Grades: Spurs vs. Clippers - Mar. 9

[ElNono]

In 2008, the Spurs almost lost to the Hornets in the playoffs because Pop tried to have Bowen defend CP3. It wasn't until he switched Parker onto CP3 and Bowen onto Stojakovic did the Spurs come back to win the series.

So if Bowen couldn't guard CP3, I'm not going to bet that Green can.

You're only telling half the story... The problem was that both CP3 and Peja were on fire. Spurs never really shut CP3 down that series, but Bowen ended up shutting down Peja and his 3 pointers which was pivotal in the series.

There's no doubt, however, that Tony makes Chris work more than any other Spur....

[Bruno]

While it's obvious that Parker has been an asset on the offensive end this season, he's actually been a bigger difference-maker on defense. When he's been on the court this season, the Spurs allow 91.1 points per 48 minutes. When Parker has been on the bench, the Spurs have allowed 102.7 points per 48 minutes. I'm not sure what the reason is for the huge disparity but let's hope San Antonio's All-Star point guard can return soon.

A reason is garbage time. With Parker playing a lot of minutes, a significant part of the few minutes where he isn't on the court is garbage time. Spurs are doing poorly defensively in garbage time.

Parker on the court: 1270 minutes, 2411 points allowed => 91.1 pts/48min
Parker off the court, garbage time: 163 minutes, 388 points allowed => 114.3 pts/48min
Parker off the court, meaningful time: 410 minutes, 823 points allowed => 96.4 pts/48min

Spurs are doing worse defensively when Parker is off he court but not by that much.

PS1: I haven't included the Clippers game because it was far from a traditional game where the backup PG has to play a relatively short stint against the other team backup PG.
PS2: I've decided the game is in garbage time when the big three is on the bench and never return playing.
PS3: The Mavs game that the bench almost won isn't included in garbage time stat.
PS4: The game thrown away at Portland is in the garbage time category. Even without it, Spurs are doing poorly defensively in garbage time with 104.8 points allowed by 48 minutes.

[TMTTRIO]

Manu's conditioning still looks like it needs a lot of work and he seemed to pull something again during a drive during the lane. He came back limping and trying to walk it off along with stretching during time outs. Fortunately he was still able to play. At this point I'll be happy if he can survive the rest of this season. We really missed Tony tonight. Hopefully he gets well soon. We need our MVP back quickly.

[TJastal]

Manu's conditioning still looks like it needs a lot of work and he seemed to pull something again during a drive during the lane. He came back limping and trying to walk it off along with stretching during time outs. Fortunately he was still able to play. At this point I'll be happy if he can survive the rest of this season. We really missed Tony tonight. Hopefully he gets well soon. We need our MVP back quickly.

Best bet at this point is to just let him settle back into his old 6th man role off the bench. By the time he works all out all the "kinks" it'll be too late to change up the lineup and settled rotations.

[quentin_compson]

Strange game. Hadn't it been for some crucial miscues on the offensive end in the deciding moments in the fourth quarter, the Spurs might have won the game - despite being atrociously bad on perimeter defense.

[wildbill2u]

When there are criticisms for defensive breakdowns I usually look for points in the paint, because its usually a case where a player gets beat and his man goes past him for a layup or a dish to a big under the basket for an easy score.

However, in this game the Spurs outscored the Clippers by 44-27 in the paint. Oho, sez I, let's see what happened and the stats in the box score tell the tale.

1. The Clippers played a PF, a SF and three PGs over THIRTY Minutes apiece. And two SF got 28 minutes. Center got 5. It was a SMall Ball night. And where did the points come from that really beat us? Well, Paul had his 36 including 9-9 FTs which shows he was beating his man and he shot 3-6 on 3s. He was big.

Foye, got only 15 but shot 3-7 on threes. Not so bad since he killed us last game.

So who was the culprit? Reserve PG guard Mo Williams who shot 12-19 for 33 pts but here's the killer stat: 7 for 9 in 3pt shots. That's 21 of his total of 33 points. The guy was obviously in a zone that helped them shoot over 50% in 3pts.

