For about three and a half quarters, the San Antonio Spurs were outplaying the New Orleans Hornets. But then the Hornets got rolling offensively and the Spurs couldn’t buy a basket. When it was all said and done, the Spurs lost a very winnable game against a team they could very likely see in the 2009 playoffs.
After a Matt Bonner jumper with about five minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the Spurs led 79-72. Over the course of the next four minutes, the Hornets went on a 15-0 run highlighted by two three-pointers by David West and one from James Posey. The Spurs didn’t score again until Tyson Chandler goaltended a Tony Parker floater with 48 seconds remaining in the game.
The win for the Hornets was extra impressive due to the fact that they were playing without both Peja Stojakovic and Morris Peterson. Chris Paul was again very good and the frontcourt combination of David West and Tyson Chandler remains extremely tough to handle. The addition of Posey, and Antonio Daniels to a lesser degree, will make the Hornets an even more difficult team for the Spurs to beat this season.
As for Spurs, this loss is sure to leave a bad taste. They were doing a good enough job for much of the game but then the shooting dried up and the offense collapsed. It was especially frustrating because the role players who had been playing well for much of the year took a step backwards in arguably the biggest game to date this season. When the playoff seedings are decided, this loss could very well be one loss that stands out for San Antonio.
Tim Duncan
38 minutes, 16 points, 11 rebounds
5-for-14 from the field, 6-for-7 at the line
Tim Duncan’s statistics don’t look too aesthetically pleasing but he was better than those numbers indicate. The problem for Duncan on the night was spacing. With the three-point shooters coming up dry for large stretches, the Hornets were able to pack the lane on him and force Duncan into difficult shots. His decisions offensively weren’t great but overall he picked his spots well. On defense, Duncan defended the pick-and-roll well and his help defense was almost always on time. It was far from his best game but a lot of his struggles were exacerbated by his teammates.
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Manu Ginobili
31 minutes, 17 points, nine rebounds, five assists, five turnovers
7-for-12 from the field, 3-for-4 on three-pointers
Manu Ginobili had a lot of positives on Wednesday night. He shot the ball well, he was a force on the boards and he continually hustled. The 3-for-4 three-point shooting was especially good to see because he had been one for his last eight from downtown. His five assists led the team but he also had five turnovers – mostly due to forced or careless passes. With as many open shots as the Spurs were getting against New Orleans, there really wasn’t much reason for him to make inadvisable passes. Ginobili also could have been more aggressive driving to the hoop, especially considering he didn’t get to the line in his 31 minutes of action. However, on the whole, Ginobili definitely helped more than he hurt.
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Tony Parker
34 minutes, 20 points, five rebounds, four assists
8-for-13 from the field, 3-for-3 at the line
Tony Parker produced well when he was aggressive. The problem for him on the night was that he wasn’t aggressive enough. Considering that he was 5-for-7 on jumpers, Parker definitely should have been more selfish. It’s tough to criticize a point guard for running the offense but I would have liked to have seen him break off more plays to look for his own shot. Defensively, he gave a good effort against Paul and kept him from totally taking over.
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Michael Finley
27 minutes, five points, two steals
2-for-9 from the field, 1-for-5 on three-pointers
Michael Finley did a whole lot of nothing – yet he still got 27 minutes. He had three wide open jumpers in the fourth quarter and missed all three. Earlier in the game, he forced a few ugly misses. On defense, he was decent but offered no help on the boards. Over the last five games, Finley is averaging more than 31 minutes per game – the most of anyone outside of the Big Three.
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Matt Bonner
34 minutes, seven points, seven rebounds, two assists
3-for-15 from the field, 1-for-8 on three-pointers
Matt Bonner was eventually going to have a bad shooting game. Too bad it happened against a quality opponent. With his defender routinely sagging off of him, Bonner hit only 3-of-15 shots from the field and only 1-of-8 from beyond the three-point arc. Most of his shots were open, which made his misses that much more damaging. Hopefully this was indeed just an off night and not a sign that Bonner is going to struggle shooting against the best teams in the league. On the defense end, Bonner was actually pretty good. He rotated well for the most part and his one-on-one defense was adequate. A few more rebounds would have been nice but he wasn’t a pushover on the glass.
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Roger Mason, Jr.
