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Great post GSH
If you're really quick, and a good ball handler, you split it or go around it before they can get set up. If you can't do that, you pass. Manu hasn't been able to beat it off the dribble, which means he has to pass away from it, and he hasn't been too successful with passing. But you can't blame all of that on him.
I made a thread about this after Game 2 - nobody paid any attention to it. To beat the trap with the pass, you have to have teammates who are moving without the ball, to create angles. The other guys have to see the trap coming, too, and adjust. The Spurs haven't been doing that well. I've watched it over and over in this series. The Heat bring the trap, and the ball handler has only got one man he can possibly pass to - and the Heat have a defender salivating, waiting for that pass. The ball handler takes the blame, but he really doesn't have much choice in the matter.
It would be nice if Manu could beat the trap on his own. But it would be nice if CoJo could do that as well. But since that's not happening, the other guys on the floor are going to have to react earlier, and create the angles for good passes. It doesn't help to have two guys buried in the corners, when the ball handler is trapped near mid-court, with no outlet.
Trapping is a gamble, The beauty of beating it with the pass is that you've got numbers down the court, and you can usually get easy points off of it. Do that a few times, and they quit bringing the trap. They'll still do it once in a while, to mix things up, or if they see you getting lazy bring the ball up. But right now, when Parker isn't in the game they are bringing it just about every play - because it's working. And like I said, you can't blame all of that on Manu. He's lost some speed, but he hasn't lost his smarts. The rest of the guys are going to have to do a better job of moving without the ball.
I'll be honest - some of that is on Pop. I was frustrated as that they obviously hadn't prepared for it better by last game. Honestly, the only time a trap ought to work that well is if you don't know it's coming. Because if you know that a trap is coming, and execute decently, you ought to be able to just punish the out of them for it. In fact, against really aggressively-trapping teams, I've seen coaches bait them into trapping, because beating it gets so many easy shots. I haven't seen Pop do anything special - just hand the ball to Manu or CoJo, and try to run their normal offense. That's a problem, because the Heat run their trap very well.
Great post GSH
Still, I'm a high priest in the church of Manu, and I'm about to issue an Amber Alert for Manu's game.
.....this guy
Agreed, and that's exactly what Manu was pointing out in the interview: it's not about him personally scoring 15-20 points. It's making sure the team moves the ball quickly to open up the game for the bigs and shooters. That's his role now. That's who they are. They're not going to change who they are at this point in the season.
Which is also why I was pointing out the Splitter failure. He finishes off those dunks at the rim, and Manu suddenly looks great and Miami is now thinking, do we really want to keep being aggressive with the trap?
Pop will adjust to the lineup change, but I don't think he's gonna do much more. As stated above, he's a strict believer of the "journey". I suspect we're going to keep playing this way, Manu won't be taking 10+ shots, and we're either going to play better (less turnovers, more ball movement) and win or not.
And Manu will certainly be the scapegoat if we don't. Per the usual.
Splitter's bread and butter is the up-and-under. How many times have you seen him go to it in the playoffs? Off the top of my head, I would say zero. His problem is less about being soft, and more about being impatient.
Tiago isn't a high-flyer - we all know that. And Miami has a bunch of athletic guys who can get way off the ground. Getting blocked by those guys isn't a big surprise, and it doesn't have anything to do with being soft. (There are some other places where I think he IS being soft, but that's not one of them.) One of his problems is that, because he doesn't get way off the ground, he's pretty much always going up right under the basket. That means he has to go straight up, or even lean away from the rim a little bit - and that's a setup for getting blocked. It's also the reason the up-and-under works for him so well. On all of the shots he's gotten blocked, if he had given an up-fake the defenders would have left their feet. He could have gotten layups, and some trips to the FT line. When you go up from even 3-4 feet from the rim, and lean into the dunk, you aren't going to get it blocked from behind. But when you go straight up, from right underneath? Yeah, these guys are going to swat them down.
I just mentioned the Splitter dunks, above. Most people are barking up the wrong tree about that.