I followed the game on the game blog for a while and remember seeing comments like, "They're making crazy tough shots".

You know there are some games where the other team just shoots the ball so well that no matter what you do they light up the scoreboard. They shot over 51% on regular FG and almost 52% on 3s.

I suspect with the lack of foot speed we had in our smalls such as Kwahi, Ginobilli and Neal, Pop had them laying off a little bit and dared them to hit their 3s. They did. If they wind up shooting a normal team average of 30%-35% instead of 52% we win.

The Clippers coach matched his players to our weaknesses in this game and they won. Every game is different and unique if you have injuries and different matchups on the court. I can't get too excited about a 'year long defensive breakdown' based on the peculiar abnormal stats of this game.

[jag]

A reason is garbage time. With Parker playing a lot of minutes, a significant part of the few minutes where he isn't on the court is garbage time. Spurs are doing poorly defensively in garbage time.

Parker on the court: 1270 minutes, 2411 points allowed => 91.1 pts/48min
Parker off the court, garbage time: 163 minutes, 388 points allowed => 114.3 pts/48min
Parker off the court, meaningful time: 410 minutes, 823 points allowed => 96.4 pts/48min

Spurs are doing worse defensively when Parker is off he court but not by that much.

PS1: I haven't included the Clippers game because it was far from a traditional game where the backup PG has to play a relatively short stint against the other team backup PG.
PS2: I've decided the game is in garbage time when the big three is on the bench and never return playing.
PS3: The Mavs game that the bench almost won isn't included in garbage time stat.
PS4: The game thrown away at Portland is in the garbage time category. Even without it, Spurs are doing poorly defensively in garbage time with 104.8 points allowed by 48 minutes.

Bruno is such an animal with the stats. Good stuff

[DMC]

Chris Paul found his spot in the paint and after he would get his defender on his back, just moved up there and put the shot up. Tony does the same thing but at a much quicker pace. We could have stopped that, but we had to contend with other issues that were killing us at the same time.

I thought what did it for us was Caron Butler's production in the 1st. He was allowed wide open looks from his spot over and over.

Basically though, if the entire team is hitting on all cylinders as they were, it's going to be hard to not be blown out. We at least managed to compete.

[ChumpDumper]

Tell me I wasn't right on the mark about that game... it has had a very negative ulative effect, especially on our younger players. Since then a number of players have seemingly picked up bad habits, lazy defense, and poor execution.

You aren't right on the mark.

You're delusional and imagine the approval of others.

[timvp]

Sure, Tim missed his freethrows, but he got himself to the line making the right moves.

I didn't mind the missed free throws but Duncan let the misses effect the way he played. It reminded me of Game 4 against the Suns in 2007, tbh.

As far as Manu's grade, if you pre-condition your grade for Neal because you already know he's a liability, you have to take into consideration that Manu is still out of shape (something you pointed out).

Ginobili is the second or third best defender on the team, though. Even since his return, he has been playing pretty good defense -- most notably in my mind vs. Arron Afflalo. I've pointed out Ginobili's better than expected defense so it wouldn't be fair to look past him playing the worst defense on the team.

I thought he actually tried to be a bit more active at the end (he challenged that second 3 that Mo made anyways) and went for a couple of steals at the end (which he didn't get) that Spurs needed to have a chance.

Tbh, if you are talking about Mo Williams' seventh three-pointer, that was some of Ginobili's worst defense of the night. He sagged into no-man's land and then didn't recover against a shooter that was so much on fire and had just hit a three? Unacceptable.

The steal attempts at the end were nice but it was too little, too late.

[TJastal]

You aren't right on the mark.

You're delusional and imagine the approval of others.

I've yet to hear a better explanation of why the spurs suddenly went from a 11 game winning streak to dropping 4 of the next 7, starting with that loss to the blazers.

Or perhaps I am imagining that too.

[timvp]

I dont get why Tim played 29 minutes. He had it going in the 1st. He sat more than half the 2nd quarter. They're off the next 2 days. I get the whole big picture crap, but come on. He was playing so well, why not give him 34-36 mins? NO reason why he had 12 points in the 1st and end up with only 17. He was attacking and looked very spry.

