Quick Grades: Spurs @ Pistons - Feb. 8

[Brunodf]

That's it, isn't it? I didn't even see the game; I just followed it on the yahoo box score. Splitter is probably the fifth best player on the team, frequently scores through pick and rolls and can cause a lot of damage to the opponent on both ends. But we already know this. So the question is: why don't his teammates know this? Instead, with just Splitter on the court sans Duncan and sometimes Parker, they actually prefer to shoot from the outside.

So what the is wrong with this picture?

I really don't know, maybe because Neal/Green aren't good passers... Splitter is ignored under the rim at least 5 times/game...He isn't aggressive enough... He is getting less touches in the post this season...

[Hoops Czar]

This game didn't come down to offense. 109 points should have been enough to win a game against the Pistons. Those grades are way too generous accross the board. Nobody competed on defense. Oh, yeah, a couple of steals by Leonard and Green, BIG DEAL! Detroit got the shots they wanted on nearly every possession... wide open three's, uncontested layups, when they did miss a shot or had one blocked , Detroit was in position to grab the Offensive board and easy stickback as the Spurs would just give up on the play. This game was a long time comin and if I were to rank the Spurs 10+ game win streaks, this would be the least impressive of the bunch.

Btw, Baynes didn't have a Turnover.

[freetiago]

considering the fact that Tim/Manu/Pop missed a majority of the games it is actually impressive
Baynes passed it to Mills who was behind the halfcourt line for whatever reason

and Duncan is the elite rim protector who brings the defense together
theyve been doing a lot better at running guys off the 3 point line this season but in this game they could just take it all the way to the basket uncontested after the initial run off
Splitter isnt an anchor
hes a solid complement who can defend post guys but not a true anchor
combined with all the traffic cone perimeter defenders on the team and bonner/blair is why the defense is so bad

[TJastal]

This game might just be a microcosm of what the team is going to look like once Duncan retires and Pop doesn't have him to cover all his flaws.

[Hoops Czar]

considering the fact that Tim/Manu/Pop missed a majority of the games it is actually impressive
Baynes passed it to Mills who was behind the halfcourt line for whatever reason

and Duncan is the elite rim protector who brings the defense together
theyve been doing a lot better at running guys off the 3 point line this season but in this game they could just take it all the way to the basket uncontested after the initial run off
Splitter isnt an anchor
hes a solid complement who can defend post guys but not a true anchor
combined with all the traffic cone perimeter defenders on the team and bonner/blair is why the defense is so bad

Considering only three of the teams had winning records and two of them were badly slumping (Memphis and Atlanta), the coyote could have coached this team to an 11 game win streak. As for the game, I shut it off after the third. According to the ESPN box score and play by play, Baynes wasn't credited with a turnover. I agree with your assessment on Splitter. Hopefully the Spurs continue their due dilligence to find another competent big by the trade deadline.

[TJastal]

Pop will have to think twice about playing Baynes in a league where such dangerous passes occur.

Bad passes can happen in any league, and are forgiveable if the cause is simply operator error. Unfortunately for your misguided logic, the difference is Mills wasn't attempting to do anything unfundamentally sound, like trying to lob an entry pass from the top of the key.

[freetiago]

Tim/Tony/Manu are the team and you can plug in any scrub which the spurs have done and still get 50+ wins
so to win a large amount of games missing them is impressive since without them the spurs are a treadmill playoff team

and im guessing you missed the play Mills injured Baynes on
a horrible lob from the top of the key

[TJastal]

Tim/Tony/Manu are the team and you can plug in any scrub which the spurs have done and still get 50+ wins
so to win a large amount of games missing them is impressive since without them the spurs are a treadmill playoff team

and im guessing you missed the play Mills injured Baynes on
a horrible lob from the top of the key

It's quite common to see lob passes from the top of the key. I would qualify this by saying that lobs/alley oop passes should be practiced heavily before being attempted in a real game. In this regard I am a bit surprised that Mills attempted it, unless they have practiced it before on their national team which i somehow doubt. Could be indicative a very low bball IQ. Or perhaps Mills was trying a little too hard to help a fellow Aussie teammate. Hard to say for sure.

[Hoops Czar]

Tim/Tony/Manu are the team and you can plug in any scrub which the spurs have done and still get 50+ wins
so to win a large amount of games missing them is impressive since without them the spurs are a treadmill playoff team

and im guessing you missed the play Mills injured Baynes on
a horrible lob from the top of the key

The Spurs weren't nearly as reliant on the big three last year as they are this year. That's a FACT. Tony hasn't missed a beat while Tim and Manu have missed games sporadically but not many together. Last years team featured many role players stepping up in the clutch, this year, not so much. This team is much worse off than last year's team, You can quote how the defense has improved, but the offense has tailed off quite a bit. They aren't equiped to beat a team like OKC unless they get a total team effort and those types of games have been far and few between. Out of all the years Bonner made the three point shooting contest, this is probably his least deserving. S-jax is beyond finished and the Spurs have no depth behind tony Parker at pg primarily because of Pop's indecisiveness between De Coolio and Mills. Playing Mills alongside Parker really defeats his being on the court because he doesn't play well off the ball. And I'm not defending his athetic effort, but he was far from the only one bombing tonight. I told you I missed the 4th, so I missed the Baynes injury but for all you know, it was just a niggle.

