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Stupid jinx thread. Go away
The other teams tend to look crappy.
This season seems like every good team will look inflated until they play each other.
Let's see what happens later in the month when the Spurs play better teams.
Stupid jinx thread. Go away
Always love you bro keep preaching man
I agree with you here. Spurs have not been tested enough.
They had the 2nd weakest schedule in the entire league at this point.
So it is no surprise that they got the 2nd best record.
The two guys who need to step up play is LMA and Danny Green.
the scary part is that the team still has some improving/growing to do..I think soft schedule and resting of players kind of mitigate each other out as far Net-rating...This is a historic team that all you could hope for is HEALTH seeing us out in this ride no matter what the final outcome is..
My one concern with the point differential and such analysis:
We have a very deep team this season with 3 guys who get a small amount of regular rotation minutes, who really are just too good of players for the mix of 2nd/3rd string benches they face in blowout situations: Boban/Simmons/Anderson are real NBA quality projects with upside, who would be playing more minutes in other teams, or at least, more real minutes in games still in contest. They play in all these blowouts and work on their games, and actually expand leads.
What this means is that the point differential is amplified/boosted/fattened up by the participation of guys who have limited roles in a regular rotation and who Pop is not going to play against good teams/playoff situations, so the point differential tells us how good the team as a whole is compared to everyone else, but it doesn't tell us how good guys 1-9 are against everyone else in a more strict sense. (Excluding the 4th wing, bc Pop still switches him at his whim, and whoever he picks is on a sufficiently short leash that the most he will see is about 8-10 minutes, unless we build a significant lead).
There are plenty of teams that kept their starters on the court despite being blown out by the Spurs. One example is the Brooklyn Nets that kept Lopez and Johnson on the court in the final quarter.
In the Cleveland game, it was the bench (although playing against the opponents bench) that was able to create the point spread. Enough of a spread to comfortably win the game in the end.
So, because we're deep, the record differential means nothing? There have been lots of teams constructed lots of ways, and no team has ever done this.
No Tim, Manu, Or Kawhi.
I am not saying that, I am saying that maybe it doesn't mean what others imply, that it predicts we will win in the playoffs. I am challenging that assumption bc our point differential includes plenty of playtime for guys who are not expected to be a factor in the playoffs or only a minimal factor.
Cleveland 8-9 didn't win. Detroit 5-6 didn't win. Dallas 2-3 didn't win. It's NOT an absolute predictor. I like our chances, though.
Me too. Our depth also has allowed the old legs to stay healthy, probably the most important factor later on..
It predicts how good a team is relative to the entire league. Which actually is a very good metric because of the number of samples.
Playoffs are a different beast though because it depends on having a favorable matchup and having a healthy team. Furthermore, if the structure of the team is altered (like shortening the rotation) then the differential metric is less relevant.
Spurs differential metric is mostly due to the +15 bench differential. The have played the bench at least 50% of the time, so you would think to have similar results you do the same thing in the playoffs.
I'm am in the camp that says the Spurs need to leverage their 11 players so as to make it difficult for an opponent to set up an appropriate defense.
I see the Cavs having two defensive weaknesses, Love being not very mobile and too many 6'5" and under guards. The Love problem definitely got exposed, the second problem could be exposed later.
The Warriors are more flexible team with bigger centers and bigger guards. However, Warriors are going to force the small ball lineup just like they did in the finals. They will gamble that the Bigs will score a lot of points but won't be as efficient doing so or exposes a weakness in defense. Spurs can win if they shut down one of their two primary options, that is Curry or Green. I think they can shutdown Green by having him defend a posting up big.
Oh... that defensive rating the Spurs have, tied with 2004 team. That's a team with Nazr Mohammad and Nesterovic. Go figure.
Last edited by ceperez; 01-16-2016 at 06:26 AM.
Just read this article: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/spurs--...l?soc_src=mail
It appears in the regular season, the Spurs don't prep that much against a specific opponent. They just play within their own system. Maybe this explains the slow starts. Spurs starters are like, who are these guys?
Also tells you how dominating the Spurs are. Very little scouting necessary to get a 14 point differential.
thanks bro
interesting read
I kind of agree with you. It is significant that the bench has played 50% of the time and they have the largest differential. We have played some very weak teams in the early schedule (or teams with a lo of injuries to key guys-like the Jazz) so the blowout situations were ideal to develop our rookies and 2nd year player Anderson. But in giving them all that time, these guys have actually developed, gained confidence and come up with games where they made huge contributions to wins (Boban and Simmons some spectacular games, Anderson the more moderate contributions, but he's played against playoff teams and been a positive, that is huge for a young guy who is only 22). Like you say, it will be matchup based, or sometimes you want to force the other coach's hand to deal with Boban for example.
Spurs really don't have the talent like OKC that can beat their man consistently off the dribble. I predict the offense is going to be more complicated to defend over time. You can have a few players play more kinds of sets, or you can have more players play different kinds of sets. The talent on the Spurs bench gives so many different looks.
Spurs playmakers will have to recognize what kind of players are on the court and adjust the offense to take advantage.
Do people remember previous seasons, when it was said the Spurs would "play down" to the compe ion, and how we would barely eke out a win, against weaker teams?
Check out the point differential this year, which currently stands at 13.9, best in the NBA.
http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/te...intsDifference
So, okay, people say the Spurs schedule has been weak. Maybe so. But I'll tell ya, it's refreshing to be blowing out weaker teams, instead of just hanging on to beat them by a fingernail, or sometimes even lose to a weaker team on a last second shot.
It's a lot different to have a weak schedule where you blow out the opposition, like this year, compared to having a weak schedule where you still have to scrape and scramble.
Probably one of the most definitive proofs that this team is much better than last season. Even with the nasty December 2014, we lost many other games we should have won. Not this team.
This team is amazing--With 5 minutes left in the game, they've had 3 starters hit 0 FGA (Duncan, Parker, Green) and they're still blowing out the Mavs...
Edit: Green just hit his first shot of the game.
It could be argued that the Spurs' point differential is skewed the other way because there are so many 4th quarters of blow outs where Kawhi-- their best RPM player-- is relaxing on the bench.
We are blessed
There were many people less than a month ago saying Golden State had the #1 seed locked up-- toady the Spurs are 1.5 behind them. Best record in the league & the #1 seed are looking more and more likely.
Embarrassment of riches personnel-wise, tbh
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