25 minutes, five points, three turnovers
2-for-7 from the field, 1-for-4 on three-pointers
Roger Mason, Jr. didn’t give Pop much reason to play him. He shot the ball poorly, he turned the ball over and his defense wasn’t anything to write home about. Mason continues to struggle to find his niche now that all the pieces are back in the puzzle. It might help if the Spurs run a few plays early to get him going. Giving him a few minutes at point guard while moving Parker or Hill to shooting guard could help Mason get more involved. Right now, the Mason of earlier in the season is missing in action.
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Kurt Thomas
24 minutes, two points, four rebounds
1-for-2 from the field
Playing the most minutes he has since opening night, Kurt Thomas performed quite well. He set physical screens offensively and knocked down one of his two shots. On defense, he clogged the lane and altered a few shots around the rim. He also pulled down a few contested rebounds. Defensively against West, Thomas looked much better than he did last year in the playoffs. Overall, he’s looking smoother in his movements and in much better shape.
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Bruce Bowen
14 minutes, five points, two steals
2-for-3 from the field, 1-for-2 on three-pointers
Bruce Bowen played 14 minutes of quality basketball. After not shooting in the last two games, he hit two of three shots. On defense, he was feisty and was able to create a few turnovers. I don’t see how a few more minutes for Bowen could have hurt the team. Over his last five games, Bowen has averaged only 18.4 minutes per contest.
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George Hill
14 minutes, six points, two assists
1-for-5 from the field, 1-for-2 on three-pointers, 3-for-4 at the line
Although his field goal percentage wasn’t the greatest, I thought George Hill played a fine game. He was aggressive offensively with both his shots and his passes. He took care of the ball and was the only perimeter player creating contact in the lane to get to the line. Defensively, Hill was again very strong. All in all, I was encouraged that Hill played with so much confidence against a very good team in a hostile atmosphere.
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Gregg Popovich
Pop didn’t coach a bad game but I question whether he could have pushed better buttons. First of all, more of Bowen made a lot of sense. Bowen was making it difficult for the Hornets to get easy possessions offensively and on the other end of the court, he has a history of being able to knock down open shots – which the Spurs were getting in abundance. I don’t think it was a coincidence that the Hornets’ 15-0 run took place shortly after Bowen left the quarter in the fourth. I also would have liked to have seen a few minutes of Hill next to Parker. The Spurs needed to attack the basket more and that guard duo could have done just that. Bonner didn’t shoot well but I can’t blame Pop for playing him 34 minutes. Having the league’s top three-point shooter percentage-wise getting open look after open look isn’t poor coaching.
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Offense
In the first 11 minutes of the fourth quarter, the Spurs were 2-for-18 from the court – including 0-for-8 on three-pointers. That putrid shooting doomed the Spurs on the night and made their final shooting number look much worse than they were during the meat of the game. The Spurs ended up shooting 38.8% from the floor and 9-of-26 three-pointers. Outside of that stretch of play, the Spurs were 46.8% from the floor and hit half of their 18 three-point attempts. The 17 assists as a team were a little bit low, while the 15 free throw attempts were much too low.
Defense
On defense, the Spurs actually played well for a lot of the night. The Hornets ended up shooting 43.2% from the floor and 41.2% on their three-pointers. Outside of that fourth quarter 15-0 run, the Hornets shot 41.9% from the floor and 28.6% from beyond the arc. The Spurs did a good job of forcing the Hornets into turnovers (15) and limiting their free throws (10 prior to the intentional fouls at the end). On the boards, the Spurs had one of their worst showings in quite a while. The Hornets won the rebound battle 48-39 and were able to pull down 14 offensive rebounds.
Drive to Five
It’d be nice to have a few days to regroup after this tough loss – but the Spurs don’t have that luxury. Instead, they play on Thursday night against the 19-6 Magic in Orlando. Hopefully the role players who struggled can bounce back and help the Spurs get this difficult road contest. We’ll have a better idea of the true compe ive spirit of the 2008-09 Spurs at the end of the Magic game.
Believe.
Manu had way too many turnovers that cost the Spurs. I thought the Spurs let the Hornets get easy baskets.
I loved the way Pop had the Spurs double-team West. You can tell West was confused and he made some bad decisions when the Spurs sent the double-team his way.
