Spurs record when Blair gets 20+ minutes

[The Truth #6]

I've grown to appreciate Fabb's harangues. Always amusing and there's always some truth in what he says, usually.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

To clarify DPG21920 I'm not suggesting it's exactly the same as having another 6'10" - 7 footer next to Dunkan. But as was brought out on another thread, it's brought back the paint to the Spurs. The pussified three point chucking/no post presence on offense or defense/NO help for Tim joke the Spurs have become under FinleyPopperBonner is gone. For now.
We agree on that.

8-2 and counting!

I agree with that.

Grizzly plays much bigger and tougher, and takes up more space, than his 6'7" suggests. He has learned to use his bulk and low centre of gravity to defend players in the low post. The kid is also a natural balla and and extremely quick learner, and not a bad shotblocker (22 for the season) with potential for growth. However, I think as he develops he will become the primary defender of a lot of the other team's best big, with Tim helping from the weakside.

It's a different situation to what we've had before going all the way back to Rodman - a super-rebounder and tough but undersized defender next to a dominant, skilled big man in Robinson. The way Tim + Grizzly plays out is not a "Twin Towers", it's a DRob and Rodman situation, and I'm kinda liking it!

PS A lot of media types should be eating their freakin ties right now after some of the things written and said during the offseason!

[HarlemHeat37]

LOL Fabbs is easily one of the most entertaining posters here..I don't always agree with him, but he brings it hard..

[baseline bum]

Never mistake correlation for causation. When Blair plays well, Pop gives him minutes, and when he sucks, he gets pulled quickly (usually because of foul trouble). Therefore, when you condition on minutes, you're effectively conditioning on Blair playing well. All things being equal, it's expected that the team should do better when Blair plays well. Since Blair is kind of a feast or famine player (his production seems to oscillate pretty wildly), him playing well is an enormous shot in the arm for the team. Hence, the strong record when he plays high minutes is therefore pretty logical, while advocating huge minutes and extrapolating that team success as a simple function of his minutes is definitely not.

[ezau]

It's not just the wingspan, it's his wide body and weight.

RJ= 225 lbs
Blair=265 to 277 lbs

[Fabbs]

12-7
L Utah after Blair started and he and Tim Dunks helped build a 5 pt halftime lead.
L Houston, once again started, Spurs led at half, worked in the 3rd.
L Chicago 11 boards but only 4-13 shooting.
W Sacramento 9-11 fgs, 6 boards in 24 minutes. 8-8 in 1st half but Popovich did not start him in the 3rd.

[Manufan909]

Never mistake correlation for causation. When Blair plays well, Pop gives him minutes, and when he sucks, he gets pulled quickly (usually because of foul trouble). Therefore, when you condition on minutes, you're effectively conditioning on Blair playing well. All things being equal, it's expected that the team should do better when Blair plays well. Since Blair is kind of a feast or famine player (his production seems to oscillate pretty wildly), him playing well is an enormous shot in the arm for the team. Hence, the strong record when he plays high minutes is therefore pretty logical, while advocating huge minutes and extrapolating that team success as a simple function of his minutes is definitely not.

23 min is not giving someone minutes who went 20 (on almost 90% FG) and 6 with a block and a pair of steals. Wtf are you smoking man, you already forget the Celtics game? That one and the one last night showed that Pop really doesn't know what the is going on this year. If Blair is beasting in the first half, take minutes from every big without initials TD so that DJB can get 30+ minutes. He should still be starting too, he's outplayed Dice this year, as well as Bonner.

And trust me son, it's causation. The cause is Blair playing with unlimited passion IN THE PAINT, just tearing up and throwing his big body around. The effect is Tim (the Spurs best player) doesn't have to kill himself being the only big willing to be in the paint on both ends of the floor. Bonner won't touch the paint with a ten foot pole, and Dice only really gets in the paint on D. I would too if I had a jay like that though. I don't even need to get started on his chemistry with Manu. But let me just say this, he has completed more plays with Manu halfway thru his rookie season than Fab and Manu did on their best year (maybe an exaggeration, but I doubt anyone will do the research to prove me wrong). No knock on Fabricio, but no one can deny him and Manu knew each other. Oberto just settled for a sneaky backdoor layup or baseline jumper every once in awhile. But Blair seems to know Manu, has spectacular hands, charges into the lane every chance he gets while maintaining superb body control, and is fine with getting spoon fed by El Contusion. Correlation my ass.

I don't agree with Fabb on a lot of things, but he's spot on about Blair.

[rayray2k8]

I can count on 2 things. 1 Blair doing his thing and 2 Bonner being useless.... Tonight was no different.

[Fabbs]

13-8
L the @ Portland disaster where they melted down a 10 pt lead in the 4th.
W @ Clippers. Not DeJuans best game but still boardin as always. Dumbassovich does not play Blair much at all with Duncan anymore.

Duncan-GNob-Blair was a nice thing to watch. Beautiful play vs Portland where Portlands D seemed to have GNob stopped. Quick pass to Blair, immediate pass to Dunkar for the layup. It's as if they were mind reading.

Dense-o-vich will put a stop to it tho.

[Fabbs]

14-8
17/9 on 8-11 shooting.

I thought Dumbassovich was going to leave Blair out when he replaced him with Duncan after Blair had helped the Spurs build a 19 pt lead. Alas, DeJuan got to play the final 4 minutes and he and Manhinmi had a really nice lob pass exchange. Great read and pass by Ian for the DuJuan layup.
Stoop-a-shift Pop keeping these two from being on the court together.

[Manufan909]

Lol Fabbs. I agree with you on this occasion, but your blind rage for Pop makes it hard to take you seriously.

[Fabbs]

Lol Fabbs. I agree with you on this occasion, but your blind rage for Pop makes it hard to take you seriously.

