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Quality thread.
against the likes of Memphis and the Lakers? I'm still worried he relies too much on the turd towers.
Quality thread.
Hopefully he makes the adjustment before game 3/4 of the series. He's been getting slower to adjust the last couple of series. It took him until game 3 of the Suns series in '10 to start Parker. It took him until game 4 of the Grizzlies series last year to play Tiago. We'll probably have to wait to game 5 next time.
No. Bonner an Green will get more mins than Jackson, Diaw, an Splitter in the playoffs. I bet that.
You're an idiot if you think Pop has any sort of love affair with Blair. He never plays him any crunch time minutes.
That said, to answer the OPs question: no. All I have to go off of is history and history says Bonner will get way too many minutes and Splitter will continue getting too little.
I have to admit, although I think the Spurs finally have enough to win it all this is exactly why I'm nervous. Tim & Tiago need to be playing the majority of the big minutes simply because I don't think the team will go far trying to outscore opponents.
Defense first, Inside-out, etc. I'm fine with losing as long as it's done the right way.
I also think that those two have been looking better when playing together despite the limited minutes.
Based on recent history and Pop's love of small ball, however, I'm just not fully convinced. He'll need to rework his rotation and make adjustments in game. Where the bigs are concerned I'm not feeling very confident right now. I'd love to be wrong.
This year yes. When the matchups have dictated it he's played Duncan and splitter. IE the game against Orlando Splitter was the first big. Diaw though might reduce ole TFW to his rightful 10-15 mins
Well this the the 64,000 dollar question, isn't it?against the likes of Memphis and the Lakers? I'm still worried he relies too much on the turd towers.
I said before and I stand by it;
Can the Spurs win a le --in spite-- of Pop?
Wish I could say yes...but I fear Pop will be the biggest obstacle for the Spurs to clear.
Would love to be wrong also...but the proof is in the last few seasons....2008,2009,2010 & 2011.
2011 was pretty much the last time I gave Pop the benefit of the doubt, as everyone here just seemed to think that-in the playoffs-Pop would magically and suddenly reverse Bonner and Tiago's playing time....
but Pop waited til it was too late...and he seems to be doing the exact same thing this year...the worst part is not allowing TD & Splitter to develop chemistry all season long ...and now (IF Pop ever pairs them in the playoffs) may already be too late to make the TD/Splitter tandem pay dividends.
Lakers got swept by a jumpshooting team, playing zone D, that included a midget terrorizing their entire frontcourt. And this season they got worse.
So, yeah, it's a concern against Memphis...
That's the problem right there.
I never thought I'd say this but Pop needs to take a page from Mike Brown and Phil Jackson.
Gasol and Bynum are both centers at this stage and they also happen to be two of the best players on that team. You don't see the Lakers playing one or the other off the bench because the other team is undersized or quicker. Instead they punish opponents for not having the personnel to match up with them.
It doesn't matter who they're playing. They. Don't. Care.
They just play their best players and let the rest of the league lose sleep figuring out how to handle their basically unstoppable frontcourt (two players who, ironically, are often limited by their own teammate as opposed to the other team's defense). Thankfully, the Spurs don't have that problem.
I've had enough of this "matching up to the other team" mentality. When all is said and done, talent matters in the play-offs. Tiago is one of the team's best players and I don't think we've seen what he's fully capable of. Besides, Pop *has* to know that last year he had no choice but to lean on the Splitter/Duncan line-up when things got real and he'll likely have to do so again.
He needs to stop reacting all the time and take a more proactive approach. Put together a system that maximizes the collective strengths of your best players, make adjustments where necessary, and let the chips fall where they will. If that means changing his rotations and drawing up something different altogether, he needs to do that. Dictate the match-ups and the tempo and you will often control the game. It's very simple.
Yep.
Makes you wonder if the signing of Buckets/shipping of Pop Pet #2 RJ had nothing to do with Popped and Bumford. Perhaps Holt really has had enough and intervened.
Pop played Duncan and Splitter together a grand total of four minutes in the two games against the Magic. On the season, Duncan and Splitter have played together for 112 minutes -- that's 2.7 minutes per game.
