Ludden : Spurs downsize their lineup to keep up in the fast-paced West

I guess that in 10 years, there will still have a topic on "Was Pop right when he used Finley at PF against Dallas ?"
Last year is the past and people will never agree on that point.

This year is a new year and we will see what will happen but I'm quite confident because Elson and Oberto are better fits against Dallas than Nazr and Rasho.

There are still a lot of teams to beat besides Dallas. This isn't like six years ago, when beating the Lakers meant winning it all.

People crying about small ball is getting out of hand. The Spurs played small ball throughout all of last year. It wasn't a new thing just for Dallas.

Nazr hardly played all year. Rasho played some but was a dud and showed less emotion than Borat. Our centers haven't done shit since 50 retired. Our defense hasn't been the same since 50 retired.

The rules have changed. Our personnel has changed. Pop is working with what is there. A lot of retards here have their head stuck in the sand. Pop played big ball in game 2 and got crushed.

It hopefully doesn't matter now because Elson can (hopefully) stay out there and play with the quick lineups.

The Spurs are going to be even better this year.

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Nazr hardly played all year.

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Actually from the time they inserted Nazr in the starting lineup in February, the team had the league's best record from there until the end of the season. Try again.

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The rules have changed. Our personnel has changed. Pop is working with what is there. A lot of retards here have their head stuck in the sand. Pop played big ball in game 2 and got crushed.

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Retards hold up game 2 as a proof 'big ball' wasn't going to work. What they fail to overlook is that we started Horry at PF that game and were down by 15 before Nazr even walked on the floor. We just flat out got whipped that night, and no amount of big ball or small ball would have changed that.

The simple fact of the matter is that Pop had built his team around the two posts/funnel everything to the baseline concept for the last 6 years running. Every player he brought in was brought in to fit that paradigm. Then he got to the playoffs and flinched. You can't build a system for six years and 82 games and then just ditch it because Avery puts your panties in a bunch by starting Terry and Harris at the guard spots.

Pop got so uptight about Dirk and shutting him down, that he forgot what worked for him the previous year against Amare. The Spurs let Amare get his (he averaged 40 a game for crying out loud!) but the Spurs won that series going away.

Last year instead of employing that same strategy, Pop tried to play Avery's game and got burned. He could have kept the two bigs in to protect the lane from the layup fest it became for Harris, Terry, and Howard, but instead he got stuck on stupid and shutting down Dirk.

We didn't get beat by Dirk. We got beat by the fact that Pop was so focused on stopping Nowitzki that the rest of the Mavs were able to get into the lane and do their damage there.

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Originally Posted by Aggie Hoopsfan

The simple fact of the matter is that Pop had built his team around the two posts/funnel everything to the baseline concept for the last 6 years running. Every player he brought in was brought in to fit that paradigm. Then he got to the playoffs and flinched. You can't build a system for six years and 82 games and then just ditch it because Avery puts your panties in a bunch by starting Terry and Harris at the guard spots.

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I think what Pop realized is that with the rules changes on perimeter defense made and enacted last season that funneling pentrating players to the baseline has gotten a whole lot harder. Some haven't picked up on that yet.

So, in conclusion, when Miami played Posey at PF that wasn't small ball?

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Originally Posted by The Truth #6

Nazr hardly played all year. Rasho played some.

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Rasho and Nazr played a combined 37 minutes per game last season. And considering they each only had 2 DNP's- both of Rasho's against Phoenix, that is just about every game.

Throw in Horry and you get to 55 minutes per game.

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Originally Posted by ShoogarBear

There are still a lot of teams to beat besides Dallas. This isn't like six years ago, when beating the Lakers meant winning it all.

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I could not agree more. Last season everyone focused on what the Spurs had to do to beat Detroit and then neither of them got to the Finals. :lol

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Originally Posted by Winnipeg_Spur

So, in conclusion, when Miami played Posey at PF that wasn't small ball?

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Nor was playing 6'8" (at best) Udonis Haslem at PF.

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Originally Posted by ShoogarBear

WTF?

http://www.turtletrader.com/images/auerbach_red.jpghttp://www.hoophall.com/halloffamers...ackramsay1.JPG

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My bad...I should have said, in the post hunter gatherer age, of indoor plumbing and flooring, Riley is the only coach.