I thought Matt Bonner's D was great tonight...he was really doing well on the double teams IMO...he was very active defensively, and he was actually effective.Matt Bonner
34 minutes, seven points, seven rebounds, two assists
3-for-15 from the field, 1-for-8 on three-pointers
Matt Bonner was eventually going to have a bad shooting game. Too bad it happened against a quality opponent. With his defender routinely sagging off of him, Bonner hit only 3-of-15 shots from the field and only 1-of-8 from beyond the three-point arc. Most of his shots were open, which made his misses that much more damaging. Hopefully this was indeed just an off night and not a sign that Bonner is going to struggle shooting against the best teams in the league. On the defense end, Bonner was actually pretty good. He rotated well for the most part and his one-on-one defense was adequate. A few more rebounds would have been nice but he wasn’t a pushover on the glass.
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I noticed something else...Bonner is a load to push around on the block, I think he's actually harder to move than Duncan or perhaps any bigman we have had in the Pop/Duncan era. I think the perception of him is that he's not that big...but the dude is flatout a strong dude, I don't think anyone other than maybe Shaq is going to push him around. Honestly, a couple of times West trid to post him up tonight and it was a mismatch in Bonner's favor physically. You can go around him pretty easily...but there aren't but a handful of guys in the league that are going to back him down. He may not be a C in height...but he's a C in physicality. He is a lot stronger than he looks.
That said...he needs to hit those threes and take the drama out of this situation.
He has to do it...because he's the only big guy on the team that can hit the threes. There are no other options...
Bruce Bowen definitely deserved more run tonight... forget about his defense...we could have used his offense.Bruce Bowen
14 minutes, five points, two steals
2-for-3 from the field, 1-for-2 on three-pointers
Bruce Bowen played 14 minutes of quality basketball. After not shooting in the last two games, he hit two of three shots. On defense, he was feisty and was able to create a few turnovers. I don’t see how a few more minutes for Bowen could have hurt the team. Over his last five games, Bowen has averaged only 18.4 minutes per contest.
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I think people forget Bruce Bowen is a 3 point champion...he should be called upon for his 3 shooting when we can't get a 3....especially in a big game, because he's been in more of them than perhaps any 3 shooter currently in the league outside of Derek Fisher.
George Hill
14 minutes, six points, two assists
1-for-5 from the field, 1-for-2 on three-pointers, 3-for-4 at the line
Although his field goal percentage wasn’t the greatest, I thought George Hill played a fine game. He was aggressive offensively with both his shots and his passes. He took care of the ball and was the only perimeter player creating contact in the lane to get to the line. Defensively, Hill was again very strong. All in all, I was encouraged that Hill played with so much confidence against a very good team in a hostile atmosphere.
Hill definitely deserved more time tonight...and so did Bowen.
Mason was just lost...I imagine he'll get better as the season progresses...he's got the right at ude and he doesn't lack confidence.
thanks for the recap timvp... Hill minutes over Mason's should be the next thing to try?
Ole Tyson has Timmys number. NO is one of few places that has a guy who can play Timmy one on one and be successful. I knew after 3 quarters NO would turn it up and that we just dont have the talent to match them. Like Ive said so many times. We just couldnt hit those 3s when we needed them. And inside the paint we are not gonna be successful against these top west teams. This is the game I wanted to see what Matt had. And Matt proved me right. He's just to slow and not good enough to play against the Wests top teams. Matts ok against sorry teams, but we wont be playing sorry teams come PO time. I think our success will be in Ians hands. If Ian chokes the team will far quickly come PO time. As for Manu, he reminds me so much of Tony Romo. The guy can have a great game followed by one of his worst games. Not much you can do, but suck it up and move onto the next game. Bottom line is we still have no answer for Dwest. While Tyson has Timmys number. Roger who we grabbed to help take us to the next level didnt do what we brought him in here todo. He basically looked like a smaller version of Finley last night. What a disappointment. We had the chance to make some noise, and fell apart in the end. As for me Im just happy NO was having a bad night. Or they would have blown us out like so many times last season. CP3 is just an incredible player. He gets the whole team involved and now with Daniels they have another guy who can feed Tyson for those easy Alley oops
As I said in the Game Blog, I really think Coach Pop played Matt Bonner for the majority of the game despite his poor shooting to give him confidence for future games. I think Coach Pop realizes how valuable Bonner's shooting will be later and did want to crush his building confidence by benching him for missing wide-open shots. Coach Pop have been telling him all year to either shoot or sit. There's no CIA Pop this time.
