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thanx timvp nice recap
The San Antonio Spurs had an enjoyable victory against the Los Angeles Lakers but were rudely welcomed by the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday night. Utilizing their unending line of athletes, the Sixers easily ran past the Spurs to post a dominating 109-87 victory.
By the middle of the third quarter, the Sixers had a comfortable double-digit lead on the Spurs. In the fourth, garbage time was on full display. It didn’t hurt Philadelphia that they hit buzzer beating three-pointers at the end of the first, second and third quarters – with respective lengths of approximately 28, 50 and 30 feet.
Honestly, the Sixers didn’t even need those end of quarter heroics on this night. Their game plan of getting back on transition defense and then running on all missed baskets worked perfectly against the lethargic Spurs bunch. In the halfcourt sets, Philadelphia either attacked the basket or penetrated and kicked to shooters.
As for San Antonio, it was definitely a night to forget. Hopefully their defense has hit rock bottom and they are hearing their wakeup call. The Spurs have surrendered at least 105 points in three straight games – which obviously isn’t going to get it done and also brings back memories of how horrible they were defensively to begin the season. The team needs to get back to basics and start playing the stifling defense that is mandatory in Spurs Basketball
Tim Duncan
29 minutes, 20 points, 12 rebounds, two blocks
5-for-10 from the field, 10-for-12 from the line
On the offensive end, Tim Duncan played well enough for the Spurs to win. He was physical with his post moves, which allowed him to tie a season-high in free throw attempts. Defensively, Duncan wasn’t nearly as helpful. His rotations to close off the lane were non-existent. He didn’t protect the rim well at all and he was a burden in pick-and-roll defense. While not all of San Antonio’s current struggles defensively are Duncan’s fault, he definitely is partly to blame for the Spurs not being as good on D as usual. Thankfully, this slow start defensively has been the case over the last few seasons and Duncan has always been able to turn it around as the seasons have progressed.
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Manu Ginobili
24 minutes, eight points, six rebounds, two assists
3-for-11 from the field, 0-for-3 on three-pointers, 2-for-2 at the line
Manu Ginobili had a quiet and ineffective outing. In the first half, he went scoreless and didn’t look for his shot much at all. He picked up his aggressiveness in the second half but a handful of his attempts were out of rhythm. On defense, Ginobili wasn’t nearly as active as he’s been in recent weeks. He wasn’t hustling back on transition defense and his one-on-one defense was also lacking. Health-wise, he looked a little bit stiff in the first half but looked better as the game went along.
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Tony Parker
28 minutes, 12 points, six assists
5-for-10 from the field, 2-for-2 at the line
Going by the statistics, Tony Parker had a decent performance. But with the Spurs sputtering offensively, Parker needed to attack much more often on that end of the court. His passive offensive decision making played into the hands of the attacking Sixers defense. On defense, he matched up primarily with Willie Green and did an adequate job – although he lost him in off the ball situations a few times. Overall, this is the type of game the Spurs needed a big scoring outing from Parker – and they didn’t get it.
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Roger Mason, Jr.
24 minutes, eight points, one assist
3-for-8 from the field, 2-for-4 on three-pointers
Surprisingly, Roger Mason, Jr. spent most of his time on defense against Andre Miller. Mason did a commendable job against Miller by using his length to keep Miller from finding his teammates as much as usual. The fact that Pop is starting to broaden his defensive trust in Mason is a good sign for Mason’s future with the team. Offensively, he shot the ball well from beyond the arc but had a few ugly sequences when he tried to take the ball to the rim. It’d also be nice if Mason started getting rebounds and/or assists once again.
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Michael Finley
22 minutes, two points, two rebounds
1-for-9 from the field, 0-for-4 on three-pointers
Michael Finley had a frightening outing that brought back memories of some of his struggles of a year ago. On offense, he had poor shot selection and hurt the team a number of times by not hitting the open man. On the other end, Finley was totally overwhelmed by Philadelphia’s athleticism and wasn’t much of a help at all on the boards. Hopefully Finley can bounce back and this isn’t the start of one of his cold spells.
