What's the difference between the regular season and the post-season?

I know we haven't seen how the Spurs will perform in Portland, but they barely broke a sweat through game 1 and game 2. We struggled so much with this team during the regular season, so what's the difference maker?

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Originally Posted by mclinejr

I know we haven't seen how the Spurs will perform in Portland, but they barely broke a sweat through game 1 and game 2. We struggled so much with this team during the regular season, so what's the difference maker?

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We struggled when Portland peaked.. which was a long, long time ago.

In the regular season we run our offense generically rather than relentlessly attacking Lillard and other weaknesses, we play Errors and Bonner and other bench guys big minutes, and we don't run them off the 3pt line with the same intensity. This matchup and the Mavs have shown why the playoffs are a whole different ball game than the regular season.

Easy, in the regular season you get maybe a practice or two to prepare for a team, some a little more and some a lot less. In the playoffs, you're scouting and practicing to play a team for at least four meetings all in a row with no interruptions. Each team has the same amount of rest in between games and same travel time when switching venues.

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Originally Posted by Beaverfuzz

Easy, in the regular season you get maybe a practice or two to prepare for a team, some a little more and some a lot less. In the playoffs, you're scouting and practicing to play a team for at least four meetings all in a row with no interruptions. Each team has the same amount of rest in between games and same travel time when switching venues.

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This. Not to mention that the mindset is a lot different in a best-of-7 against the same team versus any other combination of teams when you're just trying to prepare for the postseason in the middle of the regular season.

Everyone plays their best in the playoffs, ideally.

regular season is the preseason :wakeup

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Originally Posted by Beaverfuzz

Easy, in the regular season you get maybe a practice or two to prepare for a team, some a little more and some a lot less. In the playoffs, you're scouting and practicing to play a team for at least four meetings all in a row with no interruptions. Each team has the same amount of rest in between games and same travel time when switching venues.

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Yep. This. It's pretty obvious that for the past Popovich years, the Spurs are a different machine come playoffs.

In the regular season you play to get better as a team. It's not so much who you're playing against on any given night, but coming together as a team on both ends of the floor. You get to test different units, try different people against the marquee star on certain games, try to establish how to handle certain situation, practice inbound plays, etc. It's a process to learn the good, bad and ugly of your own team.

The playoffs is all of that coming together towards beating a specific team. The focus changes to the opponent. There's much more in-depth analysis, what they do well, what are the weaknesses, how do you attack those weaknesses with what you've been doing throughout the season, how they can hurt you, how can you force them to play the way you feel is more favorable to you, etc. The stakes are much higher, so the pace normally slows down, possessions are more thought out, and there's heavy execution.

They're really two very different type of games...

What's the difference between regular season and post season? About 66 games give or take a few.

Can we apply this same logic vs. OKC? Will the Spurs dominate them in their playoff form?

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Originally Posted by Arcadian

Can we apply this same logic vs. OKC? Will the Spurs dominate them in their playoff form?

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no. okc has real matchup advantages on the Spurs. And they have plenty of playoff experience that is obviously lacking in Portland.

you're basically comparing a season pro boxer which is OKC to a fresh meat challenger which is Portland. Completely different opponents. and the seasoned pro boxer is a lefty that is faster, younger and believes he can beat you to a pulp

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Originally Posted by noles1983

regular season is the preseason :wakeup

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This. And the real preseason is televised practice.

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Originally Posted by hater

no. okc has real matchup advantages on the Spurs. And they have plenty of playoff experience that is obviously lacking in Portland.

you're basically comparing a season pro boxer which is OKC to a fresh meat challenger which is Portland. Completely different opponents. and the seasoned pro boxer is a lefty that is faster, younger and believes he can beat you to a pulp

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This is true. But some part of me is thinking Pop didn't show his hand too much against OKC in the regular season, and we'll be well prepared for them. Certainly, Pop has been preparing for a postseason meeting with them since 2012. Hopefully, this isn't just wishful thinking on my part.

regular season is practice and doing just enough to get the 1st seed. real guns come out 2nd round and wcf.

Less Errors and Joesph and More Duncan and Parker in the Playoffs

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Originally Posted by BillMc

This is true. But some part of me is thinking Pop didn't show his hand too much against OKC in the regular season, and we'll be well prepared for them. Certainly, Pop has been preparing for a postseason meeting with them since 2012. Hopefully, this isn't just wishful thinking on my part.

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Pop would have to go completely against Spurs typical defense. Durant and Westbrooke have excellent jump shots - contested 2s are usually what the Spurs are willing to live with. Nothing Pop can do about their length and athleticism on defense.

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Originally Posted by Arcadian

Can we apply this same logic vs. OKC? Will the Spurs dominate them in their playoff form?

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I dont think so. If OKC and the Spurs go to the finals, is the end of the road...i would say 30% chance of winning.

Also, it was a lot about the schedule. Our beloved Jeff McDonald wrote about it yesterday on Twitter. Basically, most of the games were a b2b for us, and we barely had the big 3 available against them.

regular season is nothing but revenue stream for team owners, and is really just 82 games of pre-season, with 2000+ of the 2400 games being meaningless, ugly between non-contenders fielding depleted player talent, with players forced into the abomination of 15+ B2Bs.

playoffs ARE THE SEASON, where the basketball is played seriously, for keeps.

Silver absolutely must change the playoff seeding from top-8 in each conference to top 16 in the league. Same number of games ($$$) but better basketball, esp since the EC top-8 has sucked for many years. The bottom of the EC top-8 often are sub-.500 teams.

Most teams cut the rotation, consistency and hustle is huge. Successful teams always have a nonkey player who wins a game for them here or there, That's why the first round was such a worrisome round.

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Originally Posted by Arcadian

Can we apply this same logic vs. OKC? Will the Spurs dominate them in their playoff form?

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OKC is a tough matchup, the Spurs can't match their athleticism, but it doesn't mean they can't take them down.
In two regular season games the Spurs played without a full roster against them and still were closed games, so we didn't figure out how a complete-adjusted team handles OKC until the playoffs.
People say they aren't going to be able to stop the Thunder offense, well the Spurs are an elite defensive team, they've got to be engaged and make things happen on defense.
Sure, the Spurs are two years older -and long playoffs series could affect them- but they're a much better team than 2012.

The Spurs are better in the regular season over the last 4 years.

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hopefully a lot against thunder

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Originally Posted by rascal

The Spurs are better in the regular season over the last 4 years.

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winning percentage is close

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Originally Posted by ducks

hopefully a lot against thunder

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no thunder on back to back games
spurs one time played 5 games on 7 nights when thunder were rested for 4 days to