The goal is to win, regardless of playing beautiful game or not. When the other team's defense scheme is to let our star to beat them, there is not much passing necessary. If Duncan, Leonard, Manu or Parker is with us again, Pop will tell them to go ahead score 20 points in a row all by himself. When the other team starts to double, then the beautiful game starts.
The goal is to win, regardless of playing beautiful game or not. When the other team's defense scheme is to let our star to beat them, there is not much passing necessary. If Duncan, Leonard, Manu or Parker is with us again, Pop will tell them to go ahead score 20 points in a row all by himself. When the other team starts to double, then the beautiful game starts.
The goal is to win, regardless of playing beautiful game or not. When the other team's defense scheme is to let our star to beat them, there is not much passing necessary. If Duncan, Leonard, Manu or Parker is with us again,  Pop will tell them to go ahead score 20 points in a row all by himself. When the other team starts to double, then the beautiful game starts.
The goal is to win, regardless of playing beautiful game or not. When the other team's defense scheme is to let our star to beat them, there is not much passing necessary. If Duncan, Leonard, Manu or Parker is with us again,  Pop will tell them to go ahead score 20 points in a row all by himself. When the other team starts to double, then the beautiful game starts.
Sorry for posting 4 times above. Each time I try to edit, it saved the previous post.
Just a game highlighting our entire front court rotation outside of Poeltl is a dumpster fire that's falling off a bridge.
Interesting writeup, thanks
I agree that those who want to run Aldridge out of town to "fix" the offense don't make any sense. The team's offensive ceiling is much higher with him than without him.
That said, I disagree with criticizing Murray's play by judging it by "Beautiful Game" standards. That's just not fair. The BG only worked because you had the greatest teammate in NBA history (Duncan), a point guard with genius level basketball IQ (Parker), another guard with impeccable basketball instincts (Ginobili), multiple elite passing bigs (Diaw, Splitter) and elite role players who were unselfish (Green, Leonard, Mills). Other teams have tried to replicate the BG, with the Warriors getting the closest ... but even the Durant Warriors resorted to iso ball when the chips were down. Judging the 2020-21 Spurs by using "Beautiful Game" as the standard is like judging a kindergartener's finger painting by how it compares to van Gogh.
Murray's game is never going to be aesthetically-pleasing. He doesn't have a natural playmaking feel for the game; even when he makes good passes, it's rarely a result of him being able to read and react to what the defense is doing. Parker and Ginobili, for example, would often be a step or two ahead of the defense, so they could routinely make passes to teammates before they were even open just by understanding how the defense is rotating, etc. Murray is a oh-shiiii-he's-open-I-better-zip-it-in-there-before-anyone-notices type passer.
Going forward, it's safe to say "Beautiful Game" won't return no matter what the Spurs do or who is running the show. I've erased that standard from the equation. Now the Spurs are like every other team in that they need offensive weapons who draw attention and then use that attention to create space for shooters. So far, Murray is showing signs that he could be such a weapon. That's good -- and it's a step in the right direction. It's not going to be pretty ... but nothing will be pretty when judged against our memories of what was.
^even Patty has indicated this isn't the BG anymore but something different, so not sure why that's the "standard"
I see what you did there.
Liked, if only for that description of Murray's passing.Interesting writeup, thanks
I agree that those who want to run Aldridge out of town to "fix" the offense don't make any sense. The team's offensive ceiling is much higher with him than without him.
That said, I disagree with criticizing Murray's play by judging it by "Beautiful Game" standards. That's just not fair. The BG only worked because you had the greatest teammate in NBA history (Duncan), a point guard with genius level basketball IQ (Parker), another guard with impeccable basketball instincts (Ginobili), multiple elite passing bigs (Diaw, Splitter) and elite role players who were unselfish (Green, Leonard, Mills). Other teams have tried to replicate the BG, with the Warriors getting the closest ... but even the Durant Warriors resorted to iso ball when the chips were down. Judging the 2020-21 Spurs by using "Beautiful Game" as the standard is like judging a kindergartener's finger painting by how it compares to van Gogh.
Murray's game is never going to be aesthetically-pleasing. He doesn't have a natural playmaking feel for the game; even when he makes good passes, it's rarely a result of him being able to read and react to what the defense is doing. Parker and Ginobili, for example, would often be a step or two ahead of the defense, so they could routinely make passes to teammates before they were even open just by understanding how the defense is rotating, etc. Murray is a oh-shiiii-he's-open-I-better-zip-it-in-there-before-anyone-notices type passer.
Going forward, it's safe to say "Beautiful Game" won't return no matter what the Spurs do or who is running the show. I've erased that standard from the equation. Now the Spurs are like every other team in that they need offensive weapons who draw attention and then use that attention to create space for shooters. So far, Murray is showing signs that he could be such a weapon. That's good -- and it's a step in the right direction. It's not going to be pretty ... but nothing will be pretty when judged against our memories of what was.
To me, it's not about aesthetics; it's about efficiency. I don't believe the team is good enough to win games without assisted buckets. With a healthy Aldridge, the team showed they can still compete by leveraging his scoring ability combined with a good defense to beat non-elite clubs. I don't see Murray as being able to do that, but if he's a 20ppg scorer now on decent efficiency, it's not the worst idea to let him try. But then it becomes that much more important that the rest of the possessions be structured. Some posters talked about the bubble offense with its four-headed driving attack as something the team needed to focus on. Pop himself might agree there. I don't agree with that, though. It only worked because White and Johnson shot crazy well from three.