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Matt Bonner
20 minutes, 13 points, three rebounds, three turnovers
5-for-8 from the field, 3-for-3 on three-pointers
The good news is that Matt Bonner had an encouraging night when it came to his scoring. He was perfect from beyond the arc and also used the threat of his jumper to create off the dribble. He also played good perimeter defense in a number of possessions and moved his feet well when caught in mismatches. The bad news is he had a few ugly turnovers that caused Pop to boil. On the interior, he didn’t help at all in terms of keeping the Sixers from dominating in the paint. Plus, once again, Bonner’s rebounding was sub par.
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Bruce Bowen
23 minutes, three points
1-for-2 from the field, 1-for-1 on three-pointers
Bruce Bowen had one of his worst games of the season. His defense was downright bad in many instances. Bowen was brought in to try to cool down the Sixers but he usually had the opposite effect. Over the last week to ten days, Bowen’s play has started to slip. Hopefully he can recapture his form and Pop can figure out how to put him in situations in which he can succeed.
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George Hill
20 minutes, four points, three assists, three rebounds, two steals
1-for-9 from the field, 0-for-1 on three-pointers, 2-for-2 at the line
George Hill’s horrific shooting night ruined an otherwise positive outing. He simply couldn’t hit a shot in the halfcourt offense. Hill’s one basket was on a dunk following one of his two steals. The his credit, Hill’s effort was consistent and he kept his aggression level high despite his struggles.
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Kurt Thomas
16 minutes, six points, two rebounds
3-for-5 from the field
Kurt Thomas continues to be hot from the field but the rest of his game wasn’t too impressive on this night. He simply got beat to ball and to spots on the court far too often. Thomas also seemed to have trouble keeping up once the pace of the game got elevated. When going against a player who is vastly more athletic, Thomas has to do a better job of using his strength and gain his position early. Lately, he’s been swiping at the ball or fouling after it’s too late.
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Ime Udoka
14 minutes, seven points, two turnovers
3-for-7 from the field, 1-for-3 on three-pointers
Pop inserted Ime Udoka into the game in hopes that he could provide a spark. It didn’t work. Udoka started off cold offensively and by the time he warmed up, the Sixers were running away with the game. His defense was nothing special and he failed to corral a rebound in his 14 minutes of play. Udoka’s overall game that he showed at times last year continues to allude him this season.
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Fabricio Oberto
12 minutes, two points, five rebounds, two assists, two turnovers
0-for-2 from the field, 2-for-2 at the line
Fabricio Oberto played the most minutes since Dec. 10 against the Hawks. Despite all that down time, Oberto actually looked to be in relatively good shape. He ran the court well and pulled down a healthy amount of rebounds. Obviously he wasn’t going to help negate Philadelphia’s athleticism advantage but he showed that he’s healthy and ready to play minutes.
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Austin Croshere
Seven minutes, two points, six rebounds
1-for-4 from the field, 0-for-2 from the field
Making his Spurs debut after signing a ten-day contract earlier in the day, Austin Croshere actually looked decent. He moved his feet well, ran the court hard and scored his lone bucket on a driving dunk. His six rebounds in seven minutes should earn him some kudos from the coaching staff and could come in handy if the Spurs are once again getting crushed on the boards.
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Gregg Popovich
Pop didn’t have a very productive night calling the shots. He seemingly couldn’t figure out what to do with the Sixers. First he tried to go big. Then he tried to go small. Then he broke out Udoka. By that time, the Sixers had run down the throats of the discombobulated Spurs. It’s true that Pop didn’t get many good individual performances but he wasn’t helping matters on this night. The only positive that can be pointed to is that no one played more than 30 minutes, which should come in handy in the back-to-back.
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Offense
The Spurs simply couldn’t get anything going offensively. Instead of playing as a team, there were a lot of disjointed efforts. For the game, the Spurs shot 36.5% from the floor, hit 7-of-21 free throws and had 19 assists compared to 13 turnovers. The only good stat for the Spurs on offense was their 18-for-20 shooting from the charity stripe.
