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Low IQ poster.
I'm suggesting that relying on a bench that has not shown the ability to consistently perform will be our death knell against Golden State. We need at least B+ games from Tony. Relying on our bench against a 60-6 juggernaut is not a great strategy considering how loaded the Warriors are.
For starters, there is absolutely nothing conventional about this Spurs team. So I don't know why you'd make that argument.
But it's not consistent. At all. Patty looks amazing when his shot is falling, when it's not he is not a game manager and therefore our ability to control the pace and flow of the game goes out the window.
Any player looks good when they're hitting. That doesn't mean he's the solution.
We need a consistent threat that can cause defenses to bend and warp night in and night out. Unless Patty can do that 4 times in a 7 game series against the other best defense in the league, it will end our season.
Maybe he and West will have the hot hand all playoffs, or at least all WCF. But I'd rather not rely on that shot to beat the Dubs.
Low IQ poster.
agreed, the spurs still have to find another gear come playoffs because as is GSW will beat us, we still havent hit all cylinders and they are cruising to records. Of course, you always expect vets to improve in the playoffs but every player is susceptible to injury or just a plain funk, and the reality is that basically every rotation player is going to have to play near their current best just to have a chance at GS right now.
and in that sense, im much more worried about LMA in the playoffs than I am the committee. The last time against GS he got destroyed, but since then he has steadily improved- if he and kawhi are a legit 1a/1b argument then the committee's job is significantly easier.
He's not; the team is and should be even more so now, that they're healthy and like I said, Aldridge is comfortable and in Martin, they added the much needed extra volume three-point shooting wing.
You're looking at them all individual or specifically. I'm saying, none of them will be consistent, but someone(s) almost always will be, with this much depth.
Remember that in the playoffs, the game slows down significantly, which allows bigs to get into a rhythm more easily. LMA will be fine. We also have the best coach in the league who will be drawing up plays for him, so it'll likely be a much more concerted, focused effort. Glad we won't see the Dubs until the WCF, it'll give LMA time to adjust to the playoffs and get some comfort level with the intensity in SA, and he'll have at least 2 road games per series as well.
My big concern is that outside of Kawhi and LMA, the Spurs are a team that relies on shooting prowess unless Tony and Manu can foray into the defense to cause bad rotations. That's why we need him. Otherwise, GSW just stays at home and dares people to shoot except for some help D on Kawhi. That's a worst case scenario. Patty won't get nearly as many open 3s against the Warriors -- especially since Kerr is a Pop protege and will have some idea of what we're going to run.
Martin was a great add, was super happy to grab him and Miller. Veteran hands to steady the ship.
The problem is, if you have to cycle through all your weapons to find the hot hand, you could be down 15 to the best team the NBA has seen in a long time (along with that 2014 Spurs squad). I think I'd take the Warriors against just about any team in history, tbh.
And relying on a guy that scores big once every 5 games (at best) is a recepie for sucess? How do you propose the Spurs should play to achieve this feat, that hasn't happened so far this season, of making Tony a consistent scorer?
Last edited by DAF86; 03-15-2016 at 11:13 PM.
Why would anyone force parker to be someone he not at this point is beyond me
Taking shots away from LMA and Kawhi to give to Parker would be beyond stupid.
Parker has no role to play against the warriors. They'll go under the screen and make him shoot his stupid jumpshot, he'll miss and the warriors will be out running.
At least Patty puts some pressure on the defense. Parker makes it that much easier to defend LMA and Kawhi.
It is good that LMA will get some playoff reps before facing GS, but I have to see it to believe it before I can assume he'll be fine. I would say especially kawhi and lma depend on their shooting, they take the most mid range jumpers on the team (along with tony and west). tim and manu are going to attack the basket, you cant ask them to score 20 a night but they are still solid. the biggest problem right now is that diaw is practically useless right now- its great that west is playing well and I like him, but we need diaw and his inside scoring, same with tony. those are your main inside scorers on the team, Pop isnt going to go to simmons and boban in the WCF. green, we need him to defend and hit the 3, his defense is good but to beat GS he has to be more than a specialist, and playmaking is out of the question
GS also depends on their shooting, these two juggernaut teams setting records and they are both basically jump shooting teams on offense. In that sense both teams rely on their shooting, but what sets them apart is their defense and GS defense won the matchup in our last meeting. To beat GS you have to get them in pace, TO, rebounds, transition, curry is just on another planet shooting wise and like i said before, we'll basically need everyone to play near their best ability (a la 2014) to beat them, tony, mills, green, manu, leonard, diaw, west, aldridge and duncan all have to show up.
