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steve nash has more mileage and he is still playing at high level
...in an attempt to denigrate Parker's accomplishment.
steve nash has more mileage and he is still playing at high level
Which is it???
Organize. Have a vision.
Promote individual superstars, who sell worldwide, over teams, which sell less.
That's no easy task, because this isn't tennis, it's a team sport.
Make sure big markets have profitable, successful teams.
I can't remember when was last time in WC finals there were no teams from the top 10 cities.
Make sure some well managed small market teams get their share of success.
Smallville is part of the market and will istinctively feel well for OKC now as they felt well about SA before.
But one is enough.
You don't want to see Indiana-Milwakee and Denver-Portland, all of the sudden. If that means refs make a few "bad calls", so be it.
All actors are making a huge amount of money, they are in one single pond, all with a vested interest in not pissing in their 1989 Chateau Petrus.
Wouldn't this make perfect sense?
Why on earth you wouldn't be saying ANYTHING about the "bad calls" if it's anything different from this.
Asa rule of thumb, you know there is amafia when nobody says anything about it.
That was one of his several accomplishments. If you'd like to denigrate others one at a time I will use the singular term as well.
Is that clear enough to you?
He had two days rest. How many days of rest does he need?
well put.
Double post.
great write-up, first half of game 6 i thought their hot shooting will finally regress to the mean but nope, they were on fire again to start the 3rd quarter.
Then in the 4th the 3 from harden, the 3 and pullup 2 pointer bank shot from fisher to seal the deal... ughhhhh
Gosh, we keep running into teams who shoot well. I think you'd have to add Phoenix to the list of teams who have killed us from outside. I wonder what Memphis % from outside was...Randolph didn't seem to miss as I recall.
If the same thing keeps happening over and over again, maybe it's time to change/re-evaluate. One of the issues with this team is rigidity/fragility. Spurs play one way - beat that, and they meltdown.
A commitment to basketball fundamentals allows you more flexibility. Gimmicks on the other hand, lead to regular-season wonders and predictable playoff meltdowns.
Tony's had a good career as a Spur never said other wise (Accomplishments)
Tony had a mediocre WCF.. That should have been clear to you 1 page ago or when you watched the series..
You always want to try throwing a team different looks to keep them off balance on offense.
Uh? Tony was 4-13 in the second half... 2 assists... Manu was 2-5...
tbh, the only guy shooting decent was Jack...
^
mentally weak
Paker vanished from games 3-5? you sure it wasn't because Thabo Sefolosha? Parker is not a top 10 player lolIt was one of the craziest series i have ever seen. When you got sharp shooters like Harden , Westbrook, Durant not missing anything when it matters most you can maybe get through that and surivive.. Ibaka though going like 15/15 in game 4... That is like Shaq shooting 12/13 from the line... you have to live with something when you face a team like OKC..
In spite of all the sharp shooting and guys that made plays for OKC if Mr. Parker had not vanished games 3-5..
Spurs would be in the finals...
one more day rest he would have been ok
Thanks very much for that as it confirms what I thought I saw and have been telling people - OKC were playing out of their minds, specifically by hitting outside shots they usually wouldn't. Oh, and TOs killed us at crucial times, the refs didn't help, but yeah, OKC were unbeatable because they all shot the lights out. That actually makes sense to me and explains why we lost completely winnable games 4-6, each of which were were in with a good shot at up until the last minute.In the aftermath of the San Antonio Spurs watching their glorious 20-game winning streak end with four straight losses, many theories have arisen regarding why the Spurs suffered such a violent reversal of fortune. A number of the hypotheses pointed to the Oklahoma City Thunder being younger, longer and more athletic and eventually overwhelming the older, veteran-reliant Spurs. Other theories have Oklahoma City maturing from an isolation-heavy collection of players to a team-first unit right before the nation’s eyes.
While those aspects hold some merit, the statistics point to a much more straightforward reason as to why San Antonio ended up losing the series. More on that later.
First of all, let’s look at what didn’t cause the Spurs to lose. Despite the Thunder holding an athleticism advantage at literally every position, rebounding wasn’t an issue in this series. The Spurs retrieved 76.4% of the available defensive rebounds, which is an even higher mark than their league-best regular season number. On the other end, San Antonio’s offensive rebounding percentage was 23.6% -- a rate close to their regular season average.
