Reply With Quote
I'm not worried. These guys have been here before. SA is going to be crazy.
-Worst case scenario coming into this game was Heat blowout that makes them feel great about themselves going forward. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.
-This is a tough result to swallow because everything was going so well. LeBron was playing perhaps the worst game he's played in the last two seasons. Danny Green was on fire. The Spurs were right there, Miami looked kinda nervous ... and then it fell apart. Part of it was due to the Heat being a great team that started living up to their ability. The other part was the Spurs had so few players play well.
-I'm a bit scared following some of Miami's adjustment. Going all out blitz in Game 1 on Parker I thought was dumb because TP is too smart and will figure it out. Tonight, they not only switched up tactics continuously, they also switched up defenders. That's really, really tough to handle if you're Parker -- infinitely tougher than the blitzing gimmick of Game 1.
-That Chalmers-LeBron pick-and-roll is terrifying. It gets LeBron close to the basket with Duncan out of the play. The Spurs can't switch it because TP can't guard LeBron. If they don't switch, you're giving up a layup for Chalmers or have to leave an outside shooter on the weakside. It's going to be difficult to stop going forward....
-Ginobili was pretty damn terrible. He wasn't alone but he struggled to do just about everything. I've never seen him turn into such a klutz just trying to dribble the ball twice.
-Parker is going to have to be in attack mode in Game 3. If they aren't going to blitz him every play, he has to attack. He did that well at times this game ... but not nearly often enough.
-Duncan wasn't good, especially offensively. But really, I didn't love the touches he was getting. He rarely got a clean look with adequate space around him. Give the Heat credit for swarming him constantly but the Spurs need to create the spacing to give Duncan a chance to have a big game.
-Leonard's rebounding was great. The Spurs need better shotmaking going forward but his rebounding and defense on LeBron made it a positive night at the office for him.
-Green was damn good. It was great to see him step up big in the huge moments. Let's hope he can remain hope for the duration of the series.
-Splitter needs to make more of an impact. Not rebounding against this poor rebounding team is inexcusable. He also needs to use his size more consistently on offense.
-I know Spurs fans love a scapegoat and Neal is that man right now but I don't think he was too horrible when factoring in expectations. He scored some useful buckets early and held it together defensively for a while. He fell apart in the collapse -- but so did just about everyone else.
-I'm hoping the Spurs can sustain a healthy level of confidence. Being at home will help; hopefully more player step up in the friendly confines of the AT&T Center.
-This remains the biggest challenge the Spurs have ever faced. If the Heat take momentum into Game 3, S.A. is going to have to play close to flawless basketball to win three more in this series.
-We'll know much more after Game 3. The scary thing is the Heat have actually looked better on the road than at home for much of these playoffs.
-The bright side is the Spurs had the lead in the third despite playing C- basketball on the road. Time to get some better individual performances, get the home crowd involved and play with more desperation to get Game 3. Now is the time show how much you want this.
Believe.
I'm not worried. These guys have been here before. SA is going to be crazy.
Let's go big tbh.
Tim Splitter Boris Leonard TP
Baynes TD/Splitter Leonard Green TP
Both Kawhi and Boris can bully Wade in the post, we need a mismatch to open things up. Also Wade has been great so far, may has well put KY on him for a while, the whole team is guarding Lebron anyway.
Just a few thoughts:
-- After Parker flopped the first two times and got no calls, he should have gave up flopping for the night.
-- Hopefully Splitter can recover psychologically from that block.
-- I knew the Spurs were going to get seriously rocked in one game this series. Glad it was Game 2 instead of the elimination game.
-- Spurs in 6.
Neal tends to get trapped in a corner against this team, it happened several times, each time they doubled him aggressively he couldn't find a pass, that's the most annoying thing about him but I agree he wasn't the worst.
What do you think about Boris Diaw? Coming into this series I thought he would've been a great outlet for Parker and Ginobili when they got trapped. But I haven't been too impressed with him these last two games.
