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Which is exactly what I meant.
??? We trailed by 3 points at the end of 2 and at the end of 3. If that's "Heat ball", they're in ing trouble. It appears WE are the ones who can turn it on.
Which is exactly what I meant.
If the Spurs aren't careful they very well could blow us out. Mistakes last night like leaving shooters wide open, and playing Bonner and Neal together at the same time will do that to you eventually.
Spurs need to not feel comfortable, and steal Game 2, period. Don't be content with one win.
Let's look at some numbers for perspective.
First, the box score: http://www.basketball-reference.com/...306060MIA.html
The Spurs put up an ORtg of 108.2, a hair below their season average of 108.3
The Heat put up an ORtg of 103.5, well below their season average of 11
The pace was 85.0, so it was a very slow game. The slowest team in the league, Memphis, had a pace of 88.4. For comparison, the Spurs were #6 in the league in pace at 94.2, while the Heat were #23 at 90.7. It surprises some people to learn that Miami plays so slow.
The Spurs mainly won this game by having an insanely low number of turnovers and slightly winning the free throw battle.
if grandma had balls she'd be grandpa.
In other news, the team that scores more points than the other team...wins.
Honestly, you can't be anymore aggressive than what the GS Warriors and Grizz were. And as I recall, the Spurs were 8-2 against those teams.
Problem with being over aggressive is, the Spurs run about 5-6 picks each offensive play. Anyone who has played BB, running through and around picks is the most exhausting thing IMO to do on the Basketball court. That is why Miami, yes Miami, was visibly tired. Both Chalmers and Cole were noticeably exhausted by the 4th quarter.
Trying to play transition BB on offense than run through 5-6 each defensive possession, just ask Klay/Curry/Conley/Allen/Nash/Blake how that turned out for them.
I think people need to give both team's defenses credit....it's the reason neither were able to run away with the game.
I agree with the tired aspect. I think the more this series goes, the worse Miami will be at preventing Parker from having his way...which is why it's so huge that we will have 3 games in a row at home.
Heat fans (ESPN) are in denial this morning. They think Heat were on the verge of blowing the game up and all they need to do is run and gun and they will run the Spurs out of the building...but it's just so naive and disrespects the capability of the Spurs defense which was being laughed at on ESPN compared to 'what the Heat had to play vs Pacers'.
Yeah, and if the Spurs didn't miss so many wide open layups and 3's, this one would have been a laugher by the end of the 3rd.
Did this David Thorpe person watch the game? Heat looked pretty damn agressive to me.
i'm sure it's that easy with a TOSB Wade, a tripled James, a slow Bosh and a lot of superTOSB 3 point shootersAnd i'm sure they don't want to play Chalmers + Cole more than necessary..
The Heat were very aggressive in the first half. They even came out playing their ultra aggressive defense in the third quarter. The problem is Miami can't stay at that level for long. Their strategy is to make other teams wilt under that pressure and grab a big lead, holding on for the victory in the end. The Spurs will not wilt. They recovered from a 16 point deficit with 4 minutes left against Golden State. You can't stop playing hard until the game is over against the Spurs.
From what I've heard, Miami's offensive numbers are horribly inflated by playing bad teams (according to Coach Nick, the bottom 20 defenses). Teams like the Spurs have better numbers against good teams. Since the Spurs were third in defensive rating, I assume that Miami had a typical Miami performance against a good defensive team. So it's not so much about them getting back to their style of play (like Thorpe says) as much as it's about them finding a way to beat the Spurs' defense.
Subjectively, I felt the Spurs never reached their highest gear (or even highest two or three gears) last night. They missed enough easy shots to have a 15- or so-point lead in the fourth. They didn't turn the ball over, but I don't think it's because they got lucky and avoided a passive Heat defense. I think the Spurs can still move the ball a lot better than they did, which should help to account for and capitalize on the Heat's more aggressive defense. The Heat pretty much had their best playoff performance from their players last night. While it's easy to say they can do a lot better by looking at their stars, I think that would do a tremendous injustice to the Spurs' defense, which also has another gear or two to increase. Green and Diaw can do more on defense, and either Neal is going to learn to stick with Allen no matter what, or Joseph is going to get some minutes at the two.
I thought Miami played much closer to their ceiling than the Spurs did. If Pop can get his players to play at the highest level, Miami needs to watch out. The Spurs shouldn't lose the efficiency or rebound battles again in this series.
very true.
Spurs have no history of turning it on, lifting their game a level or intentionally controlling the pace through 3 quarters so they can outplay their opponents in the fourth. They have never done that before in the past 16 years.
Everyone seems to ignore that our offense runs opposing perimeter players through multiple picks each possession. It's like body blows in boxing. You wear them down throughout and finish them in the fourth. The Heat can't play their aggressive trap defense that long when we are running them through all those screens.
To ahead and put lbj on Tony too. We can just move him off the ball and force James to go run the gauntlet every possession. See how much juice he has left at the end after that.
If Leonard would have made 2 of those 3's it would have been over sooner... Spurs role players are rusty with their shot.. In game 2 they wont be but I do expect more turnovers from Spurs next game..
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