Reply With Quote
Thanks for the game thoughts. Hope you keep them coming in the regular season.
-Two days after giving up 130 points against the Hawks, the Spurs and their defense bounced back with a 100-81 victory over the Magic in San Antonio's final preseason game. Given the 49-point improvement, you wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the D was much improved. However, the improvement comes with an asterisk: Orlando is a bad team that played poorly -- even for their standards -- and missed a lot of open shots.
-If there’s one Spur who deserves credit for the defensive improvement, his name is LaMarcus Aldridge. After missing the game against Atlanta, Aldridge’s presence was felt in a major way on Friday night. He was extremely attentive on defense, moved his feet well in individual matchups and his help defense was always timely. He also grabbed 14 defensive rebounds and blocked a pair of shots. His offense wasn’t nearly as beautiful but there were bright spots. While he missed a handful of open looks, his passing was better than usual and he was decisive with his touches.
-Following an 0-for-5 showing in the first half, DeMar DeRozan finally played like a two-time All-NBA player in the second half. He destroyed the Magic off the dribble by continually getting in the lane to finish easy shots at the rim, create open looks for teammates or draw contact to get to the free throw line. That’s the DeRozan the Spurs need, particularly now that there is no one left in the city of San Antonio capable of playing a true point guard role. On defense, I thought he was above average for the duration of the night. He was hustling, deflecting passes and even protecting the rim at times.
-With Derrick White joining Dejounte Murray in street clothes, I thought Bryn Forbes did a commendable job at point guard. It’s not going to be pretty without both White and Murray but Forbes has just enough point guard skills to get the job done thanks to the fact that DeRozan also has point guard skills. Combined, they should survive. Against the Magic, I didn’t see ballhandling as an issue for Forbes, which is a good sign. He kept it simple with his passes, which was smart. Forbes missed a few open looks but he should be able to adequately space the court for the other starters. His defense was also a positive, although the Magic don’t exactly have a squadron of intimidating point guards. We’ll see how he does against the more elite lead guards in the NBA as the regular season gets underway.
-With Rudy Gay also on the sidelines, Davis Bertans got the start at small forward. Offensively, he just wasn’t good. His shot selection was poor and he hurt the unit’s ball movement. Defensively, Bertans was better but he wasn’t much of a difference-maker. All in all, Bertans had a sub par preseason and he might be on the outside of the rotation if Gay is healthy enough to begin the regular season.
-Okay, that’s better, Jakob Poeltl. After an ugly start to the game where he was being soft in the paint and couldn’t catch passes, Poeltl finally found a rhythm and played really well. He was strong on the glass, defended the rim really well and deftly guarded pick-and-rolls -- all without picking up a foul. On offense, Poeltl got in a grove with his passing and then remembered how to finish at the rim.
-The one silver lining of both Murray and White being out is that Forbes probably provides enough spacing with his shooting for Pop to go ahead and start Poeltl. Forbes looks for his shot and has a reasonably fast release so defenses have to account for him. That extra few feet of spacing should open up room for Poeltl, especially if Gay can continue to hit threes like he has in the preseason.
-Following a slow start in preseason, Patty Mills is rolling heading into the regular season. The bench unit’s offense is going to be one of the team’s leading strengths coming out of the gates. Mills was extremely aggressive again in pushing the pace and making things happen. He looks really comfortable playing with Gasol and Belinelli. The weakness of the bench to start the season will be their defense, however that deficiency wasn’t tested much on this night.
-Like Mills, Pau Gasol is playing at relatively a high level. There were stretches of this game that Gasol was the best player on the court. His scoring was efficient but where he impacted the game even more was his passing -- no one had a higher quarterback rating. He was picking Orlando apart with his high-low passing and quick shovel passes in the lane. Gasol has found a home off the bench and there’s no reason for Pop to go away from that now.
-Marco Belinelli kept his trigger finger busy. For the first time this preseason, I was actually disappointed in his shot selection. I don’t mind him taking difficult shots but he took that to a level too far against the Magic. On the bright size, he stuck his nose in on defense and survived a handful of difficult matchups. Overall, Belinelli is playing with a sense of purpose and that is only helping matters.
-I didn’t see much to like from Dante Cunningham. In fact, I thought he looked slow. I’m not sure if he’s dealing with an injury but he wasn’t able to move his feet on defense. Offensively, he wasn’t doing much to help. Cunningham had a few positive moments in the preseason but Pop would be best served by keeping him out of the rotation if at all possible.
-Quincy Pondexter had his best preseason outing. It wasn’t great by any stretch of the imagination but he probably did enough to make the final roster given Gay’s questionable health and all the other injuries to perimeter players. (It also doesn’t hurt that he has $150,000 guaranteed to him.) Pondexter hit two three-pointers against the Magic, though it should be noted that he hesitated to shoot from deep. His ball-handling continues to be a bit better than advertised. Defensively, he looked a little bit faster. Welcome to the Spurs, Q.
