Reply With Quote
I'd take a 70 year old Bowen over Fin on Defence.
Regarding the Finley / Bowen story maybe we are living in the past with Bowen being an elite defender, obviously Pop has evaluated that Bruce is no longer the elite stopper he was and that Finley is as good as him today but bring more on Offense. It seems also some journalists think the same way.
I still believe that Bruce needs more playing time to show what he is capable of, I cannot believe in one year he is going from elite Defender to Finley level of Defense BUT it's also possible that we don’t want to see the truth.
First comes denial, then Frustration, Anger follows and finally Acceptance.
We cannot accept the fact Bruce is now an average defender then we blame Pop for not giving minutes then we begin to think that an HOFer coach is out of his mind, stupid and stubborn, is it time to accept that Finley is our unique option today and we should stop blaming Pop for everything?
What do you think?
I'd take a 70 year old Bowen over Fin on Defence.
Yeah, Finley brings more offense - 10 points per game. The problem is, it's 16 points one night and 4 points the next. And the 16 is usually on nights when it doesn't make any difference.
But Pop doesn't mind inconsistency on the offensive end, as long as he is consistent on the defensive end. And if there's one thing you can say about Finley, it's that he's consistent on defense. He defends like the Kuwaiti military; let them roll over you and look for help.
So Pop is crazy ? thats it ?
CIA Pop.
J/k.
I'm hoping Pop is just saving Bowen for PO.
I wish too but we cannot be blinded there are only 7 games remaining I can't believe that he is going to play heavy minutes in the POs when he is playing garbage time today. It's like asking Bolt running the 100 meters in minus 10 without any pre heating.
It won't happen, we will see 30-35 min of Finly during the POs and 10 for Bruce.
No more denial for me. Apparently, Bruce has lost enough to not warrant significant floor time. I thought that CIA pop was limiting his minutes until the playoffs OR trying to get the team to stop relying on Bruce for defensive stops. Perhaps some of that is true but the reality is, Bruce is in his last year with us and is not a part of Pop's 2008-2009 plan.
I happen to think that he would still make a better option than Finley but what do I know ? At least put Bowen in the mix. , maybe he has slowed down but he still has some mental mojo on people doesn't he ? I mean, if you are Kobe and you see Bruce guarding you instead of George Hill, don't you think twice about shooting that long 3 ? Maybe.
i think pop was only thinking of a way of beating the lakers, he saw last year bruce couldn't guard kobe, so he was trying to add more offense hoping we would have a better chance against LA. imo that's why he was starting finley, mason and bonner instead of bruce (and KT). But lately their shots aren't falling so we suck.
Kobe had a hot shooting streak last year. Nobody has ever stopped Kobe when he's on a roll. All you can do is make him work for his shots, and Bowen did that. I have a difficult time believing that if you give Bowen all six of his fouls that he couldn't have prevented Lebron from scoring 18 points in the first quarter. And anybody that knows anything about basketball recognizes that shooting becomes easier once you've seen a few go in, so what little excuse there is for starting Finley disintegrates completely when Bowen wasn't subbed in immediately to help keep James in check.
Exactly my thought.
Morever I think in Pop's mind the idea is to try to win a last time with this core, assuming Bowen has lost a huge step on Defense he has chosen to give significant minutes to Mike because he doesn't trust new guys for the POs (TP is the only notable exception). He rather prefers going to the PO batle with his vets than giving a chance to the newbies like Hill or even Hairston. Right now Pop is not preparing the future which finally is the proof he still belives in this squad this year.
2010 will be the year of changes but 2009 will be the last try of this vet group and for whatever reason Mike took the big 4 status of Bruce.
How does Kobe feel about having George Hill on him? His words exactly...
http://asianfanatics.net/forum/Spurs...alk635274.html
Obviously, Kobe respects Bruce and views playing against him as a challenge.
And he made playing against Hill look like child's play when he was breaking him down and rising up over him for three.
Oddly enough, Bowen's contract has one partially guaranteed year left while Finley's contract has a player option for another full year, which we can reasonably expect will be exercised.
The Spurs can pay Bruce $4 mil next year or they can pay him $2 mil to go away. What do we expect the front office that gave away Scola for $ will do?
Shouldn't that be denial, anger, bargaining, depression, then acceptance
pop doesnt really give a anymore, you can tell from his nose hes been drinking it up
In fact what are between denial and acceptance is not very interestingShouldn't that be denial, anger, bargaining, depression, then acceptancethe good thing of all this is I had quite high expectations for this year, now I'm in the acceptance process so the next games my frustration will go down.
Awesome post Dex
Someone send that to News4 who claims that Finley and Bruce are exactly the same defensively.
All you guys know Pop determines playing time by how they perform in scrimmages and practices. I can't see Pop being completely blind. He must not be seeing Bowen doing the same things he was capable of doing even in practice which would translate to fewer minutes on the court. Pop gets to see more behind the scenes with Bowen then we do out there in a regular season game. Pop knows whats going on with his defense and if he thought Bruce was the answer I think he would have figured that out already. I can't believe he's that dumb, and thats why I think Bruce is done.
From what I remember, in Game 1 Bowen had Kobe under control, the Spurs were up 20 with 6 minutes to go in the third, Bowen picks up only his third foul, and Pop inexplicably pulls Bowen from the game.
Kobe gets hot due to Bowen getting Popped, and the Spurs manage to lose the game, predictably get blown out in game 2 as expected for the road team coming off 7 games, and the series is lost.
Thinking out loud here! So please dont Crucify me!!!!!!!
What about bringing TImmy off the bench... That will give you some firepower off the bench.
a go to guy. Start Gooden, then you can free up shooters like Mason, Bonner, bowen..
You would be limiting his minutes, he would play against poor defensive players... I kind of like the idea. if where willing to try Mason out a PT, and we know what kind of disaster that turned out to be. Whats harm. bet it wouldnt be as bad as that.
The fact to be on the bench or off the bench doesn't matter which matters are the lineups and the mpg. If you say reduce Tim's minute for Gooden even if Tim is 80% healthy it would mean 0% chance to pass the 1st round.
Giving the fact that he keeps playing Vaughn and Udoka I'd say give Bowen a chance.
Just a couple weeks ago, he held various guys like Stephen Jackson and Jason Richardson in check for 28+ minutes a game. Unless something has happened to him in the last 10 days that we don't know about, he's 10 x better than the alternative.
I said it in another thread, but I'll say it again. If Manu/Tim were playing awesome, I might say it's a good idea to try to win with offense. But the Spurs aren't good enough to win on offense right now. So they need to clamp down on D. Clamping down on D means more Bowen, more Hill and more Thomas. Less Finley, less Vaughn and less Bonner (unless he's shooting lights out).
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
