I have not seen anyone post a breakdown of the matchups we will likely see.
Timvp? Rummpd?
The Starters will likely be:
Andre Miller vs. Tony Parker
Dermarr Johnson vs Manu Ginobili
Carmelo Anthony vs Bruce Bowen
Kenyon Martin vs Tim Duncan
Marcus Camby vs Nazr Mohammed
Miller will move to 2 guard when Boykins comes in for Johnson.
Nene will spot Martin and Camby in the pivot.
Person will sub in at the 2 or 3.
Miller v. Parker - Even. Each player has strengths (Parker's speed vs. Miller's size) that can be utilized successfully against the other. Tony will need to bring his A game, and if he doesn't it could be disasterous for the Spurs. Miller can exploit Tony and vice-versa, so this one should be good.
Johnson v. Ginobili - Advantage Spurs. Gino should be able to exploit this matchup I would think. Offensively and defensively I'd pick Manu all day long in this matchup.
Anthony v. Bowen - Even. Similar to the Parker/Miller matchup which will be decided by whichever Tony Parker shows up for the games, I think Carmelo will dictate the winner of this individual battle. Bowen will be consistent throughout, and his offense will be its usual bonus if he's hitting his shots. If Carmelo establishes himself he could run away with this one, but if he doesn't he'll just look silly out there. I'm leaning towards Anthony looking silly.
Martin v. Duncan - Advantage Spurs. Tim's ankle will ultimately determine this matchup. A month and a half ago Duncan would have been the hands-down winner of this battle, but the odds are a lot more even with him hobbled like he is.
Camby v. Mohammed - Advantage Nuggets. This matchup doesn't favor the Nuggets as greatly as some might think. I believe that Nazr can hold his own in this battle, and I like his toughness out there. Camby won't bully him.
Bench v. Bench - Advantage Spurs. Ordinarily a healthy Spurs team would clearly be the favorites here, but Boykins, Person, Nene and Nahara can all pose problems for the Spurs. I'd still take Robinson, Horry, Brent, Rasho and Devin Brown (hopefully) over the Nuggets bench.
assert himself or not, if Bowen doesn't have help behind him, there is now way Bowen can TOTALLY shut him down.Anthony v. Bowen - Even. Similar to the Parker/Miller matchup which will be decided by whichever Tony Parker shows up for the games, I think Carmelo will dictate the winner of this individual battle. Bowen will be consistent throughout, and his offense will be its usual bonus if he's hitting his shots. If Carmelo establishes himself he could run away with this one, but if he doesn't he'll just look silly out there. I'm leaning towards Anthony looking silly
He needs Nesterovic and Duncan behind him helping him out.
Agreed....it is well known that the defensive scheme the Spurs use is to funnel players to the bigs and let them eat their lunches....the reason for the last part of the season's defensive lack-luster effort is because Rasho was not there complimenting whoever. The big factor is the bigs off the bench Nazr, TMass, are porous when it comes to denying shots....when your bigs aren't there like they have been the whole season it is difficult to adjust you schemes on the fly.
I think the biggest factor in the series is actually limiting the 2nd chance points (defensive rebounds).....I remember the Spurs getting hurt with the big rebound and put-back.....the Spurs had been dominating the boards up until Tim and Rasho went down....after that they struggled off and on....mostly off....the reason we won the games we did was offensively for the most part.
Parker vs. Miller- This should not be even. Tony is by far the superior talent and has the ability to dominate. However, Tony hasn't always delivered in the past so we'll see. I think his inconsistency had more to do with age and experience. I expect Tony to kick butt in this series.
Manu vs. Anyone- Not Even close. Good luck to Denver they're going to need it.
Melo vs. Bruce- so far Bruce has had the better of this matchup. Let's see what happens.
75% Tim vs 100% Martin- Martin! Kenyon gave Tim fits in the finals 2 years ago except in a couple of games and in one Kenyon maybe had the flu. Thank goodness Martin doesn't dominate the ball or else this matchup would be exploited more. Miller, Melo, and Camby will take most of the shots.
Camby vs Nazr- Nazr will hold his own but Camby will have the better numbers.
Here are the regular season efficiency rankings for the Spurs and the Nuggets.
Efficiency is calculated by:
(PTS + REB + AST + STL + BLK) - ((FGA - FGM) + (FTA - FTM) + TO)
Basically, it adds up the good things and subtracts most of the bad things. Per
sonal fouls, technical fouls, and ejections are not included. It measures offen
se better than defense.