Defense
The defense literally got ran out of the building. The Spurs alternated between looking disinterested, disorganized and, at times, simply too slow. The Sixers finished the game at 50% from the floor and 57.1% from beyond the three-point arc. They also had 22 assists and smashed the Spurs on the boards by a final count of 51-40. And really, their advantage during the guts of the game on the glass was even larger. Overall, it was one of the most disheartening performances by San Antonio’s defense on the season.
Drive to Five
The Spurs don’t have much time to feel sorry for themselves. On Saturday night, the Spurs travel to Chicago to take on the Bulls. Although the Bulls are just 18-22 on the season, they are fresh off of a home win against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Spurs need to come out with a much better effort – especially defensively – if they are to avoid a losing streak.
Believe.
thanx timvp nice recap
It certainly earned him kudos from me. That's exactly what the Spurs need out of him. If that's all he does, then he's going to stick.Austin Croshere
Seven minutes, two points, six rebounds
1-for-4 from the field, 0-for-2 from the field
Making his Spurs debut after signing a ten-day contract earlier in the day, Austin Croshere actually looked decent. He moved his feet well, ran the court hard and scored his lone bucket on a driving dunk. His six rebounds in seven minutes should earn him some kudos from the coaching staff and could come in handy if the Spurs are once again getting crushed on the boards.
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Nice recap timvp
Do you think Pop needs to bring Bowen back to the starting 5?
Spurs are playing terrible D and Bruce also is not doing a good job off the bench in the last 2 weeks.
But at the beggining of the season with TP and Manu out we were playing our best D of the season and Bruce was coming off the bench.
What do you think is the big difference from the D we were playing without TP and Manu and now?
why do you feel the need to always bring the fact that tim usually turn it around defensively when the season progresses ?Tim Duncan
29 minutes, 20 points, 12 rebounds, two blocks
5-for-10 from the field, 10-for-12 from the line
On the offensive end, Tim Duncan played well enough for the Spurs to win. He was physical with his post moves, which allowed him to tie a season-high in free throw attempts. Defensively, Duncan wasn’t nearly as helpful. His rotations to close off the lane were non-existent. He didn’t protect the rim well at all and he was a burden in pick-and-roll defense. While not all of San Antonio’s current struggles defensively are Duncan’s fault, he definitely is partly to blame for the Spurs not being as good on D as usual. Thankfully, this slow start defensively has been the case over the last few seasons and Duncan has always been able to turn it around as the seasons have progressed.
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Tim is horrible on defense, that's all. he's our leader on defense, so he has a lot of responsabilty here. but one on one, he's simply destroyed by any good low post opponent and he has never protected the rim so badly. our rim is rapped every night.
I'm not saying Tim won't find a way to be his old self on defense, but right now he sucks badly.
Quiet ? Manu took the most shots of our team and he wasted almost all of them. i wouldn't talk of a quiet night but rather an horrible one. It's the worst manu we can have: the one nailing stupid 3 after stupid shots to be the super hero. he has shown wiser game than that recently.Manu Ginobili
24 minutes, eight points, six rebounds, two assists
3-for-11 from the field, 0-for-3 on three-pointers, 2-for-2 at the line
Manu Ginobili had a quiet and ineffective outing. In the first half, he went scoreless and didn’t look for his shot much at all. He picked up his aggressiveness in the second half but a handful of his attempts were out of rhythm. On defense, Ginobili wasn’t nearly as active as he’s been in recent weeks. He wasn’t hustling back on transition defense and his one-on-one defense was also lacking. Health-wise, he looked a little bit stiff in the first half but looked better as the game went along.
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Tony Parker
28 minutes, 12 points, six assists
5-for-10 from the field, 2-for-2 at the line
Going by the statistics, Tony Parker had a decent performance. But with the Spurs sputtering offensively, Parker needed to attack much more often on that end of the court. His passive offensive decision making played into the hands of the attacking Sixers defense. On defense, he matched up primarily with Willie Green and did an adequate job – although he lost him in off the ball situations a few times. Overall, this is the type of game the Spurs needed a big scoring outing from Parker – and they didn’t get it.