[Slippy]

What's it going to take for Splitter to be more assertive on offense in most, if not all, games? Perhaps a large can of spinach or even whatever they gave Drago?

Was thinking this. He playing too content on offense. Waiting to get fed, happy to starve kind of at ude. Gone away from making things happen and calling for the ball. If we were to split grades for both ends it be D on offense B for defense.

If i din't know Danny Green any better you'd think he didn't respect Knight even after knocking down his first few shots. Lazy and re ed comes to mind. Gave his guy way too much room when chasing, ran around screens like it was a preseason training drill and most concerning is his in-ability to change direction quickly enough.

The seperation the pistons got in the second quarter, that they never relinquished should fall squarely on the feet of Pop. strange subs and rotations. Was wondering if he was in experimental mode for awhile there.

[TJastal]

Was thinking this. He playing too content on offense. Waiting to get fed, happy to starve kind of at ude. Gone away from making things happen and calling for the ball. If we were to split grades for both ends it be D on offense B for defense.

If i din't know Danny Green any better you'd think he didn't respect Knight even after knocking down his first few shots. Lazy and re ed comes to mind. Gave his guy way too much room when chasing, ran around screens like it was a preseason training drill and most concerning is his in-ability to change direction quickly enough.

The seperation the pistons got in the second quarter, that they never relinquished should fall squarely on the feet of Pop. strange subs and rotations. Was wondering if he was in experimental mode for awhile there.

Not to excuse Green's lack of hustle (which is troubling) Knight is no stranger to these types of shooting nights, having dropped 20+ 10 times already this year, and 30+ twice.

[Slippy]

Not to excuse Green's lack of hustle (which is troubling) Knight is no stranger to these types of shooting nights, having dropped 20+ 10 times already this year, and 30+ twice.

That doesn't surprise me. The piston's feed talked about KNight's shooting ability pre-game . Obviously, Danny let the scouting report go out the other ear or forgot it once the game started. It's happening way too often with this guy.

[TJastal]

That doesn't surprise me. The piston's feed talked about KNight's shooting ability pre-game . Obviously, Danny let the scouting report go out the other ear or forgot it once the game started. It's happening way too often with this guy.

I put part of that on Pop also (actually most of that). It's ultimately the coach's job to know the scouting reports on everyone and communicate that to the players and then follow that up by getting into their faces if they're sluffing off a critical assignment.

[freetiago]

Spurs offense isnt as good because theyre not relying on fools gold matt bonner and his reg season +- king numbers
the Tim/Tiago frontcourt pairing has a 107 offensive rating and a .89 defensive rating
so lets not act like giving up 3 pointers per 100 possesions to go from 110 (last year) to 107 while increasing the defense from around 10-15 most of the year to #1 pace this year isnt worth it
and youre saying think acting like being a top 4 offense is a bad thing
the 3 other top offenses all play mostly smallball and rely on 3s
and you cant really say the spurs roleplayers were being clutch since they didnt ever play any close games
most games were blowouts by the 4th quarter last year which was made easier by the fact that most teams shut it down earlier in the season and some teams like golden state started tanking around 1/3 of the way through

and last year manu had one of his best seasons ever while this year hes fallen off
the spurs relied more on the big 3 last year and they always have and will rely on them a lot
SA is basically a 2 man game with Tim/Tony who draw all the help or doubles and pass it out to open shooters and make the right passes based on rotations
Manu does the same thing with Splitter off the bench
they have no consistent offense that they go to anywhere else
and Neal green leonard and splitter all increased their scoring averages this year

[Russo21]

Tough game to judge. Looking at the RRT schedule i had this game penciled in as a Win.

But playing without Tim and Manu on the road isn't an easy task.
Winning 10 straight games we're bound for a loss at some stage.

We shot well, 46%FG, 42%3PTFG, 83%FT
Looked after the ball better, just 7 turnovers to Detroit's 12.
Had 8 steals and 9 blocks, seems fine. Better then Detroits 5 steals and 4 blocks.
Fouled less. 16 fouls v Detroits 20.
Scored 109 points without Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili, not bad.

All signs points to a Win.