Pop doesn't have to change the lineup. He needs to spend a day working on beating that trap, though. I'm sorry, but when you've got a guy being trapped out near mid-court, and you have two guys buried in each corner, you're not going to be very successful. The result of combatting the trap may be giving up some corner 3 attempts. But the trade-off should be some easy shots at the rim and/or some open short jumpers. And let's face it, the guys in the corners aren't doing any good when we cough the ball up before they can shoot.
disappointing ElNono only 12 pages with a thread le like Manu scapegoat as usual, but ...? I mean I was expecting at least 20 pages.
strangely enough in this thread I do share most of FkLA opinions
Doubting that Manu is giving it all is beyond ridiculous tbh. Saying he had an ok game is also foolish. Not seeing that Spurs will need more from Manu than being a facilitator is also foolish. At home he can play the facilitator role and stick to it, on the road for a game 6 or 7 he will need to score, counting on Green, Neal, Bonner to score the ball especially late in the game would be suicidal.
If Manu continues to play like that, chance to win is 1%, if Manu plays more aggressive we are probably at 10%.
I don't know if there is a disconnect between Manu and Pop about his role but they need to fix that and quick.
If Pop really ASK him to just play PnR, feed the bigs and be a mere facilitator, that's a mistake and Tim, Manu and Tony need to speak up.
Well, when we did successfully beat it, we had 3-4 easy attempts at the rim and botched them. I understand what you describe about Tiago, and it might have nothing to do with soft or not, but those are as easy opportunities as this team is going to get at the rim, and they need to finish them. That's the bottom line. If you don't finish those, then Miami is emboldened to keep playing the same way.
rofl, who is this?..
I absolutely love Manu; he has been my hero. My groomsman cake was a 3 foot Manu cake for Pete's sake. But Manu deserves to be the scapegoat. He has been dreadful. I keep optimistically waiting for that good game from him, but after watching his post season, it is logical to conclude that he is playing terribly and cannot turn it around. But Pop is going to ride him til the end.
Exactly and that's what I refer to as being soft - not going up strong. If a player goes up strong and gets his shot blocked, so what? However, if a player wimps around the basket and goes up weak, that's something else. Spilitter has an arsenal of moves and up and under fakes in his reportiore. He should use them to create space and draw fouls. For now, it looks like the Heat are in his head.
spurs need 10-15 points from manu
I knew he would SUCK last night with only one day off
SUNDAY IS HIS DAY TO SHINE IF HE BRINGS NOTHING HIS CONTRACT VALUE JUST DROPS BY MILLIONS
RIGHT NOW HE IS WORTH THE VET MIN NEXT YEAR
still working on it, tbh... BTW, how that "it's over" thread coming along?
I see disappointment in your future, tbh... We only played about 100 games this season with that setup, I don't think there's any disconnect... now with Tony hurt there's a special cir stance and things might need to change, but other than that, that's what got us here and what we're rolling with. IMO, anyways.
The Spurs are too reliant on the 3 point shot. They have too many players who just camp out on the 3 point line on most offensive possessions. Miami just has to take that away and force those 3 point campers to go out of their comfort zone, force them to hit shots off the dribble or take it to the basket and the result is a turnover or a confused offense not getting a good shot off.
if you think manu has the same role in the past 6 years, you havent been paying attention at all. starting last year manu's minutes and shot attempts have dropped and he has become a set up man, mostly because he lost his 1st step. To compound the problem further, the leg injuries this year have taken a toll on his shooting so defenders can just back off. tough to fake out a pro when they are watching from far away and you cant just attack them directly. if you dont think so, look at wade: 4 years younger than manu, has played even less than manu in his career due to injuries from his (similar) playing style, and w/o lebron and the whole team consciously setting him up he has sucked balls all PO, till finally last night he got into a bit of a rhythm with his shot.
When Manu was a star he was able to penetrate on any defense. He was a scorer, doing most of his damage inside with 3 pt shooting and playmaking as auxiliary skills. Eventually the 3pt shooting and the playmaking superceded the penetration, now the playmaking is all that is left. And while some of that is his body breaking down, some of it is also his role on the team, as there are players better equipped to score on the roster now. At the same time, the spurs haven't had a decent back up PG since vaughn? I dont know if a few months of tj ford count. The only player who gets setup less than manu does on this team is Tony parker, we'll see how well he is scoring at age 35 w/o someone to set him up the way timmy gets set up.
as far as this game, it wasnt only the feeds to Tiago that were wasted. Timmy got blocked on a great inside pass from manu going to the rim, leonard got blocked on an interior pass from tim that was setup by manu too. Some of it is poor finishing from our guys, some of it is great defense from the heat. Its amazing how some people cant give the opponent any credit (and of course, many of those people are the same that said we didnt stand a chance against miami).
