-Jefferson was worse than that IMO..his scoring numbers were nice, but he was horrible on D IMO..he had some missed rotations that led to some timely 3s by Phoenix..it's embarrassing that he still misses so many rotations at this point..he over-helps for no reason most of the time, often putting himself in bad situations..
He missed crucial box outs..Dudley and Hill beasted him whenever they felt like it..extremely poor effort defensively IMO..he basically gave up everything he scored..
-I would give Bonner one more half of basketball..he's a choker either way, but let's see if he can get off @ home in a desperation game, especially after what Channing Frye just did to him..
If he doesn't, he simply has to be benched..I don't care what the alternative is, play Ian or small ball, it doesn't matter..sign me to a 10-day, I'm straight..
-Obviously there needs to be better rotations to the shooters..Frye is a horrible shooter on the road, as I'm sure a few other Suns' role players are as well, but it probably won't matter if the Spurs don't rotate..
Duncan can't come out to guard him, but this can be avoided with simple communication and switching on the rotations..Frye was good vs. the Spurs in the regular season too, so this should not have been an issue coming into the series..this should have been planned for..I hope he got the Spurs' attention now..
-Obviously the hustle/energy factor..there's no reason for a scrub like Amundson to beast on the boards for that stretch in the 2nd, giving the Suns' multiple opportunities..
Dudley is a good player, I'm a fan of his, but he shouldn't be outrebounding 2 "bigs" like that..he was clearly giving more effort than any Spur out there and there was no match for him..ideally, Jefferson SHOULD be able to take him, but he's too soft..the only time he stopped him in this game was a block that should have been called a goaltend..
I don't care that Hairston can't shoot consistently and has a shaky dribble, I put him in against Dudley for 5 minutes or whatever..he has the athleticism and strength to give a better effort than our other scrubs..
Tony Parker's 3 point shooting for six games of playoffs into the 2004 postseason:
2-2
4-6
1-3
4-5
1-5
2-4
It was the hottest streak of his three point shooting postseason career.
(On a side note, Robert Horry was even more impressive in that six game streak, those two guys were unconscious from the arc.... ing Lakers)
Pop needs to stop overthinking this . We can't lose a game at home or we're done. Play your best players, very simple. Dice should play until his legs fall off from here on out.
Also, so ing sad to see Nash has found a cozy place to hide behind RJ on defense. I also can't erase from my mind that play where Manu turns over the ball because RJ is walking into the paint while Manu is penetrating instead of staying in the corner for a wide open 3. Richard played a good game, but he still made boneheaded plays like that which are ing aggravating.
First of all, I greatly underestimated PHX. They are a much better team than I thought. Secondly, the Spurs do not have enough 3-point shooters to space the floor. PHX is clogging up the paint on Duncan and they have no fear of the Spurs hitting from outside. Spurs are in trouble if someone doesn't step up and start hitting 3's.
parker, manu and co spoon-feeding jefferson many times tonight almost made me feel pity for the guy. he's a ing all-star... man the up and play like you are supposed to play. what are we talking about.
You know I love that ginger bas and I think he's done more than Spurs fans will ever given him credit for but he's just a complete void out there in the playoffs. The regression is so insanely amazing I don't even know what more to say about it.
We'll either live by RMJ or Bonner's 3s or we'll just die.
And our D HAS to get better. We can't continue letting Grant Hill look like the Grant Hill of 10 years ago.
Bonner and blair should not be in the game at the same time
Winning both of the next games is going to be difficult. They are still due for a game where they hit 12 or 13 three-pointers. Plus we haven't seen Amare really go off yet.
An underrated difference in these Suns is they don't rely on Barbosa. Barbosa is so damn bad against the Spurs but he's like the Suns tenth man against the Spurs now. Erasing both Marion and Barbosa from the equation has leveled the playing field for Phoenix, unfortunately.
I'd rather rely on Parker being our three point shooter than Bonner.
He can do it.
He just needs to find that rhythm.
That about sums it up.
You can break it down and get into all the minutia you'd like, but it really comes down to the Spurs not having the role players necessary to get it done -- which would be knock-down three-point shooters and intelligent defenders.
