Game 6: the final seconds of regulation

[spurs10]

Like many of you, I am trying to move ahead with my summer and realize what's done is done. I burned the tape after game 7, so I wanted some of your opinions on the finals seconds of regulation in game 6 that decided our fate...pretty much. This is not about the blame game. We've heard it all from Pop, Manu, Tony, Danny, and Kawhi, to even Tim for the missed lay-up. Thank God the Red Mamba didn't play! My question to you is, was Manu fouled or was it a turnover, as charged, as time ran out? I am also unsure about whose assignment Bosh and Allen were on their last play. It looked like Kawhi had a hand on it, but Bosh had great position. TP was in the vicinity of Allen, but that pass from Bosh looked pretty uncontested. I will except the sportsmanship excuse of not fouling the 3 pt shooter, but not diving on Bosh is hard to get my head around. Thanks again, for all the good times and entertainment. I truly am grateful for timvp, Kori, ElNono's translations, Chopper's eloquent "Thank You Spurs" and many more of you for sharing your love of our team!! Go Spur Go!!

[313]

Like many of you, I am trying to move ahead with my summer and realize what's done is done. I burned the tape after game 7, so I wanted some of your opinions on the finals seconds of regulation in game 6 that decided our fate...pretty much. This is not about the blame game. We've heard it all from Pop, Manu, Tony, Danny, and Kawhi, to even Tim for the missed lay-up. Thank God the Red Mamba didn't play! My question to you is, was Manu fouled or was it a turnover, as charged, as time ran out? I am also unsure about whose assignment Bosh and Allen were on their last play. It looked like Kawhi had a hand on it, but Bosh had great position. TP was in the vicinity of Allen, but That pass from Bosh looked pretty uncontested. I will except the sportsmanship excuse of not fouling the 3 pt shooter, but not diving on Bosh is hard to get my head around. Thanks again, for all the good times and entertainment. I truly am grateful for timvp, Kori, ElNono's translations, Chopper's eloquent "Thank You Spurs" and many more of you for sharing your love of our team!! Go Spur Go!!

Definitely should have fouled Bosh tbh

As far as the fouls go, Manu didn't travel and there was enough contact where a foul should have been called. Ray Allen held back Manu's arm. I hate when people say "it was the end of the game, so that makes it ok for anything to go. The Spurs were getting all the calls anyway" well there are bad calls, and there are timely calls, or rather lack thereof. And that's what happened with Manu.

As far as Danny Green, it was a foul but Splitter set an illegal screen to get DG open so I suppose it balances itself out, no?

GoSpursGo

[spurraider21]

the green play was a good no call. the contact didn't impact the shot, the play, or the game. although if Parker gave a harder contest on Ray Allen's game tying 3 and there was lower body contact, i'm not sure the Refs would have swallowed their whistles there...

The Manu drive was a foul, but you can't complain about not getting that call. Especially in those deciding seconds of games, if there is any doubt, they'll give it to the defense. Reason being, if replay shows it wasn't a foul, they don't want to gift teams undeserved points. Instead, they have to live with the possibility of the player making a shot anyway (like he would have if it was an and-1). That way, if they were right to swallow their whistles, they win, and if they were wrong to swallow the whistle, maybe the player can make a great shot anyway.

I agree with the "no foul" premise when up by 3. Why risk a free throw shootout. Its very possible to miss a free throw here and there, while you are gifting the other team a shot at free throws or an offensive rebound off the second free throw, making it a 3 or 4 point play. Instead, switch everything and force them to take a very low percentage, contested 3. This works a VERY high percentage of the time, and the few times it doesn't, fans and analysts go haywire saying "OMGZZ YOU SHOULD HAVE FOULED"

However, i very much agree with you that they should have fouled on the offensive rebound. Simple reason being, you know that on a rebound like that, you are in scramble mode, and usually (not in this case) on an offensive rebound there is an easy putback anyway, which would be those same 2 points. Or like we saw in our regular season loss to miami, when lebron almost lost the ball, our defense went into scramble mode, and he hit ray allen for what turned out to be a game winning 3. once bosh got the offense rebound, they should have hacked him. exchange free throws, then play tight perimeter D again

[spurs10]

Thanks for your takes!

[therealtruth]

We simply didn't execute at the end of the game and that just should not happen with a championship team. Our execution used to be flawless at the end of games.

[ace3g]

A few things:

Parker somehow loses sight of LeBron on the screen, forcing Diaw to step away from Bosh to contest LeBron as well; that was the start of it all. Then Manu goes up for the rebound against Bosh with Allen right behind as he comes down, Allen starts to back toward the corner and Manu can't use him as leverage which is why he fell. He would have been in perfect position either for a steal or better contest than from TP.

