Give Blair a shot next game?

[midnightpulp]

The Spurs had to go small for long stretches to create spacing and offense. PG oriented teams having to go small to create offense/spacing leads to ty defense from PG oriented teams. That's why Ibaka and Perkins exploded last night, similar to how random Spurs big men like Oberto and Mohammed would explode against the Suns several years ago. Yeah their offense looked good, but they sacrificed size on defense in order to create it. If they weren't a PG oriented team they wouldn't need to do that.

The lineup that made the run was Duncan, Blair, Jackson, Manu, and Parker, and even though Blair is short, he plays more like a traditional big than a stretch 4, so the spacing wasn't exactly optimal, but the Spurs were much better defensively (weird, since Blair usually gets abused by opposing bigs, but for whatever reason, he's historically bothered the Thunder) and the offense was still good enough.

The reason I think the Spurs can break the "PG oriented teams don't win championships" trend is that, unlike other past teams built around star point guards, Parker isn't a ball stopper who over dribbles and stagnates the offense. In addition to that, the Spurs don't run too many isolation plays for him, ensuring the offense is more about the whole than any one player.

[midnightpulp]

Another problem is the Spurs don't have the size even to sacrifice, at least in this series, as Splitter hasn't exactly seized the moment.