Too many people are being results oriented. The "committee's" performance in the past two games might be enough against pseudo-contenders like the Thunder and Clippers, but we're going to need much more firepower against the Warriors.
Here's my worries:
LMA and Kawhi are not elite level scorers. They are indeed great scorers, but neither player is the kind of guy to score 35-40 points in a playoff game(s). This is what made the '01 and '02 Lakers so tough to beat. Shaq and Kobe would combine for 60-70 points, which was a mountain for opponents to overcome. Steph and Klay routinely combine for those totals. Add in Draymond's 14-15 points per game, and their "Big 3" is a tough, tough matchup.
So let's be optimistic and say Kawhi and LMA combine for 45-50 points per game. Klay and Steph will probably combine for 60-65. Our top scorers right away are running about a 15 point deficit against their top two.
I expect Draymond to outscore Timmy by 2-5 points, Barnes to outscore Green anywhere from 2 to 10 points. So minus Bogut and Parker, the Spurs are running around a 25 point deficit.
Let's say the bench gets back 10-15 points, we're still 10-15 points in the hole. I know this analysis is in a vacuum, but there's no denying the fact the Warriors just flat out have more firepower across the board. And our defense didn't prove anything in the 1st matchup, so I'm not going to handwave our offensive concerns away with, "the Defense will equalize matters."
If you guys don't want the 3rd guy to be Parker, fair enough. He's looking like again, but then the Committee is going to have to find a way to score an extra 10-15 points, and LMA and Kawhi are going to have to remain consistent, with hopefully Kawhi "arriving" as that guy who can score 40.
You see how much tougher it is when Parker isn't scoring? It requires above and beyond performances from Mills, Manu, West, Diaw, Green, Duncan, and even Kawhi. If Tony could just be a guaranteed 12-15 points per game, while being a threat to go off for 25 (what people don't seem to get is that Tony being on the radar makes things easier for our top 2), would be a lot easier.
Saturday will tell us much more. Hopefully the Spurs kind of rope-a-doped GS in the first matchup.
You're going on about a pipe dream, tbh. Tony isn't magically gonna get 5 years younger. What you can hope is that he, Duncan, and Manu do have a little extra oomph once money making time gets here. I expect this, tbqh. I also think West is gonna play a bigger role than expected in the playoffs. He didn't pass on 11 mil for nothing. He's gonna be playing with a purpose. Wouldn't be surprised to see him average around 11-12 ppg.
Against GS specifically, by biggest concern right now is Aldridge. I wanna see him show up on Saturday and be effective against all possible lineups thrown at us. If the Warriors are able to insert a lineup in which Aldridge is not effective or is a liability against, that is very, very bad. That would mean they could render 1 of our 2 main scorers practically useless.
Pop's just gotta get this team to play their game and prove that the big man can be effective against this team. Just because the Warriors have introduced a new way to play doesn't mean the Spurs way is obsolete. Contrary to popular belief these days, Curry isn't a god, and our defense is better than theirs. These 3 games against the Warriors are important. They have never beaten the current Spurs in a series. You all know they've heard the talk about them not having to play us last playoffs. There's gotta be some subconscious concern there on their part. It's natural. If we can beat them at least a couple of times, that's where we can plant those seeds...seeds of doubt.
I'll be watching Saturday and paying close attention to Aldridge. I have hope that our last meeting with GS was just a bad game. Hopefully he proves all the concerns I stated about him to be a fallacy.
GMFSG!
Last playoffs curry, klay and green averaged 61 a game. This season so far, 65. I don't think our defense is magically going to equalize anything, but you are crazy if you think they are getting that big of a "headstart" from their top 3. curry + klay wont average 60+ between them in any series period.
At the same time, I basically agree- alrdridge and Leonard need to be effective 20 pt scorers, the Defense has to be good enough to limit some of their weapons and the Committee has to score both inside and from 3. It's a tall order but not impossible
You have to remember Draymond, Klay, and Steph have all played limited minutes this season due to their games being blowouts (same with Kawhi and LMA).