Also while Parker made a good contest, I think it forced Allen to jumper a bit higher giving the shot more arc, thus might have been better not contesting the shot there.

So many little things went wrong, some inexcusable others just plain bad luck.

Not sure if a foul would have been called if they tried to wrap up Bosh, he got that pass out quickly.

Also if Bosh only caught the rebound not facing the direction of Allen.

Manu going for that rebound kind of felt like the Giants "helmet" catch, if Manu's arm goes between Bosh's arms he probably dislodges the ball, and at worst a foul might have been called if Bosh "overreacts" to the contact.

[ElNono]

It's a testament to how hard it is to win this thing. It goes both for the Heat and our Spurs. You can have all the stars in the world, the absolute best 3 point shooter in NBA Finals history, and yet, your season could be hanging entirely on the ball bouncing your way on a key play. I've always been a firm believer in that the team that wins a 7 game series is the better team. This is perhaps the only time I would make an exception. And it's not that I think the Spurs are the better team, it's just that these two teams fought to such a standstill, that eventually something had to give, and fortune, or mis-fortune, ended up tipping the scales.

Thank you for you kind words about the translations. I'm looking forward to continue to do that next season if Manu decides to come back.

[chazley]

Look, we were up 5 with 28 seconds to go. Our chances of winning a game in that situation are basically 90%. To use poker terms.. they hit a 4-outer on the river. It happens, nothing is guaranteed.

This team finally hit the good side of variance during these playoffs. During the past few seasons, we were championship contenders, and arguably better than the teams we played, but Manu breaks his elbow a few days before the playoffs and we drop a very close game 1 in 2011. Zbo hit some ridiculously difficult 20 footers at the end of close games. In 2012, Serge Ibaka/Perkins/Collison shoot 90% from 17 feet for Game 4 and we lose a close one and in the very next game Harden hits a ridiculously hard 3. Bad side of variance.

Look at these playoffs. We draw the Lakers first round and they're starting D-league all-stars. Against the Warriors we play two atrocious games back to back at home but get extremely lucky and win a game in a situation that literally had never been done before in NBA history. Steph Curry rolls his ankle and is never the same. Against Memphis we won every close game, including two OT's that could've gone either way. Series looked nothing like a 4-0 beatdown. We could've been down 3-1 easily.

Against the Heat, Danny Green sets an NBA record for made 3-pointers while making them at a 67% clip thru 5 games. Lucky, and not indicative of the median we can expect over a large sample size. That very much was a huge reason why we were up against the Heat after game 5. Then bad luck starts to happen to us. He crashes back down to earth and regresses to the mean (totally expected, altho horribly bad timing) during the next 2 games. We lose a game that the basketball gods stole from us game 6. Tim Duncan misses a shot and subsequent tip-in in Game 7 that he makes 9/10 tries. We experienced some ugly variance the last 2 games.

One thing I will say though: Strictly speaking in a relative sense, Tony Parker was BAD against the Heat. He had two good games (1/5) and didn't have a single great game that stood out after torching the Grizz. It's amazing to me that Pop/Manu have been the scapegoats for this series when so much was made about this being TONY's team and we didn't lean on Manu AT ALL this year and couldn't have expected much more than what he gave us. Extremely disappointed in Tony. He looked good enough physically to me to get the job done and didn't.

[therealtruth]

A few things:

Parker somehow loses sight of LeBron on the screen, forcing Diaw to step away from Bosh to contest LeBron as well; that was the start of it all. Then Manu goes up for the rebound against Bosh with Allen right behind as he comes down, Allen starts to back toward the corner and Manu can't use him as leverage which is why he fell. He would have been in perfect position either for a steal or better contest than from TP.

Also while Parker made a good contest, I think it forced Allen to jumper a bit higher giving the shot more arc, thus might have been better not contesting the shot there.

So many little things went wrong, some inexcusable others just plain bad luck.

Not sure if a foul would have been called if they tried to wrap up Bosh, he got that pass out quickly.

Also if Bosh only caught the rebound not facing the direction of Allen.

Manu going for that rebound kind of felt like the Giants "helmet" catch, if Manu's arm goes between Bosh's arms he probably dislodges the ball, and at worst a foul might have been called if Bosh "overreacts" to the contact.

Pretty much it was bad defense on a crucial play and our best defender was sitting on the bench. TD's effect wouldn't just have been in getting the rebound but directing players where to go.

[ace3g]

Pretty much it was bad defense on a crucial play and our best defender was sitting on the bench. TD's effect wouldn't just have been in getting the rebound but directing players where to go.

