Grades: Spurs @ Lakers - Apr. 17

[will_spurs]

Missing grade:

DeJuan Blair A++

In his 0 minutes of play, Blair proved that the problem was not about playing Splitter alongside Duncan after all, nor about Splitter starting or even getting more minutes: it's about having a legit 4-big rotation against teams with dominating bigs. Blair's absence just goes to show that putting a "fat, tall guard" at center is not that smart of an idea. Blair can play when smallball line-ups are in order (and that may well be never), but the Spurs just got a strong signal tonight that they should go into the playoffs with a frontcourt rotation consisting of whichever kind of combo of Duncan, Splitter, Bonner and Diaw.

[polandprzem]

LJ you are not giving Pop a higher grade because of what he did earlier in the season?

Wasn't that suppose to be a game grades?



Splitt had plus minus of -8 ///// I need to watch this game.

[polandprzem]

Probably Blair is going to demolish the Kings - hopefully


Tough decision for Pop if to sit the big 3 or not. he is closer to the team tough and he sees the exhaustion better.

[benefactor]

Masterful performance by Parker tonight. It really was beautiful to watch.

I've never been so happy being so tired at work tbh.

[TMTTRIO]

Manu probably deserved a C. He started the game by throwing a bunch of horrible 3 point shots with a hand in the face instead of driving. Fortunately he did get a little bit more aggressive but still missed a bunch of FTs that he usually makes.

[pgardn]

Its terribly difficult to give grades when one little nerd in class becomes the teacher. Tony Parker,take a bow son...

Tiago with a B because he started is a gift of course. He can play much better than this. His speed, not just the fact that he is tall, can also play a much larger role than it did last night.

Thanks for the effort in the writeup as always. This little thread is always revealing as to how differently people assess players.

I think its possible the fear of the Laker posters welling up in massive thunderheads, and Spursfan general hatred of said team, makes for some judgmental paranoia.

[rmt]

Thanks for the grades, timvp. I have to disagree with this though:

This just has no bearing on reality. Splitter struggled to start the game, was pulled within the first 5 minutes. Then TD got raked across the eyes, Splitter came in for the rest of the period and played the best ball he has played all season. His second stint, with TD on the bench, was awesome. That's not to say that correlation is causation, but the TD/Split combo was not the highlight of the night. It was Split getting a chance to prove himself, and he played like a madman scrambling for loose balls and doing things that don't show up in the stat sheet when he was replacing TD, not working with him.

It's the first time that Splitter's started next to Duncan and in a game so obviously important to the Spurs (after the beat down). It's natural for him to be nervous. If anything, it's Pop's fault that they have so little chemistry since he hasn't played them together at all - for 2 whole seasons.

That's not Tiago's real grade, that's just you being super happy that he got to start, he couldn't make a FT to save his life, was more foul happy than Boris, threw a wild behind the back pass to Nicholson and managed to end up -8 in a blow-out win . Stats don't tell the whole story but the expectations for Tiago can't low enough that he deserves a B for this showing imo.

After the beat down that Bynum gave on the glass last game, starting Splitter and limiting Bynum to 2 rebounds in the first quarter sent a loud message that the Spurs weren't going to be pushed around in the paint. Splitter was a part of that and set the tone defensively for the game. Also, liked TD denying Bynum the ball - a bit easier than Gasol as Gasol has RANGE.

Parker had a magnificent game. I don't recall him ever playing any better - he read them beautifully and had great shot selection and execution. Thought that Neal gave them a bit of trouble too as he's dangerous from any area of the court, he got into the paint for some well-timed buckets. Loved SJax not backing down when MWP got physical. Diaw's wide girth surprisingly guarded Gasol well - that's a key - play Gasol physical as he's mentally soft.

[Killakobe81]

Good win spur fans, props ...

[Spurs Brazil]

Masterful performance by Parker tonight. It really was beautiful to watch.

I've never been so happy being so tired at work tbh.

+1.

