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a little help?
o all. I have not been able to follow as closely as I would like this season 'cos I've just been way too busy (and I currently don't have a TV). I've been updating myself periodically but haven't really had a chance to observe...
The times I have been able to catch a game, we just seemed stagnant and/or hesitant a lot of times, as a team, on offense. No real consistent flow that is maintained throughout a game...I figured early on, like everyone else, it was a chemistry/familiarity issue...but I still see this stagnancy and stiffness, even recently...so I was wondering if anyone knew the type of offense that the Spurs, generally speaking, have been trying to implement this year.
It seems, with the specific personnel (jefferson, no real "dominant type" bigs outside of Duncan, tony's lack of contribution off-the-ball), a motion offense would be best, by far.
If so, why is it taking so long to get it set up?
a little help?
Our offense is fine, IMO. It's our defense that needs some work.
Offense really isn't a problem for the Spurs. When it does seem stagnant its mostly due to turnovers. Could be a chemistry issue, but I am more worried about the defense.
Frakin' turnovers.....
Defense is overwhelming concern, esp paint defense, with current crap unrecongizable from "Spurs' defense". Pop doesn't seem to apply "play defense, or sit" anymore.
Winning offense is strongly correlated with hitting 3Gs.
It may be the games you have watched have stretches of stagnant offense, but this is actually the highest points-producing offense the Spurs have had in the Tim Duncan era. They are averaging 101.1 ppg, an increase of 4.1 ppg over last season.
The problem is, they are also allowing 96 ppg, by far the highest points output allowed by any Spurs team in the Tim Duncan era.
They run lots of screen/roll, as they have for many years now. They also run a motion offense as a default whenever Pop doesn't call a play from the sidelines.
The times the offense looks the most stagnant is when Parker over-dribbles with very few Spurs getting to touch the ball. This occurs most often on screen/rolls that are well-defended with hard hedges and active help.
The Spurs offense was at near perfection in the first half of the Atlanta game. They rebounded, they out-ran, out-hustled, out-everythinged (is that a word?) the Hawks on their way to a 66 point half.
Against the Grizzlies, it was a bit different in that the Spurs sent their offense primarily through Tim Duncan with occasional departures from it using McDyess or Blair on the high screen/rolls with Hill, Ginobili and Mason all taking turns at lead guard.
That's the main thing, and in SPITE of that, while we've taken 60 less shots than our opponents, we've scored 230 more points.
turnovers,defense,and chemistry
funny how people see this as a problem, a 5pt/game margin is pretty enormous. I'd agree giving up 96/gm would be a problem if we were avg. 95/game on offense, but we're not, and we're winning, and with all the new pieces we can only get better defensively.
Point diff isn't a problem. A +5.1 point diff that is 6th best in the NBA...and that's about what the Spurs are right now. Maybe 6th best, at best. The decent point diff is a silver lining on a gray cloud. Getting stops against good teams in close games down the stretch, teams that get stops, is more important.
Maybe the Spurs galvanize and start getting stops against Utah, or Dallas or Denver or the Lakers down the stretch. Maybe the Spurs start holding teams under 45% from the field. It's then that I start feeling comfortable with a nice 5 point diff averaged in 11 more home games than away games.
It starts to get stagnant when we turn it over and also start settling for jumpshots.
The league isn't built/officiated the way it was 5 years ago guys, that's apparent both in the fact that we're scoring more points and that our opponents are as well.
I don't think anyone would argue with you there.
Anyways, the Spurs' offense isn't stagnant except when they don't take care of the ball or share the ball. The Spurs currently rank 6th offensively in FG% and 5th in APG. The problem is team defense, as I said before, and ranking 12th in Opp FG% isn't going to get the Spurs past the good teams in close games. Even though the percentages have increased over the years in the NBA, whether the Spurs are holding opponents to a modern record .402, as they did in 1998-99, or .432 as Cleveland (ranked #1) is this year, the teams that can get stops against even the best teams typically rank in the Top 3 in Opp. FG%.
I know the Spurs are working on it, but it's not the offense that's broken or stagnant.
Offensive schemes and strategy developed and dictated by:
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