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At least everyone knows they need to step it up...
GO SPURS GO!! Keep the faith!
What's wrong with the Spurs?
Jeff McDonald
The lawns have begun to green up. Tree leaves have come out of hiding. In all corners around San Antonio, Little Dribblers have given way to Little Leaguers.
Spring has officially sprung, although someone has apparently failed to inform the city’s NBA team.
For the Spurs, the month of March is usually just that. A march toward the postseason — regimented, orderly and predictable.
This year, however, the Spurs’ March became a headlong stumble into April, a calendar-page of frustration that has put a serious crimp in their annual postseason preparations.
“We usually have a crisis in January or February or December,” guard Manu Ginobili said. “This year, it’s a different mind-set. We’re trying to fix problems, rather than just work on details.”
No team in the league can be happier than the Spurs for the coming of April.
A frustrating March came to a head Tuesday, with a 96-95 loss at home to Oklahoma City. It was the Spurs’ second loss to the bottom-feeding Thunder in a span of 15 days.
With it, the Spurs closed the month 9-8, their worst March record since 1996-97, and significantly off the .753 winning percentage they posted over the 11 Marches prior.
Adding to the aggravation — six of their losses during the month came by five points or less.
The Spurs have already pocketed a playoff berth, but now are in third place in the Western Conference and are in danger of squandering home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
With eight games left with which to gather momentum in the regular season, the Spurs are now forced to press fast-forward on their normal x springtime routine — and hope for the best.
“Every team has a number of things they want to improve,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “No team is perfect, or they’d be undefeated. We’re no different than anyone else in that regard.
“But, we’re picking a bad time to be spotty,” Popovich acknowledged.
The Spurs’ 3-point shooting, normally a strength, has gone erratic. Over the past two games, both losses, they have made just 15 of 54 long balls.
The Spurs’ offense seems out of sync, prone to interminable scoring droughts.
Their defense, though much improved since the All-Star break, has broken down at key intervals.
“We’re trying to find our place, our rhythm,” said Tony Parker in a startling admission this late in the season.
Meanwhile, Popovich continues to play mad scientist with his rotation at a later stage than he ever has. It is a delay at least partially necessitated by the late arrival of free-agent forward Drew Gooden and Ginobili’s recent return from injury, and partially due to Popovich’s ongoing search for a reliable backup to Parker at the point.
All of the above has contributed to the late arrival of spring in San Antonio.
“We’re in a bad spot right now,” said Roger Mason Jr., one of a handful of 3-point shooters in search of his missing stroke.
“Nobody’s going to pull us out of it. There’s no secret agent coming to help us. It’s got to come from within.”
After the Spurs’ latest loss to the Thunder, captain Tim Duncan spoke of a need for each player to take “personal responsibility.” Popovich echoed that sentiment.
“We have a couple people who need to play better,” he said.
Ginobili disagreed.
“I think it’s a little more than a couple,” Ginobili said. “A couple is not going to be enough.”
The Spurs know what is broken. They have eight games left to fix it. Time is not on their side.
“We can’t panic,” Parker said. “We’re still OK. But we have to realize it’s not normal to lose these games. We have to play better.”
Last edited by duncan228; 04-02-2009 at 12:35 AM.
At least everyone knows they need to step it up...
GO SPURS GO!! Keep the faith!
Whats wrong with the Spurs?????
You know the old saying, live by the 3-ball, die by the 3-ball. It especially hurts when the team has become so dependent on that shot as its primary offensive weapon. The absence of rim-attackers is obvious here.
Probably the biggest reason for the Spurs overall decline this year. It's shouldn't come as a surprise either. Especially when considering how Pop has attempted to integrate more offense into the rotation, by way of players who are very poor defenders. With Bowen and Hill on the bench, an unhealthy Duncan and relying on poor defenders like Finley, Bonner and Mason to play heavy minutes, it's no wonder the defense is in state that it's in. It didn't have to happen this way. However, when the coach stubbornly refuses to infuse the roster with some players, who have at least even some semblance of quickness and athleticism, this is what you get.
I believe in this team...always have...always will.
It's probably the haterade.
Whats wrong with the Spurs?????
no chemisty thats all
spurs won't win the championship this year...
the players are too old...
I don't see how the defense is going to get better. They are playing a rotation of heavy non defenders and sitting good defenders. And the non defenders arent putting in good offensive performances to compensate. I think last year's offensive struggles in the playoffs caused Pop to panic for this season resulting in a forced rotation with poor chemistry.
Settle on a ing rotation and the players will sort it out - right now they are confused about their roles. Shorten it to 9 guys with delineated roles (Manu's 30 minutes are split between PG and SG - I'd prefer to also play Hill, but it seems Pop's Benophobia precludes that possibility), and let the chips fall where they may...
TP
Mason/Manu
Bowen/Finley
Duncan/Gooden
Thomas/Bonner
What's wrong with the Spurs?
Tim Duncan. That's whats wrong. everything else is irrelevant
What's wrong with the Spurs?