Basically any offense needs to use difficult shots made by stars to generate efficient shots by role-players. That's even true of the MDA Rockets with Harden. The Spurs can't strip out those efficient role-player shots in favor of just the hard shots, and usually, Murray's not the kind of guy who's going to bend defenses and make the guys around him better. DeRozan is that guy when his head is in the game. Walker showed flashes of being that guy but still doesn't have the mentality or trust in himself to do it. Aldridge is kind of that guy, but he doesn't pass well enough to really take advantage of it.
That's why the system needs to do it. Pop needs to call plays to leverage the talent he does have by putting guys in positions the defense doesn't like and then creating good outlets. He needs to run sets with good options and make sure guys stick to those sets. Sure, if you have a lane, take it. If you're wide open, don't worry about the play -- just shoot it. But if you're bringing the ball up the floor and you're like "My guy is on me, but I'm hot, so screw this play," it's usually bad. Murray converted a lot of those plays last night. I'm glad that he did, but I'm not looking to that as a sign the Spurs are figuring things out offensively. There's a big gap between van Gogh and finger painting. You can't justify the later by saying it'll never be the former. That's even more true if you were already painting decently and then decided "Screw it, Ima just stick my fingers in there."
Alright, I'm home now... where do I start?
Murray setting up plays like a traditional point guard takes 14+ seconds off the clock.
In today's NBA, the opposing team scores in fewer seconds than that, probably eight seconds. (these are just estimates)
The effort and ease of setting up plays today is not worth the 6+ extra seconds to score. The momentum swings in today's NBA are major. Each time the opposing team goes back their way and scores in 8 seconds or less, it's back breaking for the other team because it adds up.
Let's do some math:
48 minutes in a game * 60 seconds = 2,880 seconds
2,880 / (14 seconds to score x 2.5 points) = 82 points
versus
2,880 / (8 seconds to score x 2.5 points) = 144 points
How overstated is it that Murray is playing an ugly brand of basketball?
It was five possessions. That's not enough to draw a conclusion either way.
I think it should be considered fact that making Murray the center of the offense with iso ball is a bad idea. I don't think you want to try to rely on Murray getting 20+ ppg as a way of winning games. So if that's what Chinook's main point is then I don't disagree with that one bit. I don't think last night indicates the Spurs are going to head in that direction. Murray has a weird skill set. I'm not sure what to expect him to be in the long run anymore, but I do know that so far this season he's been able to get better. Scoring a career high is a positive regardless of how we look at it, because it came against a team that is an incredibly bad matchup for the Spurs and is way more talented. In a developmental year, you take what you can from last night and Murray showing signs of his obvious growth is good enough for me at this juncture.
In the last two games the Spurs have lost but I've been pretty satisfied with elements from both. I guess that shows what I'm looking for this season.
Here's two of those five possessions. Keldon not being backed down is impressive. I have seen others abused by LeBron when he posts up like this.
He's Pop's Centerpiece
And that's also why we're a better team when DMDR is facilitating. Spread it around and the whole team becomes a hard to beat beast.
You are telling me a team needs it's second best paid player to be available and play well? What a novel concept, tbh. Too bad that, on this case, the player is in clear decline and, even on his prime, his game had a clear 2nd fiddle type ceiling that wasn't very conductive to real contention.
Anyone thinking that the Spurs need to do anything other than shopping Aldridge the out needs to stop kidding himself, tbh.
Wait... so the perimeter was guarded well and the Lakers just took advantage of their open 3's very well?
Nothing to see here except a incredibly badly run small market team with an over the hill HOF coach got hammered by a big market one. This FO has botched everything last few years so expect it to be a terrible season.
Truth and don’t stop there
The 3 point shot is very hard to guard so this is impressive considering teams will always get a good amount of open 3's during a game due to ball movement and spacing under the current rules.
^But Lonnie, ST says Pop has hindered your development!
I mostly agree with Chinook's sentiment, but where's the vitriol that would have inevitably followed had I said it?
I would like to see a mobile big on the Spurs. Someone with a high motor. The wings are mobile and can fly around but hesitate because the bigs are flat footed and are unable to rotate.
This is not how basketball works. One possession usually contains multiple plays if the previous ones don't end up leading to a shot.
The rest of what you said has some flaws. The biggest one is that possessions don't exist in a vacuum. Every game is made from both teams combined for 48 minutes of possessions. Scoring fast doesn't automatically mean you get the ball more than the other team. If you take eight seconds and they take 16, that leads to (roughly) 30 possessions each every quarter. In a game like football, TOP matters because the defense will get tired if they play a lot more. With players playing both ends anyway in basketball, that's not a concern. Scoring quickly is supposed to a) lead to better shots against not set defenses and b) trick the opposing team into scoring faster as well, raising the pace. The old Spurs used to be masters at just playing their game anyway and using their defense to drive down opposing efficiency. Not asking this team to do that. But not passing is not going to be some modern tech on the old formula. Analytics agree that passing is good.
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