If this was a playoff game, there would definitely be more Kurt Thomas and less Bonner. The Spurs were up by 9 point at one point in the 4th quarter, and Thomas was a force inside.
yeah im going to the game tonight and am pretty hesitant. ive never been to a spurs game as a visitor team and am not thrilled that they lost last ngiht. especially bc it seems they always play poor on back to back games.
i only saw the last 5 minutes or so bci forgot the game was on natl tv but i was horrified by what i saw. the spurs played sloppy and poorly and missed way too many shots. kinda glad i didnt see the whole thing
same song, different versus...can't score
Was it just me or did the Spurs' big three overdo 1 on 1 situations in the 2nd half?
Random comments:
I thought Ginobili was fouled by Paul after he dove for the loose ball. Manu should have 'punched' Paul the same way Paul punched Bowen last year... maybe Paul gets ejected/suspended... Ok maybe not.. That play simply annoyed me. Paul went over and put his weight on Ginobili's rib-cage with his knees...
I still feel Bonner can help come playoff time... hopefully this game serves as a lesson.
No Oberto?
Agree with the comment that Bowen and Hill deserved more minutes... shoot even Udoka could have helped considering he was a big part of last years' series win over NO.
I can't stand the sight of Posey. He is literally the newer version of Horry.
We did everything we needed to do to win this game but the shots were just not falling. If I have a real concern it is the above statement. It is painfully obvious that Pop will ride Finley to the bitter end. That being said, RMJ has to find his niche in the offensive scheme. Hopefully as the season goes on he will, because having Finley play 30 minutes a game once we get to the playoffs is just a disastrous scenario.Michael Finley did a whole lot of nothing – yet he still got 27 minutes. He had three wide open jumpers in the fourth quarter and missed all three. Earlier in the game, he forced a few ugly misses. On defense, he was decent but offered no help on the boards. Over the last five games, Finley is averaging more than 31 minutes per game – the most of anyone outside of the Big Three.
Another thought on this is that Pop is purposefully limiting Bruce's minutes early in the season to keep him as fresh as possible for the stretch run and the playoffs...which is leading to more of Finley than most of us want to see right now. But regardless, in a game like this that is a division opponent we needed more if him, especially with how well he was playing when in the game.
Hornets were just beating a team they're supposed to beat. Nothing special about that.
Just like the Suns will tonight.
And now that I'm done giving Blazer troll a dose of his own medicine, the Spurs just missed a bunch of wide open shots last night. However, Popovich handled it perfectly and wanted them to keep on shooting. They defended David West extremely well which is a good sign based off last year's series. New Orleans gave them wide open shots and that strategy happened to work, I think Byron Scott even knows that strategy won't work.
I will say Finley should not be playing as much as he does. It seems like he needs to take a bunch of shots to be effective and he can't play a lick of defense, but Popovich as we all know will always play the veteran over the young guy. I've followed how Pop manages the team over the season for the last few years, and I can tell Bowen is gonna play more as the season goes on, he's still a great defender that Pop probably wants to preserve.
At least we saw that Hornets are not better than last year, but they are also definitely not worse.
This Spurs team "could" and should be better than last year, so this means we should be able to dispose of the Hornets in less than 7 games in a series. Home court or not.
This game was like a punch to the gut, we had it and let it go. Not much time to recover before facing Dwight Howard either. My fingers are crossed. Hey, did anyone else notice Pop going ballistic at TP near the end of the game? What was that all about?
As long as you have to rely on Michael "washed up" Finley for anything you are in trouble.
Whott could score more than 5 pionts in 27 minutes and probably get more rebounds too!
Bonner did not help matters either.
Big 3 53 of the 83 pionts. Need more bench production.
What a crappy loss...pisses me off...we should have won that game...we had it won and choked it away. Better not do that in March and April, or we'll be on the outside looking in come playoff time.
They're slightly worse IMO, they were at home and needed a 4th quarter rally to beat a team they out rebounded by 9 and a team that shot 38% from the floor.
