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Bah! Now I have to go visit my Mom and Blazer-loving step dad in Portland for Christmas. Thanks, Spurs.
Have we hit rock bottom yet? Is it time for the Spurs to turn this ship around on defense?
More like the Spurs lose a real nut-kicker.
Bah! Now I have to go visit my Mom and Blazer-loving step dad in Portland for Christmas. Thanks, Spurs.
Have we hit rock bottom yet? Is it time for the Spurs to turn this ship around on defense?
Small works when you have a younger Manu, a guy named Horry who was younger in 2005 heck it only works for the rosters of the 2005 and 2007 Spurs teams. You have guys with size on the team, play them or consider this another first round lost team or worse. A .500 team that doesn't make the playoffs. Atleast play the guys while Bonner and Finley are down, I guess we need another injury so they are forced to play. Perhaps now that Manu is officially becoming a spot up shooter then h may need to go down again too.
This is December and this team is just average, the trade for Jefferson is not going to pay dividends regularly because he needs a true pg, the Spurs need to send Jefferson to Charlotte and get SJ. He fits much better and is more a 3 than undersized Jefferson. It maybe time to pack Hill up too before his stock drops( The Hill talk is frustration but has some credence).
Timmy deserve more. If we can't get the effort from the whole team we are not beating any top team. Spurs owe TD at least one more championship and should be doing everything they can to make that happen. If this means trading even those we love to get new parts then so be it even if it might make some people sad.
this is getting old real fast. the expectations are just not there. and for a team that has 4 les you just do not see that heart or will to win expressed for a full 48 minutes. only tim seems to be at that level.
I'm not jumping off of the cliff yet.
This team is one which has not yet found their iden y. When the season started, it was about Tony leading them, then over the last couple weeks, it has been toos the ball in to Timmmy mode.
In my opinion, this lack of iden y makes it that much harder for the new guys to fit in.
Yeah, last nights loss sucked, but it isn't like the Spurs haven't been in a similar situation as Portland was last night and went into another teams house and won...remember Tony and Timmy out versus the Suns and Manu going crazy to lead a rally and a win? Remember last year when without all three of the big three they almost took one from Denver?
Portland had a guy last night that got in the zone and couldn't miss....don't blame Hill, Tony, or Bogans.
Look at the positives:
Tony shot very well
RJ was great
Mason played a near perfect game
Timmy was Timmy
Yeah, there is still a missing piece of a big that can challenge shots netx to Timmy and score, but there is still time to fill that void.
Do you really think Pop will quit small ball and play another big if there was one? Dice/Ratliff is as big as it gets this season.
We didn't play Ratliff last night.
pop stop playing small ball and the spurs will be fine.....pop you have to remember small ball didn't win you championships
Taking Inventory at Christmastime
By Kevin Arnovitz
TrueHoop
The 25-30 game mark is my favorite moment in the NBA season.
Come again? What can you possibly glean from December basketball?
Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane once described his trifurcated view of the long baseball season. The first of the season is for taking inventory of what a team has. The middle third of the schedule is for making the necessary adjustments. And the final third is for making a run.
The formula works for basketball as well. The throat-clearing phase of the season is nearly over. Teams have a better feel for their assets, needs and aspirations than they did at the start of the season. That transition between observation and implementation is happening right now, and last night's slate of games offered a window into what some of the league's more interesting teams are doing.
Portland vs. San Antonio
This is a battle of two teams with grave existential questions as we enter the second third of the season. For the Spurs, have their early-season struggles been the product of acclimating a bunch of new players, or is there something fundamentally unsound about the pieces they've added to their aging foundation?
For the Trail Blazers, who have lost Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla in recent days, there's desperation in the air, and it's compounded Wednesday night by the absence of Brandon Roy, who's nursing a sore shoulder.
The Spurs toy with Portland on the first couple of possessions, working mismatches Richard Jefferson to get him shots at the rim. But Portland is able to leverage its sole advantage over San Antonio -- speed. The Trail Blazers don't exploit that advantage in transition (only seven fast break points). Instead, they whirl around in the half-court and get some very nice looks for jump shooters, most prominently LaMarcus Aldridge (9-for-13 from the floor). Jerryd Bayless? the speedster doesn't need much help getting nice looks. He'll create them out of thin air -- on the perimeter with a quick release (with out without a high screen) or off the dribble through the seams of the defense.
Blazers Edge describes what else goes right for Portland:
The keys to the game were pretty simple. Portland packed the paint on defense, first denying the ball to Tim Duncan then daring him to score over multiple defenders and the rest of the Spurs to hit outside shots instead of driving. It was the only conceivable way to make up for the utter lack of interior power on that end. Once the shot went up the Blazers rebounded hard down to the last man. You saw four, five guys swarming the glass. On offense the plan was clear: take advantage of any mismatches (Bayless, Aldridge), use screens to get them free, and when the main guys got shot down pass the ball out quickly and hope the jumpers fall. They did. San Antonio's did somewhat but it wasn't enough. Combine that with 8 turnovers and more energy than the Spurs and you walk away with a win....as big of a win as you can get at this stage of the season...a win that didn't depend on lucky threes...a win Blazers got on a night when San Antonio shot 6 percentage points better than they. Priceless.
Reports of the Spurs' demise have been exaggerated for the better part of a decade now, but if you want to diagnose what might prevent them from playing into mid-May, you should examine their defense. In a game that features only 85 possessions per side, the Spurs surrender 98 points, which is more than acceptable against a skeletal Portland lineup. Unusual for a team coached by Gregg Popovich, the Spurs elect to double-team LaMarcus Aldridge. 48 Minutes of wonders aloud:
My last question concerns Gregg Popovich’s decision to aggressively double team LaMarcus Aldridge. In Monday’s game against the Clippers, Pop chose to consistently play Chris Kaman straight up. Apparently he is more threatened by Aldridge, given that he sent two defenders at him throughout the second half. But Aldridge effectively passed out of the double, and the Blazers nailed five of the eleven three-pointers they took before scrambling rotators were able to recover. What was it about tonight’s game that made Pop more willing to stray from his “stay home” defensive strategy, and risk the open three in order to double Aldridge?
It's an interesting question and you can only assume that Popovich feels that his team might not feature the kind of one-on-one matchup advantages they're accustomed to having. The Spurs have racked up championship on the strength of their base defense, but for the first time in a long while, the Spurs are being regularly outmatched and outwitted on the perimeter.
If you simulate this game with the same shot attempts ten times, I'm not sure the Trail Blazers win more than three of the match-ups. Designating 30 of your 77 shot attempts as long 2-point jumpers is treacherous, but being lightning quick to the ball and to the glass has a way of mitigating those kinds of numbers.
One thing's for certain: No two teams will be more interesting to watch during the "middle third of the season adjustment phase" than the Trail Blazers and Spurs.
Worst game of this season, so far.
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