So where'd we go wrong? We let Detroit shoot 51.7%FG, 45.5%3PTFG and gave up 119 freakin points to a team averaging 95 on the season. Not Cool. Just an anomoly without Tim Anchoring the middle? Tim might have been the difference but this game just points out our biggest flaw, defense. We have to impove our D someway, shomehow. Whether it's in-house improvement or a trade, something has got to be done. Just a few weeks left for the Front Office to figure it out.

[maverick1948]

Weak comment, tbh. ( @ hero ball.)

Mills running the point by himself generated two points in the second quarter. Parker comes in next to Mills and they score eight points.

If Parker doesn't go hyper-aggressive, the Spurs got annihilated. He was the only player who could make a play tonight. Literally everyone else was subpar in that category. Who was the next best at making plays? I don't even know ...... Stephen Jackson? Kawhi Leonard?

31 points on 16 shots. Eight assists and one turnover. And yet he's pointed to as the problem. Amazing.

Do you think some of those folks actually watch the same game we do? One thing no one ever points out is the opponents having a great shooting night. Until the last 2 mins of the 1st half, the pistons were firing up shots from all over and they were going in. In that time they were shooting over 60 %. And they were getting all the rebounds not because the Spurs didnt try but because some just fell into their hands. Give credit to them, good offense still beats good defense sometime. Patty was not right tonight and neither was half of the team. I guess we have to accept that they are NOT perfect and will lose a game once in a while. I still stand by my 6 or 7 wins on the RRT.

[chapnis]

Anyone know why Kawhi only played 26 minutes? Was pop trying to lose?

[quentin_compson]

The perimeter D was terrible, and Green especially completely inept at fighting through screens. Splitter has to be more dominant in a game like this, his rebounding was definitely subpar. But well, can't win 'em all, and frankly, the Spurs didn't deserve to win that one.

[TDMVPDPOY]

I was shocked when I saw Blair had 10 boards, didn't think he had a good game at all. He was horrible on offence IMO, took bad shots and missed easy ones.

all his fkn rebounds are misleading, contested rebounds with the pistons bigs? everyone was out muscled and out hustled
his rebs came from no one bothering to go for it and just landed into his arms, watch them rebounds he grabs them down hard while he shows no effort in contested rebounds with players around him, dude is a scrub...

[ChumpDumper]

Bad passes can happen in any league, and are forgiveable if the cause is simply operator error. Unfortunately for your misguided logic, the difference is Mills wasn't attempting to do anything unfundamentally sound, like trying to lob an entry pass from the top of the key.

Still completely full of , I see.

[ChumpDumper]

I put part of that on Pop also (actually most of that).

Quelle surprise!

[TDMVPDPOY]

will bynum clearly exposed whatever perimeter defense we had, walks into the key like nothing and kicking down t he door...fkn green, neal etc sucks monkey , to see splitter switch trying to defend leaving the open big for easy basket...

danny green and gary neal are nothin more that blackholes on the court, they g ive you production just as much giving up on the other end....fkn pathetic....

[Hoops Czar]

freetiago... And what about when Tim goes to the bench? How good is there defense then? 60 points in the secod half to Washington, Minnesota shot terrible from the field but were getting wide open looks and Tiago couldn't handle Pekovic at all and tonights game speaks for itself. The Spurs are a one-man band on defense and without Duncan anchoring the defense, it completely collapses. And the Spurs are still way too reliant on the three. And your damn right about the scores, the Spurs were primarily blowing teams out, not because teams were tanking, because they were playing uptempo getting easier shots in transition, had better shot selection, shot the three better, and had the third fewest turnovers in the league compared to 21st this year. And you talk about Bonner as if his presence on the court was a bad thing. Did you miss the article posted on Bonners defense being the best among big men, statistical anomaly or not, he was hardly a liability during the regular season and his offense was more than adequate. You certainly can't blame him for the flame out against the Thunder because he barely saw the court.

And they didn't rely on the big three as much. There were games the big three sat out the entire 4th quarter, and others where Duncan and Ginobili played a total of 20 minutes or less. TP has had to bail them out of game after game because the Spurs piss away big leads in short periods of time against mediocre compe ion Btw, maybe I'm missing something, but Duncan doesn't draw a lot of double teams. He's shooting more and more 10-15 ft jump shots as opposed to battling in the low post and most teams elect to play him straight up unless he's having one of those unconscious moments.

[pookenstein]

Did TP get poked in the eye lately? I noticed that his left eyeball was bloody. Looked relatively fresh. You can see it when he was shooting FT's, with around 8:30 to go in the third for example. Didn't seem to bother him though.

[TDMVPDPOY]

Did TP get poked in the eye lately? I noticed that his left eyeball was bloody. Looked relatively fresh. You can see it when he was shooting FT's, with around 8:30 to go in the third for example. Didn't seem to bother him though.

that was from previous game or some , not in this game, but someone did get poked in the eye this game, i think it was KL