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I don't saw the game yet but
Good job
So it's not Timvp or anything close, but hopefully this can start some discussion and provide a bit more in-depth analysis to the game. Like Timvp, I think the best way to grade is on expectations of each player and how well the perform against those expectations. I'm going to miss some things as I am trying to write this during the game, so feel free to call me out and lets get some intelligent banter going.
With the Warriors playing without their Superstar PG Steph Curry, a letdown could be expected of the Spurs, but that wasn't the case. The home team came out of the gate playing suffocating defense and hitting on all cylinders on the offensive side of the ball. However, the energy on display through the first quarter-and-a-half quickly disappeared and the Spurs found themselves in a dogfight as members of the Warriors supporting cast began to show up (mainly Tony Douglas) and it made for a close game down to the last second. In the end, the good guys pulled one out and improved to 5-1 on the season.
Player & Coach Grades
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Tim Duncan
The St. Croix native had his worst shooting night of the early season. Seemingly intimidated by the Warriors front line, Timmy shied away from doing work in the post and instead relied almost exclusively on his outside jumper. To make matter worse, he did very little work on the glass, and was a step slow in setting his picks. His defense on around the basket was passable, but the energy required to make a real impact on the game just was not there tonight. I'm guessing this was just a case of coasting through the early days of the season, look for Timmy to bounce back against a New York front line that is missing Tyson Chandler.
Final Grade: C
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Manu Ginobili
While his burst and craftiness in finding the rim is as good as it has been in recent years, Manu Ginobili continues to under-perform from the 3 Point Line. After another subpar game from the arc, he is now shooting 20% from the outside on the year and was short on every one of his attempts from deep. When he did decide to put it on the floor, he was getting to the bucket at will and was able to finish several very hard drives. When he was tasked with initiating the offense, he made a few too many wild passes, but that is par for the course with him. His offense may have underwhelmed, but the Argentinian was extremely active on the defensive side of the ball. When he wasn't causing problems in the passing lanes, he was swarming the ball on double-teams and helping to further stagnate the Warrior's half-court offense.
Final Grade: B
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Tony Parker
The Frenchman stayed true to his roots on the defensive end last night, surrendering multiple open 3's to Toney Douglas due to a lack of effort fighting through screens combined with getting caught watching the ball multiple times. After coming out to start the game with intensity, his effort level seemed to drop significantly until the 4th quarter rolled around. Parker entered the game with 6 minutes left on the clock and promptly sank three big shots to stop the bleeding in the final stanza. Tony continues to become an elite closer in the league, but it's hard to imagine him having to close this game out if he had been able to help the offense find it's groove in the first 3 quarters. Parker was much too content with waiting for the game to find him, and countless Spurs possessions ended with bad shots forced up with the time winding down. Tony is going to have realize that when the offense starts to stagnate, he is responsible for picking things up. He finished the game 4-10 on FT's, but I'll chalk that up to an anomaly.
Final Grade: C
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Danny Green
Somebody has got to remind Green of his role on offense. When he wasn't hesitating on his outside shot, he was having a very Danny Greenish night putting the ball on the floor. Historically a very streaky player, let's hope this is just a very cold streak in his game and will soon be over. When he is shooting 40%+ from 3, the Spurs are winning most of their games by 10 points or more. On defense, the Tarheel was able to make up for his lack of offense on the evening. Shadowing Thompson for most of the night is no easy task, and Danny was able to challenge shots very well and deny clean looks for Warriors players coming off of screens.
Final Grade: C
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Tiago Splitter
For the first 3 quarters, Splitter played his softest brand of basketball. At times I was convinced that Aaron Baynes should be taking all of his minutes, and wondered if his large contract was the only reason he was getting significant minutes this year. In the 4th, Tiago ratcheted up the intensity and began to bang down low to pull down huge rebounds that lead to 2nd chances for the Spurs and more impressively, switched onto Golden States perimeter players with confidence and didn't give up anything more than long and contested jumpers. Here's to hoping Tiago can bottle that 4th quarter effort and spread it over entire games going forward.
