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Yeah the day has come when he is truly an offensive liability around the basket. His defensive is still solid and still needed, but the wheels are starting to fall off. This is coming from a huge Duncan fan..
Is Diaw's butt injury lingering?
Yeah the day has come when he is truly an offensive liability around the basket. His defensive is still solid and still needed, but the wheels are starting to fall off. This is coming from a huge Duncan fan..
The general consensus is that he and West are too small for OKC's trio of big men. Not sure I buy it completely, but the rebounding sure does hurt us.
It was quite apparent to start the 4th.
It's not so much about size but the fact that West and Diaw are not "active" rebounders, meaning they don't actively track or hunt/go after rebounds outside of their immediate range (of wingspan). Duncan and LMA are far more active with rebounding. And unfortunately Kanter and Adams are two of the league's absolute best as active rebounders. Diaw and West frankly tow the line of being lazy when it comes to rebounding. That hurts us.
I couldn't believe it. I think Adams or KD was at the line and I heard the subs ution whistle and I figured Leonard or LMA was checking back in, but there was Fathead with his shorts wrapped around his chest entering the game for ManuI've never hated a player more
Leonard certainly gets blame for how awful he played but that doesn't excuse the fest going on elsewhere.
The tyness of that lineup isn't on Kyle.I guess we won't see much anymore of Anderson tbh unless blow out. He had 5 mn on a close game and delivered a totally empty statline except for 2 fouls,@ the folks thinking he can guard KD.
It's the Diaw/West combo against those bigs. No lineup has a chance to be good with that combo in... add Patty's inability to hit a shot so far this series, with Kyle and Danny's limitations on offense, and you get what you got. Pop ed this one up. That lineup was DOA.
I like Adams, wish he was a Spur. Tough son of a .
To me the most maddening thing was having Leonard switch onto Cameron Payne and then Mills onto Durant in the fourth quarter. OKC ran this three times in a row and every time Leonard went out to guard Payne 25 feet from the basket while Durant got off an easy shot on Mills. I know this was Pop's design because otherwise he would have called timeout and torn Kawhi a new asshole like he does Green or did Parker when they ed up a rotation. WGAF if Cameron Payne shoots a 25 foot three with Mills on him?
Playing Kawhi only 35 minutes & not trusting the DPOY to stay out of foul trouble is criminal. That lineup in the 4th is criminal. Spurs still had a chance to win and there are many things to point out (slow start, the last play, etc..) but the coach shouldn't be making those types of mistakes.
we must not see the big picture tbh... that stuff did make sense at all but as I said we did not lose because of Pop, we lost because of 10 mn of putrid basketball in first quarter
Kyle was in for about 30-60 seconds in the 4th. It really was just two possessions (one on each end) and they already looked bad with Manu there b4 Anderson got in precisely bc of what you state. After the timeout all of them were benched save Patty who continued with his cold shooting.
I agree with you that Diaw/West can't play vs Kanter and Adams bc we have no inside presence. They are severely undersized. I think in that sequence of about 3 minutes D west was blocked at the rim twice and struggled to score. When you have no inside presence and no one rolling aggressively to the rim, defenders can stay on your shooters, no one gets open, they can switch on screens in the perimeter and all your roleplayers get contested shots which they are not supposed to take. Dias doesn't have an advantage against them and neither does D west.
The Spurs coming out like they had already won the series is partially on Pop too tbh. Absolutely, the players deserve players deserve blame for that garbage 1st quarter but that happens....what's maddening is Pop going away from LMA until late in the game and that BS to start the 4th. Those moves were were entirely on Pop.
This was a terrible sequence and the perimeter lineups were Tony, Manu, Danny. TD/Lma were there and Diaw came in about the last 2 minutes. They scored handily bc Lma was still on fire but they were trading baskets.
He's total Spurs material. Funny as too.
Beyond awful . . .
- The yo-yo subs ution pattern in the 1st half
- Sitting Leonard, who'd already had a 4 minute rest in the half, the final 5+ minutes of the first half (he actually tried to get him back in with about 3 minutes left, but there wasn't a stoppage; still, a timeout should have been burned)
- Sticking with Leonard and Aldridge the entire 3rd, then sitting them simultaneously to start the 4th, instead of staggering it
- Not going with Ginobili at point guard down the stretch, who at least showed flashes of decency, as opposed to Parker and Mills
- Pairing West-Diaw together, against Adams-Kanter, no less, to start the 4th
- Barely playing Diaw at all, on a team deficiency in perimeter play making
- Wasting minutes on Anderson, when the team came in well rested and was due a 4 day rest after this game
- Not vacillating between Aldridge post ups and Ginobili running pick-and-roll in the 4th and instead letting two tunnel vision, can't get to the rim players, run around and jack up awful shots
Everything you said is spot on
It's imo quite easy to blame Pop even partially for the first quarter... they are grown men... there are no excuses to play like they did in first 5-10 mn... When you cannot finish like 10 lays ups in a row it is more than happen imo
That type of happens, though, every team has stretches where players miss shots, even easy looks..
However, there's no excuse for that lineup to start the 4th..egregiously bad decision, a much easier thing to control than players missing shots, tbh..
He's a stubborn , wants to prove he can win with the beardI would like to see Mr. Popovich shave his beard.
I have no issue regarding missing shots but they did not miss shots they missed lay ups... 6 in a row... and those lay ups were hardly contested except one ibaka block. There, it is a matter of players focus and this should be easier to control than a line up imo fwiw
but then again this does not clean Pop for his ing line ups in the 4th
Pop should seriously get over himself; he's become more of a liability than asset in big games in the last couple years.. He should also stop with his pathetic "statement subs ution" for minor ups by players like when he pulled both Green/KL too early in 1st qurater..this is not December game in Milwaukee to pull this shtick for lethargic start..
Spot on
It's totally on Pop because the 2 teams were basically tied at the beginning of the 4th, going back and forth, with the Spurs having the momentum. Then Pop trots out that absolutely putrid line-up. Only the final score counts, who cares what happened in the 1st quarter.
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