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Parker looks like ass, but I'm not too worried about everything else. Blair plays like he normally does and the Spurs win by 10+. He had arguably the game of his career considering the cir stances.
TP can play a lot better on defense (and will) if he's not chronically fatigued (which looks like it might be the case) or injured. But Danny Green is the biggest answer for Calderon. He would completely render him useless on offense.
Parker looks like ass, but I'm not too worried about everything else. Blair plays like he normally does and the Spurs win by 10+. He had arguably the game of his career considering the cir stances.
I know. It's gotta be Danny. He's made some bonehead plays on both ends of the floor, but he has so much more upside than Beli who has been atrocious. I don't get why he's relegated to the bench.
Portland wont swept them
What have you seen that makes you say that? Mavs played two fantastic games on the road to start the season, then played a very good game 3. They won 3 out of 4 quarters tonight and rallied back from 20 down.
eh. We weathered the storm, and stopped them just enough against a tough crowd. I'd say that is stepping up against aggression. We didn't fold. We kept at it and won a tough road game.
I feel great, the Spurs won a game they were about to choke away tbh.
My big worry is that I don't think Manu can have 2 good games in a row.
I get no comfort in this win. I feel like this win fell to us. Without any consistent outside shooting from Green, Belinelli and Mills, the Spurs are sitting ducks.. ripe for the picking. We need some consistency from our shooters. They don't have to put up big numbers, but they have to hit the few open shots that they are given at a much higher %..
SURE YOU DO. AT LEAST WE ARE PLAYING LIKE A TEAM NOW. AND AT LEAST POP ALREADY KNOWS WHO TO SIT (GREEN, FIAT AND MAYBE EVEN PARKER )
POP IS BASICALLY DOWN TO HIS LAST HAND AND IT'S A PRETTY GOOD HAND VS DALLAS. NOT TOO SHABBY.
STILL IMO THIS SERIES IS STILL 50-50
Danny Green has the best defensive on/off metrics of any Spur in the series, tbh..
He's going to be useless on offense, but it doesn't matter, the Mavs are still covering him..some Spurs fans still don't understand that Danny Green not scoring doesn't mean that the Mavs are leaving him open like he's Tony Allen or a player that can't shoot..they always have a man on him, so the Spurs are playing 4 on 4, which would usually result in Tony Parker exploiting the mismatch, like he did in game 1 and in the 1st quarter of game 3..it's not a case of the Mavs having a defender sagging off Green to help..
They are guarding Bellineli the same way, tbh, so I don't have a problem with Marco's offense, either..
The Spurs are supposed to be a defense-first team..you leave Green in the game for defense until Manu can check in for offensive purposes..he should be guarding Calderon/Carter/Ellis at all times, tbh..
When Jae Crowder is in, you can put Beli on the floor..
Last edited by Malik Hairston; 04-29-2014 at 12:16 AM.
If I could count on the Spurs just giving effort for the majority of the game and running their offense and crisply getting into sets, I would feel great. But they just haven't done it.
Look at the quarterly scoring in game 3. Spurs won every quarter except the 2nd. Same story. Series is tied 2-2. What makes me say that? The fact that we won 62 games and they won 49... You can spout the canonical "playoffs are different" story if you want, but it does mean something. Spurs are the better team, they have underperformed thus far, but are still going to win the series, and hopefully will peak at the perfect time to win it all this year.
Ok.. I guess I do get a bit of comfort in this win. However I think Dallas has been outplaying us and in order to stay in the series the Spurs need to step up a notch and not squander 20 point leads... the Spurs haven't played as a team that deserves to win the NBA championship thus far.
I'm not talking about the Spurs winning the series - I'm talking about the Mavs folding.
Yep they had their chance. This is our series now.
Of course I feel good, it's 2-2 with the Spurs coming home for Game 5....
I feel good about THIS series. But I don't feel good the upcoming series if Parker continues to play like this.
i feel great about this series, if we're to win a single game in rd 2, we really needed a tune up like this to get us in rythmn
It's the Mavs. It's not a typical 8 - 1 matchup. For that, see Eastern Conference playoffs. I feel better. Would have been nice to see Green play better. And Tony is a concern. Next game less than 48 hours away, so not much time for physical recovery and healing.
The Diaw / Dirk matchup is probably the Spurs best best for this series. Splitter has been defending Dirk really well this whole series, but on the offensive end Diaw is getting some ridiculously wide open looks at the 3 point line, but he has been gun shy up until the big 3 pointer. I hope the Spurs are able to keep exploiting it when possible.
I feel better than I did after Games 2 and 3. Coming home tied 2-2 was the objective after Carter's heroics, and they got it. Previous iterations of the Spurs might have wilted after losing a 20 point lead and fallen down 3-1 going home. To suffer a heartbreaking setback in Game 3, and win Game 4, requires a good deal of character.
What I don't feel better about is that the Spurs, at various times, continue to look like they don't know what they're doing. They looked godlike in the second and most of the third quarters tonight and then Dallas hit a few shots and forced a few turnovers and the Spurs started looking panicked. I'm among those here that things Kawhi on Monta Ellis is not working, he's burning the Spurs consistently. Leonard would be much better used disrupting passing lanes than trying to duck under screens chasing Ellis, and I'd rather Danny Green be given defensive duties on him. Green's most useful on offense when he's firing in transition or he's already locked in a spot he's money from, and something tells me his shot would return if Leonard was breaking up the Mavs' offense and forcing turnovers that led to Green threes. It happened fairly often against Miami last year, I don't see why they aren't trying it now.
In short, yes. The Spurs are knotted 2-2 with Game 5 at home, rather than being down 3-1 to a team that certainly knows it could pull the upset. Winning a series at 2-2 is much easier than winning one down 3-1. What concerns me is that despite small stretches of Spurs brilliance, Pop isn't making little adjustments in defensive rotations that are probably directly responsible for Ellis and Calderon murdering the Spurs.
Whew. After watching them almost choke away a 20 point lead after not closing out game 3, I am checking my blood pressure more.
Tony is the main concern going forward, but I do think the Spurs have the momentum. Hopefully it will be enough to win game 5 at home. It seemed like the defense figured something out in game 3 and should be able to keep Dallas from hitting 100+ again. As for the offense, it seemed like they had that working well until the 2nd half when the wheels fell right off again. Perplexing team in this series. It just seems like they should be playing so much better, but Dallas is playing them with lots of confidence.
Spurs are lucky they are playing Dallas.
Diaw shooting that last 3 with confidence is probably the biggest takeaway from this game. He was key all season being aggressive and that aggression must be refound if the spurs want to compete at their highest level.
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