The rankings (numbers in parentheses) are over all NBA players. The players are ordered by total efficiency, but you can see the rankings for efficiency/game and efficiency/minute.
The first table just the Spurs. The next table shows the Nuggets.
Code:Efficiency Efficiency Efficiency Name Team Games Per Game Per Minute Total Duncan, Tim SA 66 25.30 (6) 0.758 (4) 1670 (14) Parker, Tony SA 80 16.44 (64) 0.481 (103) 1315 (43) Ginobili, Manu SA 74 17.26 (54) 0.582 (29) 1277 (49) Mohammed, Nazr SA 77 12.99 (113) 0.517 (70) 1000 (96) Nesterovic, Rasho SA 70 10.96 (154) 0.430 (171) 767 (146) Bowen, Bruce SA 82 8.96 (187) 0.280 (401) 735 (151) Barry, Brent SA 81 8.36 (203) 0.389 (251) 677 (170) Horry, Robert SA 75 8.21 (209) 0.441 (152) 616 (184) Brown, Devin SA 67 7.42 (227) 0.401 (231) 497 (219) Udrih, Beno SA 80 5.49 (308) 0.382 (264) 439 (243) Massenburg, Tony SA 61 4.07 (349) 0.355 (304) 248 (310) Wilks, Mike SA 48 1.90 (425) 0.327 (344) 91 (372) Marks, Sean SA 23 3.52 (379) 0.332 (338) 81 (377) Robinson, Glenn SA 9 8.44 (201) 0.484 (101) 76 (382) Glover, Dion SA 7 4.00 (351) 0.412 (208) 28 (414) Johnson, Linton SA 2 0.50 (457) 0.067 (459) 1 (459)Code:Efficiency Efficiency Efficiency Name Team Games Per Game Per Minute Total Miller, Andre DEN 82 17.22 (55) 0.495 (90) 1412 (30) Camby, Marcus DEN 66 19.45 (33) 0.637 (13) 1284 (47) Anthony, Carmelo DEN 75 16.47 (63) 0.474 (110) 1235 (58) Martin, Kenyon DEN 70 17.50 (52) 0.539 (50) 1225 (60) Boykins, Earl DEN 82 12.09 (132) 0.458 (130) 991 (98) Hilario, Nene DEN 55 12.31 (127) 0.514 (73) 677 (170) Buckner, Greg DEN 70 9.20 (185) 0.423 (179) 644 (179) Johnson, DerMarr DEN 71 7.30 (231) 0.420 (186) 518 (211) Najera, Eduardo DEN 68 6.71 (261) 0.385 (261) 456 (229) Russell, Bryon DEN 70 5.69 (300) 0.388 (252) 398 (256) Elson, Francisco DEN 67 5.51 (306) 0.393 (241) 369 (265) Person, Wesley DEN 41 6.56 (265) 0.403 (227) 269 (302) Flores, Luis DEN 16 1.56 (434) 0.325 (347) 25 (420) Lenard, Voshon DEN 3 7.00 (244) 0.389 (249) 21 (424) Pope, Mark DEN 9 1.22 (443) 0.407 (216) 11 (442)
No way Bowen allows Carmello ing Anthony to dictate who will get the best of who
He's going to lock him down like fort knox and you better believe it
Karl likes to iso certain players. Expect him to spread and iso with Miller and Melo (on TP and Bowen respectively) with Martin thrown in for good measure, on occasion.
um... I think u should look back at the stats in those finals because Kenyon got owned, especially in games 1 & 5. Tim has too many moves for Martin and Martin is not a good low post defender at all. If Tim goes down low consistently during this series this matchup goes to Tim hands down.
Game 1 and 7 tim was fantastic and was good in all the rest. Tim rarely has a bad game. Nevertheless, I remember Kenyon playing Tim really well. Tim at 75% can't handle Kenyon IMO, but it won't matter because Kenyon is just a garbage guy in Denver.
23 points, 16 boards, 4 assists and 4 blocks per game is just "good" for games 2-5? That's KMart playing Tim really well?
Yea the ISO's can hurt us in the sense that we tend to commit silly fouls & get called for fouls a lot.
This is the playoff's any team can get hot for a series or whole playoff run & surprise & upset, but I expect the Spurs to win this 1st rd matchup, won't be easy, b/c Denver is young & ready for us, also a few games will be nail biters due to our poor FT shooting which allows teams to stay close & in games that if we hit @ least 82% of our FT's we be winning by double digits!
I am not concerned with 3-23
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