Burn the Tape

[Cessation]

No one is as good as the Spurs record. Not even the four hype machines.

I agree with the sentiment, though. This team needs to start playing better (it starts with changing the big rotation), otherwise they're due to come back to the pack a bit. I don't care how good a shooting team one is, no team is going to continue to shoot the lights out in close games. At some point, if they're to continue winning at a league leading clip, they'll have to win some games with defense.

Hill should be back next game. It's a sprained toe or whatever, not a broken leg. Pop needs to stop being overly cautious. Bryant had a litany of injuries last season, yet Jackson still ran him into the ground, despite the amount of mileage on his body and the fact that he was their best player. The end result? A championship.

Quinn has filled in admirably, but he's not a rotation caliber player and Udoka is barely a D-League caliber player at this point. They need more perimeter depth. They're barely winning games with Neal playing out of his mind. What happens if he's off one game?

Didn't read this.

[Dex]

timvp playing the wiseman, once again.

[jjktkk]

The Magic gave the Spurs a dose of their own medicine. The Magic fastbreaked the Spurs to death, rained down 3's on the Spurs. The one big difference was Howard's usual dominance in the paint. You could say, with the Magic's new look, that they are a better version of the Spurs. A derth of 3 point shooters and a dominant big man in Howard.

[TDMVPDPOY]

The Magic gave the Spurs a dose of their own medicine. The Magic fastbreaked the Spurs to death, rained down 3's on the Spurs. The one big difference was Howard's usual dominance in the paint. You could say, with the Magic's new look, that they are a better version of the Spurs. A derth of 3 point shooters and a dominant big man in Howard.

the new revamp magic look good on paper,

but this game first quarter the refs took our bigs out of the game....

[senorglory]

Stop making me look up all these goddamn acronyms!

i'm too lazy to look it up, what does it mean?

[TDfan2007]

I like it that the Spurs lost.

The Spurs are not as good as their record indicates and if they kept winning, then maybe they wouldn't have the sense of urgency that they need. They have won a lot of fluke games this season and no matter how "professional" they are, having the best record in the league can make you a little complacent.

So if they drop a few, then start to get more consistent, focused and relentless (not just the players but the coaching staff too), then it will pay dividends in the long run.

I'd love Hill to be back for the Lakers/Mavs though. We've seen good things from Neal/Quinn, but Hill and Anderson need to get back in the mix.

x 100000000

[PURO SAN ANTO 210!]

Pop thru in the flag at halftime wut a !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bruno]

6th game in 9 days, difficult b2b, on the road, against a great team that was really motivated... Burn The Tape seems to be a good idea.

Being 25-4 is damn great. Spurs are even lucky to have that record given that they are 6-0 in games decided by 1 or 2 points and games that went to OT.

[DxB]

I made a 100$ betting on the Magic and the Over tonight, so I'm good..this was the most predictable game of the year..so many gamblers were telling me to bet the under, as if I don't know my own team and their poor defense..

This loss doesn't mean anything for the standings, but it showed some of the problems we have been seeing lately..

I was thinking about doing this and now i regret the out of it!

Bout time I start gaining some monetary value from all this fkin spurstalk

[TJastal]

I made a 100$ betting on the Magic and the Over tonight, so I'm good..this was the most predictable game of the year..so many gamblers were telling me to bet the under, as if I don't know my own team and their poor defense..

This loss doesn't mean anything for the standings, but it showed some of the problems we have been seeing lately..

lol the traditional "harlem bets against the spurs and brags about it on ST" post

[benefactor]

Excuses.

Christmas has been ing ruined.

I'm sure you and your buddies can find a random Jew or black man to beat down to make you feel better.

[benefactor]

The OP basically echoes my sentiments in the game blog. It's better to avoid injuries and take the loss...especially with the Spurs having the kind of record they have.

[E-RockWill]

“You can only push so far, and teams are made up of people...."



It's made up of peeeeeeople!

Last night set the standard for the "Spurs gave up" game. That, combined w/ bulls-eye shooting from the Magic, made it rough to watch all 4 quarters.

At least nobody got hurt.

[ploto]

I just don't buy the got in at 3:00 AM excuse. Teams get in at 3:00 AM all the time. It is not like these guys have regular jobs where they still have to get up at 6:30 and go to work after getting in at 3:00. They can still sleep all they want. They are professionals and get paid a whole uva lot of money to play a game 82 times a year.

As for burning the tape, do you not think this game reveals some weaknesses that the Spurs need to work on? Was Dwight Howard a fluke?

[DieHardSpursFan1537]

With less than 24 hours of rest on the road against a desperate team, this had blowout written all over it. Pop obviously wasn't too interested in trying to grind out a win. As it turned out, the blowout works out well. Limited minutes in this game followed by two days of rest before playing the Wizards. With the schedule getting more difficult soon, getting a break now should pay off later.

