Anonymous NBA coach breaks down the WCF

Interesting take. I'm not sure it's somebody who is THAT familiar with the Spurs, as some of the takes are more based on reputation than on facts, such as Kawhi being always in control and a great finisher in transition. That's actually when he tends to be out of control the most (which ties in nicely with the spot-on comment that Kawhi can't be trusted to take more than 2-3 dribbles).

Re: defense, I don't think the big issue is whether to put Tony or Green on Westbrook, or Kawhi on Durant. The main issue is: who guards them for the 10+ minutes they'll be spending on the floor while our starters are resting? Those 10+ minutes are more than enough for a big run when they are being guarded by Manu and Beli and so on. Manu can get steals, but he's definitely a step too slow now to defend guys who are so athletic.

And I agree with Chinook, we'll need Diaw during this series, he creates an interesting mismatch.

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Originally Posted by will_spurs

Interesting take. I'm not sure it's somebody who is THAT familiar with the Spurs, as some of the takes are more based on reputation than on facts, such as Kawhi being always in control and a great finisher in transition. That's actually when he tends to be out of control the most (which ties in nicely with the spot-on comment that Kawhi can't be trusted to take more than 2-3 dribbles).

Re: defense, I don't think the big issue is whether to put Tony or Green on Westbrook, or Kawhi on Durant. The main issue is: who guards them for the 10+ minutes they'll be spending on the floor while our starters are resting? Those 10+ minutes are more than enough for a big run when they are being guarded by Manu and Beli and so on. Manu can get steals, but he's definitely a step too slow now to defend guys who are so athletic.

And I agree with Chinook, we'll need Diaw during this series, he creates an interesting mismatch.

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Kawhi will always be on the floor with KD unless he's in foul trouble. When KD leaves, kawhi leaves. When KD sits, Kawhi sits. At least I hope so.

Great breakdown and that Coach knows his shit.

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Originally Posted by SpursFan313

Kawhi will always be on the floor with KD unless he's in foul trouble. When KD leaves, kawhi leaves. When KD sits, Kawhi sits. At least I hope so.

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Average for current playoffs:
- Kevin Durant: 44.5 minutes (reg season: 38.5)
- Kawhi Leonard: 31.8 minutes (reg season: 29.1)

Maybe Kawhi is suddenly going to play 13 more minutes per game at top efficiency. More likely the Spurs have to find somebody else who can vaguely stay with Durant for 10 minutes a game, without fouling too much.

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Originally Posted by will_spurs

Average for current playoffs:
- Kevin Durant: 44.5 minutes (reg season: 38.5)
- Kawhi Leonard: 31.8 minutes (reg season: 29.1)

Maybe Kawhi is suddenly going to play 13 more minutes per game at top efficiency. More likely the Spurs have to find somebody else who can vaguely stay with Durant for 10 minutes a game, without fouling too much.

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That's how Pop handled it in the last two reg season games when Kawhi was healthy. In the two games Kawhi was healthy, he played 37 mpg and KD played 38 mpg.

This is the first series where Kawhi was really needed for a big matchup tbh Batum and Shawn Marion aren't exactly offensive studs.

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Originally Posted by SpursFan313

That's how Pop handled it in the last two reg season games when Kawhi was healthy. In the two games Kawhi was healthy, he played 37 mpg and KD played 38 mpg.

This is the first series where Kawhi was really needed for a big matchup tbh Batum and Shawn Marion aren't exactly offensive studs.

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Kawhi averaged 37 minutes in the playoffs last year. That's still 7-8 minutes short of what Durant will play.

Kawhi has only 4 playoffs games with over 42 minutes played so far (all last year, 2 against GSW and 2 against Miami) -- all losses, by the way.

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Originally Posted by will_spurs

Average for current playoffs:
- Kevin Durant: 44.5 minutes (reg season: 38.5)
- Kawhi Leonard: 31.8 minutes (reg season: 29.1)

Maybe Kawhi is suddenly going to play 13 more minutes per game at top efficiency. More likely the Spurs have to find somebody else who can vaguely stay with Durant for 10 minutes a game, without fouling too much.

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His minutes have been limited mostly because the Spurs have had big leads in half their games.

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Originally Posted by Jimcs50

His minutes have been limited mostly because the Spurs have had big leads in half their games.

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Read my last post. Kawhi has never, ever played ~44 minutes with any kind of regularity, and the few times he tried the Spurs lost.

Love the complements to Tony. Stupid haters can't comprehend his excellence.

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Originally Posted by Chinook

I don't know why he thinks Beli would guard Jackson, though. That would be about the worst move Pop could make. He also thinks Green has trouble guarding PGs, which is quite a weird thing to say. I also don't know if I've ever seen Leonard take a pull-up three in transition. He takes pull-up twos on the break and spots up at three, but he almost always tries to get to the rim whenever he has the ball.

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It's probably going to happen eventually. Jackson will be coming off the bench for OKC and getting plenty of minutes with Ibaka out. A lot of those minutes are likely to coincide with det dude Beli's, and like the article noted, you'd rather have him on Jackson than Durant or Westbrook.

He may be able to hide a bit if he is out there with Sefolosha, but Marco's defense is definitely going to get tested this series. Hopefully he can step it up.

I'm glad to see the analysis doesn't fixate on what happened two years ago. There are some parallels and a lot of the faces are the same, but as someone pointed out, Matt Bonner played more minutes 2 year ago than Tiago Splitter did; Danny Green seemed totally shook to be on that stage and to be facing that sort of pressure and got dumped from the starting lineup by Game 5; Kawhi was a rookie who was sharing time with Stephen Jackson (though Jax played great on the offensive end in that series); and Diaw had only been around for 20 regular season games in a lockout-shortened season and hadn't really had to go through lots of adjustments in the first 2 rounds of the playoffs.

I'm not saying that all of those guys are extremely different players at this point, but I do think they're different enough to think that these aren't the same Spurs who fell apart against the Thunder in that series.

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Originally Posted by Mugen

I'd say there's a 90% chance Collison starts.

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I always liked Collison tbh very underrated role player. Dude always find a way to make the right play, I'd absolutely love him in a spurs uniform. hard worker, never complains, plays clean and right. Good bb player

A coach who thinks Green can't defend well guys like Westbrook...
A coach who thinks Leonard can't run the pick and roll...but thinks he can get the pull up 3s in transition..

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Originally Posted by UZER

The detail on Leonard makes me think it's Jim Boylen

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Agree. :lol

The "anonymous" coach said the Spurs could put their third best perimeter defender on Jackson...but who's that guy?

If Brooks starts Jackson, Pop'll put Green on Westbrook, Leonard on Durant and Parker on Jackson.
Tony did a great job against Lillard but after his injury maybe he doesn't need take a tough defensive assignment.

If Jackson plays in the second unit...Beli guarding him sounds like a very negative factor.

great read was going to post if not already

Good read indeed.

When they go small do we run them out the building like we did portland?

By the way, I don't think that Brooks will pull Perkins from the S5. He will already have to make one change in the starting lineup, I doubt he makes another, at least not for Game 1. You have to be careful to not juggle with the chemistry of both the starting and the bench unit too much - if you can avoid it, that is.

he got it right

" It turned into a six-game series now instead of seven."