Game Thread #1: Spurs at Thunder 10/28 8:00 EST (7:00 CST, 2:00 Riga Time)

[LkrFan]

This...when will people learn that every game means something. Giving away games like this is what ed us last year. SPAM, they need to peak ASAP. This isn't the East.

Estoy de acuerdo hijo.

[Harry Callahan]

Durant and Westchimp will break down at some point during the season.

The freebies at the line bailed them out. Green hand was hit on the follow through on that three and the whistles were swallowed.

If OKC offered Durant for Leonard straight up, I would probably pass. I think the Jones fracture will haunt Durant for a long time. Leonard busted him a lot tonight.

The FT disparity in the 4th quarter made the difference. That team HAS to have the foul line to be effective.

OKC has a bunch of ugly, unlikable aholes on their team.

The Spurs let them off the hook a little bit.

OKC is a lot less scary to me without Reggie Jackson. They will miss him. DJ Augustine is decent, but does not put the same amount of pressure on a team.

[SAGirl]

It will be tough when Danny is cold, and always has been TBH. Danny's 3s can create separation from teams. This team's iden y is defense. At this point, bc our we have less 3 pt shooters and Danny is bound to have cold nights, we are not going to be blowing out good teams TBH. That is when things like Tony's inability to get a stop, and the bench's lack of rim protectors and rebounding issues come and bite you.

I'd like to see some Boban in the 2nd unit TBH. It will eat into West minutes and Pop will be reluctant to, but sometimes you have to do it. He was positively a problem for benches in preseason.

[Johnny RIngo]

despite the occasional Turnobili, you're going to miss Manu's smarts and playmaking in crunchtime

yup

Manu: 7 assists in 19 mins tonight
Enrique: 3 assists in 26 min tonight

Wonder if Pop and the FO still think they're getting great value from their $45 mil extension on Frenchie. Meanwhile, Manu is getting paid peanuts.

[DMC]

This...when will people learn that every game means something. Giving away games like this is what ed us last year. SPAM, they need to peak ASAP. This isn't the East.

Your theory would make more sense if the outcome wasn't controlled by the coach. If Pop is behind by the break he will push harder to gain that ground back. If he has a 10 game lead he's going to cruise and probably not finish with a five-game lead even. So one game does not really matter no matter how much you try to pretend like fast forwarding to the end is the same as playing the season.

[TheGoldStandard]

These are the games that we should win and yeah it's the beginning of the season but it's too "spurs" like to give up a game when they have a lead and someone is wheeling and dealing. Games are only going to get harder and fatigue will set in and injuries etc.. Oh well, time to move on to the next game but hopefully it's a sign of things to come from Kawhi and Aldridge will finally find his place in the offense.

Spurs need a legit PG though, Parker just can't do it and resting him early just to play him late in the 4th after an offensive rhythm has been set with other players will kill the flow of the game and ball movement like it did tonight. I'd rather roll with Diaw playing point forward or Anderson

[milkyway21]

Westbrook, even Ibaka abused our defenders

[BillMc]

Kawhi had it going and LMA was passing a lot. Offense still looked great and that was with some hiccups and no Danny . Offense will be sick. I think I saw enough that the defense will be good enough. Bench defense maybe not, but Pop will just have to play Kawhi/Danny some more with those units.

This.

[wildcardX]

They have things to work on but not a bad game. The past couple years the Spurs were the ones playing catch up to OKC, today it looked like OKC was the team doing that for most of the game. The Spurs will get better as the season progresses

[Brazil]

I think Pop made a mistake by not bringing LMA in earlier in the 4th quarter. I thought that he sat him way too long. If he got him out there earlier in the 4th I was expecting him to get the ball and get in a rhythm to start the 4th.

Edit : I don't like losing to OKC at any time. I dislike that team like no other. They're the new Lakers to me.

also pop should have put Danny on Westbrook sooner... I ing hate okc but not gonna be mad at one game... As mentioned by DMC, Spurs is a work in progress and potential is impressive, okc is the okc we know for years, a two men show with their strengths and shortcomings...

[Ice009]

They have things to work on but not a bad game. The past couple years the Spurs were the ones playing catch up to OKC, today it looked like OKC was the team doing that for most of the game. The Spurs will get better as the season progresses

Same result though. Another loss in OKC. I don't want that same result. Spurs need to start winning these games where they're up most of the game instead of throwing it away a lot of the time against OKC in OKC.

[Kawhitstorm]

I just glad all of Pop's shyt decision blew up in his face:
-Posting up LMA instead of pick-n-pops
-Putting Tony on Westbrook who dominated him & not being able to hide him on anyone of the opposing players
-Not putting Manu in the game at the end of the game in favor of Danny which resulted in a terrible crunch time execution
-Not playing either LMA, Tim or even Boban alongside Diaw or West which resulted in Kanter owning the offensive glass or a layup line

[Harry Callahan]

Too bad the chimp didn't roll out a 10-25 like he tends to do. I think OKC will be decent but not great. Billy Donovan wasn't even coaching the team at the end. Monty Williams (I think) was.

[mexicanjunior]

Your theory would make more sense if the outcome wasn't controlled by the coach. If Pop is behind by the break he will push harder to gain that ground back. If he has a 10 game lead he's going to cruise and probably not finish with a five-game lead even. So one game does not really matter no matter how much you try to pretend like fast forwarding to the end is the same as playing the season.