Yeah, it was definitely a bit strange for Pop to go away from Duncan in this game. He's played him some big minutes before this season and this seemed like a good time to play him more .. especially since the Spurs have two days off. On top of that, Pop hardly called any plays for Duncan even though the high-low sets were working so well in the first half.

Strange usage of Duncan for sure.

[timvp]

Yep they kept on shooting and never missed.


You cant blame anyone tbh.

Pop with an account? Welcome to ST

[timvp]

Manu's conditioning still looks like it needs a lot of work and he seemed to pull something again during a drive during the lane. He came back limping and trying to walk it off along with stretching during time outs. Fortunately he was still able to play.

Yeah, Manu twisted his ankle during one of his first drives to the basket. It didn't seem to hurt him offensively but perhaps it could have played a role why he was so immobile on defense.

[timvp]

A reason is garbage time. With Parker playing a lot of minutes, a significant part of the few minutes where he isn't on the court is garbage time. Spurs are doing poorly defensively in garbage time.

Parker on the court: 1270 minutes, 2411 points allowed => 91.1 pts/48min
Parker off the court, garbage time: 163 minutes, 388 points allowed => 114.3 pts/48min
Parker off the court, meaningful time: 410 minutes, 823 points allowed => 96.4 pts/48min

Spurs are doing worse defensively when Parker is off he court but not by that much.

PS1: I haven't included the Clippers game because it was far from a traditional game where the backup PG has to play a relatively short stint against the other team backup PG.
PS2: I've decided the game is in garbage time when the big three is on the bench and never return playing.
PS3: The Mavs game that the bench almost won isn't included in garbage time stat.
PS4: The game thrown away at Portland is in the garbage time category. Even without it, Spurs are doing poorly defensively in garbage time with 104.8 points allowed by 48 minutes.

Good stat-work

How many of those 410 minutes had Cory Joseph on the court? With as bad as CJ is, you might as well call those minutes garbage minutes as well.

After taking out those minutes as well, I might have to apologize for saying Parker is a difference-maker on defense, tbh.

[Blake]

I also thought he waited way too long to bring Duncan back in the 4th quarter. Manu tied the game with 5 mins to go, and Tim was still on the bench. Only after Mo Williams drained his back to back 3s he was brought in with 4 mins to go.

^

[Paranoid Pop]

Good stat-work

How many of those 410 minutes had Cory Joseph on the court? With as bad as CJ is, you might as well call those minutes garbage minutes as well.

After taking out those minutes as well, I might have to apologize for saying Parker is a difference-maker on defense, tbh.

Lol he refuses to acknowledge that the two biggest blowouts of the season fueled by the opposing PGs have something to do with Parker defensive impact, I don't see how that prove anything.

[Bruno]

How many of those 410 minutes had Cory Joseph on the court? With as bad as CJ is, you might as well call those minutes garbage minutes as well.

I don't know but it shouldn't be a lot of minutes. I'm not that interested in doing the stat work for that because I don't really consider Joseph as a worst defender than Neal or Ford.

[Bruno]

Lol he refuses to acknowledge that the two biggest blowouts of the season fueled by the opposing PGs have something to do with Parker defensive impact, I don't see how that prove anything.

Parker is Spurs best defensive PG by far.

timvp stat showed that Spurs were horrible defensively when Parker wasn't on the court. The point of my stat was that, in a normal situation, that is to say outside garbage time and games without Parker, Spurs were bad but not horrible defensively without Parker.

[DMC]

So Timvp grades players on individual curves as opposed to one overall curve (team play).

I would grade Manu higher. Coming off an extended down period where he was only back a few games before going out again, he's brought energy that many other players would not, and he certainly has the excuse to be sloppy and tired but he's full speed all the time.

I couldn't grade him below a B. If shots made vs shots missed doesn't mean anything, then we should only look at his effort given his ability. Right now his ability isn't as high as it was at the beginning of the season, but he finds ways to contribute just the same, unlike RJ who seems to have gotten a similar grade.