I second this
“We’re trying to find our place, our rhythm,” said Tony Parker in a startling admission this late in the season.
chemistry
stupid lineups
Early in the season the Spurs were winning all the close games, sometimes in dramatic fashion. Maybe that was as much good luck as it was clutch play, and now the law of averages is evening things out.
The last time the Spurs were this banged up late in the year was 2005. They won the championship that year. On the other hand, during the part of the season when they were healthy in 2004-05, their point differential was around +11, which would have made them a historically elite team. This year, their point differential never got much higher than +4. For them to go 37-12 over a long stretch with that meager a point differential indicates a whole lot of good luck, luck that has now faded.
They are what they are, and what they are is not championship material.
i love how today the EN has several stories about how the spurs are struggling and none of them feature any popovich responses. is this as close as the paper gets to questioning the team? it seems to me that the stories today all feed into the excuse machine that is developing lately. manu's quote is the most relevant thing in the spurs section today. at least when doc rivers makes excuses it's about the refs (and then he gets fined but the attention ensures that all the calls go his way for a week or so). why is mcdonald asking the readers what's wrong with the spurs? there's always going to be the peanut gallery saying trade tony or trade manu at the first sign of trouble, but a lot of people on the forum make very good points, present them well, and have a good understanding of the game and the realities of the nba. most of us have theories about what's wrong with the team. some say it's the rotations. some say it's the lack of bowen and hill. some say it's too much fin, bonner, and JV. some say that there's nothing wrong with the spurs and we're going to burn in for questioning them. i'd like to read what pop thinks is wrong with them and why. 'a couple players have to step it up' is a cheap subs ute for digging into the problem. today's coverage has nice headlines, but very little, if any, substance. there are how many people on the coaching staff? how many of them have commented on or off of the record about what's going on? this is the problem of living in a one paper one (major) team town. today's paper seems like a good first step, but in three stories questioning the current troubles there is minimal analysis. how about asking roger mason if he feels comfortable playing backup point guard. how about asking popovich if he thinks that having george hill and bruce bowen play at the end of the close games that the spurs have given away might have changed things. how about asking tony if his play against the thunder is a result of not being able to get motivated and if he feels that his comments on abc motivated the thunder to give the effort that he made clear he can't summon for games against the crap teams (that recently are kicking our ass). it used to be that the spurs couldn't (slash didn't slash didn't during the regular season) beat teams over .500, but did ok against losing teams. now, with the exception of atlanta, the spurs can't beat teams above or below .500. when i see a story led "what's wrong with the spurs?" i can't help but ask the question, "isn't that something you should be giving us your thoughts on, jeff? why are you asking me?" i hope the spurs do well, i remember all those years getting knocked out by the jazz and houston. i was there for TC and willie and rod strickland, and i don't consider myself a frontrunner or a master of panic. if the spurs continue playing like this into the playoffs they won't win a series. worse than that is having to adjust to the fact that if the spurs keep playing like this they don't deserve to win a series.
^ nice.
They are playing like a team that has no answers to its problems, knows there are no answers, and is therefore losing hope.
Besides all the rotation issues, the backup point guard issues, the defense issues, the what have you issues, the most salient fact is that when Tim Duncan is just a mediocre player, the Spurs can't be anything more than a mediocre team.
Tim Duncan won't be anything more than a mediocre player unless he rests his knee for two months.
The playoffs are pointless. They might as well lose in the first round and get it over with.
most of the time when tim isn't playing great you're right, but particularly in the second half of the season when tim comes into a game the offense around him slows down or stops moving entirely. there were a couple games that tim was out that the spurs played very well. not just the ones where tony carried us. is it like when boston fans asked are the celts better without KG? of course not, tim duncan, even on tired knees, even on bad ankles, is a huge asset, and regardless of how many points tony is scoring, the franchise player.
there needs to be a fire under the other four people on the floor with tim. i have to deal with the league pass nonsense so i don't get any local tv coverage anymore, so i don't know if anybody has brought this up, but it looks like when tim's on the floor everybody assumes that he's going to take care of everything so nobody needs to get open and keep moving. clearly this isn't the case. i think that tim on the floor improves the team, but there needs to be the same level of effort with tim as there is without him.
1) Inconsistent defense
2) Bad 3-point shooting
3) Teams don't have to double TD, which is a major contributor to point 2.
If I were playing the Spurs, on defense I would single-cover TD and try to make the Spurs run all their plays through TD. On offense, I would try to take advantage of Finley, Bonner, and Mason, and also try to match up a quicker player against TD. Also, make TD work on defense by pick-and-rolls and screens.
I agree ! no more tim manu tp's team, it's Tim team period. In O priority must be feeding our franchise player in the post, let Tony be a scorer and let Manu doing what he wants.
The captain must show the way and regroup the troops to the winning way spurs BB : defense first. We just need a vocal dominant Tim Duncan, the rest will follow.
We cannot just simply feed Tim anymore like in the past. He is not as good, and He is throwing up weak side shots that are getting blocked by the worst of defenders. He doesnt go up strong anymore. Age is showing in Timmy. Not really much we can do about it.
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