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After the Phoenix Suns game, Spurs have jumped up two places to 24th position with Opp FG% dropping to 45.71%, very few decimal points behind Golden State and Milwaukee.. Progress on....
the problem is parker, i dont care if he puts up monster numbers, when the opposing pg puts up his season avgs or have a career day against him....
doesnt help when you have ty rotation of players who dont play a lick of defense all on the court at the same time...
dont blame duncan, splitter...they hold there own against the bigs so far...
After the Phoenix Suns game, Spurs have jumped up two places to 24th position with Opp FG% dropping to 45.71%, very few decimal points behind Golden State and Milwaukee.. Progress on....
we still suck on defense
why pop chooses to play splitter only 12 min a game when he is so effective is beyond me.
idk if the front office has a big trade planned and want to increase the value of some other players, but at this point i see no freaking reason why splitter plays so little. it's not about fragility, skills, etc. it just pop. i am sure he has his reasons, but for me looking from outside in, this is mind boggling.
the defensive big u guys talkin about always wanting was dice, look how it did last season when he was either paired with blair or bonner on the court, it was fkn fail...not mainly due to him, but the other 2 clowns
He's playing over 20 minutes per game.
you're right - i was talking about today's game; he finished with 17 mins, but had only 12 late in the 3rd.
Regardless of the situation, if the Spurs want to improve, Tiago must find more minutes.
In the three games since Milwaukee, they've held opponents to 41.7%. Good in and of itself, plus they held each of those teams well under their averages.
I'm sort of hoping that those first 9 games are just a bad memory, and we can start measuring the Spurs defensive prowess from that point forward. They have a starting five that seems to be working, Tiago is anchoring the second unit solidly, and some of the young guys are playing better defense for stretches. Plus I'm sure they all got a good ass-chewing from Pop.
We'll know after a few road games, but I'm hopeful that Milwaukee was the low-water mark for the Spurs' defense, and the first 9 games are just something to drag down the averages for the rest of the season.
Yes he is.
I agree. Get another defensive big and start Tiago. Tiago has shown the best ability to defend tall and athletic big men. The Spurs made Gortat look like Dwight Howard. The game should not have even been close.
24writer 24writer
With Leonard a starter through 3 games, the #Spurs' defense is holding their opponents to 89.66 points per game. The offense is scoring 101
Good to see the D slowly getting better.. but people shouldnt expect too much unless personnel moves are made.. unfortunately any team who is playing Blair and Bonner a combined 45-50 minutes a night at the 4/5 spot is never going to be anything more than average to ok on D.. thats pretty much the ceiling.. unless you have a prime Tim Duncan or Dwight Howard at the 5 who can erase anything withing 8 feet of the basket which the Spurs obviously dont.
If Thomas doesnt amount to anything ..i would trade anyone outside of the Big 3, Kawhi and Splitter to try and find a bench level big who can play some D and block a shot or two. Then you can move Tiago to the starting lineup so the team can reach its potential on D.
Good to see that Kawhi is making a difference on the defensive end. Here are some stats that support that. These are opponents fg % ever since Manu was out with his injury:
I'm interested to see how this translates on the road.Code:.462 .351 .568 .507 .518 .427 KL .405 KL .418 KL *KL is Leonard inserted into the starting lineup
And the Spurs are up to 18th in points allowed per 100 possessions at 101.2.
That's eight spots better in three games. Good work so far
The Lakers and Mavs will see an improvement in their defensive stats after that brickfest tonight...
The opponents field goal percentage is back up to 46.6% after last night's ugliness against the Heat. That is 27th in the league.
The points allowed per 100 possessions is 103.4, tied for 22nd.
Well, looks like tonight we gotta get back up into the top 18 for points allowed....unless we get Ryan Anderson'd
I don't see playoffs in the picture playing like that, but just as well this season is a compressed short one.
If they are lottery bound then lets hope for some luck getting a high pick.
The elephant in the room is still the Spurs' interior defense. LeBron finished with 33 points. You expect LeBron to get his points. You can survive LeBron getting 33 points. (Although it helps to hold him to less than the 57% he shot last night.) The real killer was giving up 30 to Bosh, and letting him shoot 64%. In the first half, when the Spurs were "in control", Bosh scored 18.
In the first quarter, the Heat's scoring reads a lot like: Chalmers 3P made, Bosh Jumper made, Battier 3P made, Bosh FT, James FT, Cole jumper made.
By the end of the second quarter, their scoring read exactly like: Bosh running dunk made, James driving layup made, Bosh driving dunk made, Bosh Layup made, James driving layup made (directly from the play-by-play). Even before the runaway 3rd, the Heat were exploiting the Spurs in the middle.