Seriously though...I never knew, that was all before my time, but I guess it does make sense from the footage I have seen of Cousy. Still doesn't change the ultimate point though, and if anything it drives the point home. Running is great when you have more talent, which the Celtics did, like say 3,4,5 HOF'ers on your team...but if the teams are closely matched and all one of the teams does is run....that running team is going to lose. History bears this out...as does the style Riley elected to play last season in the finals...if running like that was so great, Riley woulda done it.

i would be curious to see the center stat line in that phoenix contest. i bet their minutes were down and played bigger roles in other matchups, plus you could still count on amare's prone to make mistakes to assist you in that series due to his inexperience.

maybe your are right, but had we played the bigs against dallas i wonder what kind of calls dirk would have gotten in a series already being dictated by poor officiating. the finals tend to let the players win. dirk no longer had an officials whistle and lips firmly entrenched on his ass so dallas lost. plus we did not have shack and mourning to stay big, we had rasho and nazr. again it may have worked but pop still almost won on his terms and i do not believe it warrents as much critique as it is getting...had he lost by 30 and swept then maybe, hell that may have happened if he went big who knows.

Mourning and Shaq were essentially never on the floor together. That would have benn more akin to Duncan playing with Nazr or Rasho which Riley was smart enough to stay away from.

The myth is that the Heat didn't play small ball.

What everybody else calls small ball I call running...

The only reason people are calling it smallball is because in our case, and the case of the Suns, we were using a small lineup to do it...

What we did, that he Heat didn't...was try and out run the Mavs in an uptempo game using smaller players and forgoing completely our traditional halfcourt philosophy on D...

Smallball in the case of the Spurs, means using smaller and quicker players in an attempt to out run the Mavs and get easy baskets, small because we lacked the personnel to do it with our big guys, and giving up our defensive presence in the process...


It's not the size if the players that dictates whether or not it was smallball in this case, tempting as that may be, it was the style of play...

Spurs wanted to run and get up and down the court, the Heat didn't...and if you don't see this, I suggest taking a look at the average scores of the games involving us and the Mavs, VS the Heat and the Mavs...then go look at the scores of our 3 previous finals team...

And if all that still doesn't work, go find where Miami was starting a fucking 2 guard at Center...

Spurs tried to run and because we couldn't do it with a big line up we had to do it with a small lineup...hence Smallball...and giving up our ability to defend in the halfcourt.

Shit...I'd have been down with it if we could have rolled Drob out there...that'd have been fun...I just didn't like the concept of Michael Finley as our starting C. I think it was a bad one...we got plenty of points, and we played absolutely no d..and the Mavs were allowed to dictate the game, and take us out of our D..Two things we had the talent to do to them, better than they did it to us..

The Heat didn't do that...the Heat stayed a half court team...the size io the players doesn't matter so much, because they weren't taken out of their traditional roles or their ability to play D...

The Pistons were a halfcourt team with a 6'9 C...no one was calling it small ball...

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Originally Posted by whottt

What everybody else calls small ball I call running...

The only reason people are calling it smallball is because in our case, and the case of the Suns, we were using a small lineup to do it...

What we did, that he Heat didn't...was try and out run the Mavs in an uptempo game using smaller players and forgoing completely our traditional halfcourt philosophy on D...

Smallball in the case of the Spurs, means using smaller and quicker players in an attempt to out run the Mavs and get easy baskets, small because we lacked the personnel to do it with our big guys, and giving up our defensive presence in the process...


It's not the size if the players that dictates whether or not it was smallball in this case, tempting as that may be, it was the style of play...

Spurs wanted to run and get up and down the court, the Heat didn't...and if you don't see this, I suggest taking a look at the average scores of the games involving us and the Mavs, VS the Heat and the Mavs...then go look at the scores of our 3 previous finals team...

And if all that still doesn't work, go find where Miami was starting a fucking 2 guard at Center...

Spurs tried to run and because we couldn't do it with a big line up we had to do it with a small lineup...hence Smallball...and giving up our ability to defend in the halfcourt.

Shit...I'd have been down with it if we could have rolled Drob out there...that'd have been fun...I just didn't like the concept of Michael Finley as our starting C. I think it was a bad one...we got plenty of points, and we played absolutely no d..and the Mavs were allowed to dictate the game, and take us out of our D..Two things we had the talent to do to them, better than they did it to us..

The Heat didn't do that...the Heat stayed a half court team...the size io the players doesn't matter so much, because they weren't taken out of their traditional roles or their ability to play D...

The Pistons were a halfcourt team with a 6'9 C...no one was calling it small ball...