@ timvp defending Neal per par
I disagree with the "Everything was going so well comment." Sure Green was unconscious from 3 and LeBron was having an off night, but that's ALL that was going well in this game if you ask me. Tony wasnt aggressive enough and dissapeared, Tim was taking turnaround fade away jumpers, and Manu couldn't dribble the damn basketball. The only bright spots were Green's 3's and Kawhi's defense and rebounding. And yet the Spurs were right there. They were right there with alot of things going wrong. Playing Neal extended minutes was also a horrible idea. He leaves shooters open too damn much for him to be out there so much...
Just one adjustment : Play the best 7-8 players/No small ball/no mad scientist
Gotta agree with that. There was no point of the game where I thought anything was going well. Most of the first 2.5 quarters I felt the Spurs were extremely fortunate to still be in the game and I kept expecting that big run to surface some time with how badly the Spurs were playing.
Splitter tried to be aggressive and got blocked twice. We'll see if he becomes even more timid on offense.-Splitter needs to make more of an impact. Not rebounding against this poor rebounding team is inexcusable. He also needs to use his size more consistently on offense.
The two big keys for the next three games are going to be turnovers, and the Heat role players. If the Spurs turn the ball over more than 12 times, they are probably going to lose. Turnovers get Miami going, and they are the best front running team in the lead. When they get going, it is hard to stop them. The Spurs looked out of whack tonight. Ginobili couldn't dribble, and he wasn't even facing intense pressure from the Heat. Many of the Spurs turnovers were unforced errors.
If the Heat role players bring that level of play to San Antonio, the Spurs probably lose. They are doing a great job on Lebron. He has been contained thus far. If Ray Allen, Mike Miller, and Mario Chalmers knock down every open three, you have to tip your hat and admit they are the superior team.
I trust this team enough to know their confidence would not drop just because of game 2. In fact, i think getting blown out would only give this team more motivation to fix whatever is needed to be fixed.
Spurs in 6.
Were on the road... happens!
Thought the exact same thing. But just continued flopping all night. Sometimes you just gotta man up.
Maybe "everything" was a poor choice of words but you're up in the third with LeBron sucking, the Heat with no rhythm and the Big 3 having nowhere to go but up. That was a damn great opportunity, IMO.
This. Any long time Spurs fan knew one of these games was coming.
Spurs won't be demoralized, instead they'll be really focused in game 3.
Good thing about the players is they get over this blowout and move on better than fans will for the next two days.
anyone like the pace? we usually play at a fast pace but i think it's a bad idea vs. Miami especially after 3 days of rest
This loss could mean one of two things:
1. This wakes up the Heat, and they start becoming unbeatable.
2. This wakes up the Spurs and they actually start playing to their ability.
There's no reason to be demoralized, it's a product of fans that underestimated Miami, just because they were taken to 7 by Indiana and lost game 1 against the Spurs..this is the toughest opponent the Spurs have met in the Finals, this is going to be a long series..
We're fans though, we're going to discuss the flaws of the team in their losses, regardless of the outlook for the rest of the series..
The worrisome aspect is that Miami's best strategy and go-to option is more sustainable than the Spurs optimal strategy, tbh..
Luckily Pop is the master adjustment-coach. After every loss in these playoffs, he has come out with a solid gameplan and the spurs have executed it well. This is an unfortunate loss, and I'll reiterate that I think the spurs' le chances took a significant hit tonight, but I think this team is capable of being invigorated by a loss.
- the series will depend on whether or not the spurs can slow down the chalmers/lebron pnr, im not sure they can, i dunno how theyre gonna play that
- how did defend they defend parker? i though they were blitzing just more aggressively i didnt realize they were switching, i have to rewatch the game, but if the heat did switch pnrs im assuming they did it with a small lineup... james switching the pnr thats definitely tough... great adjustment by the heat
didn't look much like spurs offense in the first half, to me anyways, where was all the ball movement and off the ball movement? lots of standing around...
Hope it's the latter, but I fear it's the former. When Miami turns it "on" they're easily the best team in the league.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
