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Nuggets?
A couple weeks ago with RJ, I'm not sure the Spurs could gut out this type of win. The Spurs would have given up 95+ points to a depleted Hornets team like this a couple weeks ago. At the least the D is looking a little better, slowly but surely...
Nuggets?
, and Kawhi is debatable. Anderson has been finishing at the rim pretty damn good lately being agressive, and using his athleticism now.
I would think the fact that Blair never closes games is probably evidence enough.Because all the Spurs experts on this messageboard say he's worthless so they must be right.....
Seriously, how much time does he ever log in the 4th quarter?
JA is not athletic. JA doesn't have a clue when to and when not to attack the paint. There could be five people in the paint and he'll still think it's a good idea. Also I don't think he has much of a clue what to do when he gets there. Imo, a few of his finishes were luck. Even if he continues to get playing time I don't expect it to continue.
Hornets, of course.
I blame the quality of his feed. I really do.
Anyway, thanks for the grades timvp. You're the best.
He had a solid game. I guarantee that James' rebirth has not gone unnoticed around the league, It is just to bad it is so late in the season. I bet plenty of teams are looking at him for next seasons roster.
JA was never considered a guy to attack the basket much in college. He was pretty much a off the ball screen shooter(which Spurs don't run), and a spot up shooter, or he would shoot off the dribble. His ball handling has improved a bit lately to gain more confidence to getting the basket, he has done a great job slashing which most of his points come from, his passing has been great, and defense has been good. Of course he probably won't get any playing time in the playoffs because of the depth at the wing positions.
Kawhi Leonard C-
The rookie had one of his most rookie-ish games of the season. Kawhi Leonard lacked a bit of explosion around the basket, which led to his poor field goal percentage. However, Leonard kept battling on offense and never got passive despite his struggles. Defensively, I thought he was much worse. The Hornets ran him around a ton of screens and Leonard wasn't keeping up. To be a successful defensive player long-term, he's going to have to get much better at navigating around picks. Even in isolation situations against the Hornets, the rookie was sub par.
This is what a lot of teams will try to do in order to beat his defense. He will have to learn how to get around the screens in order to be the defensive threat Bruce was. Most of the time, he did a good job of rubbing off the screener to continue to defend. It is only the few times he fail, that you point out.
Matt Bonner C+
Against bad teams, the Spurs rely on Matt Bonner to find open spaces to make the opposition pay for sagging into the paint. This game, Bonner just wasn't able to do that. He wasn't moving crisply (to be fair, it appeared as if his back was bothering him) and he was slow to pop to open spots after setting picks. As a result, Bonner was basically a non-factor on the offensive end. Defensively, I thought he was mostly good. He was a tad slow to rotate at times but he was physical in the paint and pulled down a few contested boards.
For Bonner, he was doing his job. If you had watched closely, you would have seen the Hornets were not giving him space on offense after he dropped the first 3 he took. His defense over the last 10 or so games has stepped up. He is standing his ground and fighting for space as well as blocking out on the boards.
The biggest problem the Spurs had tonight was the 3 ball not dropping. After the early misses NO was leaving the 3 pt shooters and packing in the paint. This worked 2 ways for them.. Timmy was rendered ineffective for most of the game and stopped the drives by our guards. Tony finally got his drive going late and that is what opened up Timmy. The Hornets coach is a Spur disciple, he chose Blair to be the player who he was going to let beat him tonight and took on the rest of the team head on.
Could the solution be any more obvious?
Could Diaw defend true PF, such as Zach Randolph?
Dude, there was a time when Popovich would play Speedy Claxton over Tony Parker in the 4th qtrs...did that mean Claxton was a better player than Parker too?
Pop wanted to trade TP that summer tho if I'm not mistaken.
That's because he doesn't have confidence in his stroke. He's our SG with the highest ceiling and I hope we stick with him.
How many times has Anderson dunked the ball? I think you're going a bit far with this. He hasn't had many dunks at all. Layups aren't dunks lol.
Well, that was one ugly game, but given the cir stances (Spurs missing important players and being b2b, Hornets not having much talent to begin with and missing players as well), that somehow was to be expected. If the Spurs had been even close to their normal three-point shooting, I guess they could have blown the game open somewhere along the way. But anyhow, that was definitely one of the better ugly wins you can have.
Amazing how much more of an impact that Stephen Jackson has in a C+ game than RJ did even in his occasional A-B games. Can't credit the FO enough for that trade.
Wow. Ugly grades! Good win though
Im sure this wont change many minds about Blair but I like the guy and think he's damn sure a good team player capable of extremely good games. I hope we keep him around.
Two games in a row, Leonard has gotten a block/steal and a basket when the game was really close that turned around the momentum for the Spurs. Those kinds of four point plays are huge in close games.
I love these type of games from Blair. All of the Spur fan kingdom knows its fools gold, but it can only increase his trade value for the summer to some unsuspecting GM.....20 point game from Dejuan Blair? ... this guy sucks, trade him.......Eric Dawson is waaaay better right? There's gotta be much better available..
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