Reply With Quote
he will clinch it, and ownership will have enough $ to pay 1/5 of splitter's 1st year's salary
spurs were doomed when Mason and Bonner were together on the floor.
he will clinch it, and ownership will have enough $ to pay 1/5 of splitter's 1st year's salary
I can't put this on anyone other than the players. Sure, Pop starting Tony in the second would've been wise, IMO, but there was nothing the coach was going to do that would compensate for the approach of his players.
Manu just looked flat. He wasn't getting by the defenders well, his ball-handling wasn't great (and it's been a little suspect of late) and he reverted back to Game 1 form with the ill-advised passing -- the traps and pick-and-roll coverage gave him problems once again, and he continues to be undeterred with the across-the-body pass. Defensively the drop off between 3 and 4 to 5 was pretty significant. Manu was on fire defensively in SA -- playing passing lanes, disrupting offense and just being an overall pest -- but tonight he was much more reactive and aimless (something that seemed to be the theme for the team as a whole).
Jefferson and 'Dyess were extremely sloppy with their passing in the first and were doing their best to give the Mavs some early confidence. The Mavs were just feasting off the Spurs' turnovers and gaining confidence with each transition opportunity; turnovers with three-fifths of your team below the ball is a recipe for disaster with this team (or any other, for that matter).
Really, I could go on-and-on breaking down each individual and what they did or didn't do ... but I really don't see the point. This game was solely on the players and they, for whatever reason, didn't bring the right mindset to close out a team, much less the hated rival, in their own gym. It's really that simple.
It's a shame, too. The Mavs were ready to go home. The crowd was subdued and there was a sense of anxiety and inevitability you could feel through the TV; if the Spurs show up with the right mentality and focus from the jump, there's a good chance this series is over. , even if they get their crap together at the half down 7, there's a great chance that Mavs team folds under the pressure down the stretch.
The Spurs blew a golden opportunity. They better hope it doesn't bite them in the ass.
Can't argue with most of that but Pop loves to be extra careful with first half foul trouble with the Big 3. With Manu having two fouls, Pop tried to buy Manu as much time as possible ... thus RMJ being in the game.
At this point, I don't know who is worse: RMJ or Bogans. I want to say Bogans but RMJ makes that difficult.
cannot agree more, spurs would take those uncontested rebounds there without borner after a miss J by mavs , everyone else would take that.
we need to take the rebounds for which the mavs missed in close range layup with proper box out , it is not the case in this game
Mason + borner do more harm than good on court, mavs make a run when either one is there
another thing is i think rj should be more invovled offensively, i don't know if its rj himself or pop. he is not our best options, but we should try everything when other plan fails
Yeah, Bonner got a lot more gunshy when he airballed that wide open look by about five feet
When the Blair-Bonner combo was together on the court together with RMJ late in the 1st the score was
14-18
It could have ended up being closer had we not been content with Mason bringing the ball up the court.
THAT is what really really pissed me off. WTF was the team thinking
Would have been nice tp started second half since he started the run late and it was the only thing working in first half
Right. I'm saying it wasn't that drastic of a change. The Spurs went from down 4 (late in the first) to down 8 (when Duncan came back a few minutes into the second) with that lineup in. The lineup sucks - I agree - I was ing to timvp at the time that Tony was on the court too long without Manu or Tim. But that's not the lineup that allowed the lead to get pushed to 16 in the mid second quarter. The lineup that let the lead balloon included Jefferson/Manu/Duncan, I believe.
This are the guys that were having big minutes during season [bogans rmj], and now they are killing the spurs. It's not like they are non-factor.
They are but for the dallas
Roger has been playing that bad in like 3 or 4 months now.
It's getting depressing even though our backline would look to spread minutes between TP, MG, GH, RJ if there is no Bonner, one of this guys must to step up.
If the spurs are somehow tired with the 7-man rotation they are screwed right now.
dirk gonna be the force next game and Terry still is active , matrix is there to prove something and Butler had one game full of rest and now is red hot.
from this point forward, I really cannot fathom giving any more minutes to Mason and Bogans, this is the playoffs. GHill and Jefferson can both go for 40 minutes, and then TP and Manu need only play 32, assuming no small ball.
