Haralabos Voulgaris "Pop coached like Randy Whittman"

[Kikoluna]

People are still bitter about the loss to the Thunder. I have blamed Pop in the past for questionable moves such as not playing Duncan in the final seconds of 6, not playing Splitter against the Grizzlies '11, and going small against the Mavs in '06. In this situation I don't blame him for this loss because the spurs just couldn't match up with the Thunder's size. Duncan deteriorated which screwed things up and forced Pop to overplay West, and Diaw who were liabilities against the Thunder. Some people scream that the Spurs should have played small but the Spurs don't have the athletes and shooters to pull it off successfully. Look at the Warriors who have the best small ball lineup in the league and they barely beat the Thunder.

You Are Wrong My friend. A lot of this falls on pop. Even a 5th grader knew , "hey, maybe that Kyle guy shouldn't b go in AT ALL"
Also, playing boban like 3 total minutes was insane. A lot of this was on pop. And where the he'll were his assistants to tell him not to put Kyle 13 minute mile in.

[daslicer]

You Are Wrong My friend. A lot of this falls on pop. Even a 5th grader knew , "hey, maybe that Kyle guy shouldn't b go in AT ALL"
Also, playing boban like 3 total minutes was insane. A lot of this was on pop. And where the he'll were his assistants to tell him not to put Kyle 13 minute mile in.

I like Boban but he's a good backup center at best and nothing more. Even when Pop played Boban in game 6 he wasn't a factor and the refs called a ton of fouls on him quickly. Also Adams and Kanter carved him up when he was on the floor. Boban defensively against OKC is a liability because he doesn't have the lateral mobility to switch off effectively on pick and rolls. Can't blame Pop for not playing a guy who wasn't suited to match up with OKC. I agree Kyle Anderson sucks but who else is on the roster that Pop could have played over him to backup Kawhi other than Kevin Martin. Duncan's rapid decline was also the final nail in the coffin in this series. I'm convinced if the Spurs had Duncan from earlier this season they would have won the series. Losing sucks but there is nothing Pop could have done to stop Duncan's decline, or fix the roster problem of not having a legit SG/SF backup along with not having any legit bigs outside of Aldridge.

[wildbill2u]

WE didn't have the horses to win against OKC once their coach deduced that Duncan could hardly move and we had no one behing him that could match up against his Vanilla towers. You can all you want to about why we didn't have the horses but most folks thought this year's team was as good as we ever had. The bench was scoring well and we had lots of blow out games.

Kudos to those who warned about Adams but I don't remember anyone warning about using both centers in tandem. We might have been ok with Duncan and diaw or Duncan and West, but with Duncan unable to go at anything like the beginning of the season, those guys couldn't handle the OKC lineup.

And of course it didn't help that we didn't get the outside scoring from Green and Mills that was expected.

Eventually all those little things add up to bad matchups and a loss to a good team with good coaching.

[Horse]

Pop could've done alot better but this is on the zebras just like '12 so nothing else to talk about.

[Kawhitstorm]

Kudos to those who warned about Adams but I don't remember anyone warning about using both centers in tandem.

10-30-2015: http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/show...=1#post8607847

[Kawhitstorm]

In this situation I don't blame him for this loss because the spurs just couldn't match up with the Thunder's size. Duncan deteriorated which screwed things up and forced Pop to overplay West, and Diaw who were liabilities against the Thunder.

What he should have done was start Diaw ala 2014 & have him matchup against Ibaka who just hangs around the 3 point line thus the rebounding wouldn't be such a big issue. On the other end, OKC put Adams on LMA so Ibaka wouldn't have to defend him on the post but had Diaw been in the game then he would have been able to expose his post defense. When OKC also doubled LMA, Diaw would have been to flash to the paint & finish instead of throwing up mid-range brick like D-Worst or blowing bunnies like Tim.

Tim should have been coming off the bench to matchup w/ Kanter who was feasting on D-Worst.

