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Bonner's guy was the one everybody else was sagging off their own men to help against. Of course he'll probably look good in that respect.
Bonner's guy was the one everybody else was sagging off their own men to help against. Of course he'll probably look good in that respect.
This.
Tim's minutes will significantly increase in the Playoffs, the Spurs cannot afford for Splitter's minutes to also significantly decrease. Timmy got 35mpg last year against Memphis and his minutes will practically be the same this postseason. Playing Splitter only 13mpg rather than the minutes he deserves such as a more reasonable 25mpg (or more) will be a killer for us when we need defense int he 4th quarter of games and against bigger teams such as LAL or MEM.
Great response " got" Cant dispute the post so you call me a name.
If you understood basketball, you would know why Pop doesnt play Tim/Tiago together. They play different styles of basketball. Having them on the court together results in a better defense but far worse offense as they get in each others way. Also, we have not been deep in the front court in years. We have depended on Duncan to carry the load. When the season started we had 4 bigs. Pop has used them to the advantage of the TEAM. Not to individuals. Everyone points out Tim/Tiago great defense, but Blair/Bonner cant happen. How do you prevent it from happening? Ok play Tiago and Tim 38 to 40 mins a game and see what they have left in the playoffs. You will wear them out completely. I'm not defending Bonner not being great in the playoffs, I just saying he is blamed by so many. Timmy had an ankle sprain 2 weeks before the playoffs and had a poor playoff run. Manu broke his arm in last game of the year. We were at a disadvantage from the start. Manu breaks his hand this season early, we go on winning night after night without him. Who took up the slack? TP, TD and a host of bench players including Bonner.
Blind Bonner haters just say he is the problem. I say it is a team thing. If Bonner scores 20 and Timmy, Manu or Tony has 22, the glory goes to them and Bonner gets one line on here saying he missed a defensive assignment. That is the problem, too many armchair coaches spouting off and not watching the game.
Nothing to dispute, tbh. Just a bunch of gy nonsense. That's why you got called a got, got.
Very sorry, but you have obviously not watched the Spurs play at all the last several years. Get back to me when you actually see a few games. If you feel like wanking with stats to try to prove your points, go find someone else to make the case to.
LOL.
Very sorry, but you have obviously not watched the Spurs play at all the last several years. Get back to me when you actually see a few games. If you feel like wanking with stats to try to prove your points, go find someone else to make the case to.
"Your honor, if you can't tell my client is innocent just by looking at him, then I don't know what to tell you. It's pretty obvious."
BEST. LAWYER. EVER.
Here's some free advice. Next time you want to make some stupid, baseless generalities about the Spurs, just replaced the words "Matt Bonner" with "DeJuan Blair" and you'll probably have a lot better chance of being closer to the truth, as long as you're not talking about superficial things like race or appearance and are actually referring to things that happen on a basketball floor.
lololllllololol people really still think tim/tiago cant play together
tim has a mid range game
weve seen
tim/blair
tiago/blair
tiago is light years ahead of blair and duncan has no problems playing with that black hole
pop doesnt even have a problem playing tiago with blair who have the same game
but he refuses to put tiago/tim together for at least 5 minutes a game
pop has lost it
theres no other explanation
i couldnt believe it when we played sacremento
they brought out their midget center and pop countered by bringing out our fat midget center
didnt even bring out tiago or tim to score at will vs him
even more lol at people who think pop is trying to hide splitter or stop him from getting injuries
playing sporadic minutes is how injuries happen, if his minutes were consistent he would be use to playing and wouldnt have to stop and go so much
he also got injured because griffin jumped on him, not because hes injury prone
and pop cant hide splitter
it just takes 1 day of scouting after a playoff game or even before to see what splitter can do
Oh, and strawman is back. Comparing watching a basketball game to the burden of proof in a court of law. Excellent. So that would make you the with the blindfold.
You have got to be kidding me.
Blair/Bonner doesn't have to happen because Diaw's with the team now. Super versatile, played all 5 positions, etc. Nobody would have to play Tiago and Tim 38-40 unless there was overtime.
Again, nobody says that the Spurs would've won with different moves but probably the biggest factor in the Grizzlies series was how their frontcourt pushed ours around. A healthy Manu would've overcome that but it still would've been a glaring weakness.
Besides, didn't Timvp have stats showing that the Tim/Tiago frontcourt has been getting better defensively and offensively as of late?
