I posted this somewhere else, but I thought I might post this here since people are freaking out. Lets look at the pros and cons of how the Spurs played in last nights game..
Pros:
- 1st half defense; held Bulls to 11-41 (27%) on non-second chance pts. Jefferson, Hill, and especially Duncan looked fantastic defensively.
-Duncan: 28 pts, 16 rebs, 3 blks, 2 asts, 2 stls on 13-19
- Ginobili. Only 3-11 but he moved really well. 6 rebs, 4 ast, 1 stl.
Cons:
-Rebounding, particularly defensive rebounding. Outrebounded by 8, gave away 15 off rebs.
-3 pt shooting (4-21)
- Tony Parker's offense (4-11 FG, 3 TOs, 3 ast, 0-1 FT)
- Bench scoring
Its funny how all the pros are the things I worry about and all the cons are what I normally take for granted with the Spurs. The loss doesn't hurt that bad because of this; losing against a good athletic young team at the tail-end of a b2b in their home opener isn't a loss to fret about. A loss is a loss though, and I just hope we get our chemistry together sooner rather than later for the sake of our record.
Overall, this loss shows some encouraging signs. I don't think it is time to worry about what made us lose the game (the cons) until they become trends. What made us lose the game was what we usually consider our strengths, so I think we can chalk a lot of it up as an anomaly. Meanwhile, what made us good was what we worried about most, so things look encouraging going forward.