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Those who ask tony to shoot less don't know anything about bball. Tony has to shoot more and to be more aggressive to be useful for the spurs.
What does he bring if he's not aggressive ? he's not the kind of player who can be passive and still remain useful. i could understand it if the spurs are largely ahead. but not in a close game.
Tony taking 10 shots is a bad thing for the spurs.
anyway, thank you for your thoughts. alway a good reading.
Last edited by kace; 01-17-2009 at 10:19 AM.
the difference was Tim's will to defend. He probably was aware that without manu and tony to run the offense, the spurs needed to defend to win games.
he doesn't seem to care right now.
thanks timvp u r da man! do you think it's time to insert Bruce back in the starting unit and bench Finley?
Timvp amazing recap as always. Keep up the good work.
Games like this are the burden of being a Spurs fan. After all of these years, accepting that this team will not play hard night in and night out is still a difficult thing to do. No one really cared that we were getting embarrassed and it seemed like Oberto and Croshere had more energy than the rest of the team combined.
Speaking of Croshere, he actually looked decent. If he can continue to pull down some boards and make the occasional play like his driving dunk then I think he might work out. Coupling those things with his experience in the playoffs and it could be an ideal situation.
which accolades ? i'm talking about this year, till now. he didn't have any accolades this year for his defense.
i know that Tim is a great defensive player. for sure. that's why i regret it's not here right now.
The only player on the positive side of the +/- avg. was . . . you guessed it, yours truly (+1).
Benefactor you think that Croshere can continue to play like that all season and into the playoffs or do you think that he just showed up tonight to impress Pop.
That game was a Spurs abortion. Had it been a home game, I would have thrown all the garbage and leftover food on the floor, drawn graffiti on the walls and seats and walked out well before the end of the game. Just how disrespectful can a team be towards their fans who have spend their hard-earned money on very expensive tickets...
them.
OTOH, Philly was everything the Spurs are not. Very athletic, quick and agile. They made the Spurs look like a bunch of doddering old fools trying to be pro athletes. And when the are the Spurs gonna dump Oberto, that useless Argentinian piece of .
Welcome to the NBA regular season.
That er looks like Jay Leno with Down's syndrome. He's not gonna change anything.
I went to the game with the wife, we were sitting pretty much right between the bench and the TV analysts (I could watch the game on Sean Elliott's monitor). Couple of tidbits:
- Pop was mad at TP when he let Willie Green score on a backdoor cut in like the second 76er's possession.
- Mason came over to the bench early in the 3rd quarter, and took a couple of pills from Will Sevening. Did he had the flu or something? I thought Roger played decent overall though.
- Pop got furious again at the beginning of the 3rd quarter when Matt Bonner turned it over on an inside pass to TD. He called Udoka from he bench right away.
I thought the game was within reach until the third quarter, at which point we couldn't stop them (especially Young and Williams) and we couldn't buy a bucket. We were talking with some 76er's fans (some of which were heckling Bruce, Finley and Salvatore), and they were also surprised how we couldn't buy a bucket after seeing the Lakers game last Wednesday.
As far as Croshere, he was good on garbage time, dunk included, but I seriously think he wouldn't have gotten those rebounds against Young and Dalembert. Those two guys, and especially Sammy, were pretty active on the boards all night. Young was impressive going to the bucket, and Bonner really got steamrolled a lot in the 3rd.
All in all, a disappointing game. At least we got a very nice picture with Sean before the game. And hopefully we can swing back against Chicago tonight.
Thanks for the thoughts timvp. This is the first time I've read them without seeing the game. I'm even more amazed at the job you do with them, and I have a new appreciation for how deep you cover the games for us.
