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thanks. Bonner did indeed suck.
Tim Duncan B+
Great defensively in his return. Rebounding was subpar, though. Scoring was ragged but passing was strong.
Manu Ginobili A-
Wasted no time getting back into the swing of things. Looked sharp. Moved well. Passing was magnificent.
Tony Parker A
Orchestration inconsistent early but progressed. Very efficient on offense. Fantastic D on Irving. Played hard.
Kawhi Leonard A-
Uncharacteristically error prone but otherwise very good. A monster on D. Attacked on O. Hit the game-winner.
Danny Green D
Stout help-defense but individual D was horrid. Looked slow. Couldn’t hit a shot, no matter how open.
Tiago Splitter C+
Movements were more deliberate than usual (ankle injury?). Boarded well. Smart on D. Sharpness lacking.
Gary Neal A-
Looks like he may have regained his footing. Took quality shots. Hit a few big ones. Elsewhere he was adequate.
Boris Diaw C-
Impotent on offense. Floated during his 19 minutes. D wasn’t very good; sluggish to react. Rebounded well.
DeJuan Blair A-
His three dunks tonight matched his season total. Jumped well. Strong on the glass. Overall energy a plus.
Nando De Colo C
Wasn’t horrible but failed to follow up sharp showing. Too passive on O; got team in sets late. D was mediocre.
Matt Bonner D
Pathetic on the boards again. Effort on D was much worse than usual. Wasn’t helpful on offense either.
Pop D+
Extremely strange rotation. Team failed to ever find a rhythm due to his scrambling. Somehow they won anyways.
thanks. Bonner did indeed suck.
Could it be that it was all mental?DeJuan Blair A-
His three dunks tonight matched his season total. Jumped well. Strong on the glass. Overall energy a plus.
When Pop put Bonner in the game with a few minutes left in the 4th I though the man had given up on winning it. It was nice seeing Neal play with the correct amount of assertiveness down the stretch. Maybe Green was trying to prove Steve rosenbloom correct? Good seeing TP show enough confidence in Leonard to give him the shot. Nice write up.
Not happy with the way this game went down. First off congrats to Leonard for the game winner but it shouldn't have come down to that. Once again, the Spurs offense was mediocre at best, playing the 28th worst in defensive efficiency. Anyone who says the opponents offensive rebounding isn't a problem isn't playing close enough attention. This is the problem when pair your backup big (Splitter) with Duncan. You're left with Diaw, Blair and Bonner, and none of them are worth a sh!t when it matters. Blair is probably the king of empty stats. This game was a root canal from start to finish.
#tradebonnernotblair
keeping bonner = money off the books at season's end
although if blair can give a good 10-15 minutes a game he's worth hanging on to
I thought Pop wanted to monitor Tim's minutes like Manu. But on the other hand, why play Tim at the beginning of 4th quarter. Fortunately he subbed Tim in, and Tim's offense rebound and assist to Neal's 3-pointer is huge.
Also, I like Manu's play a lot. Today he plays very briefly due to time limit, but I don't mind seeing him playing only 20 minutes. At his age, a less but efficient Manu is much better than a laboring and trying-too-hard Manu.
Plus, I feel Pop is teasing with the rotation and the Cavs. To my knowledge, I've never seen a Tim-Blair-Diaw front-court before, especially considering Cavs does not cause any match-up problem to the Spurs.
We're lucky Green's ice cold game came against Cleveland. I agree with Tiago's grade but your description seems really... forgiving.
Speights and Thompson had a combined 10 offensive rebounds. The Spurs bench had 3. Maybe Pop is just getting y, but if you give teams like OKC and the LAC second chance points, the Spurs won't stand a chance.
It really hurt when Cleveland went small and couldn't depend on Jackson. He was missed tonight in those type of lineups for defense and rebounding.
Blair having good games only increases his trade value and allows the Spurs to ask for a draft pick in the 1st round. That's why he hasn't moved since they have been able to pry a 1st rounder. Blair better hope he gets a player like Manu to feed him the ball for open dunks.
i thought tim did not want to take any risks when moving laterally. thus, his screen-setting ability was missed on O. hopefully, this is all because he's working his way(knee) back into shape.
manu looked great on O, but slow on D. he could not or did not want to follow his man around screens, and went for too many steals, leaving the defense scrambling. i think the spurs might have to play a little "del negro" defense with ginobili (aka hide him on the slowest perimeter player)
I mean I feel like if DeJuan is paired up with Manu he's going to produce. Those two would get several baskets a game.
#keepitintact
Yes, probably.... But Jackson would have shot them out of the game. Offensively, having the worst season of his career. If he just sticks to defense and leaves the offense to the rest of the team, he'd be a major +. He has't hit a three since the 26th of January.
Jackson doesn't shoot that much though. He's not like Neal where when he's not hitting, he keeps shooting. Spurs biggest problem was getting stops, more than scoring. Jackson would have been useful there.
Health has messed up the rotation to the point where Green (too small, was useless on D) and Diaw (too slow) saw time at the 3.
When Jackson's back and Tim/Manu aren't on minutes limitations I bet the rotation normalizes.
Trade both.
Danny Green sticking to his nickname "IcyHot" ...
No, that's the way it's always been. The Spurs concede O rebounds to put themselves in a position to set up their defense. Plus most teams who are good at offensive rebounding are teams that miss a lot of shots. 41% for the Cavs today and they got 16 O boards. The Spurs shot 45% and got 11 O boards. It's not like they don't do it, they just do it when the situation most calls for it.
It was good to see Gary Neal continue his solid play. I don't want to jinx him, but he seems to be emerging from this funk. That can't happen soon enough as hes a huge asset when hes hot.
Dejuan Blair also played a nice game. His presence on the boards was obvious and he was in a the right place a lot of times for easy baskets off of nice passes. His defense was its typical level of putrid, but he still contributed nicely tonight.
He needs to play every single minute with Manu and not one single more.
Not a great game but what was great was to see Duncan looking good.
And with 42 win, Spurs will finish the season above .500. It's crazy to be able to say that before the ASG.
Denver is tied for 5th in O EFF and 2nd in O rebounding; The Clips rank 7th and 10th; OKC comes in at 2nd and 15th. The Spurs? 4th and 30th. So as you can see, that's not always the case. And if you need more proof, check out the play by play of the last meeting between the Clips and Spurs. The Spurs needed one defensive rebound to give themselves a chance and they couldn't get it. When Duncan sits, the team is basically one and done on offense. You're right about the Spurs conceding O rebounds to set up the defense, but when the shot goes up, the Spurs should be crashing the glass. It doesn't help matters that when the opponent grabs an O rebound, it's almost a automatic putback for two points. When the Spurs grab the O rebound, they blow a layup, turn it over, or kick it out instead of going up strong, Duncan not withstanding.
Thats true. The Spurs could literally lose every remaining game this season and still finish with a winning record now.
Very amazing to be there by the All-Star break. Especially when you consider that the unfavorable part of our schedule is almost entirely behind us.
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