Although Game 6 featured some horrible calls an unfortunate whistle, overall the Thunder didn’t win the series at the free throw line. OKC shot .315 free throws per field goal attempt, which is down from the regular season rate of .333. The Spurs obviously hoped that they would be able to keep the Thunder off the line even more than they did since they were so good at doing that during the regular season (allowing only .221 FTA/FGA, second best in the NBA), however this wasn’t the difference in the series.
When looking at San Antonio’s offense as a whole, it’s difficult to lay much blame on that end of the court. The Spurs turned it over too much. Their passing stagnated as the series progressed. Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili disappeared at most inopportune times. Tim Duncan looked 50 years old to begin the series. Many of the role players shriveled in the bright lights. The way Pop coached the final two games was questionable. All of that is true. However, despite all those negatives, the offense was still rolling. Outside of the Game 3 blowout, the Spurs scored 108.7 points per 100 possessions – an even better rate than their league-leading regular season rate of 108.5. It’s very easy to nitpick what happened on the offensive end but -- statistically speaking -- the offense was even more potent than expected. It could have been better, undoubtedly, but the offense should have been good enough.
Defensively, the Spurs weren’t all bad. In fact, their interior defense was fantastic. At the rim, the Thunder connected on only 57.3% of their shots. Considering that they typically shoot 65.6% from that distance, Duncan and the rest of the team did a wonderful job of shutting down the paint.
Extending the area of focus out further, San Antonio’s defense was very good within fifteen feet of the basket. From fifteen feet and in, the Thunder shot only 48.5%. During the regular season, they shot 56.6% from that range. That's a colossal drop of 16.7%. Thus, even though the Thunder have breathtaking athletes, it's difficult to see the athleticism advantage in the stats alone.
So, how did the Spurs lose the series if the offense was fine, the rebounding was solid, the free throws weren’t murderous and the interior defense was great? The Thunder shot the damn lights out from the perimeter. It’s just sickening (for a Spurs fan, at least) how well they shot the ball.
The Thunder made 52.7% of their two-pointers outside of 15 feet for the series. Normally, OKC shoots 42.6% from that range. Normally, the Spurs allow their opponents to shoot 40.6% from that range. But, unfortunately for the Spurs, the Thunder’s long-range shooting was abnormally deadly this series. Yes, San Antonio gave up some perimeter looks by design, but 52.7% isn’t sustainable by any team (or any player, for that matter) over the long haul. That said, give the Thunder credit. Their players stepped up and knocked down the most inefficient shots in the game of basketball at a shockingly efficient rate.
Oklahoma City’s marksmanship extended beyond the three-point line. The Thunder shot 40.4% on three-pointers for the series, which is up from their regular season accuracy (36%) and much better than they shot in the first two rounds (even though the Lakers and Mavs are poor at defending the three-point line and the Spurs are elite). Again, give the Thunder all the credit.
How much did OKC’s shooting from the perimeter influence this series? If the Thunder shoot their usual percentage from the perimeter, they would have scored 37 fewer points -- or 99.7 points per game instead of 105.8. Do you think that would have made a difference? Yeah, so do I.
On one hand, the Spurs can take some solace in knowing they lost the series due to one of the least controllable factors in the game of basketball. But unfortunately, the other hand tells us a loss is a loss and a missed golden opportunity is a missed golden opportunity.
Shooting Percentage on Two-Pointers From 15 Feet and Out
That is freakin depressing since if we replayed the series tomorrow the Spurs would probably win it. Faaaark.
parker is greater then westbrook
Sefelosha is a damn good defender. Maybe the best perimiter since Bruce. No doubt he disrupted Parker. But Sefelosha is no more the reason Parker dissapeared than Jason Kidd was in game 6 of the '03 Finals, Gary Payton in the '04 WCS, or Mke Coney in the first round last year. Parker has moments--and this why he is not a superstar--where he second guesses himself, in effect neutralizing himself. More than Sefelosha or anybody that's guarded him in the past--outside of Devin Harris--when he's played like , Parker is his own worst enemy. The difference between now and 5 years ago? Duncan and Manu were in their primes and usually bailed him out, particularly Duncan.
Agree with every word...
Denigrate, denigrate, denigrate.
Only three spurfans watched that game because only three can remember what actually happened.
It's do ented.
What?
OKC took advantage of the spurs biggest weakness?
From Tom Haberstroh:
OKC's shooting pct from 15+ feet (41.6%) is the highest for any team entering the Finals since 1997-98 (UTH).
Yeah Tony Parker dissappearing..
Grizzlies did the same..
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