Steph/Klay PPG per 100 possessions: 75
LMA/Kawhi: 62
Per 36:
Steph/Klay: 56
LMA/Kawhi: 44
So about a 12 point deficit in both.
And Draymond has about a 2ppg advantage over Duncan in both areas. Barnes has about a 4 point advantage over Green.
So there's an 18 point deficit right there to make up (in a vacuum, of course).
I could say trust our bench to make up the difference, but our bench isn't really any better than their's.
The silver lining is that Klay is prone to choking, and I think Barbosa and Livingston will underperform while our bench performs at par. We can throw Tony out as the 3rd guy, fine, but someone(s) is going to need to step up and be a threat. LMA and Kawhi can't do it all. 6 points here and then 15 points the next game from Manu or Patty won't cut it. Both of them need to play like they did tonight in every game of that potential series. And Danny also needs to contribute a consistent 6-10 points per game.
But my worry is that those three aren't capable of that kind of consistency. So I advocated Tony since he's been a consistent 15ppg scorer throughout the year, but appears he's gone to . So committee it is, I guess.
You have to consider the defense too tbh. Despite that last game against GS, Green and Kawhi routinely give Curry and Klay trouble; , oftentimes Kawhi has taken Klay out of the game on offense. It isn't ridiculous to think, even with their improvements the last two seasons, that Wingstop can limit them to 50 points or less. Also, LMA has had several 40+ point games in the playoffs (in his last healthy postseason run no less) so expecting a consistent 30-35 points from him isn't too far out there. On top of that, Kawhi has been pretty consistent this season as the go-to guy averaging 20-25 points.
So then we get:
Curry/Klay: 50 points
Kawhi/LMA: 55 points
Makes it look better.
High IQ poster.
OK, so what are you proposing? For Parker to take around 15 shots everynight? So instead of going 1 for 6 he can go 3 for 15? Seriously, please explain me your reasoning 'cause I don't get it and it's driving me mad.
Counting points is a poor strategy. You won't simultaneously see Thompson and Curry dropping 70 AND the rest of the guys dropping the remaining 45-50 points. That gets GS past their current ppg and completely ignores the effect the Spurs will have on them. Buy into their defense or not, the Spurs WILL slow down GS' pace by virtue of their offense alone, and that will drop their scoring down 5-10 points.
You can act like the Spurs' D won't slow down Curry and Klay. But it will damn sure slow down the other guys. Assuming that guys like Barnes are going to flirt with 20ppg while the Splash Bros. go off is insane. Who is ANYONE guarding in that scenario? , you could probably get better results if you just put Green on Barnes and Kawhi on Draymond and erase them while still letting Curry and Klay get theirs. Then you have those guys tired out because they're not going to go for 80 in three quarters even against scrubs, while the Spurs aren't going to get less than that considering their increased pace.
I know it's not that easy, but the Spurs should make the dubs pay for having Bogut/Varejao out there... let them get theirs, they're not going to burn you the same way 3 point shooters will. Just help off them.
And before anyone tries to act like the Spurs will be forced to play GS' pace, they won't be. They might be tricked into it, but this isn't football. There's no reason to worry about having an even TOP in basketball. If the Warriors score after an average of 12 seconds on each possession while the Spurs score after 20 seconds, they both still get the same number of possessions. Simplifying it quite a bit, they'd each get 90 possessions a game.
The Spurs have to focus on efficiency, not volume. They can't turn the ball over and they can't take bad shots. They also need guys hitting the looks they get, obviously, but there's not a set number. For GS, they need to turn them over and force them to take bad shots. That's the skeleton. The connective tissues are things like winning the rebound battle (absolutely must that they win it handily) and to at least be respectable in the FT ratio. The Spurs should be able to win both of those aspects if they stay big and pound the Warriors inside.
The goods here.
You have to combine that with LMA, Tim, West and Diaw forcing GS to play those guys. But yeah, it's like the exact opposite of the LAC gameplan. You can let Curry rack up as many assists as he wants -- any shot someone else takes is at least a minor victory.
Tge spurs arebt exactly an average defensive team. They should be able to hold curry and klay under 55
The spurs scoring efficiently is whats going to win them the series. It kills all the BS transition threes the warriors make
It also make sense to not play like 14 and shot a lot of threes...like some mainstream idiots suggest..those lead to long defensive rebounds..just shoot them at the current pace
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