I don't want to kill George (because he's a second-year player in his first real playoff action -- it's somewhat understandable) and I don't want to kill RJ (after he did put up some solid numbers in the scoring and rebounding column) but their defensive rotations, switches and some of their close-outs were just atrocious. Ball. Man. Ball. Man. Is it such a foreign subject? Do we need to accept the switch and not make a point of fighting over, around or just for the position to defend the assignment? Again, it's somewhat excusable in the case of George, somewhat, but it's flat out inexcusable for RJ -- and they're not the only ones ... this team should probably look into seeing if they've got an ADD problem on their roster (because I'm really trying to prevent myself from calling them dense, morons, or bordering on ruh -- I'm trying real hard).
+1. TP can actually make 3-pointers, he just chooses not to take them as much...unless he really has to.
We go from one of the deepest benches in the NBA to having no bench.
We go from being one of the best 3-pt shooting teams to one of the worst.
Combine this with those rare nights where the big 3 vanish and you have no real team most of the time. You know you are in trouble when you think about a 6-man rotation.
I don't really know why the media and so many Spurs fans thought this was going to be an easy series, no idea..a lot of people here picked the Spurs in 5 and whatever..
It was obvious in the series vs. Dallas that the short rotation and lack of 3-point shooting was going to haunt the Spurs, especially against a deep team like Phoenix..as I said last round, the Spurs fixed so many flaws to get to the 2nd round, but the most unexpected flaw is the one killing us..3-point shooting..in all my years as a Spurs fan, I can't remember the last time this was a major flaw..
A front court of Blair and Bonner is probably worse than most smallball lineups you can throw out there. Bonner is a terrible rebounder and defender and he's giving us nothing on offense. That lineup killed our momentum in the 2nd quarter.
The Suns recorded TEN offensive rebounds in the first FIVE MINUTES of the second quarter. That's about the league average per GAME in the NBA. All achieved in five minutes.
I think you're way downplaying the lack of minutes for McDyess. It was an egregious and unforgivable error by the head coach to watch his team get absolutely embarrassed on the boards and not make an adjustment. Bonner was the team's biggest weakness today, so he deserves a good helping of blame, but it is one man's decision alone to keep him on the court when he is giving us nothing.
Good take. I probably should have been ever harsher on RJ.
In fact, I think RJ did less damage in Game 1 than in Game 2. I sometimes wonder whether the Spurs would be better off giving RJ's minutes to Bogans -- at least Bogans will shoot threes and defend with some sort of heart. And then I cry.
I could be wrong but i think if lopez comes back it could be a blessing in disguise for the spurs. i think that center playing duncan one on one will take one of the weapons away from the suns rather than adding. suns doenst' have to stop duncan, it has to stop parker, manu and another guy. so far they've been able to do that.
whether it is bonner or dice, the suns are not guarding them, the spurs are much better off having dice out there than bonner in any given moment.
You also know you are in trouble when you know small-ball can do better than our second unit bigs.
Man you have got to realize that they have a major chip on their shoulder when they play us anyway because of past playoff games. I knew they were going to come into this series aggressive. But we just have to find a way to maintain these leads. When we are up we go cold, but when we get down we manage to trade baskets with them, which doesn't work against a team like this.
If the Spurs need a big man to camp out at the three point line, might as well use Blair. Or McDyess. Or Mahinimi. I'm pretty sure they could each go 0-4 too.
+1....Bonner & Blair on the court at the same time for long periods of time is just horrible. Surely Pop can mix and match TD or Dice with either one of Bonner and Blair can't he? Bonner just doesnt rebound the ball, and Blair (although a good rebounder) doesnt have the size and length inside sometimes to be able to man the paint all by himself.
When you look back at the Dallas series, Hill was hitting insane shots. We also pretty much had to rotate on only 2 good 3 point shooters (Kidd and Terry).
In these series everybody can shoot. JRich is unconscious. Then comes Frye and he's even more unconscious. Then Nash can stroke it too. The Dudley parks in the corner and nails it. Dragic is another guy you can't give him an inch. You look at stats, and we've played really solid games. If not for their 3 point ball, we take both games.
Suns were the team I wanted to avoid since before the playoffs started. I didn't like our matchup against this team at all. I don't feel this series is over though. If we end up defending home court and winning the next 2 games I feel we will win the series. Obviously if we drop one at home were done.
exactly
at least they would definitely rebound better
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