[TheGoldStandard]

What he should have done was start Diaw ala 2014 & have him matchup against Ibaka who just hangs around the 3 point line thus the rebounding wouldn't be such a big issue. On the other end, OKC put Adams on LMA so Ibaka wouldn't have to defend him on the post but had Diaw been in the game then he would have been able to expose his post defense. When OKC also doubled LMA, Diaw would have been to flash to the paint & finish instead of throwing up mid-range brick like D-Worst or blowing bunnies like Tim.

Tim should have been coming off the bench to matchup w/ Kanter who was feasting on D-Worst.

It was worth a try, nothing else seemed to be working. Diaw looks absolutely done though and when he is healthy he seems disinterested.

[Kawhitstorm]

It was worth a try, nothing else seemed to be working. Diaw looks absolutely done though and when he is healthy he seems disinterested.

Diaw busted Harrison Barnes when he was being FEATURED in the offense, otherwise he was just going through the motions. He actually played well on offense in Gm 4 but Pop had the Turd Tower lineup against Adams/Kanter to start the 4th which canceled out his production.

[UNT Eagles 2016]

The turning point of the 2012 WCF was Scott Brooks putting Thabo on Porker after he torched WestBrick in Gm 2, which resulted in the Spurs turning the ball over 21 times in Gm 3. It eventually resulted in Danny getting benched b/c the offense stalled.

-Gm 4: ChewBaka went 11-11 & OKC was able to win despite WestBrick only scoring 7 pts.
-Gm 5: Harden makes BS shots after BS shot in the 4th quarter to hold off the Spurs.
-Gm 6: ThundeRefs

If OKC had 2012 Harden as their closer, they would have beaten the Duds.

If only we had gone through Manu in game 4.... also Duncan, Kawhi and Bonner were grossly underused. Once Perkins was in foul trouble they had no one to slow down TD, Kawhi was a rookie but not inept, and Diaw was worthless that series because he refused to shoot outside of 12 feet. For instance, we dominated OKC in the 2011 regular season (3 blowout wins, against essentially the same team and one that got to the WCF that year as well) by playing Bonner big minutes which disallowed Ibaka to block shots from TP/Manu/RJ (Kawhi) et al. in the paint.

[Kawhitstorm]

If only we had gone through Manu in game 4.... also Duncan, Kawhi and Bonner were grossly underused. Once Perkins was in foul trouble they had no one to slow down TD, Kawhi was a rookie but not inept, and Diaw was worthless that series because he refused to shoot outside of 12 feet. For instance, we dominated OKC in the 2011 regular season (3 blowout wins, against essentially the same team and one that got to the WCF that year as well) by playing Bonner big minutes which disallowed Ibaka to block shots from TP/Manu/RJ (Kawhi) et al. in the paint.

Bonner was back to his playoff choker mode in 2012.

[UNT Eagles 2016]

Bonner was back to his playoff choker mode in 2012.

meh, still better than Diaw... Bonner was fine imo

[therealtruth]

I like Boban but he's a good backup center at best and nothing more. Even when Pop played Boban in game 6 he wasn't a factor and the refs called a ton of fouls on him quickly. Also Adams and Kanter carved him up when he was on the floor. Boban defensively against OKC is a liability because he doesn't have the lateral mobility to switch off effectively on pick and rolls. Can't blame Pop for not playing a guy who wasn't suited to match up with OKC. I agree Kyle Anderson sucks but who else is on the roster that Pop could have played over him to backup Kawhi other than Kevin Martin. Duncan's rapid decline was also the final nail in the coffin in this series. I'm convinced if the Spurs had Duncan from earlier this season they would have won the series. Losing sucks but there is nothing Pop could have done to stop Duncan's decline, or fix the roster problem of not having a legit SG/SF backup along with not having any legit bigs outside of Aldridge.

If we only had a big with good mobility like Splitter. He would have helped neutralize Adams/Kanter. Alot of people don't realize how important Splitter was to getting that championship. The problem is he couldn't stay healthy but when healthy he made a difference. I think the Spurs get past the Clippers if he was healthy last season.