Refs don't call fouls on okc when we play them
They took the ball inside and got Ibaka in foul trouble early. Ibaka's shot blocking is the number one advantage the Thunder have over the Spurs. He basically eliminates our inside game. You take away Tony's penetration, in fact all of our paint points. Making the Spurs basically a 3point shooting team. The Thunder are athletic fast and long enough to negate that. We have issues defending the Thunder made worse by our inability to score against them. Getting Ibaka out of the game early increase our chances exponentially. When Ibaka is in the game the Spurs offense goes from being a machine, to timid, afraid and intimidated. He brings out the Spurs Eurocentric, (ie soft and finesse) tendencies.
Refs don't call fouls on okc when we play them
tony gets hacked > no call > fast break for okc
We don't have that interior presence to get those calls.. As much as I like Parker he becomes a coward and throws himself on the floor looking for calls rather than going into players. Diaw pump fakes his way into bad shots, Tiago is the softest player we have and they won't call anything.. Kawhi shows fear and passes or takes bad contested shots.
Yeah, it would be nice to get Ibaka into early foul trouble, but you can't build your game plan on counting for that to happen.
The Spurs started out great in the last game, leading 20-9 with 3:30 left in the quarter . . . and then the whistles took over.
Duncan attacked OKC's interior several times, he didn't get the calls, tbh..sometimes the refs call it, sometimes they don't, you can't control that..
Blake Griffin is a top 5 player, btw, he's much better than any Spurs player, tbh..
Griffin can still get frustrated and lose composure when games become meaningful.
Playoffs are a different beast. We will see if he has improved when it counts.
I can't disagree with this or any other point made in this thread, but since the Thunder come into games against the Spurs with an aggressive Hard on, use their over aggression against them to get some cheap fouls. Getting the fouls would be more important initially than scoring. Hate to wine about the refs but they do let the Thunder get away with hyper aggression while we still get the ticky tack Thunderrefs calls.
True, but just based on the regular season, he's been the best player on a le contender and has surpassed Parker and Duncan, tbh..
We'll see what happens in the playoffs, though, like you said..
Yeah, they're attacking the Thunder by losing by 13 at home while we still led them in the 1st half.
^^^^^^^^^^^
Yeah I dont get all the props some people gives to other teams when they are worst than us Clips sucks Griffin sucks thats it.
I just hope they play each other on the opposite side of the West. Beat each other up while ac ulating T's.
I think the Thunder are a better team but the Clippers match up with them well. I was hoping that the Clippers could steal the #2 seed, HCA (I thought) would give the Clippers a better chance to beat them in the second round.
The Paper Clips may still pull this out but their "attacking" to start the game would have nothing to do with it and we shouldn't be ashamed of having led them at the half last week while short a future HOF.
The thing about the Clip is that they will get just as many calls to go to the FT line which helps keep games close. It will ultimately come down to making shots but when one team has 12 FT's for the whole game and another team has 23 that says a lot.
Funny thing is even though we had the lead by the half, I have more confidence that the Clippers can come back in this game, than I had that the Spurs could hold their lead against the Thunder. The NBA is all about matchups. A>B, B>C, but C>A. We seem clueless against the Thunder but have no problems against the Clippers, who play well against the Thunder. I hope we win the le this year but it is obvious we haven't solved the Thunder issue, yet. I don't know what kind of player we need to improve this matchup. A shot blocking athletic big with some post up inside game would be my guess.
ibaka is a sucker for a pump fake. dude jumps every time. in 2012 it took duncan 3 games to figure that out. pump fake him and get him into foul trouble every time.
Yeah but how do we prevent the er's jump shots? I still have nightmares from that game he shot 10-10 against us.
Our best bet is to continue to have Diaw spot up behind the 3pt line. Ibaka stretching out to 18 feet to cover Diaw, keeps him a few feet out of the paint. It allows for Duncan to work Perkins without the threat Ibaka coming over to block his shot.
Parker can work the pick and pop and it keeps OKC from trapping because it would leave Diaw wide open from deep. He can drive and keep Ibaka off balance.
Thunder doing what they're suppose to be doing to pretenders.
I fear his defensive effect on our offense more than I worry about his jumper. Now someone explain how Reggie Jackson goes Mr October on us everytime we play them?
Problem is Diaw once he catches the ball regardless of anyone closing on him will pump fake and go into the heart of the paint which usually has 3 defenders standing around waiting, he gets caught and then passes it out to tony but westbrook is playing the passing lanes so it's either a deflection or a steal.
STOP LEAVING HIM OPEN!!!! he's not gonna put that ball on the floor. put a man on him and stay with him. every team that play us does the same thing. drive, draw the defense and kick out to the open guy at the 3 point line or midrange. and popovich still has them playing that bull zone defense. i see it come and all of u see it coming, how does he not see it coming?
one thing for sure is that durant doesn't look as great when the refs aren't giving him freethrows every other possession.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)