Did you watch the 4th qtr?

[mosdef17]

This thread is so bogus, Blair often gets 20+ mins in games against teams that we are in control of or will be able to easily beat...

[Fabbs]

vs Phx 14 pts and 7 boards in only 19 minutes so that one wont count.
15-8
W @ New Orl. 26 minutes 8pts 6 boards 4 assts 2 blocks.
Importantly, he started and gave great relief to Timmy Dunks in the paint.

[Supergirl]

Blair: 6'7
RJ: 6'7

If you have Blair starting at "C", that is 6'7 and tall ball.
If Pop puts RJ at "C", that is 6'7 and small ball.

Blair: 7'3 wingspan
RJ: 7'0 wingspan

LOL.

It's hysterical how Blair=tall ball to so many people on the board. I love Blair, but he's one of the smallest players to be in our front court ever.

Spurs are playing the players who play the best defense. Pop has actually been very consistent. He's rewarding the players who can stay in front of athletic scorers and box out without picking up stupid fouls with playing time.

Most of the time, that means minutes for Blair, but he's foul prone right now. That also means Manu, Hill, Bogans, Parker, Dice, and Duncan will be in our rotation for a long time to come. It means RJ will be there when he's playing smart D and being aggressive on offense, which he's been the last 2 games.

[Dingle Barry]

14-8
Stoop-a-shift Pop

[Fabbs]

What is it you don't understand, Dingle?
Or is it Barry?

[Go For Tree]

I know how much Kori enjoyed this when, in an effort to promote TallBall i did a Frankie Elson 20+ Spurs record in 2007. (It was like 20-2).

Well, with the injuries to his beloved wife Michael and his mistress Matt Bonner, Lord Poppy has been virtually forced to give more minutes to the NBAs co leader in rebounds per minute, 60% shooting super rookie Dejuan "Grizzy" Blair.
Besides the current 4 game winning streak (granted vs mostly patsies), the games in which Blair did play 20+, the Spurs are:
8-2!!

2 losses where in no way shape or form Blairs fault as he did 9-11 shooting with 11 boards to boot in only 22 minutes vs Boston as Moronovich limited his minutes.
The other loss to Utah, Blair did 7-10 shooting and snapped down 9 boards (5 offensive) in only 21 minutes.

If you want to drop it to 15 min per game, the record is 6-1.

I'll let the board PopApologists do the math on Spurs record when Grizzly Blair is forced to sit and play less then 15 minutes. "I just don't know what to do with him" -Greg Popavich Nov 2009.

so im 4 pages late but whatever.... how the do you figure theres only one loss when he plays more than 15 minutes but 2 losses when he plays 20+ minutes? that makes no sense. i mean how can you say there are less games of 15+ minutes for him than 20+ minutes?

[jjktkk]

EricB is so patient when it comes to nitwits. Eric, please bestow upon me the championship level patience you possess when dealing with conversations between nitwit2nitwit!




I always get so annoyed by the fact that these roaches never get discouraged when someone "puts their in check". I just write some sarcastic, mean-spirited rant but EricB effectively makes his point by simply asking Fabbs to backup his charlatan claims.

I'm wondering two things:

1) Why nobody else is high-5'n EricB?

2) Why Fabbs keeps ignoring the obvious burn marks on his threads? How does one person get proven to be an idiot yet still have the peanuts to keep posting Bolshievek?

Guess Fabbs is a legend in his own mind.

[arakkus]

I love Blair and would like to see him get more minutes as well. But I do have a major concerns when I see him on the court and I think its what the coaching staff sees as well.

Despite playing with Duncan one of the best post-op players in the game he is constantly waving for a post op no matter what the play call is. The team wastes precious time waving him off and telling him to do the play. This is especially evident after he gets beat on defense which is going to happen alot because of his size its sort of a macho thing but not needed especially from a guy who should know he is the 5th option on offense. I see his game much like Marion of Dallas, no plays called for him just effort and amazing ability. Getting Off boards, playing aggressively, benefiting off Ginobili's passes. If he could learn his role in this year's Spurs I think his playing time would increase dramatically.

[Fabbs]

^^ and yet Blair is an excellent passer. He, GNob and Duncan have had plenty of give n go type passes for the hoop. What is Poopavichs offense anyways?

Blair also 4th in the entire NBA in rebounds per 48 min.

[GhosTown]

His increase in minutes meaning the temporary end of pussyball with Finley and Bonner, resulting in Spurs wins.
No surprise to basketball realists.

s yeah.

And when we get Bogans out of the rotation then we will really be able to compete.

[GhosTown]

Blair has to start fighting his man off the block. He doesn't do his work on the front end and he is too short to make up for it on the back end. But if he had a coach who didn't say dumb like "I don't know what to do with him" Then maybe someone can start working on his post defense. Blair is really strong and quick for his size, so he can actually push is man out far from the goal and use his quickness to keep him from driving on him. All things that good coaching would improve.

This guy should be on the floor as with the other young buck Ian.

[GhosTown]

We get it, you don't like Pop.

The Spurs' improvement is not soley because Blair is playing 20+ minutes, like you imply. There are other factors to contribute to team improvement.

Manu has been playing better and better in the past couple of weeks or so, I think this is an even bigger reason.

Tony is playing better as well, much like he was last season.

Even though RJ's numbers aren't overwhelmingly huge he has done the little things pretty as of late.

McDyess coming off the bench w/Manu gives the 2nd unit a veteran inside presence.

As much as you hate Pop, his rotations are solidifying, which helps the chemistry immensely, whether you want to admit it or not.

You put better players on the court with your good players, and they seem to play even better.

[in2deep]

Spurs record when RJ scores 20+.. 6-0