Final Grade: C-
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Boris Diaw
There were only a handful of plays in this game that made me feel great as a fan, and all of them were authored by Boris Diaw. If you're not in awe of this mans play on the offensive end to start the season, you may need to get your eyes checked. The Big Crepe displayed an arsenal of low-post moves that made the Warriors look silly when trying to defend him. Pair that with his outside jumper, his impeccable vision, and his dribble-drive game, it's impossible not to come away excited about what this will add to the team when the rest of the roster can pull it together. He finished with 1 assist, but would have had many more if anyone on the team could buy a 3. If there was a blemish on his game last night, it was the fact he finished with 0 rebounds in 16 minutes.
Final Grade: A+
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Patrick Mills
In limited action, Patty is making the case for more minutes whenever he hits the floor. His D continues to improve each game as he is figuring out how to properly use his energy and aggressiveness without putting himself in bad spots. His outside shot is a thing to behold right now, lets hope the improvement continues.
Final Grade: B+
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Kawhi Leonard
Most of us have been waiting for Kawhi to show flashes of the ability we hope he has in him, and last night we got it. Wreaking havoc all over the floor, he was a one-man wrecking crew on the defensive side of the ball. He rebounded with authority, mucked up the passing lanes, and forced the action on fast breaks each time he came up with a steal or deflected pass. On a night when the Spurs needed easy offense, Leonard generated it. On offense, The Hand was able to put the ball on the ground and take his man off of the dribble, and got anything he wanted. When the rest of the team starts to gel, this kid is going to be a much bigger nightmare for opposing defenses and offenses alike.
Final Grade: A+
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Aron Baynes
The more manly version of Tiago Splitter got extended time on the floor tonight and did not disappoint. Every time he touched the ball in the post, he was looking to finish with the confidence we have been dying to see Splitter play with, albeit against Jermaine O'Neal. Baynes did his work early in the clock and was able to get each spot he wanted. On defense, he was a brick wall against every Warriors big. If they tried to back him down, they couldn't move him an inch. Try to pull him away from the basket and his athleticism was too much to blow by him. It would be interesting to see how he would work next to Timmy for an extended period of time, instead of alongside Ayers.
Final Grade: A
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Jeff Ayres
He only managed 6 minutes of playing time, but it felt like much longer. Ayers has a complete lack of confidence around the rim that makes Tiago look like DeMarcus Cousins. He has still yet to find his jumper, and isn't giving much of anything to the team right now. It's looking as if he will be relegated to Dejuan Blair's old role on the team when Bonner comes back.
Final Grade: D+
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Pop
I don't like grading coaches too harshly this early in the season, but I couldn't find very many positives coming out of last nights game. The Starters were left out until halfway through the 4th, and instead of calling a timeout to corral the 2nd unit and clam them down, he let them play through it and it resulted in a much closer game than it should have been. For long stretches, it seemed he was attempting to force Marco to fit in with the starters during the most pivotal parts of the game and the results were not pretty. I was happy that he continues to give the young guys an opportunity to show what they can do, namely Baynes. The Mad Scientist Mode continues for another night.
Final Grade: C-
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Offense
The offensive numbers weren't impressive to say the least. Bad nights from the FT and 3pt lines are a recipe for an upset, but the Spurs were able to pull it out. So far there have been no signs of the chemistry on display during last years playoffs run, but that is to be expected, to a point. The spacing on the floor is still below average, and most of those errors were from the newer guys being integrated into the system and should improve going forward. The 3s will start to fall, and hopefully then people will stop standing around and waiting for Tony to get them going.
Final Grade: C-
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Defense
As disappointing as the team was on offense, they almost matched that on the defensive side of the ball. Time after time, they lost their man and the Warriors were able to stay in the game with wide open 3s. It was like watching five Gary Neals out there at times. Kawhi, Manu, and Baynes were bright spots and it's no coincidence that their energy levels were the most noticeable throughout the game. Chalk many of these mistakes up to not everyone knowing the system, but there were far too many mistakes made as a result of not fighting hard through screens. It's early in the season, but the effort has got to start showing soon.