Good luck to Orlando with their new-look squad.

Fly home.

Celebrate the holidays.

Rest up for another streak.

[LaMarcus Bryant]

I have a really bad feeling about the next streak of games.

And if we end up losing more games than winning in this stretch, it makes this team all the more hollower considering how we've barely been winning the past 4 or 5 wins.

Why the are the spurs the only team in the freaking league that consistently looks tired as on back-to-backs, even when some of the tired legs didn't even play much the night before???? So F'ing sick of that.

[SpursDynasty85]

The perimeter D without Hill is a disaster. I hope he's back soon

Agree. There is a major hole on the perimeter D with out Hill.

[Dex]

I just don't buy the got in at 3:00 AM excuse. Teams get in at 3:00 AM all the time. It is not like these guys have regular jobs where they still have to get up at 6:30 and go to work after getting in at 3:00. They can still sleep all they want. They are professionals and get paid a whole uva lot of money to play a game 82 times a year.

As for burning the tape, do you not think this game reveals some weaknesses that the Spurs need to work on? Was Dwight Howard a fluke?

I don't think you realize the toll 20-35 minutes of NBA basketball takes on the body.

Do you really think it's easy to play a highly athletic, compe ive game, then immediately turn around, commute to the airport, take a 4-5 hour flight across timezones, land at 3:30AM, probably get to your hotel and actually in bed around 4:30AM, then try to completely rest your body for another shootaround and game the next day?

Sure, it's not really an excuse because all teams have to deal with it through the season. But pretending like it shouldn't have any effect on the players is just silly.

[alchemist]

Orlando hit circus shots, wide open shots, contested shots...........the Spurs were not going to win it last night even if they had rest the previous night. It was one of those games that shouldn't make you lose sleep.

[SpursDynasty85]

They can still sleep all they want.

Are you sure they can sleep all they want? Of course I would personally want to sleep until 2pm too, but these guys are on a strict schedule so they can't mess up their sleep patterns too much I would think.

They are professionals and get paid a whole uva lot of money to play a game 82 times a year.

Sure, but an NbA game is equivalent to 5 fullcourt games we play at the Rec center tho. And they play 82 of these in a span of 6months not 12.

[The Truth #6]

Yeah, I'd have preferred a blowout to a grind out loss where they key guys are all in the 30s in minutes.

I'm not going to get into the performance, other than to say, if this coach is as serious about defense as he'd like to have everyone believe, then this has to be the end of the two worst defensive bigs on the team playing the second and third most minutes out of the bigs. You can preach defense all you want, if you're going to play poor defensive personnel, then the end result is going to continue to be shoddy defense. I have no idea how this team is ranked in the top 10 in efficiency (though they won't be after this performance).

Hill needs to play next game. It's a damn toe injury and this team needs his athleticism, ability to play heavy minutes and fill a variety of roles. They can't continue to win being as thin as they are on the perimeter, while trying to manage the starting perimeter trio's minutes.

On the TNT broadcast, Reggie Miller mentioned talking to Pop and how Tim is no longer the great defender he once was. I think that's obvious to everyone here. Of course Pop wants them to play good defense but he's realized that he should play to the strength of his offensive players. Isn't that why we have the record we do right now? I'd call it adapting and facing facts more than any sort of two-faced denial.

Tim got abused last night on defense. I'm not sure what Pop is going to do about that.

[kobyz]

i don't like it at all... i thought we stop with the of giving up games this year, with all that mindset, coming to a game like this not tough enough to win, with sense of give up because of excuses like b2b and practically accepting to get blowout.
this why we are not real contender team like Celtics, Lakers and even Mavs, those teams would have never came to game like this like we did, they would have came with sense of taking advantage of a team with 6 new player, team that not even a week together and that still does not used of playing together.

[BG_Spurs_Fan]

i don't like it at all... i thought we stop with the of giving up games this year, with all that mindset, coming to a game like this not tough enough to win, with sense of give up because of excuses like b2b and practically accepting to get blowout.
this why we are not real contender team like Celtics, Lakers and even Mavs, those teams would have never came to game like this like we did, they would have came with sense of taking advantage of a team with 6 new player, team that not even a week together and that still does not used of playing together.

You mean like the Lakers did with Milwaukee? Oh wait...

[maddnezz]

It's just the regular season...there are few, if any "statement" wins or losses. happens.

You R the only Laker fan that should be allowed to post here brah! Happy Holidays!

[kobyz]

You mean like the Lakers did with Milwaukee? Oh wait...

come on! that was totally somthing else, the Lakers lost to Milwaukee because they in bad stress in generally and not playing well period of time already, not because they gave up on the game and not fight like the Spurs!