I think its a mistake to try and change iden y at this point of the season. If pop and manu didnt believe it necessary or best/ couldn't establish manu as a scorer before this, now is not the time to do it. That doesnt mean manu shouldn't be a little more selfish, there definitely was a little diaw jr. to his game today (but even then I rather he turn down open 3s unless there is no time for another option). The big key last night was on defense, we can't let the heat kill us inside and turnovers are a big part of that. Manu has to do more, on both ends, while taking care of the ball, but we dont need big scoring numbers, just for him to run the offense, help out on the boards and be disruptive on D- in other words, like he has played for most of the PO.
its re ed to expect good per game numbers from a guy averaging 24 mpg.
for 26 minutes last night, 5 ast / 1 TO would have been good; if you consider that those plays happened in less than 26 minutes and would have changed the complexion of the game (forcing miami to reconsider the traps), then even with the 20% shooting it would be better than just ok IMO.
But given the reality that those passes didnt translate to scores and that the offense was unable to punish the heat's traps, it was not an ok performance. Some of that responsibility is on Manu for not taking charge and forcing better looks, but the brunt of it is Pop's responsibility for relying on a 35 year old to beat traps from the best perimeter defense in the league. In that sense Nono is right that Manu did what he should by passing the ball inside, that the heat were able to recover is not manu's fault, nor is it manu's fault that the spurs had twice the TO of the heat.
Pop has to rest them for next season.
It happened to Tim too. It's shocking, the guys should be able to recognize when they have a decided advantage at the rim. They keep going up strong side against these athletic defenders. They need to be able to position themselves better. Attack and use the rim to fend off would be shot-blockers. Or even just go back to the basket then spin to a better attack position. More than a few times, the bigs including Kawhi look hurried or rushed. That one play were Kawhi caught the ball and tried to get it up and shoot the ball all in 1 motion is indicative of the way the Spurs played around the rim.
well... it's a slow start but I collected some nice pearls in the middle of the crab basket... I spotted some VIPs lurking and DMC went to say o so it may take off at some point. But I'm not delusional, if you don't get the 2 / 3 pages in the next 30 mn after you created the thread, chances to reach the 5 pages are low.
still working on it, tbh... BTW, how that "it's over" thread coming along?
Nice analysis, I agree completely. The Heat are trapping in such a way as to make our usual floor spacing useless. We need to have guys on the move, cutting to the wide open spaces on the floor. This is one reason why I'm in favor of a Tony-Diaw pick and roll (or maybe even Manu/Diaw). If the Heat trap Tony/Manu, Diaw splits the trap and runs straight towards the middle of the floor (near the free throw line) where he (presumably) receives the pass from Tony. Now we're in a 4 vs 3 help situation and hopefully Diaw can make the right play. He's a gifted enough passer to do so.
Tiago was rolling to the wide open spaces as well, but as ElNono correctly pointed out earlier he was actually getting stripped from the weakside and not Manu's man. We need the superior passing talents of Boris in this situation, IMO. Actually, we first need Boris to score a couple of baskets near the rim in order to force weakside help on subsequent possessions.
No. We're shooting something insane like > 50% from 3 in games 2 through 4. Game 1 was our only poor 3 point shooting performance. Our 3 point shooting has been critical in helping us keep our leads or keep the game close.
Less P&R with Manu Miami P&R defense is just to good, need more Iso, he had a iso game 3 and went right by Wade with a right hand finish, also have to run more off ball plays for manu have him run off screens I'm sure Pop will make lots of adjustments. But this is a sad thing to watch as a Manu fan he has never been under this much scrutiny in his entire basketball career ever professional analyst is just shocked by this, This is the NBA FINALS and Manu hasn't showed up its a sad thing to watch. I still believe in him though
This. Boris came in and gave us a boost. The Spurs need two playmakers out there at all times. If Parker isn't one of them, then Boris has to be along with Ginobili.
Honestly though, this game came down to two things, turnovers and rejections at the rim. The Spurs had 5 shots blocked at the rim with another one from Diaw blocked as he went up. That's 12 points and likely a few less for MIA since those blocks started fast breaks.
Dee-Whistle had 6 steals by himself, also leading to more fast break points.
Any way you slice it though, this loss is not on Manu.......not by himself anyway.
Yes, that´s a TO as well.
I'm with you NoNo
He'll come through when it matters
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