I know leaving Miller wide open to go 6-6 from 3P was ugly, but that was a result of him playing against a second team reeling from a train wreck. I wonder how many people realize that Miller didn't make his first 3-pointer until the :31 mark of the 3rd quarter? By that time, the Heat had already pulled off a 26-point reversal, and the game was effectively over (14 point deficit to 12 point lead). If Miller had gone 0-5 in the fourth, instead of 5-5, the Spurs still lose that game.
If I remember right, the Spurs "held" the Heat to a FG% of about .475 in the first half. Not exactly lockdown defense, but reasonable. (About the same thing the Spurs shot for the entire game.) But the 14 point lead the Spurs held at halftime had a lot to do with them opening the game 13-16 from the floor. They didn't out-defend the Heat in the first half, they just out-shot them.
In the second half the Heat shot something like 75% from the floor. No surprise to anyone who watched the game. I've already made the case that it was the Heat's defense that led to great shots on the other end, and I'm sticking to it. I still think the interior defense added to the problem, but it's a lot harder to isolate that when the whole game is out of control.
Even though the Spurs were up by 14 at the half, did anyone get the feeling that the game was far from over? If you did, it's probably because you picked up on the fact that the Spurs were getting their asses kicked in the middle.
I love Kawhi's defense but three games is not an appropriate sample size. Our defense as a collective needs to get better and all this talk about it improving is just feels like propaganda. We outscore our opponent that is how we win. It used to be we tried to shut them down. There is just a general mentality change. I would much rather have a lockdown defender who is offensively challenged (Luc Mbah a Moute) than Anderson, Bonner, or maybe even Blair. I know he duplicates Kawhi in some sense but we need people who seriously care about stopping rather than scoring.
I know exactly what you mean.
And unfortunately I don't see an end to this trend this season, very similar to last season in fact i.e. fools gold defense due to lack of defensive presence in the middle.
And I seriously doubt the FO can do anything about it trade wise without wrecking havoc with the better parts of the teams' assets.
Unfortunately then the only way is through the draft and especially this years coming draft which is stacked with some intriguing excellent bigs.
But they will have to flirt with the lottery to get one.
And with Manu and TJ hurt that may be a valid consequence.
While it's clear that the defense got worse with time, I find it interesting to see
where and when the defense has declined:
Opponents PG eFG% :
04-05: .436
05-06: .451
06-07: .473
07-08: .478
08-09: .467
09-10: .458
10-11: .467
11-12: .469
- The drop between 04-05 and 05-06 is fully because of the backup PG situation. Spurs went from Udrih to NVE and NVE was awful defensively.
- The drop between 05-06 and 06-07 is because of the loss of paint defense. With Rasho and Nazr gone, Spurs have lost a lot in that area.
Opponents wings (SG/SF) eFG% :
04-05: .448
05-06: .444
06-07: .470
07-08: .479
08-09: .495
09-10: .481
10-11: .483
11-12: .493
- The huge drop is between 05-06 and 06-07 and is once again because of the loss of Rasho and Nazr. Bowen decline hasn't helped too.
- The bad year in 08-09 was because of too much Mason and Finley.
Opponents bigs (PF/C) eFG% :
04-05: .464
05-06: .473
06-07: .473
07-08: .474
08-09: .489
09-10: .498
10-11: .513
11-12: .539
- There isn't a drop due to the loss of Rasho and Nazr. It can be explained by players like Oberto and Horry being soled man to man defenders.
- The consistent free fall between 07-08 and 11-12 is because Horry and Oberto were old and have been remplaced by bad defenders with Blair and Bonner. This free fall is also because Duncan is declining.
To conclude:
Spurs going away from Duncan at PF with a big center like Rasho or Nazr has had a huge impact defensively. If you look at other defensive stats, it hasn't been all bad but what is clear is that during the 06 summer, after the loss against Dallas, Spurs have changed their defensive philosophy.
The main reason why Spurs are bad since a couple of years is because their bigmen are awful defensively. In addition of providing little paint presence, they got destroyed by their opponents. This year, t doesn't help to have some new inexperienced faces on the perimeter but the key of the problem is at PF/C. Stats confirm the obvious.
Awesome post Bruno.
Do you think the Spurs will be forced to make a move by the deadline? I mean, they can't expect to roll with the current 4 bigs they have.
Like you said the Spurs were best defensively when they had Duncan and another real big at PF/C. Not the undersized guys they've been playing there. Even Dice was much better defensively than Bonner/Blair. Now the Spurs have a chance to go back to two real bigs with Splitter/TD and they're not taking enough advantage of it.
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