Not really, Duncan would have been out of position as well, Parker getting lost on the screen started all the chaos, Duncan would of had to step away from Bosh to contest the shot.

Now that we know Pop likes to sit Duncan when a 3 is needed, Pop needs to have a good rebounding/agile line up (SFs/Bigs that can switch on screens) in the cards; that is why the Spurs need 2 legit SFs on the roster.

[spurs10]

Good stuff everyone, it helps. El Nono, I for one hope you are back at the translations because once the smoke clears, Manu will realize he's got unfinished business. Just no pg, please!!

[therealtruth]

Not really, Duncan would have been out of position as well, Parker getting lost on the screen started all the chaos, Duncan would of had to step away from Bosh to contest the shot.

Now that we know Pop likes to sit Duncan when a 3 is needed, Pop needs to have a good rebounding/agile line up (SFs/Bigs that can switch on screens) in the cards; that is why the Spurs need 2 legit SFs on the roster.

So you're pretty much saying Parker's lack of defense was the issue.

[ace3g]

On that play, yes.

[Knoxxx]

GTF off Tony Parker. Have you ever had a pulled hamstring? That's what I thought.

I finally rewatched Game 6 though the recording somehow cut off at Spurs 97-95 in OT (odd since I always extend 1.5 hours on sports events). All I really wanted to see was the obvious Ray Allen foul on Manu when we were down 100-101 a minute or so left.

We went from down 86-89 to up two ONLY because of two sick plays by Parker. Also I didn't see him miss him any FTs down the stretch. Finally, he beat LeBron James off the dribble and THEN LEBRON OBVIOUSLY SHOVES HIM OUT OF BOUNDS AS TIME EXPIRES.

Wow, screwed on two critical and obvious foul calls as time expired and OT. Priceless.

[SpursDynasty]

What happened at the end of Game 6 is that games are a full 48 minutes long. No storylines. No heartbreaks. No shockers. No upsets. No surprises. Ray Allen just made a shot.

[Knoxxx]

Yes I did a frame by frame on the alleged LeBron shove and while he looks awful guilty I can't say for sure. Looks like he rode him and then backed off when he thought a foul could be called. As if!

What was noticeable was LeBrons horrible shooting and playmaking down the stretch of regulation. What was he like 1 of 4 and the misses were horrible. One was so bad they debated as to whether it was a lob pass. The 3 he missed was a good look and clanged the side of the backboard. History was rewritten, he comes back in Game 7 looking like a worldbeater (and they barely won).

Great job Spurs you had these bas s those two second shot 3 PT FGs were FLUKES, PERIOD.

Also I feel better reviewing as Gino made 3 of 4 FT I had forgotten the first pair. I certainly can't hate on Kawhi either for missing one in that situation when he was great all series. Fate was just unkind to us, but I said from the start this series was a coin flip.

[TheyCallMePro]

To me it's all about the inbounds play that ended up in Kawhi getting the ball. I know he can make 2 free-throws. But percentage wise he definitely wasn't our best option.

Where the was Tony Parker? Gary Neal? Why wasn't Matt Bonner on the court? We were just coming out of a time-out for God's sake! We have good free-throw shooters. Where were they? Why is it that 21 year old Kawhi Leonard was the only one who could make a play and get open for a CRUCIAL inbounds pass when we had no time-outs left and almost didn't get it in?

Remember when we used to bring Brent Barry in to shoot free-throws at the end of games? And the focus of our inbounds play would be to set screens for him to get open and get the ball? Where was that? I hate to keep piling on Pop but inbounding the ball to the right person should be relatively simple. Was there no communication out of the timeout for Tim to throw it into Parker or Neal (if he was even in....)? Why couldn't those guys just run to the back court and get open. I didn't see the effort there. Everyone was in the front court. They all looked scared to death. Except Leonard...that is.

If were up 4 instead of 3 were winning that game. I don't blame Leonard. He played great. Even when he missed that first free-throw and Miami forced overtime he nearly won it for us in OT. And then in Game 7 him and Tim are the only one's who showed up. But still, you've simply got to have a better free-throw shooter than Kawhi shooting those crucial free-throws with 21 seconds left. Really...Parker is the one who should have been able to get open there. He was the leader of this team. It's disappointing that no one stepped up. And , if Kawhi didn't get open then we would have been whistled for a 5 second call because no one else was freaking open.

[ace3g]

I also think about the moments before the fouls to Manu and Kawhi.

I'm not sure Kawhi was fouled when caught the ball on the right side of the court, looked like he got away from Wade IIRC before the foul, would have taken some time of the clock.

