Didn’t do much to move the needle.

Pop C
His mad scientist ways are going overboard. Random usage of his deep bench doesn’t accomplish much.

A- to Neal?????????????
A to Duncan is fair enough, his defence in the 4th wasn't that good.

Agree with all others

Gary Neal D+ at best

Oops. Typo, tbh.

wondering how much Mo's last second shot changed these grades, tbh... Danny is an instant B+ I assume...

tim duncan is a bonafide scrub stat padding for the law of avgs...

htf 18pts first half and only 4 pts only in the 2nd half
11 rebds heading into 4th quarter, grabs 10 in the final quarter

not happy with the pathetic offense going away from the hot hand of duncan...

just one of those games
spurs came out flat and jazz were hitting everything
jefferson probably hit more 18+ shots then his entire team combined
spurs didnt get out and defend the transition
1/3 of jazzfan points came from transition
25 of the 75 at one point

jazz celebrating like they won the o'brien should is a testament to how good the spurs are tbh
i doubt they do that shit when they beat the clevelands of the world
spurs have been shitting on the jazz for so long
i think that was jeffersons first career win vs duncan if im not mistaken

good thing a game is tomorrow to forget about this
spurfan has to remember that we will lose at least 15 more games this season

also have to add is blair the first F youve given out this season
and i thought splitter was pretty good outside of keeping his hands up on defense
hes actually been to good at doing that in the past to where he wouldnt contest shots and just stick his hands up
now he never has them up and contests to late

Timmy with 22pts/21reb/6blk with only 1 foul and 1 turnover? Dayum.

Pop made a mistake by going back to Blair in the second quarter. And I really thought Splitter played well enough to be on the court in the final three minutes instead of Boris. Sadly a wasted effort by the great Tim Duncan.

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Originally Posted by Fireball

Pop made a mistake by going back to Blair in the second quarter. And I really thought Splitter played well enough to be on the court in the final three minutes instead of Boris. Sadly a wasted effort by the great Tim Duncan.

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This

I`ve got Duncan as honorable member of my fantasy team with my last pick. And he is 3rd best player in league, and making 80 fps. :D

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Originally Posted by z0sa

Timmy with 22pts/21reb/6blk with only 1 foul and 1 turnover? Dayum.

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The most impressive thing is that he did it in only 33 minutes.

Timmy's the first player 35+ to go 20/20/5 since David Robinson in 2001. :wow

We are fkn lucky for this longevity. We're not even supposed to be here tbh.

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Originally Posted by JRHernandez88

Timmy's the first player 35+ to go 20/20/5 since David Robinson in 2001. :wow

We are fkn lucky for this longevity. We're not even supposed to be here tbh.

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GOAT PF, tbh

I would've subbed Tony in for Manu or Neal instead of Mills at the end of the game. Ride on Mills' hot-hand for a couple more minutes and let's go from there, whether get Manu in or not. Granted, Neal did make a 3-pointer on Tony's assist. But it just didn't look like his night.

Nowadays the ball is in Tony's hands when he is on court, and since Manu cannot shoot and spread the offense (he was 2-3 for 3-pointers last night, but generally you don't feel he is confident with his shot), it's easier for the Jazz to play the defense.

Looks like Nando may be coming back to earth. His last two games certainly are not indicative of a promising back-up to TP. His overall shooting stats are nothing to write home about and it may be that other teams have figured out how to throw his passing game off through pressuring him. If that is the case, it looks like Neal is once again going to be our back-up PG. I love Mills game but, he will always be a scorer first and will never be a classic PG.

So many mistake in the 4th, very disappointing end of game, still feeling bad.

I wish Pop would allow Duncan/Splitter to close games more often

Well, we were due for a loss I guess; hopefully we can get it together for tonights game.

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Originally Posted by Amuseddaysleeper

I wish Pop would allow Duncan/Splitter to close games more often

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This. Especially last night, Diaw is not necessarily more suitable to cover either Millsap/Jefferson.

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Originally Posted by keywester

Looks like Nando may be coming back to earth. His last two games certainly are not indicative of a promising back-up to TP. His overall shooting stats are nothing to write home about and it may be that other teams have figured out how to throw his passing game off through pressuring him. If that is the case, it looks like Neal is once again going to be our back-up PG. I love Mills game but, he will always be a scorer first and will never be a classic PG.

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That's why Pop plays Mills with Ginobili. When they're on the court, Ginobili acts as the playmaker, and Mills the scorer. It's the perfect combination.

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Originally Posted by keywester

Looks like Nando may be coming back to earth. His last two games certainly are not indicative of a promising back-up to TP. His overall shooting stats are nothing to write home about and it may be that other teams have figured out how to throw his passing game off through pressuring him. If that is the case, it looks like Neal is once again going to be our back-up PG. I love Mills game but, he will always be a scorer first and will never be a classic PG.

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Looks to me that opposing teams finally got around to producing a scouting report on DeColo

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Originally Posted by racm

GOAT PF, tbh

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:king

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Originally Posted by Boomersgold

That's why Pop plays Mills with Ginobili. When they're on the court, Ginobili acts as the playmaker, and Mills the scorer. It's the perfect combination.

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Agreed....but why did Pop put him with Neal the other night? That was a disaster!!