I would never have RJ above a C even on his best night. Grading him on a curve is bailing him out. He should be playing as well as anyone, he's not been injured and sees a lot of minutes. He's young enough and has the ability to affect the game if he wasn't such a sorry piece of overpaid .

Also, even though I understand the timeliness, I wouldn't grade them on the same night they play because win/loss emotions come into play and that has to affect the grading.

[kaji157]

It´s time Spurstalk members, let´s takes Bonner matter into our hands.
We have to found this guy and tell him to blow his knees.

[ElNono]

I didn't mind the missed free throws but Duncan let the misses effect the way he played. It reminded me of Game 4 against the Suns in 2007, tbh.

You probably mean affect, but in which way? I thought he got what he wanted out there. He got himself to the line and helped their bigs be non-factors. I mean, I understand he's out top defender, but we got murdered pretty much from the perimeter.

Ginobili is the second or third best defender on the team, though. Even since his return, he has been playing pretty good defense -- most notably in my mind vs. Arron Afflalo. I've pointed out Ginobili's better than expected defense so it wouldn't be fair to look past him playing the worst defense on the team.

He might be the second or third best defender when he's in shape. Against Denver, he only had to pretty much play one side of the court only (took a grand total of 5 shots).

Tbh, if you are talking about Mo Williams' seventh three-pointer, that was some of Ginobili's worst defense of the night. He sagged into no-man's land and then didn't recover against a shooter that was so much on fire and had just hit a three? Unacceptable.

Meh, he was ready to help Green against CP3 because Chris was walking to the top of the key almost at will. He also got screened by Griffin. I thought he was a little late to contest, but it wasn't for lack of trying. If you want to point out awful last night, there was a 3 pointer in the 2nd quarter from Foye (who missed it) he didn't even bother to close out. That was bad, but I thought he picked it up in the last quarter.

The steal attempts at the end were nice but it was too little, too late.

They were a gamble to turn around the momentum of the game. Just didn't pan out.

[timvp]

he certainly has the excuse to be sloppy and tired but he's full speed all the time.

I graded him higher than his production due to that being true his first few games after his returns from injury. But there's no way he was "full speed" on the defensive end last night.

we should only look at his effort given his ability. Right now his ability isn't as high as it was at the beginning of the season, but he finds ways to contribute just the same

Last night, Ginobili concentrated on the offensive end. And he had great results on that end. Perhaps he thought that was the way to go since the Spurs were without Parker and he had limited energy to work with due to not being in shape.

However, either way, the strategy didn't work. While he supercharged the offense, he more than gave it back on the defensive end.

Looking at the plus/minus of the guards, the numbers back that up:

Points Per 48 Minutes
Ginobili: 115.2
Neal: 101.7
Green: 97.8

Points Allowed Per 48 Minutes
Ginobili: 137.6
Neal: 117.4
Green: 109.6




Again, Ginobili is usually one of the best defenders on the team -- and that's usually remained the case since his returns from injuries -- but he deserves to get called out for a rare horrific defensive performance. Ginobili is almost always a net asset no matter the scenario but anyone being honest will say that was untrue against the Clippers.

[ElNono]

Last night was definitely his first game where he actually had to produce at a high rate on both ends. I would agree he came up short, and mostly on the defensive end. I just disagree it's a C+ overall.

[timvp]

Last night was definitely his first game where he actually had to produce at a high rate on both ends. I would agree he came up short, and mostly on the defensive end. I just disagree it's a C+ overall.

Damn bro, Manu's first grade below B of the season (IIRC) has you in rare form

There's not much more I can say if the Spurs getting lit up to the tune of 80 points in less than 28 minutes of action shouldn't knock Manu down from a B+ or A or whatever it is you think he deserved. Especially when it was players he was defending and the aspect of the defense he's most responsible for (perimeter defense) causing most of the damage.

If we are going to ignore Manu's shortcoming on defense last night, we might as well never criticize what he does on defense again because whatever he does in the future will look great compared to last night.