I'm really beginning to wonder about Duncan's lack of intensity on defense. He came into the season so strong and helped keep us afloat with the injuries, it doesn't make sense to me that his defense would be the piece of his game that he let slide. I expect we'll see his defense back in form by the end of the RRT, but I'm curious about why it hasn't shown up consistently yet.
I'm starting to think that the Lakers squeezed the out of the Spurs. This is not a good omen for 7 game series.
And Bowen is done too. The Spurs need to shed him ASAP. Thanks for your past services, Bruce.
We have the talent to compete with anyone in this league but so far I just don't see any heart and soul on our team... No way should we be letting these sub - par teams beat us like this, no way we should be letting these teams take us down to the wire to beat them.
Come on Spurs! You should be showing these teams no mercy and show them your pride. 4 trophies and four rings become nothing but trinkets if you don't show anything to back it up.
Stop playing like the compe ion and start playing "SPURS BALL"
Honestly I hope you guys are right that it's just early but god dammit..
I totally disagree that our guys need to just forget about this game and move on to the next. I hope they are feeling ill in the stomach. Hopefully this game slapped them right in the face and will put some fire in their ass.
Heh, sorry about this rant guys. I'm just very frustrated with the lack of effort so far this season. I love the spurs and have since Drob's rookie season. I just hate not seeing that killer instinct, and miss those days where we were feared by every team.
Thanks for the great take as usual Timvp.
Hey guys, long time reader, first time poster.
First of all, thanks to timvp for providing us with these great recaps. This is by far the best you can find on the internet, and for a guy like me who (being from Germany) usually doesn't get the chance to see a lot of Spurs games except for the ones on weekends your recaps are a very welcome way of being able to follow my team. I imagine it must be especially hard to sit down and write that stuff after such a horrible game.
Concerning the game vs. Philly, the less you say about it the better. Games like that happen, of course, but still the lack of energy, focus and the desire to win or at least compete were disappointing.
This team really has to raise their level of defensive intensity. Although he certainly is not the main culprit, I still think Timmy has to be the first one to do so, as the Spurs' defense starts with him. If he is only mediocre on the defensive end, we usually can forget about the team defense as well.
I agree that Bonner's rebounding is just not good enough right now to keep athletic bigs like those on the Sixers' team from destroying us in the paint. And though it was nice to see Fab and Croshere get some rebounds, the game was already over when they grabbed those boards. Let's hope they can do it again when it matters more.
Anyhow, the guys should be fired up now for the Bulls...
Pop must be part of that Bash Parker Bandwagon.
sorry sorry, couldn't resist.
Very appropriate description of the game, timvp. Welcome to the Forum quentin compson. You could see this loss coming the way Philly has been playing since the 2nd half of their San Antonio game. The 'Sixers annihilated Portland with their bounding, attacking, energetic style and their uncanny ability to score in the paint is impressive. They did the same with the Spurs.
During the first half, you could tell this would not be the Spurs' night. A step slow doesn't begin to describe it. This looked like the college kids and street playahs against the over-40s at the park. On top of the speed and quickness on display, the sun was shining on the team dressed in white. From loose balls, to shots that caused even surprised looks and laughs from the shooters, to officials wearing their chef's hats cookin' up some delightful calls, to buzzer-beatering shots that seemed to carry their own sense of en lement...Phila had obviously pushed the "Easy Button".
In the words of Led Zeppelin:
"If it keeps on raining, levee is gonna break...
Going down, going down now
Going down, going down now
Going, going to Chicago."
It's hard to say right now. Exstatic said in another thread that this is probably a 20 day audition and I agree with him. Counting tonight that would give us 10 more games, which should be more than enough time to know where he stands. It would be nice if he does, because if he doesn't we are tossing in our chips in on either a trade or a diamond in the rough D-Leaguer. Worst case scenario is we bring back Tolliver since he already knows the system. TBQH, I am not feeling good about any of those.
Hopefully Croshere knows that his options are becoming limited in this league and he takes advantage of this opportunity to the fullest...perhaps summoning some some of what made him such a great role player in Indiana.
no more sixers until next season right?
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