There's zero evidence that Pop is comfortable playing Duncan and Splitter together. In fact, there's a lot of evidence that he doesn't like that pairing.
Let's see how Pop plays his cards. The argument before was that the Turd towers were too bad to play together. Now he has another quality big in Diaw he should be able to play TD and Splitter and minimize the Turd towers. But it's going to require him to cut Bonner and Blair's minutes.
Here's his problem with playing both at the same time. What do you do when both need a blow? You want to play a lineup of Blair, Bonner for extended minutes together without one of either Tim or Tiago? I don't think so.
With Diaw in the fold that shouldn't be an issue. The guy started at center for successful Suns teams.
Bynum has defiantly improved & gotten more touches this year and Ramon Sessions defiantly makes them a better team this year, don't be ignorant. If Kobe doesn't go Chucker McGee then we're in trouble.
And Memphis is defiantly worse this year they lack Arthur, Battier & Vasquez;the guys who were pretty much the difference in 2 of the 3 games they won in the PO's against us.
True that Splitter and TD have barely played together this season. I (along with the general consensus of ST) hope that this is to avoid the Blair/Bonner Frontcourt, which has been a terrible pairing. Avoiding that has been a good policy. Though, I fear some actual dislike for Splitter/Duncan as a pair.
Speights allows them to replace Arthur. Vasquez was a rookie playing over his head that was helped by Parker not playing his best. Battier is probably the guy they miss the most but at the same time they now have Gay's scoring.
Yes.
Speights isn't crazy athletic like Arthur, Arthur's athleticism killed us, in the games I've seen the Spurs against the Grizzlies with Speights I've not been impressed and the Grizzlies don't seem to be the same team defensively that they were without Gay. Also Kawhi really bothers Rudy, all in all the Grizzlies aren't that good like they were last year.
LJ, although 112 minutes is a small sample size, the results on the floor have been far from convincing. Mixed results.
Of course...that is precisely why time is running out...they absolutely NEED to develop a chemistry...
You cannot teach size and Splitter is bigger and quicker than Bonner and Blair...
Duncan and Tiago are significantly better with Bonner on the court because it allows them the freedom/space to do their thing. They're a terrible offensive match, but they have alot of promise defensively. The fact is though, there are barely any teams in the league where we need two defensive 7 footers. At this point in their existence, the combo doesn't do enough offensively to make opponents adjust. If this were a standard season with plenty of practice time/more training camp, I'm sure we would've seen more of them by now.
Uh? They got worse. They lost LO who was a legitimate 6th man while playing there, lost a 11 time champion coach, filled up the bench with a bunch of soft/ ty guys. Their bench right now is Blake-McBob-Barnes-Murphy.
Phil Jackson and Fisher aren't there anymore. When Kobe decides to go hero mode, who's going to call him out on it?
Bynum is clearly the best player on that team, but unless that gets established (and it likely won't until Kobe is gone), they're a beatable team.
Well, the topic here is bigs and they've the same bigs this season. I do agree they might be worse on the perimeter and you have to think if Rudy Gay makes them better or worse.
There it is.That's the problem right there.
I never thought I'd say this but Pop needs to take a page from Mike Brown and Phil Jackson.
Gasol and Bynum are both centers at this stage and they also happen to be two of the best players on that team. You don't see the Lakers playing one or the other off the bench because the other team is undersized or quicker. Instead they punish opponents for not having the personnel to match up with them.
It doesn't matter who they're playing. They. Don't. Care.
They just play their best players and let the rest of the league lose sleep figuring out how to handle their basically unstoppable frontcourt (two players who, ironically, are often limited by their own teammate as opposed to the other team's defense
I've had enough of this "matching up to the other team" mentality. When all is said and done, talent matters in the play-offs. Tiago is one of the team's best players and I don't think we've seen what he's fully capable of. Besides, Pop *has* to know that last year he had no choice but to lean on the Splitter/Duncan line-up when things got real and he'll likely have to do so again.
He needs to stop reacting all the time and take a more proactive approach. Put together a system that maximizes the collective strengths of your best players, make adjustments where necessary, and let the chips fall where they will. If that means changing his rotations and drawing up something different altogether, he needs to do that. Dictate the match-ups and the tempo and you will often control the game. It's very simple.
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