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I don't know why some on here criticize your analyzations of the stats and facts on here because you are dead on.
Could it be because some on here think you don't make a scapegoat of and blame Manu enough?
Manu's game 7 wasn't nearly as bad in retrospect. Parker had 10 points and looked out of it. Manu is the only other play maker on the team. His 5 assists helped put 12 points on the board. Green not being able to dribble and his 3pt shot going south made him a liability on offense. Neal is just to short to be effective against long teams like Miami and OKC late in games when they clamp down. He also scored 18 pts on 8-14 shooting. Miami's trapping and switching on screens along with their collective length and athleticism made it even tougher for him to make plays.
His performance reminded me of Duncan's 10-25 FG game 7 against Detroit. He struggled but still made positive contributions to give us a chance to win (we won that, but unfortunetly lost this one)
He even stole and inbound pass & dribbled out the 3pt line. Forced a defender to pick between closing out on him or Green (he close to close of Manu) before shoveling a bass to Green for a wide open 3 that would have given us the lead with 2 minutes to go.
I don't know why some on here criticize your analyzations of the stats and facts on here because you are dead on.
Could it be because some on here think you don't make a scapegoat of and blame Manu enough?
Manu performance wasn't really out of the norm, considering how he played this season. Erratic and occasionally brilliant. BTW Game 1 & Game 3 were good games. Game 2, 4, and 6 were poor games.
And I still don't get peoples logic that Manu's free-throw miss is much bigger of a miss than Leonard's. People crushed Splitter for his FT% falling off a clip in the 11-12 season but Leonard's dropped from 82%-67% in the post season (His FT shooting in the GSW series was poor, at best). Its a weird double standard Leonard gets handled with kid gloves and they get ripped. They are even mistakes and it cost us.
He's 35 years old with a ton of mileage from international play, 10 NBA seasons plus 2 full seasons on playoff basketball.
I think that 34 point game 5 against OKC really set the bar unreasonably high for himself nearing his mid 30's. His postseason numbers from the 11-12 run were pretty similar (besides shooting percentages) He actually averaged more turnovers and fewer assists in more minutes.
We need a 3rd ball handler to create while Manu is one the floor. So he can spot up and rest ,on occasion, on offense.
Not very many players can be the 3rd option scoring the ball and then be asked to create for everyone else while he's on the floor. For a le contending team and is a 35 year old wing
His Game 7 wasn't nearly as bad. 18pt 8-14 FG, 5 assists, 4 turnovers. Parker had 10 points. Green struggled. Besides Leonard, he was the only offense we had on he perimeter.
Every rotation player,at some point, screwed up or game up small in that series. Save for Diaw & Neal (he finally got his shot back and gave us some much needed offense)It was a dozen little mistakes that cost us big.
I blame Manu, sure, but its not all on him. DMC and Skull-1 have closed-minded opinions and look to dismiss something that doesn't gel with their beliefs. I can be swayed by certain numbers they can't be. Appreciate the support Xmas 1997.
You are not the only one who has looked at the big picture rather than take the easy way out and look for a scapegoat to explain everything.
There are other posters on here too who take the time and effort to get to the bottom of things with their analyzations and thus come to somewhat the same conclusions you do.
Very few however give any credit to the Heats' defense which was pretty damn good going into the finals.
In the final analysis the Heat rose up and flat out took the trophy away from the Spurs, plain and simple.
I hate admitting that, but they weren't considered the best team with the greatest player as well as highly favored to win it all, for nothing.
By the way, I didn't want to go back and look at the play by play for Game 6 but wanted to see how many points were scored off Manu's 8 TOs .......and the results are...........7 points.
And we only needed one in regulation. How many points would we have scored without those turnovers? How much wear and tear saved on our players defending? How much clock would have burned?
None of this factors into the stats.
As most Spurs fans back then, I too blamed Manu for the loss. Looking back, I still kind of put the lion's share of the blame on him, but I don't exactly "blame" him anymore. Everyone had their fair share of the blame. TD missing the layup and putback, Pop benching TD, TP getting injured and sucking the last 2 games, Kawhi missing his ft, Danny running out of bullets, etc.
Yeah, Manu had a big hand on it, but to say he alone brought a loss upon the Spurs is just..... wrong. And that's coming from a guy who wanted him to retire right then and there.
I'm really glad some good sense is slowly starting to seep back into most Spurs fans.
I learned from Don Vito Corleone, not to let your emotions blur the big picture. Or something like that.
Plus Manu only had 1 TO in the 4th at the 4:24 mark and the Heat didn't score off of it. LeBron had 2 consecutive TOs (39 and 28 secs left) late in the game that could have easily hurt his legacy but the victory quickly erased those from memory.
I was more upset with the clock management at the end of game 6 (on those 2 consecutive TOs by Lebron we decided to push the ball when we could have easily taken 5-6 secs off the game clock) and Parker losing LeBron on that screen forcing Diaw to step way from Bosh to challenge Lebron.
From a team aspect no one really reacted quick enough to box out Bosh to get in position for the rebound.
1) The bad luck plays: Kawhi (with his hands) wasn't able to hold onto the ball, Wade somehow stripped it enough and then Miller pushed the ball to Lebron for his 3.
2) Manu after going for the rebound against Bosh on "the play" as he was going up Ray Allen was right at his hip/back, when he came down Allen slipped to the corner, Manu didn't have any leverage when he came down, thus why he fell to the ground; and he would of had the angle for the steal when Bosh passed the ball.
So many things went wrong, TOs get the focus because they are a stat.
Tony Parker deserves 65% of the blame. MVP gets all the blame IMO.
6-23 in game 6. Not even gonna post his game 7 numbers.
I agree that Manu isn't solely to blame here.