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good post

I guess then if small is defined as running and big ball as half court then the Spurs can attribute their 2005 victory over the Suns as a testament to small ball.

Simple fact is that with Rasho, Nazr and Horry the Spurs didn't have a second big to pair with Duncan to give them an advantage over the Mavs when playing a big lineup. Not like the Heat with agile enough "bigs" in Haslem and Posey. Too bad they didn't get Tim Thomas who they had a good shot at until Kurt Thomas got hurt and the Suns went after him. That would have been a big difference maker.

Some rebounding and not allowing Howard, Harris and Terry to slice through our D at will would have been a big difference maker...

How does anyone know it wouldn't have worked? We didn't even try.

You look back at Rasho's pre Spur history and some of his most dominant performances came against the Mavs at the height of their running days...in fact I'd say it was Rasho's games against the Kings and Mavs in 01-02 that made the Spurs go after him.

And Nazr destroyed the Suns in the regular season one game last year...in fact I'd call it his best performance as a Spur.

Pop didn't even try it.


IT's good to see you're bringing your F game this year pic...last time you did that we won a title :tu

Based on regular season stats of the Spurs vs the Mavs for Naz and Rasho and the playoffs for Finley and given 40 minutes per for Rasho and Nazr vs 40 minutes for Finley, Nazr and Rasho could garner 2.8 more rebounds per game.

Pop didn't show a whole lot of faith in Nazr/Rasho during the regular sesaon either, combined their avaraging 20 minutes per. Particularly Nazr Pop had no confidence in only playing him 12 minutes against the Mavs in regular season. Horry averaged 15.7 per in the playoffs vs. 18 in regular season.

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Originally Posted by whottt

IT's good to see you're bringing your F game this year pic...last time you did that we won a title :tu

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I do what I can :lol

I feel better about this years team than last. Like Pop I lost all faith in Nazr and Rasho. Unlike Pop I had zero faith in Van Exel from January on.

I tend to agree with Whott.

However, the fact is the rules were different in 05, and when we ran against the suns, we didnt do much about amare, or nash for that matter, but we shut down marion, Q, joe johnson, etc.

The mavs are also different in that they still play a seven footer with dirk most of the time.

I think there is a time to adapt, and a time to impose. Last year, pop chose a bad time to adapt.

Hopefully with the personnel changes we will be in a better position to impose. As far as the mavs are concerned, it most definitely is more important to control the boards than it is to contain dirk.

There sure are a lot of NBA-caliber coaches on this thread. I thought Pop was the coach who led the Spurs to three titles but apparently his opinion is uneducated, nay ignorant in the eyes of many in this forum. That begs the question: why aren't any of you NBA coaches? Hmmmm...

My guess is that most of you are not lawyers either. And if you are, shame on your for piecing together such sloppy arguments.

Is that you Tpark?

If Pop is above criticism, I think we should shut down the site, no need to have a discussion board if you cannot have discussion.

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Originally Posted by JGrice02

There sure are a lot of NBA-caliber coaches on this thread. I thought Pop was the coach who led the Spurs to three titles but apparently his opinion is uneducated, nay ignorant in the eyes of many in this forum. That begs the question: why aren't any of you NBA coaches? Hmmmm...

My guess is that most of you are not lawyers either. And if you are, shame on your for piecing together such sloppy arguments.

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When I start my totalitarian government, remind me to put in an order for a couple million of you.

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Originally Posted by picnroll

Pop didn't show a whole lot of faith in Nazr/Rasho during the regular season either, combined their avaraging 20 minutes per.

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Where are you getting this stat from- it isn't even close. Combined they averaged 37 or 38 minutes per game.

I agree very much with you- Whott. I watched Rasho play very well against Dallas- even after he joined the Spurs he had a 7 block, 15 rebound against them- when they still had Nash and Finley. I never understood why Pop decided this year that Rasho would not even get the chance to play against them, especially when his own coaching staff had said that Rasho was running the floor the best he had as a Spur.

I also agree that a running style was not one the Spurs were ready to play. They were not used to that kind of pace- plus, many of the guys they want to do it with are a little bit old and unathletic compared to the guys that are doing it on other teams.

As for Dallas and Dirk- a huge part of the difference with Miami than San Antonio was that they had guys who could both cover Dirk AND rebound. The Spurs went with the guys they thought could cover Dirk best, but unfortunately they are not strong rebounders.

If we had Shaq, Mourning, Haslem and Posey we would have played them. I don't know how that makes anyone feel we should have swept the Mavs.