With Manu (who was heading toward the basket) should have turned around and headed toward the corner to take some more time off the clock.

Granted all this is in hindsight.

[Budkin]

It was just like the regular season game against Phoenix. Except instead of costing us positioning in the standings, it cost us a championship. .

[ElNono]

What happened at the end of Game 6 is that games are a full 48 minutes long. No storylines. No heartbreaks. No shockers. No upsets. No surprises. Ray Allen just made a shot.

[spurspokesman]

If we had played just a tad better all game we win going away.

[maverick1948]

Like many of you, I am trying to move ahead with my summer and realize what's done is done. I burned the tape after game 7, so I wanted some of your opinions on the finals seconds of regulation in game 6 that decided our fate...pretty much. This is not about the blame game. We've heard it all from Pop, Manu, Tony, Danny, and Kawhi, to even Tim for the missed lay-up. Thank God the Red Mamba didn't play! My question to you is, was Manu fouled or was it a turnover, as charged, as time ran out? I am also unsure about whose assignment Bosh and Allen were on their last play. It looked like Kawhi had a hand on it, but Bosh had great position. TP was in the vicinity of Allen, but that pass from Bosh looked pretty uncontested. I will except the sportsmanship excuse of not fouling the 3 pt shooter, but not diving on Bosh is hard to get my head around. Thanks again, for all the good times and entertainment. I truly am grateful for timvp, Kori, ElNono's translations, Chopper's eloquent "Thank You Spurs" and many more of you for sharing your love of our team!! Go Spur Go!!

Checking the replay of game 6, it was the responsibility of every Spurs defender to stay with their man on the 3 point line. However, 3 Spurs failed in that respect. Parker left his man, Ginobili left his man, and most important of all, Danny Green left Ray Allen to go for the rebound. Manu getting in there blocked Green from getting back to Allen and Parker was way too late. If all 3 had done what Pop had drawn up, we are holding the O'Brian trophy right now.

[mudyez]

the green play was a good no call. the contact didn't impact the shot, the play, or the game. although if Parker gave a harder contest on Ray Allen's game tying 3 and there was lower body contact, i'm not sure the Refs would have swallowed their whistles there...

The Manu drive was a foul, but you can't complain about not getting that call. Especially in those deciding seconds of games, if there is any doubt, they'll give it to the defense. Reason being, if replay shows it wasn't a foul, they don't want to gift teams undeserved points. Instead, they have to live with the possibility of the player making a shot anyway (like he would have if it was an and-1). That way, if they were right to swallow their whistles, they win, and if they were wrong to swallow the whistle, maybe the player can make a great shot anyway.

I agree with the "no foul" premise when up by 3. Why risk a free throw shootout. Its very possible to miss a free throw here and there, while you are gifting the other team a shot at free throws or an offensive rebound off the second free throw, making it a 3 or 4 point play. Instead, switch everything and force them to take a very low percentage, contested 3. This works a VERY high percentage of the time, and the few times it doesn't, fans and analysts go haywire saying "OMGZZ YOU SHOULD HAVE FOULED"

However, i very much agree with you that they should have fouled on the offensive rebound. Simple reason being, you know that on a rebound like that, you are in scramble mode, and usually (not in this case) on an offensive rebound there is an easy putback anyway, which would be those same 2 points. Or like we saw in our regular season loss to miami, when lebron almost lost the ball, our defense went into scramble mode, and he hit ray allen for what turned out to be a game winning 3. once bosh got the offense rebound, they should have hacked him. exchange free throws, then play tight perimeter D again

Perfect take....just what I thought about all the situations...but: Assuming Pop didn't tell them before "foul the living sh** of of any offensive rebounder" (and you discriped why he probably did not) there simply isn't any chance to react this quickly after Bosh rebounded. Things just went to quickly.

[michaelwcho]

This is OT, but I don't want to start a new thread about him.

I see Chris Bosh getting a lot of heat (no pun intended). I guess he scored 0 points in Game 7, and certainly doesn't deserve to be called part of their Big Three when you look at his production and involvement. He also disappeared for long stretches and was a liability on D who needed a lot of help. That being said, that guy was in the mix in a LOT of big plays. In some of those blocks, rebounds, hustle plays, the pass to Ray Allen--you sub him with someone else, and maybe you don't get the same result. Does someone like Zach Randolph or Marc Gasol, for example, see Allen, do they get to Green on the three point attempt, etc? On the one hand Bosh seems pretty pathetic, but on the other hand, he made some big plays for them.

[Horse]

How about put your best ing players in the game at those moments. I don't care what anyone thinks Timmy would've got one of those rebounds end of game end of series!