But a had a great time watching the Spurs FTL

[TheSkeptic]

Good win spur fans, props ...

See you Friday.

[SA210]

It's the first time that Splitter's started next to Duncan and in a game so obviously important to the Spurs (after the beat down). It's natural for him to be nervous. If anything, it's Pop's fault that they have so little chemistry since he hasn't played them together at all - for 2 whole seasons.



After the beat down that Bynum gave on the glass last game, starting Splitter and limiting Bynum to 2 rebounds in the first quarter sent a loud message that the Spurs weren't going to be pushed around in the paint. Splitter was a part of that and set the tone defensively for the game. Also, liked TD denying Bynum the ball - a bit easier than Gasol as Gasol has RANGE.

And this

[silverblackfan]

Great write up! Thanks timvp. Three reviews in 3 nights is challenging, especially given the late games.
Tony played one of his best regular season games ever. He was very focused and did a terrific job of burying those mid-range jumpers. Once that was something we all cringed to see, but now is is automatic. His speed, ability to finish at the rim, and now that mid-range shot makes him unguardable. (Thanks Chip.)
Blake started getting chippy as that seemed the only way to slow down Tony or Neal. Glad to see it did not work.
My favorite aspect of Manu is that if they get too physical, they just light a fire in him. You can see him get up off the ground, looking amused or pissed, and then proceed to dominate the opponent. Tony is showing some of that this year, much like 2008.
Just a great win in LA and a excellent confidence builder.





Jackson was in MWP's head. Thanks Jack!

[z0sa]

Splitter starting and Blair being benched is the big news regarding this one. Even with Blair playing I knew the Spurs could hang, but suddenly seeing your dreams of a blowout victory with Splitter starting come true right before your very eyes ... that was something special and it definitely erases the bad taste from the April 11th debacle.

However, I'm a bit concerned with the Spurs turnovers recently. For the season Spurs are 3rd in Assist:Turnover ratio with 1.68, the highest of all contending teams but in April they have only played well enough for 13th in the League. Additionally, in April the Spurs have the eighth highest turnovers with nearly 1.5 more per contest than the season average. Doesnt sound like a huge difference but considering the team relies on execution and three point shooting rather than stifling defense and drawing fouls, this could be an issue come playoff time unless the Spurs regain some cohesiveness.

[TJastal]

Thanks for the grades. Great win tonight! Some thoughts:

-Thought starting Splitter was odd and risky. Would have caused a lot of problems if we came out flat offensive and the Lakers came out blazing. Luckily the defense was pretty good to start the game.

Luckily lol

Our bench completely destroyed theirs, which is how we should have won a week ago tbh. Getting Neal back also proved to be helpful, that guy is a baller.

Neal > Mills for most matchups, that's becoming clearer each game. He should not be dropped from the rotation unless the spurs get a team like say, the clippers (Paul) or rockets (Lowry) where they will have to match up against a small speedy little point guards.

-Starting Diaw is the clear choice and I'm not sure if there is anyone (nasf, gnsf) left who would be against it. -I don't expect Pop to play much of Tiago and Timmy going forward. Disappointing but I'm not sure if there's enough time to oil the machine at this point. Also, If Pop really wanted to get another look, he could have easily subbed Tiago in for Boris halfway through the 3rd. The Spurs already had a commanding lead and Boris was looking a bit tired. Instead he went with Bonner, not a complaint, just saying that he could have tried it again here.

I'm not ready to give up on Tiago after one game where he probably didn't even know he was going to start until tip-off. He appeared totally unprepared and out of sync. It's not easy to adjust to playing alongside another dominant big but I bet he will catch on fast. It's quite possible he has never even practiced with Duncan in the starting lineup. But what I have seen so far from Tiago is that he learns and adapts very quickly, despite all the bull he's had to endure. Unfortunate thing is Pop will probably pull the plug on the this now because Tiago didn't immediately put up all-star numbers and looked a little nervous in his first "real" start.