Tim can shoot the midrange shot, Tiago can operate in the low block, the pick and roll with either big is another option that's available. It's more a matter of coming up with set plays and letting the bigs do work on the other end. We know that they're not a perfect fit which is why they need time to work out the kinks.
As we saw last year, the playoffs is not the time to get these two time to figure each other out. Also, although he's a big minutes kind of player, Tiago seems like a guy who would have to adjust to playing a lot of extra minutes. We're almost at the end of the regular season and there's been no adjustments in spite of last year's fiasco. That's why people are getting nervous.
And no, it's not okay to depend on Duncan to play entire frontcourts by himself. Not at this age. If you want him to be sharp in the fourth quarter, you have to give him a capable frontcourt running mate. Blair and Bonner aren't it. Diaw is better but has more weaknesses as a defender.
And since when has anybody said Bonner was a horrible regular season player? Like I said, what's making people mad is that:
1. We KNOW he'll underperform in the playoffs and that
2. He'll be getting too much time in spite of the fact that
3. There's better players on the bench
That's not really Bonner's fault and most people have acknowledged that. Just ignore the trolls who say otherwise.
Look. Pop is a great coach. While I'm sure there are a few coaches who could've won at least 1 championship with Tim Duncan, D. Rob, and company, I doubt there's very many who would've been able to win 4. I'm not being sarcastic here. 2003 was one of the most masterful coaching jobs I have ever seen.
That said, that doesn't mean Pop has no weaknesses. I'm fine with losing if I know the team has tried everything to win. Losing while not playing your best players...not so much.
Especially since if AceProfits is to be believed, there aren't any *basketball reasons* for Pop to be handling his bigs like this.
Here's my bottomline on Bonner:
During the regular season, he's a damn useful player. Overall, he's much more valuable in the regular season than Robert Horry ever was. Fantastic floor spacer, makes smart decisions, is able to handle the ball a little bit and can almost always find open spaces. On defense, he's a really good pick-and-roll defender, can defend the post against most players and he's actually not a liability when it comes to rebounding because he boxes out so well. No one wants to admit it -- even Bonner fans wouldn't admit it for fear of being tarred and feathered -- but when it comes to the regular season, no player is as directly responsible for wins outside the Big 3 than Bonner. It sounds crazy to say but there is indisputable evidence built up over the years that proves Bonner is a regular season stud.
In the playoffs, I can live with Bonner with two caveats: 1) He doesn't start games 2) He doesn't finish games. If Pop wants to throw him out there for other minutes, I can grin and bear it.
However, what I absolutely can't accept is Bonner playing clutch minutes in the playoffs. I've watched every second of every minute he has played as a Spur and I have never seen anything that indicates to me that Bonner is a player built to thrive in pressure situations. Whether I use subjective observations or objective data analysis, the conclusion is always the same: Bonner shouldn't play in tight situations.
Subjectively, Bonner reacts to pressure by thinking too much. Thus, his natural reactions are replaced by slower, more hesitant reactions. Pressure causes him to pass up shots, not find open teammates as swiftly and he loses confidence in his dribbling completely. On defense, he becomes much more spastic (and thus fouls more), he is more wary about drifting out on the perimeter (and thus his pick-and-roll defense suffers) and his ability to box out decreases (for reasons I haven't yet figured out).
Objectively, the numbers paint an even bleaker picture of Bonner. In the regular season during Bonner's time in San Antonio, the Spurs have outscored opponents by 7.7 points per 100 possessions with Bonner on the court -- which is 6th best in the entire NBA during that time frame. However, in the playoffs, the Spurs have been OUTSCORED by 10.9 points per 100 possession with Bonner on the court. That's an unbelievable swing of 18.6 points per 100 possessions. Bonner goes from the 6th best in the entire NBA during the regular season to 5th worst in the entire NBA during the playoffs.
Even if you want to just trust his traditional stats, they all head in a negative direction. During the playoffs, he scores less, assists less, shoots worse, shoots less, turns it over more, steals less, blocks less ... on and on and on.
Perhaps I could ignore my subjective observations if the objective stats painted a different picture. Perhaps I could ignore stats if I observed reasons for hope. But when the subjective lines up perfectly with the objectively, I have no reason not to consider it fact. Matt Bonner is not built for pressure. Quality player, useful in most situations, good teammate, great human being, not someone you want to play when your entire season is on the line.
My hope is that with more bigman options in Diaw and Splitter, Pop will have Bonner on a short leash, much like RJ getting the quick hook in last years playoffs, when he wasn't producing.
