Pop's reasons for small ball

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Originally Posted by ploto

Actually I disagree with both of you. Pop believes that Rasho would not be effective defensively because there is no one for him to cover that matches up. The notion that Rasho hurts the team offensively is untrue. The penetration he helps to create for Tony and the screens he sets for Manu and Finley are valuable. Just because he isn't shooting does not mean he hurts the team offensively. As for getting in Tim's way on the offenisve end- that is Nazr's problem, not Rasho's.

I also think that Finley is outplaying Horry and that is why we are seeing even more small ball.

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Ploto,

Rasho's screen setting ability becomes moot when they are not covering Tony on the perimeter. They're sagging off a good 5 feet and daring Tony to shoot a jumper. This is the main reason the spacing was much better with NVE on the floor on Friday. They were guarding him and not clogging the lane the way they did with Tony.

Right now with the way Tim Duncan is dominating, the best offense we can run involves an inside out game with him and four guards around him.

Other problem with having two bigs on court is that dallas are playing with two pg, well they were until the suspension, and on a pic n roll with nowitski a pg will be matched up against a big man, on the other hand if two perimeter players switch on picnroll they can try to stop terry and harris. Pop is letting nowitski let his points

Manny,
I would contend that a big part of the reason they are tempting Tony to shoot jumpers is because he is getting nothing in the lane-- missing one big man is hurting his scoring inside as he gets swarmed every time he goes into the paint with no one to seal those defenders off. I have said all along that I understand the small ball reasons, but there are trade-offs and things you lose and I just think that this is one of them.

What I really don't get is that the Spurs could play with two frontcourt players, and still use a perimeter players on Dirk. There are two orthogonal issues.

Rasho/Nazr/Oberto - Diop/Dampier
Bruce/Finley - Dirk
Duncan - Howard

This way, you still have two shot blockers that could rotate for help defense and improve rebounding. I think we would definitely have the advantage this way, and Dallas would struggle mightly to get anything going offensively. Dirk would have to defend someone on the other end. Perhaps more importantly, we would impose the pace and strategy of the game, and force Dallas to adjust to our personnel.

Pop has decided otherwise, and I am almost getting heart attacks with this small ball crap.

Duncan was matched up with Marion last playoffs and no one complained about it. Now, he is not even capable of guarding Howard? I am confused! :rolleyes