-Told my friends that Bonner looked extra sharp on the glass tonight. He even tied his season high of two offensive rebounds. Not joking either, hes averaging by far his lowest ORB total. So the two that he got tonight supports the theory that Bonner not only came to play, but wasn't going to fold.

Bonner looked sharp in many aspects of the game IMHO.

-I'm actually a big fan of Kobe. This may sound weird but the Lakers are probably my 2nd favorite team. But that's kind of by default - I don't follow them any where as close as the Spurs. Also, they're the local team, so its been easy for me to follow them through-out the years.

Shocker.

[TJastal]

Splitter starting and Blair being benched is the big news regarding this one. Even with Blair playing I knew the Spurs could hang, but suddenly seeing your dreams of a blowout victory with Splitter starting come true right before your very eyes ... that was something special and it definitely erases the bad taste from the April 11th debacle.

However, I'm a bit concerned with the Spurs turnovers recently. For the season Spurs are 3rd in Assist:Turnover ratio with 1.68, the highest of all contending teams but in April they have only played well enough for 13th in the League. Additionally, in April the Spurs have the eighth highest turnovers with nearly 1.5 more per contest than the season average. Doesnt sound like a huge difference but considering the team relies on execution and three point shooting rather than stifling defense and drawing fouls, this could be an issue come playoff time unless the Spurs regain some cohesiveness.

Turnovers tend to happen when you have several new players trying to learn on the fly and also the idiot coach taking his nice sweet time to figure out the best rotations.

[EVAY]

Pop B+
Pop made a great decision by playing the Big 3 and using this as an opportunity to build confidence. As it played out, things literally couldn't have gone much better. As the Spurs fly to Sacramento to complete the back-to-back-to-back set, the players have to be thrilled with what they were able to accomplish tonight. Rotations-wise, I can't complain. Keeping DeJuan Blair on the bench was the right move; the Lakers are just an impossible matchup for him. The only reason I'm not giving him a higher grade is because it's irritating that Pop wasted so much of the season not building the chemistry between Duncan and Splitter when it was obvious that the Spurs would need that tandem once games really began to matter. That shortsightedness has limited this team's ceiling, quite honestly. But that said, let's hope that Pop keeps giving the Duncan and Splitter duo chances so they can learn how to coexist.

One of the biggest pluses to having the tandem of Duncan/splitter s the ability of our guards to get their shots more easily. In the first game against the Lakers, our bigs provided virtually no 'cover' for our guards to get into the lane for mid-range jumpers, much less to the rim. In this game, after a totally embarrassing start by Duncan, he emerged after his eye-problem to begin fronting (or half-fronting) Bynum on BOTH ends of the court. Splitter has always played a good role as a screener for the guard who is on the floor with him...some of Parker's success in the last part of the first half was that Duncan was far more active on the offense, both blocking and moving.

Offensive movement by the team members off the ball handler was critical in this, and kept the Lakers off their set. The turnovers came mostly when the offense was stagnating.

Pop changing the rotations during the game was HUGE in this game and will be in the future if we are going to pick up wins against this team in the playoffs.

[EVAY]

Several of the Lakers were losing their poise by the 4th quarter of this game. They will be very chippy on Friday night here and we need to be prepared for some hard fouls. I hope that the refs do a better job calling the gazillion fouls they let Bynum get away with in this game and the one last week. The guy fouls almost every time on offense, and so does Blake. Blake is going to get someone hurt if they don't call his fowls better.

[will_spurs]

Several of the Lakers were losing their poise by the 4th quarter of this game. They will be very chippy on Friday night here and we need to be prepared for some hard fouls. I hope that the refs do a better job calling the gazillion fouls they let Bynum get away with in this game and the one last week. The guy fouls almost every time on offense, and so does Blake. Blake is going to get someone hurt if they don't call his fowls better.

This is why I'd rather have the key players sit this game, especially Manu or to a lesser extent Parker (not based on how key they are to the team, but on how likely they are to be fouled hard and injured in the process).