-All in all, Chimezie Metu passed the eye-test during the preseason with flying colors. Now it’s a matter of him honing his basketball skills. He has the size, the build and the mobility to play in the NBA. What are his long-term strengths? That’s still to be determined. Versus Orlando, he was too sloppy and he caught a case of stone hands. The good news is that Metu has enough raw ability to buy regular season minutes starting on Day 1. That is not something said about many second round picks.
-Okaro White won’t make the team but hopefully he can be stashed in Austin just in case the injury bug continues to bite. He flashed enough skill during preseason to be a possible call-up at some point if the need arises.
-Do the Spurs keep Nick Johnson? It’s possible but unlikely. If they decide they need to keep another point guard, they’d probably look on the free agent and trade markets before settling for him.
Thanks for the game thoughts. Hope you keep them coming in the regular season.
Nice write-up. That takes a lot of time and effort.
I think this group will over-achieve and make the playoffs.
Thanks for review.
The one glaring observation is how badly Bertans played and how out of sync he is with the rest of the team.
For a 2nd round pick, Metu indeed is getting a lot of minutes.
Pondexter did hit two 3 pointers back to back. He's got decent handles. Unfortunately he had the worse +/- in the team. Fournier decided that he could just run past his non existent defense.
Thanks as always OP
Thanks for the game thoughts. Hope you keep them coming in the regular season.
Thank you for write up. Great job.
I'm beginning to think Bertans will never be a regular contributor. He has moments where you think he could even be a starter, yet, never consistently produces. I keep expecting him to take the next step, but it hasn't happened and am beginning to think it will not happen.
Yep. He will go 4 of 5 from 3 every couple of months and bedazzle us... until his next game. In very different aspects of the game (obviously) Kyle did something similar for some of us. But, there was not much point in carrying two teasers, so Pop kind of went with the devil he didn't know. The best of Kyle Bertans would have been a very nice piece. My hope is that the 3 young guys in the infirmary will all become better all around players without the glaring weaknesses of our previous batch of hopefuls.
Metu is the one player I’m most excited about this season. He reminds of Capela but with a better offensive game.
-All in all, Chimezie Metu passed the eye-test during the preseason with flying colors. Now it’s a matter of him honing his basketball skills. He has the size, the build and the mobility to play in the NBA. What are his long-term strengths? That’s still to be determined. Versus Orlando, he was too sloppy and he caught a case of stone hands. The good news is that Metu has enough raw ability to buy regular season minutes starting on Day 1. That is not something said about many second round picks.
thanks for the game thoughts. Forbes/Derozan/Bertran/LMA/Poetl on paper is not bad offensively. Forbes/Bertran should open up that lane. Defensively is another story. Hopefully Gay absence was just precautionary.
Thanks for the write-up! I missed the game and this was great to read. I'll try to remain hopeful Gay's DNP was being on the cautious side. If Forbes starts next to DDR it will likely create some space for LMA and him to work. Also glad to see Poeltl had a better showing. Opening night in four days! Woot!
Thanks timvp. I wonder if you think we should gun for a lottery pick this season? Since a White went down can’t think of anything else better contributing to the future of the franchise.
Thanks for the writeup, as always.
I'm ready for this season to just get underway. I'm tired of all of the speculation. Obviously, we got dealt a bad hand to start this season, but as Spurs fans, we don't have a lot of room to , all thing considered. It's been over two decades since the Spurs were hit with hard times (and yes, last season doesn't quite count considering we still made the playoffs).
Sink or swim, Go Spurs Go!
Metu does not have the length to be capela, he's drew gooden type player
Bertans is ing terrible.
Yeah, I think the PATFO made an error on that decision. For 7.9/year vs 7.5/year, I would have taken Kyle 7 days a week....He's a better overall player and has more fixable holes in his game. Bertans will always have T-rex arms, while Anderson has a hesitation about shooting - one of these is fixable, and one of these isn't.
That's sad. Could've been the Latvian Durant
Kyle was closer to $9.5/yr.
Spurstalk at it's best - calling a guys career because of meaningless preseason games
What is everyone expecting of Bertans? He is what he is, an energy stretch big off the bench that is only good for shooting and can get hot now and then. He is basically a taller streaky korver at this point. Probably all he'll ever be Imo
Kyle's is a standard MLE contract starting at $7.9 - he just gets raises. The difference in player quality makes it worth it.
Avg is 9.5M over 4 years regardless. It's not 7.9 vs 7.5. Plus it is an odd fit to put Anderson and DeRozan together. Between the two Bertans is a better fit with our 3 best players. (Aldridge, DeRozan, and Murray).
Not to on Kyle, but go ahead and check out how your quality did during the preseason. If anything, both of these guys had a bunch of crap offensive games.
thank god for timvp and welcome back the best game breakdowns ever! #MSTGA
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
