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Right move limiting ginobili. No need reinjuring that ankle this early in the year
Spurs feel OK after fluky loss to Celtics
Mike Monroe
After amassing a five-game win streak against teams that fall short of NBA elite status, the Spurs went into their Thursday night game against the Eastern Conference-leading Boston Celtics seeking an answer to an important question: Where do we stand in the NBA power structure?
Eighteen turnovers, 10 missed free throws and 14 missed 3-pointers later, they await tonight's game at the AT&T Center against the Denver Nuggets still wondering.
“I don't think we answered many questions, in that respect of figuring out where we're at,” Spurs captain Tim Duncan said.
Despite lacking offensive precision, the Spurs stayed in Thursday's game with defensive effort. Anything but season-worst free-throw and 3-point shooting might have produced a quality win.
“That (Celtics) team only scored 90 points on them, and we had to foul several times down the stretch,” Popovich said. “I thought the defensive effort was fantastic. They stuck together and communicated.
“We had our worst night of the year at the line and our worst night of the year from the 3-point line. That's something you don't control. It either is or it isn't. But the things we can control, the things you can try to improve in, I think we did a of a job. I would expect them to come out with the same effort and awareness against Denver.”
The Nuggets arrived in San Antonio on Friday night with a 14-5 record that ranks them just behind the Lakers in the Western Conference. Forward Carmelo Anthony leads the league in scoring, at 30.2 points per game, as the centerpiece of an offense that is the league's most productive thus far, producing 110.8 points per game.
The Nuggets already have beaten the Lakers, and have five road victories in nine tries.
“It's a great game for us against a very good team, and coming at the right time,” Duncan said. “The (Boston) game was disappointing, obviously, and we'll continue to try to gauge ourselves against everybody, so we want to play the good teams. This is a good stretch for us to figure it out.”
Popovich used nine different lineups in Thursday's game, still searching for the right combinations with a roster full of players brand new to his systems and schemes.
The tinkering isn't going to end any time soon.
“It takes a while to figure out who I want to play, what the roles are going to be, what mix is going to be on the court at certain times in the game, what my best combinations are, and all that,” he said. “That will take me 30 or 40 games to figure out.”
Popovich said his decision to sit Manu Ginobili for all but three seconds of the fourth quarter of Thursday's game was a combination of limiting the minutes of a player coming off an injury and a game decision.
“We just chose to go with other people,” he said. “You usually make decisions about who is on the court, but with Manu, one of the factors at this point is always making sure we don't overplay him when he's coming back from injury.
“It takes a little bit longer to come back from injury than people realize because it's such a dynamic game. You can, even though you're getting better, still tweak something and have a little setback and not be injured and hold you back for a while.”
Popovich agreed with Celtics coach Doc Rivers that Ginobili is apt to experience some inconsistency as he recovers from the stress fracture of his right ankle that required a summer of convalescence, just as Boston's Kevin Garnett has been up and down after a knee operation late last season.
“With people like Garnett for the Celtics, or Ginobili for us, we know those are the kind of guys we have to have at the end of the year, so that tends to make you a little bit conservative with their minutes to make sure they're going to be available, and you don't do anything to miss more games with them.”
Right move limiting ginobili. No need reinjuring that ankle this early in the year
That's what I want to see every game, defensive effort. The fine tuning will be made through out the season.“That (Celtics) team only scored 90 points on them, and we had to foul several times down the stretch,” Popovich said. “I thought the defensive effort was fantastic. They stuck together and communicated.
Thats ing re ed and a cop out, two or three extra minutes at the end of the game arent going to have any sort of significant negative effect on Manu. I hardly ever complain about Pop's moves but Manu needed to be out there no questions asked.
pop is always right
they had a million turnovers to the celtics' zero, and shot a spurs-like 10% from the foul line, and still almost won. even though it was a loss im not too hurt by it.
Fluky loss? Yeah sure.
Which would Spurfan call more fluky:
Eighteen turnovers, 10 missed free throws and 14 missed 3-pointers,
or
a 55-32 advantage on the boards?
Manu could of easily played those minutes, unless he was actually reporting pain or something.
It is good though to see defense. Getting a good defense is far harder late in the season than is a good offense.
Yeah, but he hadn't played hardly at all that 4th quarter and was cold even coming in for 3 seconds. No doubt I want Manu in April than what was rolling Thursday night. No need to extend injury possibilities.
mando
I believe they said the Celts were next to last or last in rebounding so far this year, to my disbelief, really. No fluke there then.
lol not a great le, but not that bad either.
Good read. Thanks for posting.
I was thinking the same when Pop kept Manu on the bench in the 4th quarter.
LOL loss to Grizzlies
Fluky? Missing all those Free Throws wasn't fluky, just sucking at the line.
Well, why didn't he say that in the first place.
I love Manu's game, but at this stage and this early in the season I gotta agree with Pop. And I know for sure Manu would have played balls out had he been put in there, but getting him in game shape is a smart move by Pop, though it doesn't make me happy I can live with that kind of reasoning.
But he better be out there come the second half of the season.
Well...the rebounding is definitely not fluky. We are top 5 in defensive rebounding percentage and top 10 in offensive rebounding percentage.
I have always agreed with limiting minutes...especially with Manu...but that excuse really doesn't fly this time. It's not like Manu had already played close to 30 minutes or anything like that. Playing him that last 6 minute stretch would have still put him under 25 minutes for the game. If we do that and get Duncan back in quicker there is a good chance we win.
Bad le.
18 TOs, bad 3pt shooting, 41% FG, may not be so flukey since there was another team on the floor that plays pretty good defense.
True, but a lot of those turnovers came from sloppiness and many of the threes were pretty much uncontested.
An injury can happen at any given time. Should we just sit the starting 5 for the rest of the season so that they can be healthy for the playoffs?
I do agree to an extent, but the injury thing is being taken a bit to far in my opinion. Did we recruit our players from a senior citizen home where 1 slip and fall equals a broken hip.
Then, how much better was the Celtics defense than the Spurs?
There was a bit of unforced turnovers, the Spurs played sloppy basketball. You can credit Boston for some of that, but not entirely.
If by fluky you mean that Pop was ing braindead in the fourth, then yeah, it was a fluky loss.
It wasn't so much the Celtics forcing turnovers as it was the Spurs making lazy passes or bad decisions with the ball, throwing it out of bounds, miscommunicating, etc.
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