The loss of Pargo and Wells is almost negated by Antonio Daniels, but Peja is a year older and more teams have figured out better ways to defend New Orleans. I don't understand why Pop had players double team Paul last night when the strategy that won the series last year was turning Paul into a scorer and focusing on shutting their three point shooters down. They certainly need Duncan to focus solely on keeping Chandler off the offensive boards, I've never seen a player get that many offensive boards over the Spurs.
I thought the Spurs played fairly well. Their ball movement was good. They were making the extra pass and getting the open shot. The problem, obviously, was that the shots weren't falling. At the start of the 4th I said to the friend I was watching the game with that this feels like a game the Spurs are going to give away. 30+ years of watching them play has given me the instinct for knowing when we're about to give the opponents a gift.
I didn't feel too badly about Bonner. If the Hornets had done something drastic to prevent Bonner from scoring I'd buy the theory that he might disappear against the better teams, but in reality, Bonner was his own worst enemy shooting the ball. He may as well of been alone in the gym. The Hornets gave him wide open opportunities, and after a few misses I could almost see Bonner questioning himself. I'm hoping his cold streak is an anomaly, and that in future games when the opponent gives him all day to shoot, that he'll just shoot and not line it up and think about it too much. Byron Scott may have guessed correctly that if you give Bonner a chance to think too much he's going to miss. His missed dunk did make me laugh...in a hysterically sad kind of way.
Manu, despite his good numbers, looked horrible in the 4th quarter. With the Spurs up nine he shot that three with only a few seconds gone in the shot clock. He then committed two bad turnovers and I believe on all three of those plays that the Hornets came back to score during their run. That jump ball he lost to CP3 was ridiculous. It made me wonder if Manu has lost his explosiveness since the ankle surgery.
Pop's coaching was not very good down the stretch. I think we had so many missed open looks that he kept expecting things to start falling...and they didn't. But I'm not sure he did enough to try to halt N.O.'s momentum. Bowen was playing with a lot of passion and he pulled him out. Kurt Thomas played well late in the 3rd quarter, but that 2 minute stretch he put him in for Bonner late in the 4th seemed to hurt more than help. I think he should have gotten in Tony's ear to take it to the Hornets a little more late in the 4th. The team as a whole seemed to just not have a sense of urgency in this game...and that's now two in a row that the team has been guilty of that.
They were missing Peja and Mo Pete and still beat the Spurs on the second night of back-to-back. Pretty good if you ask me.
spurs played bad game
I mean I haven't seen worse spurs outing at the ending of a game.
The key to a loss was Pops experiment with doubleteaming Paul at the end of a game with Matt Bonner wantong to shut paul down and give the ball away. Hornest made the spurs pay for it. Paul was making great pas wich lead to another and NO were able to spread spurs all over the floor. West hit two 3 point daggers because of that.
I said damn Pop it did not worked once so why try to do it again?
Maybe he wanted his players to figure it out and improve the strategy ???? I don't know.
And Pop also let his players play though struggles. Finley and Roger was unable to produce but Pop was stubborn with them not even leting Udoka think he can get into this game. How unhappy was polandprzem because of that fact?
Very
Also - you can say what you want about Tim Duncan but he just can't figure out how to beat NO with his ofensive skills. You can blame the shooters, but Tim once again faild with his ideas of beating Hornets.
As for George. He was not playing well. He still is in learning process what he can and what he can't do. As far as his decisions on offense to the refs whistles on defensve end.
All in all spurs were not as solid as they were almost all this year and they faild at the end like the spurs AD 2007/2008
btw. It's better that the spurs now play in b2backer -
TIMMAY - LOOK OUT - GORTAT IS COMING AT YOU!!!!!
Peja would've killed the Hornets last night.
Did you miss the second round, games 3-7?
They did a pretty good job of guarding Peja that series. That's what turned the tide. They turned NO into a two man team. I don't think Peja is all that difficult of a cover, especially for a guy like Bowen. Just because they left guys like Brown, Butler and West open for threes, don't assume they would've done that for Peja. They respect his shooting. The game plan would've been different.
BTW who led the Spurs in scoring and assists that series? I forget.
It seems to me that a serious flaw in Mason's game is his inability to dribble well, especially in traffic...
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