But given what was expected of him versus what he delivered, it's delusional to ignore the significant role he played in the loss.
Games 6 and 7 felt like Kawhi Leonard was the second banana. Good for the future, bad for when you're trying to close out a series.
Kobe shot 6-24 in Game 7 in 2010 and yet he gets less flak because his team won (and he shot 11-12 FTs).
Another issue the past 2 years; the Spurs depth shortened way too much in the WCF (2012) and Finals (2013). Some from players going cold; others just match up issues (can't defend). Hopefully Belinelli can stay on the court for longer periods of time in tight games than Neal could and not just another situational player.
Plus another year of development from Splitter, Green, and Kawhi.
To be fair, rotations ARE supposed to shorten in the playoffs.
I realize that but our "playoff rotation" fell to about 3-4 players these past 2 years, mostly because certain players were situational players that had to be subbed out on defense for tight games and/or didn't supply any offense.
I do believe Belinelli can help in that situation because he doesn't need his jumper to make an impact, has more size to get to the basket, and can be a playmaker off the dribble.
no doubt. People joke about Bellinelli being nothing more than a poor man's Ginobili, but a Poor Man version of Ginobili would've helped us win the le. Ginobili in the 2013 Finals was like Old Yeller bad. Still, to my point I made above, it starts from the top and the organization has been over relying and overpaying Ginobili the past few years. Hopefully he will be fully healthy this year and shock all of us, but I hope it's not too little too late. Perhaps the rest from his friggin national team , plus having guys like Bellinelli step in can add just the right ingredients to win a le.
that's because Kobe might be the most overrated "superstar" of my lifetime imo. I can't remember an iconic moment from his career in championship games. Just look downstairs at the amount of re s who still worship the guy. Kobe is the modern example of style over substance.
Would be really sweet if the Spurs finally win it this year, after back to back years of falling short. I mean, it's highly likely that TD retires this year. He himself said that he can't picture himself playing out the whole 3 year deal. If they do win it all this year, it'll be like in 03 with the Admiral. And on the plus side, maybe Manu will follow TD into retirement if that does happen and the team will then begin it's rebuilding phase.
This where ive pretty much ended up in my thoughts and feelings about the finals as well.
So who do we blame for getting to the Finals in a year where we said a Finals appearance before Duncan retires would be most satisfying? Greedy mother ers aren't we?
lol, thanks man
Thanks for the non trolling, non lazy reply. Good to see there are some people on here who will actually discuss basketball without trying to pretend they're a class clown or some .
Manu's season being poor is actually part of the problem. Look how Manu was two years ago. A year ago. Then this season. Notice the downtrend? Now look at his postseason stats. His stats downtrended and declined in the postseason too (as did his +/- stat), and it really dropped off the table in the Finals by about three grades from the trend it was already at.
Manu's averages this season were already poor. They don't suddenly change the expected standard since he's still relied upon as the player he used to be, not to mention the fact that he was the highest paid Spur last year too.
Manu's game 7 was what is expected of him. About 12-15 points, a few rebounds and assists, okay defense. I consider that to be a typical, expected Manu game. Not great, star caliber, or outstanding, but at least he adds something and doesn't suck. That game (other than how he choked at the end), isn't something I was disappointed with.
What Manu did in games 1-4 were below what's expected of him, and his game 6 performance was literally worse than if he hadn't played at all.
1 and 3 were not good games. They are below his standards even for the poor season he had last year. His average was 10 points, 4.5 assists, 1.0 rebounds on .388% shooting. Below his season and postseason averages in each category. Those are basically Gary Neal numbers except an extra couple assists thrown in there. That's how "big 3 Manu Ginobili" is? No.
His games 1-4 averages are even worse: 7.5 PPG, 1.5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2.8 turnovers, and shot .345% from the field. You're seriously defending those ty performances as "what we expected"? Manu was practically a ghost until game 5, and he threw that way by sucking terribly in game 6.
Manu's Finals stats: 11.5 PPG, 2.1 RPG, 4.3 APG, 3.1 TO, 43% from the field (about average for his ty averages this season)
Manu game 1-4 stats: 7.5 PPG, 1.5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2.8 turnovers, and shot .345% from the field (these are ty stats)
Manu's Finals stats minus game 5: 9.5 PPG, 2.2 RPG, 3.3 APG, 3.2 TO, .391 FG% (more ty stats)
Manu's Finals stats minus games 5 and 7: 7.8 PPG, 2.0 RPG, 3.0 APG, 3.0 TO, .353% FG% (Garbage ass stats)
As you can see, his total stats were similar to his season stats (worse in every category actually, but still similar), but his season averages were ty in the first place. Manu also only played 23.2 minutes per game in the regular season and 28.6 per game in the Finals. 23% more time spent on the floor to still get less stats than what he averaged with that much less time on the floor during what was a poor season as it is. His stats were really even worse than they appeared in contrast, and when you subtract his one good game, it starts to become clear just how bad he really was.
Manu used to be really good, now his talent level last year was about that of just another streaky roleplayer. I hope he can recover and get somewhat back into form, but it's hard to be positive when he was bad for practically the entire year and got steadily worse as the playoffs went on.
I think it may be possible it's a mindset issue with Manu. If he has his head on straight and has the green light from the team to be aggressive he should be ok. His game 5 performance was due mainly to a mindset adjustment which he then abandoned in game 6. If you look at the game 5 tape every time Manu caught the ball he was looking at the basket to attack. When he was at his worst was when he was catching the ball and not really looking at the basket.
As the 'best' player on the team Parker was the biggest disappointment. He disappeared in game 7. As the should have best player on a championship caliber team he should have carried his team in the most important game. Yet typical Parker was nowhere close to being reliable enough..
I am not sure it was reasonable to expect TP to outplay Lebron with Lebron guarding him.
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