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Originally Posted by Fireball

Pop made a mistake by going back to Blair in the second quarter. And I really thought Splitter played well enough to be on the court in the final three minutes instead of Boris. Sadly a wasted effort by the great Tim Duncan.

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Yup...that's where we lost the game. Spurs had a chance to put the game away early and take the crowd out of it, but got rolled when the Blair witch project came in. Crowd stayed hyperactive the whole game, and the Jazz clearly fed off that. Still, it took having no KL, no Jack, shitty play by anyone not named Duncan or Parker, and a 27 foot fluke 3 by Mo to lose this game.

If we're at full strength and meet the Jazz in the playoffs, the only time we'll see Blair on the court is in garbage time. That series goes 5 games, max, and is probably a sweep. We'll crush them.

Lots of missed layups and close shots in this game, and Neal missed some 3s he usually makes. Just a tough game, but it still should have been a W. Pop overplayed Blair and underplayed Tiago. Diaw and Blair just SUCKED. Tim was fantastic. I don't blame the loss on Green's defense at the end, but it sure would have been nice if he would have caught Tim's court-length outlet pass which dropped into his hands. Tim Duncan is a joy to watch. Blair...not so much.

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Originally Posted by superbigtime

Lots of missed layups and close shots in this game, and Neal missed some 3s he usually makes. Just a tough game, but it still should have been a W. Pop overplayed Blair and underplayed Tiago. Diaw and Blair just SUCKED. Tim was fantastic. I don't blame the loss on Green's defense at the end, but it sure would have been nice if he would have caught Tim's court-length outlet pass which dropped into his hands. Tim Duncan is a joy to watch. Blair...not so much.

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We left at least 10 points on the court with all those missed bunnies. When you see that, and you're playing an even halfway decent team, it's generally a loss. It's caused by fatigue. The Spurs looked tired out there last night. I think they get blown out tonight in Portland, even if they don't tank.

Green was horrible in the second half, not just on the last play. They lost the lead with Green playing a key role:
1. Continually losing their hot 3 pt shooter Hayward on the perimeter. Seldom within 15 feet of his man when the ball was kicked out.
2. A really bad lazy inbounds pass attempt to Duncan that was stolen and they scored. No excuse for that one either.
3. You expect an NBA player to be able to make layups, especially wide-open shots at the rim. This isn't an exception with Green; he really has a lay-up problem.
4. Everyone in the stadium and at home watching Mo Williams hold the ball knew he was going to try to win the game with a last second shot. Green laid way off because Mo was so far out past the arc, but he should have closed the gap at 5 seconds and harassed his dribble to make Williams worry and possibly change his option from shooting to passing.

I have only 3 complaints about the game.

1. Of late, Matt Bonner has played some great defense. He is a pure shooter from 3 pt land. When we had him on the court last night, he played solid D, rebounded and blocked out the Utah bigs. On the offensive end, he made the Utah big leave the paint area to cover him. Why was he not played more than 7 mins?

2. Too many shots that should have been made from POINT BLANK RANGE were blocked from behind or below. Parker and Splitter are good examples. Parker floating to the basket gets blocked from behind by Hayward who ran him down. Yes, you read that right Hayward ran down Tony from behind. Lack of court awareness on the play by Tony. Splitter more than once came down with big O rebound only to bring it down and have the shot attempt blocked or altered.

3. Can anyone say ASSIST? No real ball movement last night and shots were not falling when we did. 18 assists from a team that averages almost 26 going into the game is unacceptable.

In conclusion, no one player lost this game. It was a team loss. While we look at Timmy with a 20-20 game, we look on the other side and see Jefferson and Milsap scoring 45. Tony gets his 22 but Hayward gets 19 off the bench. We had a team loss , forget it and move on to the next game.

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Originally Posted by keywester

Agreed....but why did Pop put him with Neal the other night? That was a disaster!!

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I'm not sure why he did that. It just didn't make sense to me. Maybe he's still experimenting with the backup rotations.

I'm more annoyed with Parker's failure to rotate, allowing a wide open three and his seeming unwillingness or inability to pass to teammates on the break. Ever. That said, I don't remember the last time the Spurs missed so many chippies. Great shot by Mo. Spurs were due to lose a close one at some point. Duncan's a fucking monster.

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Originally Posted by keywester

Agreed....but why did Pop put him with Neal the other night? That was a disaster!!

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In theory between Mills and Neal in the back-court you should have enough ball-handling and play-making to get the ball up the court and initiate the offense. You all so have two different types of scoring available with shooting from Neal and driving from Mills that should make defenses suffer especially with switching.

It is also a case where both in theory provide enough of an offensive spark where where the defensive liabilities should/may be over come. The practice isn't quite as good as the theory though, it is also perhaps a case of not having the right personal to do it with, such as a pair of defending big men who look to get clean up baskets and dump passes.

does this team still run plays or what?

it seems like when the ball is in either hands of the heroes on the team, they rarely pass it or setup plays...

Just curious....is Tim Duncan the first player 36 or older to go 20/20/5? If not, who was it and when did it happen?

We have been talking about a lot of trades but Diaw name has never been mentioned. I have not been able to watch most of the games that is why I come her to get the inside information. It just seems that every time I look at the grades Diaw is coming up with a (D) so for those watching what are your thoughts that we just signed him to a new contract......or should his name be involved in trade,..etc............

TD=GOAT and house money.