IMO, Pop faces a moral dilemma. He knows, at least I hope so, that the rotation needs to change for Spurs to have a shot at winning the le but it isn't easy to do so because Spurs have played so great. For example, putting Blair, who is the starter of a team that is on a 24-5 run, in the doghouse seems like a crazy move to do but it's likely the right one to do.
I don't know if Pop will remove Blair from the starting lineup, but like Jefferson in the playoffs last year, I believe Pop will give Blair the quick hook if he isn't producing.
I just want Tiago to be afforded the same opportunities to succeed/fail that Pop has given Bonner the last 3+ years. He's more than earned it.
Going by the logic in #1, Manu also shouldn't play more than 16 minutes since he's even more injury-prone than Splitter. Mark my words, should they meet LAL or MEM in the playoffs, Pop's going to regret not playing TD/Splitter together. You'd think he would learn from his mistakes last year.
I disagree with sitting Diaw and SJax. It's not like they've been playing a lot all season for their previous teams. Pop should be playing them as much as possible to integrate them with the team and get them used to playing with the "crunch time" line-up (hopefully, TD, TP, Manu, SJax and Splitter/Diaw [depending on matchup]). Hopefully, the NBA Finals or WCF won't be when they're playing together for the first time. All this rest does no good if they're not used to playing with each other at the end of [important] games.
Maybe even Pop realize this and that's why he closed his playoff rehearsal against Indiana with Blair.
The big question is why the did we go after Diaw if our PF rotation is set in stone. To rest the turd towers just before the PO I guess.
Maybe even Pop realize this and that's why he closed his playoff rehearsal against Indiana with Blair.
The big question is why the did we go after Diaw if our PF rotation is set in stone. To rest the turd towers just before the PO I guess
If it wasn't for the whole mentally checking out fiasco from last time, Blair would be one of my favourite players. Even then the truth is he shouldn't be closing games against legit playoff teams and contenders.
Tiago's a player who I feel deserves a chance to build up his confidence, get into a rhythm, and even fail at times if he has to. He's not going to be nearly as comfortable as we need him to be at this rate and we're not making the most of his abilities as it stands right now.
However, Blair's defense has thrown me for the loop. If Tiago can't get a shot at the rotation, then I would rather have the team start Diaw in the playoffs.
As an aside, is this the longest Grades thread ever?
Not saying I totally agree with the following argument, but it might be because Manu got injured in front of TV which could be seen as accidents, while oftentimes nobody sees Tiago got injured.
So Theoretically Manu could avoid injury by playing less audaciously, but Tiago could only stay healthy by playing less.
It's sort of like last season when he wanted to start Dice for better defense.
He should just do it. The team is more important than Blair's feelings imo.
Pop benched too Blair last year because he was fat. It surely helped him to do that move.
Horry and Bonner - 2 players with diametrically different at udes. Yet Pop would have one try to replace the other. On the one hand, there's Bonner who for all his valedictorian smarts shrivels under pressure. Then there's Horry who sleep-walks through the regular season but thrives under pressure having fun and with a smile on his face. Guess that's what having a child with chromosome problems does - after all, it's only a game and he gets to go home to his family and friends after.
Maybe everyone is right, you are an elaborate troll. Sometimes you have decent takes but other times you act like a dumb instigator.
If you watch the ing playoff series you'll see how much of a liability Bonner was. Even if he hit his shots at a good percentage he was still doing more harm than good. Expecting Splitter to make a difference after using him so sparingly in the regular season is foolish. In fact, Splitter only played 3 games out of the series and averaged 16 minutes. The numbers may suggest that Bonner was more valuable that series but if we played the series again with the same 2011 lineup, would you actually play more of Bonner?
Again, Bonner wasn't the biggest problem, but he was a problem. His w/s48 at .159 was the highest on the team, but that statistical is supposed to be an estimate to how a player contributes to wins. Guess what, we got thrashed the Grizzles. That statistic is meaningless when the results the don't come.
Also, if you don't think Splitter is the more skilled and high potential player compared to Bonner on both ends than you're a dumbass.
Ding, ding, ding... and if you want to dig deeper, regular season and playoffs are two different types of basketball games... Slower pace, each possession carries more weight, each game is much more valuable, tactics are completely different... what works for the marathon of the regular season don't necessarily always work for the crunch that's the postseason...
And the stakes are so high, and little things like HCA are so valuable, that unless you're up 3-0 in a series, you really can't throw a game to see if the guy shows up.
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