If we were playing in the East, I would be less concerned. The West is stacked though, so every winnable game needs to be closed out if you wanna get a decent seed. This team is not good enough to get another 7th seed and expect to just figure it out.

[DMC]

These are the games that we should win and yeah it's the beginning of the season but it's too "spurs" like to give up a game when they have a lead and someone is wheeling and dealing. Games are only going to get harder and fatigue will set in and injuries etc.. Oh well, time to move on to the next game but hopefully it's a sign of things to come from Kawhi and Aldridge will finally find his place in the offense.

Spurs need a legit PG though, Parker just can't do it and resting him early just to play him late in the 4th after an offensive rhythm has been set with other players will kill the flow of the game and ball movement like it did tonight. I'd rather roll with Diaw playing point forward or Anderson

lol no

[Brazil]

These are the games that we should win and yeah it's the beginning of the season but it's too "spurs" like to give up a game when they have a lead and someone is wheeling and dealing. Games are only going to get harder and fatigue will set in and injuries etc.. Oh well, time to move on to the next game but hopefully it's a sign of things to come from Kawhi and Aldridge will finally find his place in the offense.

Spurs need a legit PG though, Parker just can't do it and resting him early just to play him late in the 4th after an offensive rhythm has been set with other players will kill the flow of the game and ball movement like it did tonight. I'd rather roll with Diaw playing point forward or Anderson

Anderson sucks tbh IMO fwiw

[sasaint]

It will be tough when Danny is cold, and always has been TBH. Danny's 3s can create separation from teams. This team's iden y is defense. At this point, bc our we have less 3 pt shooters and Danny is bound to have cold nights, we are not going to be blowing out good teams TBH. That is when things like Tony's inability to get a stop, and the bench's lack of rim protectors and rebounding issues come and bite you.

I'd like to see some Boban in the 2nd unit TBH. It will eat into West minutes and Pop will be reluctant to, but sometimes you have to do it. He was positively a problem for benches in preseason.

I agree with a lot you said, but Parker's effort on D is much worse than I expected. And I also expect that pop will play either LMA or TD a lot more with the second unit going forward, splitting West and Boris.

[DPG21920]

And while TP was bad defensively, Westbrook is going to do that to a ton of people. Like HH said, Pop was just seeing what he had in TP in tough match ups. Plus, that was the most disciplined game I have ever seen from WB. It was incredible.

[BD24]

Well at least we get to watch Kobe throw up a bunch of bricks and the Lakers get bent the over by the Twolves now. Makes me feel a little better.

[Ice009]

I just glad all of Pop's shyt decision blew up in his face:
-Posting up LMA instead of pick-n-pops
-Putting Tony on Westbrook who dominated him & not being able to hide him on anyone of the opposing players
-Not putting Manu in the game at the end of the game in favor of Danny which resulted in a terrible crunch time execution
-Not playing either LMA, Tim or even Boban alongside Diaw or West which resulted in Kanter owning the offensive glass or a layup line

Boban was in a suit. Did posters here not realize that? A few people asked for Pop to put him in, but Pop put Bonner on the active roster instead of Boban. They need to seriously think about getting rid of Bonner and getting a rim protecting big for that second unit or a true backup PG.

[SAGirl]

By the way Manu and Diaw with 7 and 6 assists in just 18 and 20 mins of playing time respectively. Shame on those who wanted to trade Diaw and Manu to retire.

I want Kyle to emerge as a playmaker a little bit more though, maybe with more experience against weaker teams. We'll need Kyle to keep Manu fresh. 18 mins is about right for Manu IMO. Its a long season and he started great.

If it wasn't for Kawhi, we would have been blown out of this game. Pop has to get LMA going, I'd say get him on the bench with Diaw and Manu and maybe some West with TD. Problem is West too old/slow to pair up with TD. Then big rotation needs some tweaking IMO.

[DMC]

If we were playing in the East, I would be less concerned. The West is stacked though, so every winnable game needs to be closed out if you wanna get a decent seed. This team is not good enough to get another 7th seed and expect to just figure it out.

The West was stacked last year. We played like most of the year and still we were in the top seeding. Had we won our last game of the year we would have been ranked I think second in the West. I doubt our record is going to be that ty this year so we really don't have much to worry about I don't think.

There are going to be a lot of situations were a game is basically winnable but Pop looks at the long game not each individual game. If you don't know that by now you don't really pay attention.

[TheGoldStandard]

lol no

No to what exactly?

[SAGirl]

Boban was in a suit. Did posters here not realize that? A few people asked for Pop to put him in, but Pop put Bonner on the active roster instead of Boban. They need to seriously think about getting rid of Bonner and getting a rim protecting big for that second unit or a true backup PG.

I agree, I did not notice Boban in a suit. Seriously, Bonner can't help us at this point unless there is an injury TBH.

[james evans]

2 things must happen. Pop has to get in West's when he's just letting his man grab offensive rebounds and score at will. He's not in indiana anymore. We aren't a lottery team. He has to move parker to the 2nd unit since they are always getting killed anyway. he's fit in perfectly. We don't need his scoring in the starting line up. We need absolutely nothing from him in the starting lineup. Send him to the bench. If he doesn't like it, trade his ass. I've been watching basketball all of my life and never in the college or the nba have I seen 1 player that can't guard 1 ing player in every game they have played. There just has to be SOMEONE in the league he can actually guard. It has to be. I refuse to believe he can't guard over 300 players