How 'Bout the D?

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Originally Posted by letmk

Because he stalls the offense, and bad at defense.

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My take is the same as last season: the Spurs can win it all without Manu (Of course it's harder than with a good Manu), but cannot win despite a bad Manu.

My real issue is not with Manu actually, but with Pop. If Mills or Bellineli plays poorly, Pop will bench them; but he still plays Manu, and with ball heavily in his hands a lot, anyways. That's the problem.

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Originally Posted by letmk

Because he stalls the offense, and bad at defense.

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Too bad the facts don't support your theory.

I also think Patty's tenacity on D is often overlooked or people see him as a non-factor on D, which can't be further from the truth. He looks set to disrupt every pass and stalled ball every series. As Sean would say about him "argggarrgagghharrggggarrggggg"

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img607/673/a7r5.jpg

Misleading title

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Originally Posted by letmk

My take is the same as last season: the Spurs can win it all without Manu (Of course it's harder than with a good Manu), but cannot win despite a bad Manu.

My real issue is not with Manu actually, but with Pop. If Mills or Bellineli plays poorly, Pop will bench them; but he still plays Manu, and with ball heavily in his hands a lot, anyways. That's the problem.

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This is where you are wrong, Pop benched Manu for Beli in Game 1 of the series. Manu only played 18 minutes, 0-6 but he had 5 ast. Pop went with Beli most of the 2nd half.

Problem was, the Spurs didn't have another player that could handle the ball last year. Mills didn't play in the playoffs at all. Neal was the backup PG and he was atrocious ball handler.

Now fast forward to this year, you have Mills, who is a great shooter, and a decent ball handler and passer. Same goes for Beli, but he is even a better passer. B/c of this, this adds a whole new dimension to the Spurs offense where they don't have to rely on Manu anymore to create offense.

That is what I love about the Spurs this year. Just like in the Dallas series, Beli and Mills were struggling, Manu stepped up. Now Manu's struggling a little, Beli and Mills have stepped up.

BB is a team sport, obviously. And the Spurs have a much better team than last year and a bench that does rely just on Manu to create the offense.

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Originally Posted by superjames1992

Too bad the facts don't support your theory.

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This one is my bad. I mean the bad Manu, not the overall Manu. So my thought all along is not blaming Manu, but on Pop who should not heavily rely on Manu by default.