First adjustment: Pop retire the khaki pants and navy sports coat with little gold buttons. Go a little metrotesticle baby!
Second: No more mad scientist line-up to start the third please.
DO this and game 2 will be the teets
I wouldn't count on that. Nash hit the shots that were open and missed the ones that were contested. Perhaps one or two of the shots he made could have gone the other way, but 11/19 is still incredibly good shooting for a point guard. Nash is arguably the best shooter ever to play; it's not like this is a hot game from Jason Terry.
If we let Nash shoot 10-footers all day, he will
ehhhh virtually every shot Nash took he's been hitting against us since he's been playing against us
thats what he does against us
RJ, 32 min, 3 boards, might have had something to do with it.
Hey, Hey, HEY.....he's doing the best he can with what he's got to work with.
- Get Timmy to get it going early. I think it hurt us tonight when Nash was having his way at the other end but our stars, especially Timmy, was not being aggressive on our own end. I saw too many jumpshots in that opening sequence.
- Start Tony. But I don't know if I want to send Hill to the bench. It could mess up his mind.
- 3-pt shooting. If Pop still plays Bonner and Mason more minutes, they better earn their paycheck. That said, I don't want these two to put the ball on the floor. Jack up those threes if you don't know what to freakin' do with the ball.
- Bogans over Mason, if at all necessary.
- Attack Nash. I want TP to make Nash work on defense.
No doubt. I think one of most blatant things Pop can do is get on RJ, Dice, and Hill's ass to rebound MUCH better.
Nash got hot by getting in a rhythm..he got FOUR easy layups in the 1st quarter..when it's a good player like Nash, he'll make you pay later on..
Basketball is really easy when you start games off by making easy shots, as everybody here obviously knows..
Bogans played good. Got some bull calls called on him. Hill has to play better in game two. Jefferson was a ghost once again. There was plenty of times he attacked but he needs to it twice as much. Too many jumpers from him.
Harder to come back in the playoffs? Game momentum much more important than in regular season?
It sure seems that way.
He walked in on those lay ups. The help D was horrible tonight.
Start Parker and make Nash guard Parker as much as possible. Wait until Dragic comes into the game before putting in Hill.
Call it a radical adjustment if you will, but the Spurs need to go back to being the old Spurs offensively in this series and that means plenty of four-down, Parker starting and plenty of pick-and-rolls involving Parker. Ginobili needs to become the third wheel offensively again.
Hill, there's no excuse for him not being able to adequately defend Nash. Theoretically he should be able to and that, along with his three point shooting and him spelling Ginobili and Parker is going to have to be his value to the team in this series. If it's not, he's not of much use, because he's too small to guard Richardson and Hill.
It seems to me they've got to get more players involved and make the Suns D work harder. Just as in the Mavs series, getting RJ going is essential.
Funneling everything through a struggling Duncan seems like it would work right into the Suns hands. I can see Tim getting stripped as he wheels (ever so slow these days) into the middle, leading to fast break buckets for the Suns.
The simplest and easiest adjustment is obviously starting TP. Hill got abused by Nash too many damn times, and when he wasnt being abused by Nash...he was being abused by Jason Richardson. Not good...at all. So start TP with Manu, RJ, TD, and Dice, and let Hill come off the bench where he can do his thing against some of their bench guys like Dragic...
Duncan was awful on the low block tonight. I think he got all his points from pick and roll plays, jumpers and put backs. I will obviously try to establish him early but if he doesn't "get established" we can't keep going at it 'cause our offense will suck.
We can talk adjustments all we want, the reality is the Spurs needed to win this game, because of the amount of rest they had going in, the lack of rest they're going to get after it, the fact that Nash was supposedly hurting and the fact that Lopez was out. Plus, psychologically it would have affected the Suns. It's likely that the Spurs just lost not only this game, but this series.
Unfortunately, the Spurs can't guard the Suns like they use to be able to and offensively, they don't have clearly defined lineups to play against them, which they had against the Mavs. Play the three guards and Hill is forced to cover Richardson in the post, which he can't do. Play a guard at the four and Duncan has to guard Stoudemire, which he no longer has the lateral quickness to do.
If you can't slow the Suns, you at least have to dominate them on the boards, which the Spurs can't do if they're closing with Bogans at the four and Mason seeing some time there as well. Between the horrific free throw and three point shooting as well as the fact that they're not a great transition team, the Spurs put a ton of pressure on themselves to score almost exclusively at the rim or from mid range. That's a losing combination. It sounds great to not rely on the three, but when you're this inept at it and you struggle in the other two areas I mentioned offensively, it's going to be tough to beat a team that's as good as the Suns are offensively.
Running 4-down is completely dependent on how Duncan looks in that game..as Duncan228 has said, with the way Duncan's knees are, it's unpredictable as to how he'll play for a particular game..
I'd test it early, they have to try it out in the first few plays, get a feel of where Duncan is..Tim seems to be better at facing up these days though..if Amare/Amundson is guarding him, I'd love to see some post action, but it might be better if he faces up Frye and Lopez..
If it doesn't work early, just keep running p&r..gets Duncan easy shots, and he gets into a nice rhythm as we saw in the 2nd half..
Getting RJ touches is essential..
+1. TD looked pretty bad/off in the 1st half, but he ran the floor pretty damn good and finished well at the rim in the 2nd half...
"We" can't keep going to Duncan, but "we" can keep putting the ball in the hands of Ginobili, who's not only playing the worst of the big three, but has the least advantageous match-up of the three? That makes a lot of sense. Ginobili is right back to being his old, inconsistent self. If the Spurs are going to go down in this series, then they should go down going to their most advantageous matchups most. Did Duncan struggle in the post at times? Sure. It's probably because he's not used to getting the damn ball down there, since it hasn't made it's way down there in about a half a season.
It's going to be all for naught, though. I hate to say it because I picked the Spurs in six, but they can't defend this team and it's clear Pop has no idea what he wants to do rotation-wise, but it is clear that we'll see plenty of small ball. What that means is you can forget about pounding them on the boards. So you can't keep pace with them offensively, can't slow them defensively and can't dominate the boards. How do you expect to win? Maybe Ginobili can shoot 15 threes and throw the ball away 10 times next game off of cross body pick-and-roll passes. That will get it done.
RJ should attack to the rim more often, I'm expecting a similar performance to 2dn game of Dallas series next game. Hill is inexperienced and Nash is very different type of player than Kidd. He will adjust, but he shouldn't start next game. Start TP to next game and you can flip flop it in 3rd game at home. And keep giving cahnce to all players in the roster in this series. Because it seems that this series will be long and we need every weapon we can use. I believe that Mason and Bonner will play 2 games in this series and we should give them a chance in next game. They can be x-factor, you can't be sure.
Getting a mediocre slasher like RJ touches is like playing smallball; you've decided to play the Suns' game, and they're better at it.
Ginobili was our best player tonight.
Except for Parker, yes.
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