And the whole team played like they didn't care, except for Tony's little spurt at the end of the half, so they deserved to lose. No urgency whatsoever.
But who didn't expect this? The Spurs always get beat down in at least one playoff game.
and Mason got in because Manu had two fouls. Tells us why Manu not being in foul trouble is important. The backup SGs are terrible. Mason is absolutely the worst player in the post season across teams.
If only he was traded (as per his request) along with Finley and Bonner during the trade deadline. They might have possibly landed Marcus Camby. If and buts...
I still think the Spurs will win Game 6 though. Manu has to be back to being close to Manu and that should be enough.
And throughout both types of lineups we completely abandoned the pressure Kidd 100% of the time strategy. And we abandoned it with ing Barea too.
It's like we made a premeditated decision to abandon it. Every single missed shot, every long rebound, every missed free throw, was turned into the type of bull pseudo-transition shot we saw in game 1.
There was no reason to abandon the pressure Kidd strategy in the first half. We did a little of it in the 2nd, but who ing cares we had already lost by that point.
If we do the things we do in the first half I think we could have won this game.
By the time Pop put in a normal lineup in the mid 2nd, they looked totally out of sync, no rhythm whatsoever. Credit the Mavs here too, they were rotating like we did in games 2-4.
I'm pissed
I had good quality stream
your seeing the trees, just not the forest.
Here's a good question: Does Duncan on 24 minutes and Ginobili on 18 minutes qualify as adequate rest?
Because if Pop was going to abandon what got us this series lead, why not ing rest them for real for the entire game? It's a loser's strategy to do this .
I'd like to see Ginobili take his chances with erratic drives to the basket and hope for foul calls as opposed to taking jumpers.
And, if that doesn't work, let's just give his shots to Hill and Parker and let him serve as a decoy out there.
Sure, he's playing awful, but not to the extent where Dallas defense can give him wide open looks. He'd still be reasonably useful in spacing the floor on offense, and if he brought energy to the defensive end, things might be alright.
That's just for this series, though. If he doesn't regain a 15-5-5 50% level for the next series, we're not going anywhere.
I saw that, then quickly scanned the rest of the team to see if TP or Hill or Manu was in the game. Then I saw TP. Then I started to cry.
We'll get them at home.
Seriously you wasted more time on this "analysis" and certainly more effort and energy than the Spurs did playing the game. What about this was surprising to you or to any of us IN ANY WAY? Didn't you predict a Game 5 Mavs blowout before the series started?
Let me make it VERY simple so even you can understand what happened out there. Tim and Manu saw early on that RJ and Dice had no fire or desire to compete whatsoever with their dumb turnovers and lackluster defense/rebounding. Probably the two of them, (plus Pop) came into the game skeptical anyway since they knew the Mavs would come out with all guns smoking, but once they saw that they weren't going to get any help from the other starters, they quickly mentally checked out as well.
As for Tony trying hard, Tony scoring late in the second quarter blah blah blah, big deal. Guess what Bud, TP, for all his lukewarm endorsements of Pop and the move, DOES NOT WANT TO BE ON THE BENCH. He's made that pretty clear, I think. He was playing like he has something to prove. He was also pretty freaking awful in the 1st quarter, but I guess you forgot about that, lost in the afterglow of his good spurt before the half.
He's still not sticking close to three point shooters and J.J. Barea was kicking his butt, but woohoo, 19 points for Tony.
I don't know why you bothered to write about a game where Pop played Mason 28 minutes. That should tell you (or anyone) all you needed to know about how seriously he took the game. I said all along that Tim and Manu should be rested in Game 5 and here they practically were. This was a glorified scrimmage for them (albeit a poor one).
They're both going to come out a lot better in Game 6. The last two guys I'm worried about on Thursday are Tim and Manu. Relax, we got this.
It's better to keep them in for sufficient time so that Pop/players can review the tape and see how they are getting burned by Dallas on both ends.
If you play them any less, you have no film to go by to fix your mistakes. It's good to get the mistakes on spacing out for this game, even if it is a blowout.
This game was hardly lost on simply "missing shots." There were egregious spacing issues on the floor that will be dealt with.
I actually thought this was also the case in game 4, despite the fact that we still won that game.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
