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Good assessment H.
What did you guys think of the defense today?..
+ Guarding Randolph with Duncan and swarming him..great strategy, the length bothers him, and while he has improved as a passer, he still has tendencies of a black hole at times..
+ Making Prince beat you..no double teams, let him post up, give him the shot on the pick&roll..the only problem I had was Kawhi going over the screen in the 1st quarter, but it was fine, overall..
+ Guarding Bayless with anybody other than Neal..this will play a huge role in the series, tbh..
+ The lack of double teams against Gasol..they only sent another man a handful of times, they were letting him shoot..Gasol's mindset is to pass first, Spurs should continue making him a scorer..
- Ginobili, Green and Neal falling asleep against Pondexter..he's their only consistent 3-point threat, yet he still had a lot of open looks..most of these looks were due to guys falling asleep, tbh..they can't let him go off..
Good assessment H.
Yeah other than the defense on the one truck pony Pointdexter I would repeat every single thing in game 2.
Regular rotations= always good(That small ball early in the 4th could've lost the lead though)
As I said before the series, if the Spurs can effectively shut down Bayless, MEM will really struggle to score enough points. Pondexter literally can only hit 3's from the corners so giving him that many looks is terrible.
Overall, the defense has been stout and I was pleased with the team rebounding.
They'll adjust to Pondexter a la Klay tbh. I don't expect Z-Bo to struggle that bad in Game 2 but Memphis has the same issues as the Lakers. They're entry passers outside of Conley can't really hit from outside or beat their man off the dribble, allowing us to front effectively.
Ya, the fact that Pondexter's 3s were from the corners is even more annoying, it's the scouting report on him..I imagine Pop preached that, so I'm blaming Ginobili, Green and Neal for those lapses, tbh..
I liked virtually everything they did, other than, as you said, falling asleep on Pondexter.
Agree about Bayless, but the great thing about it is, they can easily hide Neal on Pondexter, Allen or Dooling, since Neal's minutes will rarely coincide with when they play Conley, Bayless and Prince together. Between Joseph, Green, Parker and Leonard, they're well equipped to defend Bayless.
In general, the Spurs probably have a slightly better defense. Sure, they finished behind them, but I'm pretty sure the Spurs starting lineup is the best defensive unit in the league. The problem was, they weren't playing true starters minutes in the regular season. Now they are and the results speak for themselves. It also helps that Neal is no longer defending PG's (and not playing much in general) and that Joseph, who's already one of the better PG defenders in the league, is.
If the Spurs aren't going to get anything on either end from Neal, Patty should get his minutes in game 2 if Pop's determined not to give them to CJ.
Also, I'm calling Cory Joseph CJ now.
It'll be interesting to see if they remove Prince or Allen from the starting unit, tbh..
A team with 2 horrible shooters in the starting lineup will always be easy to defend..
I liked all of it except:
They left their best 3pt shooters wide open too often (especially their backup guards), and most importantly. . .
They gave Conley too many open lanes to the basket.
But that's about it tbh. I'd grade them at an A for defensive work overall. Great rebounding, totally locked down Zach Randolph, and contained Gasol and Conley enough.
It was a blueprint of how to shut down Memphis. I agree with all your points HH; at first I thought it was suicidal playing Timmy on Randolph (had flashbacks of stretches in 2011) but in retrospective it was a great decision. Splitter was more physical than I would've expected so he competed with Gasol. He was in foul trouble but it was mitigated due to the fact that Bonner was scorching. I'd like to see Baynes in the bench for insurance, though in case the Red Mamba regresses to his usual ways.
have to hide Ginobili on Allen or let Prince post him up and airball shots like he did
Neal shouldnt be on Bayless since he loves to hit horrible shots and Neal is the perfect player to go off on since he doesnt fight over screens
everything else was pretty good
i was suprised Pop didnt go with Splitter on Randolph
Splitter is getting no respect as a defender on Gasoft
he was flopping on all his post positioning putting Splitter in foul trouble
Duncan has more respect as a defender so he should guard Gasol more but it would also tire him out
Gasol can hit those 20 footers but hes just too much of a pussy to take over games
i dont think hes taken over 20 shots once this postseason
score once then revert to his dribble handoffs and overrated passing
Actually, add Diaw to that list... he went under the screen on him and left him wide open for a 3...
True, I completely forget about that play, it was probably the most egregious lapse, too..
Freetiago, I like Splitter guarding Gasol, he can contest his mid-range shots..Gasol's post game is overrated, it's slightly B
above average, at best..as I said in the other thread, Splitter needs to flop in this series, it's the only way he will get calls against Memphis..
Playing tight defense on Marc when he's at the top of the key in limiting the impact of his passing/vision. It make it difficult to feed Zbo or connect on the backdoor pass.
Good takes. I'm okay with Pondexter getting three point attempts, even if he makes them, because they aren't pounding the ball down low, getting Randolph going and drawing fouls. If the Spurs are rebounding the way they did and not turning it over, I'm daring his ass to shoot when he's in the game, because Memphis isn't riding Pondexter's shooting to the Finals.
I'm okay with the Spurs just letting Conley go when he gets past someone. It sucks, and they could do a better job individually, but again, he's not getting his teammates going, he's wearing himself out, he's not drawing fouls when he's doing that. I'd rather he attempt a layup in traffic than rolling a big and ending up with an easy dunk or a putback because everyone is out of position.
That's the exact polar opposite of what I said about Splitter going into this series. I think he needs to man the up and hold his ground. He was great against Memphis in 2011 because he was tough. I'm not saying I'm right. He's slightly less likely to get injured your way I think.
Seems obvious their goal was to eliminate Zbo -- still can't believe how effective it was
I can understand your point about Conley. Gasol was trying to flop and draw fouls early but luckily the refs didn't bite. We were probably 2-3 ty calls away from being in foul trouble. . .so Conley not going to them too much more than he did was probably a blessing even though he was getting some difficult layups to fall.
I'm curious what changes Hollins' makes to his offense to get ZBo more involved. It's probably safe to say he won't play that bad again. 2 points and only on a cheapie putback that was nearly an offensive goaltend. . .man, who would've thought we'd close him down that bad?
This tbh, Splitter on Fat Gasol was the right move in game 1.
He needs to be tough on offense, he was way too soft when he attacked, but the refs are going to call him for everything if he holds his ground on every play, tbh..
Splitter doesn't get love from the refs against Sacramento, let alone Memphis..
It was kinda like what they did against LAL and it was just what I expected. On our side of the ball the matchup is pretty similar to that Lakers series, two imposing players down low and horrible shooters outside.
I agree that Zach will come back; he's a good player with a lot of pride who lives for the playoffs. That said, he's going to struggle against a team that doesn't put Blair or Bonner or Dice on him for extended time. Bonner's energy against him was great. It was the perfect change of pace.I'm curious what changes Hollins' makes to his offense to get ZBo more involved. It's probably safe to say he won't play that bad again. 2 points and only on a cheapie putback that was nearly an offensive goaltend. . .man, who would've thought we'd close him down that bad?
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