It's clearly not. Just because you want to ignore it doesn't mean it's not an issue.
I remember Pop rolling with Splitter rather than Duncan during important stretches during the GS series last year. As for the NBA finals; I'm not sure how anyone who watched that series would have preferred Tiago to Duncan out on the floor. I don't care what the numbers say/said.
How many did his man get?
if you are using small samples only, MVP Durant was called Mr. Unreliable.
I'm not. Duncan's PnR defense has been horrible for years. Teams just started exploiting that last year. You're trying to argue that semantically by attacking my use of often.
I don't get Spurs fans getting so defensive and extrapolating this one question to meaning Tim sucks everywhere. Spurs are amazing in large part due to Tim's play on both ends, but for those side-stepping this issue, I don't get it. I can even understand getting upset at the question since the answer is fairly obvious, but to act like the results don't warrant the question is a bit silly.
Tim has been an amazing defender his entire career and even to this day does more good than bad. However, to what should be noone's surprise, his lateral quickness and ability to help on the perimeter (namely PnR situations) has slowly deteriorated with age. Again, this is not a surprise to anyone who watches and knows how long Tim has been playing.
Digging deeper, in this playoffs, this is about the worst you have seen it. The playoffs in the West are filled with explosive guards (Monta, Lillard, Westbrook...) and that only serves to emphasis this aspect of his game that has deteroriated. The thing that is more disappointing and inexplicable is the rebounding. Tim has guarded in every single series a non-scoring big. Tiago has unquestionably been the anchor of the defense and taking the top scoring threat individually and in help defense with the PnR since it's usually his guy (Dirk/Aldridge) involved.
Tim has guarded Dalembert, Robin Lopez and now Perkins all of which are awful offensive players. So not only has Tim got to coast on those guys, his one job was to keep people off the glass and in the first two rounds Dalembert/Lopez looked like prime Shaq. That's all you need to know to even anecdotally assess where Tim's defense/rebounding has been. He's still been a plus and his offense was huge in the early parts of the Mavs series and in game one against OKC, but the rbounding has me perplexed considering he's not having to guard offensive minded bigs. His only job is to keep them off the glass.
Looking at it further, beyond that job, and you see Chinook is correct in that Tim more than ever has been caught in no-mans land. I mentioned this several times during the first two rounds. He wasn't boxing out, he wasn't fully hedging and he wasn't deep enough to block shots. Tim is amazing when they try and attack him directly in the low post, but he has been out of position and has lacked the ability to make up for that in recovery due to dwindling athleticism.
It is what it is and hasn't stopped the Spurs from rolling and he does far more good than bad normally, but in this playoff, in this specific area, he has not done well and it's really not a secret tbh..
^ Boom.
Teams caught on quite some time ago. Losing to the Suns a few years ago was when it started getting really bad. We zone it up more now and most teams cannot make him pay. OKC wants to keep Perkins on him for defense and you can hide him there Bogut and smallball is a different animal even if he zones behind the play he cannot recover on high pick and rolls if he shows at all.
Bottom line is Tim's tosb defense is better than prime Splitter's offense. Splitter has been guarded by the weakest defenders in every series and Dirk was probably tied with Harden for worst defense in the whole POs yet he never did in the post, I have even seen Calderon guard him pretty successfully (Splitter flopped and got a generous call one time which was pretty pathetic but he basically couldn't do ) ... I think we should be more concerned about Splitter than about Tim. That said it's incredibly hard to retire at the right time and it could get very ugly for Tim in the not so distant future if it gets any worse... Even a little bit...
We're talking about the windows closing every year but really it might be the last year of Tim playing at the level needed to win a championship, unless they invent a new PED or something, he's just getting too old.
Duncan RS Per 36 minutes TRR (total rebounding rate)-12.1
Duncan PS Per 36 minutes TRR (total rebounding rate)-8.9
he is grabbing 3.2 rebounds fewer per 36 minutes than in the regular season.
his Drtg has also dropped form 98 to 106 (-8)
Check the percentage of 3 point shots attempted against us in playoffs compared to regular season. If I'm not mistaken, there are a lot more long rebounds in playoffs because of that fact. Hence, fewer that TD is responsible for.
22/game
If Duncan isn't supposed to board long misses, how on Earth was he going to help at the end of the fourth in Game Six?
^ Boom.
He's just old. That's all. He has lost some of his speed, but he's still a decent rim-protector against bigger teams and his offense is still good. He's still one of the best power forwards in the NBA.
If you want to look at a real TOSB, look no further than Kevin Garnett.
Those were not long rebounds.
Again, no one is trying to say Tim isn't great or still a very, very good player
How was Pop supposed to know that? You're assuming (falsely by the by) that Duncan is less responsible for rebounds off missed threes. If that's the case, why would he be desirable to have in the game to grab misses when everyone knew Miami was going to shoot threes?
He was not in game in order for Spurs to put 5 players to guard the 3 point shooters. I saw nothing wrong with that strategy at the time. But it back fired
3pt shots don't necessarily mean long rebounds. It really depends on the shooter. Better shooters ,who miss tend to hit the rim and occasionally hit the backboard as well slowing down the speed the ball come off the hoop.
Still one would think his boarding would have been better so far. Splitters per minute boards are essentially the same, despite guarding farther away from the basket.
/thread.
Not really. I'll elaborate tomorrow in the other thread, but for now, I'll say tonight's performance makes Game One's even less excusable.
Thread le should be changed to " what happened to Timmy's p&r defense and lateral quickness" with the clear response being age.
It's never a good strategy to allow the 3's and try to get the rebound when up 3. Force them into contested 2's or foul. Anyway Pop has already said they had some defensive breakdowns on those last possessions.
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