[z0sa]

Turnovers tend to happen when you have several new players trying to learn on the fly

This is true.

[timvp]

The only reason I'm not giving him a higher grade is because it's irritating that Pop wasted so much of the season not building the chemistry between Duncan and Splitter when it was obvious that the Spurs would need that tandem once games really began to matter. That shortsightedness has limited this team's ceiling, quite honestly. But that said, let's hope that Pop keeps giving the Duncan and Splitter duo chances so they can learn how to coexist.

This just has no bearing on reality. Splitter struggled to start the game, was pulled within the first 5 minutes. Then TD got raked across the eyes, Splitter came in for the rest of the period and played the best ball he has played all season. His second stint, with TD on the bench, was awesome. That's not to say that correlation is causation, but the TD/Split combo was not the highlight of the night. It was Split getting a chance to prove himself, and he played like a madman scrambling for loose balls and doing things that don't show up in the stat sheet when he was replacing TD, not working with him.

No offense but did you read what you quoted? All I said in what you quoted was that I hope Pop plays Duncan/Splitter more often. I didn't say anything about the effectiveness of the pairing. In fact, the quote insinuates that they didn't do very well since they have to learn how to coexist. Your "no bearing on reality" take has no bearing on the quote, tbh.

[jiggy_55]

There is an easy explanation. Tiago had 3 fouls.

Pop wants one of Tiago and Duncan on the court. Both start. Then Tiago goes to the bench so he returns when Duncan sits.

But in the 3rd quarter with 3 fouls Pop had to wait to play Tiago or we could be playing without true bigs when Duncan rest. so he can't play both together

Tiago came in for TD with 1:30 minutes left in the 3rd so if he picks the 4th it wouldn't be a big problem.

I think TD came in too early in the 4th when the game was nearly over but surely he's not going to play today. In the other hand Splitter played a 20min back to back games and he should play today and friday so it was a smart move.

Exactly.

TD came in because he won't be playing tonight, Parker did not play the 4th so I have some small hope that he plays tonight which means we try to win rather watch the others suffer on their own. Without both Manu and Parker, this team cannot make many plays so I hope Parker does play tonight. 1st seed will be great.

[jiggy_55]

Missing grade:

DeJuan Blair A++

In his 0 minutes of play, Blair proved that the problem was not about playing Splitter alongside Duncan after all, nor about Splitter starting or even getting more minutes: it's about having a legit 4-big rotation against teams with dominating bigs. Blair's absence just goes to show that putting a "fat, tall guard" at center is not that smart of an idea. Blair can play when smallball line-ups are in order (and that may well be never), but the Spurs just got a strong signal tonight that they should go into the playoffs with a frontcourt rotation consisting of whichever kind of combo of Duncan, Splitter, Bonner and Diaw.

awesome

[TJastal]

Several of the Lakers were losing their poise by the 4th quarter of this game. They will be very chippy on Friday night here and we need to be prepared for some hard fouls. I hope that the refs do a better job calling the gazillion fouls they let Bynum get away with in this game and the one last week. The guy fouls almost every time on offense, and so does Blake. Blake is going to get someone hurt if they don't call his fowls better.

You know what's really funny is the more the refs let this head get away with the constant traveling (LOL @ Barnes 4 step travel too ) and loose elbows the more he's going to do it .. and eventually it's going to bite the in the ass like it did in the 2nd half of last night's game when the travelled for like the 20th time and got nailed for it.

[Slomo]

Well coach Brown was honest about his grades:




Thanks to BRHonets45 for the idea!

[EVAY]

You know what's really funny is the more the refs let this head get away with the constant traveling (LOL @ Barnes 4 step travel too ) and loose elbows the more he's going to do it .. and eventually it's going to bite the in the ass like it did in the 2nd half of last night's game when the travelled for like the 20th time and got nailed for it.

From your lips to god's ears.