Manu's been our overall best player in this series before tonight. He's playing well above his season numbers. It was expected that Manu would have a bad game eventually. Even a good 4th quarter from TP doesn't make up for his awful play in the other three quarters tonight. Choking in the last minute doesn't help his case either.
I don't disagree that Manu's played well before tonight or that Parker has been average. But again, this thread and my comments are about the game tonight, not the series. Parker's 4th actually did kinda make up for earlier in the game. His Final stats are actually decent if you exclude last second chucks like Splitter's 3pt attempt. Especially compared to 1-8 shooting and turnovers per minute at an even higher rate than Parker's ty 5 TO performance.
Manu was pretty horrific in this game
parker - no
manu - total
pop - owned by rick again
Calling Parker's performance in these playoffs "average" is being VERY generous
Not trying to play Monday Morning QB. However, for all the coaching mistakes or whatever, the #1 beef I have with Pop is that he trusts Manu no matter how ty he plays. When he benches Tony early in this series, I applaud him for doing that. However, he would never do that to Manu, which costs the Spurs at least one champion.
all this and the spurs should of still won but refs helped the mavs get back into the game.....than mavs finished it up.....this series has been weird and there should be no game 7....oddly there is going to be a game 7...mavs are lucky to be in this position
How did we get back in the game after we were down 8?
Parker played a solid game imo. Besides that stupid turnover at the end he bailed us out, and made some timely baskets.
Ginobili played solid D, but his offense was crap.
Duncan didn't even look like he wanted to be out there tonight. Stupid fouls and everyone was scoring him on ease like game 2.
Pop got away from the things that worked in the third quarter. I don't know what the to thing about Monta anymore. It's pretty obvious that Leonard can't guard him. Spurs need to come out strong, and take it to them fast. There will probably be a load of mavs fans there, so hopefully the crowd will be rocking and the players will go based on the momentum of the fans. Damn I can't believe the season could end on Sunday...
Manu looked like 37 tonight... let's hope he plays better in Game 7, because if there's something that's been clear this series, is that we go as far as he'll take us.
I don't really know who you blame for that pathetic 1st quarter, but if you want to look for a solid reason we did not win this game, you gotta start there. Even if we kept up with the scoring, that kind of defense has no place in the playoffs.
When he plays well, he gives the Spurs better chance to win. When he does not play well, the Spurs can go much further if he gets benched. He can be a creator on offense, but he is not necessarily an indispensable engine.
He was leading the team in scoring through 5 games this series. Think about that for a second.
I've been saying that's not sustainable, but without other players stepping up, where else you gonna go?
I'm not saying Manu is not playing great for this series (he might be co-mvp for the Spurs before game 6) or blaming him playing bad for tonight. All I'm saying is that when he plays bad, really bad, Pop needs to sit him down, just like what he does with Tony.
The correct benching of your star players benefits your team. And it should not distinguish between you star PG and SG/2nd PG.
I get what you're saying. And Pop did sit him for a while there in the 4th... he'll close games though, just like Tim will close games and Tony will close games... we don't have that many experienced players to play under that kind of pressure.
Sometimes it'll work out, sometimes it won't. Except for a stretch of good D in the 3rd he had an awful game tonight.
Manu was awful. I thought Tony played damn hard. Tim got outplayed by that dip Blair. Fantastic but wasted games from Danny and Tiago.
Tony was benched down the stretch in game 3. Despite VC's buzz-beater, I totally agree with that decision as the team was playing much better with the ball in Manu's hands in that game. The same should apply to Manu tonight.
I'm not trying to troll for the fight b/w ChurchOfTony or ChurchOfManu. All I'm saying is that Pop, as a coach, need to be consistent. After all, neither of Tony or Manu can go to free throw line like Durant or Harden even when they don't play well. So the decoy thing hardly works for us when they are playing poorly.
uh? Tony entered the game with 1:35 left in 4Q Game 3, and the Spurs up only 1 pt. He only sat down with 24 seconds left, with Manu running the last play (before the VC3 buzzer beater). Tony played 33 mins that game, Pop just gave him a 5 min rest in the 4th since the game was close. In crunchtime, those guys are going to be out there. Maybe one play they'll sit out because of what Pop thinks he needs for defensive purposes (see last year Finals), but overall, those guys are going to play in crunchtime.
If anything, as the stakes get higher, Pop will play them more minutes, not less.
Well technically speaking 15 PER and 50% TS% is average :P
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