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No bat?
Spurs come out of break bittersweet
Jeff McDonald -
SALT LAKE CITY — Fresh off a four-day break without a game, the Spurs boarded their plane for Utah on Wednesday with mixed feelings about the rare early-season respite they had just received.
Sure, it was nice to have a couple of practices, but the downtime might have ruined any momentum the Spurs were building since the season began a week earlier.
“Every year, there are a couple times in the schedule where everybody gets those breaks,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “The time you don't want those breaks is now. It's too darn early in the season.”
Compounding the Spurs' perplexity with the false start of a schedule is the price they will now pay for the layoff. Four days off gives way to a rugged road back-to-back at Utah and Portland beginning tonight.
“Resting four or five days and then having to play Utah and Portland back-to-back on the road is not the ideal thing,” Manu Ginobili said. “Every team in the league goes through stretches like this. We've just got to face it, toughen up and try to win.”
Tim Duncan tried to look at the silver lining. Popovich had three teaching-intensive workouts during the break, a significant development for a team heavy on new faces.
“We've got a lot of new guys and a very deep system,” Duncan said. “We've got a lot of stuff to put in, a lot of stuff we need to work on.”
Testing the stopper: This road trip should provide a test for Richard Jefferson, the Spurs' new defensive stopper designate.
He will warm up tonight with a matchup against Utah's Ronnie Brewer, who has raised his scoring average to 14.8 points. Friday in Portland, Jefferson is expected to start on Brandon Roy, who averages 24.5 points.
Popovich said he has been pleased so far with the defensive work of Jefferson, who is typically assigned to the opponent's top perimeter scorer each night. Aside from Sacramento's Kevin Martin, who had 29 points, Jefferson has held his own.
“He's taking pride in it,” Popovich said. “He's trying to improve his game in that area and get it back to where it used to be when he was a heck of a defender.”
Fun with numbers: Duncan scored nine and seven points in the Spurs' two victories this season. It marked just the third time in his career that he had scored in single digits in two out of three games.
Throughout his 12-plus seasons, Duncan has scored in single digits 37 times. The Spurs are 23-14 in those games.
No bat?
They'll get it back by the end of the 1st quarter, calm down jeff.
That sure sounds like a 'meh' on Pop's current assessment of RJ's defensive capabilities.“He's taking pride in it,” Popovich said. “He's trying to improve his game in that area and get it back to where it used to be when he was a heck of a defender.”
He's been pretty solid thus far, but far from a stopper; I was actually more impressed with the stint Hill had on Martin..
Interesting stat from McDonald. 23-14 = .622 as opposed to the Spurs .703 regular season winning percentage during the Tim Duncan era. That would make the Spurs .709 when Tim scored in double digits if McDonald was giving regular season numbers and not including playoffs.
Last edited by Solid D; 11-05-2009 at 01:05 AM.
I've always had the impression that the Spurs had a lower winning percentage when Tim had some of his highest scoring games. So, using games with 30+ points as the opposite end of the spectrum from single-digit games yields these numbers:
For his career:
75-37 .670
First 6 seasons:
51-19 .729
Last 6 seasons:
24-18 .571
He's also a coach, which means 75% of what he says to the media is an effort to influence his players. Pop sacrifices nothing by setting the bar higher than Jefferson may do for himself.
I'm perfectly aware of how a coach, and specificaly Pop, goes about talking to the media with an agenda or angle; that's why I read a 'meh' into his comment.
He didn't come off as being critical of RJ to me; I thought he was actually choosing his words to be encouraging. But the words he chose, at least as they came off to me, were that of he's putting in the effort and taking the right approach, but he's got a good ways to go in terms of being any kind of stopper.
That's just me, though..
I think Pop was being honest in using the percentages as a base for his response. But I can't help but feel he isn't that concerned about it as well.
I think it would have been the perfect time to have a situation like this. It allowed him and the staff as well as the new players to develop a better understanding of their roles as well as work on the specifics of their respective talents and weaknesses at this early stage.
We'll see.
Easy, tiger. I didn't mean to impugn your basketball a en -- just pointed out something you didn't make explicit.
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