Final Grade: C+
Well I hope you guys enjoyed this, and hope it gives us some more to talk about here. I'm sure I have a ton of typos and errors, so feel free to ignore or point them out. I'm off to the beach on a beautiful day here in San Diego. Go Spurs Go!
Last edited by TacoCabanaFajitas; 11-09-2013 at 03:42 PM.
I don't saw the game yet but
Good job
Good read. I haven't seen the game but your take on Baynes makes me hopeful despite his stat line as I'm a big believer in a Diaw/Baynes frontline... Boris is an amazing interior passer so even if Baynes is limited in the post, Boris is good enough to make it work...
i'm afraid about Tony Parker, he didn't have any rest or time off in a long time, he starting to get exhausted, couldn't hit a FT at the end, in this pace he is gonna be worn out come playoff time... Spurs very bad handle the Parker Situation!!!
Keep it up bro good read
I'm not gonna dress it up...it was UGLY. Just glad they won.
Well, the worrying aspect about Parker is that he didn't take the summer off. We all saw how terrible Manu was last year after playing for Argentina. I don't think Parker has the stamina to last another NBA season+post-season unless he gets more rest this season. Spurs don't really have an adequate backup PG to relieve TP unfortunately.
Last edited by Johnny RIngo; 11-09-2013 at 03:27 PM.
Good job with the grade. Pretty decent Timvp impersonation - even stealing some of his typical language and phrases.
FYI, you misspelled both Aron Baynes and Jeff Ayres' names.
Definitely went back and tried to find some of his more familiar terms, makes us all feel like hes still alive out there somewhere in this crazy world. Good call on their names
Where is Timvp?
Again thanks for the effort, TP grade and comments are quite bad at a min. Boris is too high, 0 reb for a big sucks. Kawi had a solid game, if u go by expectation your A+ is terrible
I think the most worrying thing is that he is obviously coasting through large portions of the game. Whether it's from fatigue or from lack of interest remains to be seen. He's been a different player in crunch time, which leads me to believe it's just coasting
Also I know expectations for Manu are all time low but B for this game ?
If you're going to criticize that's completely fine with me. At least give more input and an opinion other than "quite bad...A+ is terrible..." Hard to respond when you don't offer anything to respond to.
Again, offer something more than just straight-up disagreement. It's not difficult.Also I know expectations for Manu are all time low but B for this game ?
Manu gets a B for that shotty performance?
Tony gets a C? Are you serious? He choked at the end, but he was one of our best players last night tbh!
Diaw gets a B for his zero rebound performance?
Off enjoying life, livin the dream
4-10 from the line and losing Douglas 4 different times for wide open 3s was my reasoning there. The game wouldn't have been nearly as close had Tony decided to show up and take over earlier in the game. Better late than never I guessManu gets a B for that shotty performance?
Tony gets a C? Are you serious? He choked at the end, but he was one of our best players last night tbh!
Manu was pretty ing bad yesterday. Don't know how he warranted a B rating while Parker got a C.
IMO, all these new rating threads are terrible. It should be a bannable offense for anyone but Timvp to start them.
If u go by expectations your A+ is terrible, not sure what it is difficult to understand. A + is well above expectations so against GSW Kawi played well above your expectations ? Not sure how
Again a 3-11 shooting night with 6 pts 3 reb 2 tos and 2 assists is what u expect from Manu ?
He did everything we would expect of him in a winning effort, and more. Finishing 6-8 from the field, with 7 rebounds, 4 steals, and lockdown defense while showing flashes of brilliance when putting the ball on the floor seems like it warrants nothing less than a perfect grade. You tell me what he did last night that was a negative. He was the only person on the team last night that had anything remotely resembling a well-rounded ballgame.
Sadly isn't that what most of us expect from Manu? I'm just curious but were you only watching the Spurs when they had the ball? There's also a portion of the game where the other team has the ball and attempts to score. Manu went HAM on D, and his 3s were at least all wide open looks that are bound to start falling sooner than later. lol @ the hostility to game grades. No wonder timvp stopped doing this
Where did I say what he did was a negative ? A+ doesn't mean he did what you can expect, A+ means played well above expectations. You are saying it in your first sentence he did what we would expect so that's not a A+
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