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"What about fathead?"- ElNono
After the Raptors game overflowing with emotion, I was fearful of a major letdown. Unfortunately, those fears were founded. On Saturday night, the home crowd was comatose, any rhythm was difficult to sustain and the players were a step slow (just like the filing of these random thoughts).
Fortunately, the Grizzlies were worse. After Memphis’ win (referee aided, if you remember correctly) earlier in the season in San Antonio that improved their record to 12-5, they have fallen off a cliff. Since then, the Grizzlies have a record of 6-16. They’ve now lost five games in a row and 10 of their last 12. On top of their recent struggles, Memphis was playing the second night of a back-to-back after a close loss against the Nets.
So, yeah, the Spurs got lucky schedule-wise to run into a tired, bad team on the night they themselves (and the entire city, really) were saddled with an emotional hangover.
But let us give the good guys credit. Despite only play C or D level basketball, they coasted to a 108-88 victory. Following a nip and tuck first quarter, San Antonio went on an extended 36-14 run in the second quarter to create a sizable advantage.
The Spurs held that lead into the fourth quarter. In the final stanza, the Grizzlies went on a 14-0 run to cut into a 24-point Spurs lead. Within a few minutes, the Spurs summoned just enough energy to expand the lead and ease fears of a Bulls-esque collapse.
All in all, it was a good win considering the cir stances. While the offense was missing its recent crispness, the defense was stout. Sure, some of their defensive success was the result of the Grizzlies ineptness, but the Spurs did enough on that end to deserve a healthy portion of the credit.
Here are some random thoughts on this game specifically and on the season in general . . .
-The Spurs have climbed all the way up to 16th in the league in defensive rating at 109.1 points allowed per 100 possessions. Their offensive rating is 5th in the league at 112.2. Over the last 15 games in which San Antonio has gone 12-3, the Spurs have the league’s best offensive rating (117.4), the league’s fourth best defensive rating (101.9) and by far the best net rating in the NBA at 15.5.
-The turnaround in those last 15 games has been stunning. I thought it was likely for the Spurs to rebound from the depths of the multiple 30-plus point blowouts but to go from that to destroying the NBA in such a short period of time is remarkable.
-Offensively, I point to two things as the main causes for the improvement: Dante Cunningham and the bench. As I was harping on through the first couple months of the season, Cunningham’s presence was hampering the offense. As talented as these Spurs are offensively, it was too difficult trying to score four on five. All season, San Antonio’s offense has been very lethal when Cunningham has been on the bench. Now that Pop has excised him from the rotation, the Spurs are stuck on hyper scoring mode. As far as the bench is concerned, surrounding Jakob Poeltl with four shooters has brought back some of the Beautiful Basketball Era magic. The passing, cutting and shotmaking off the bench has been very impressive. It’s no accident that the three players with the best net rating in the last fifteen games are Poeltl (19.5), Patty Mills (18.4) and Davis Bertans (18.2).
-Defensively, while Pop deserves a lot of credit on the macro level for ins uting more zone and semi-zone coverages, Derrick White’s ascension has been extremely vital. He has given the starting five the lockdown defender it desperately needed. Previously, the starters didn’t even have a fighting chance on the defensive end. In the last 15 games, White has a defensive rating of 97.5 – far and away the best number for a starter (Rudy Gay is second at 100.7). DeMar DeRozan, specifically, has really been aided by White’s rise. In the last fifteen games, his defensive rating improves from 106.1 when White is off the court to 101.5 when White is on the court.
-Outside of Pop and White, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Poeltl’s improved defensive play. He actually has the best defensive rating on the team in the last 15 games at 94.3, one spot ahead of White. He has been doing a really good job of moving his feet on the perimeter, defending the rim and grabbing defensive boards. Considering the bench unit is small and light, they need a sturdy foundation underneath to stop the pyramid from collapsing and Poeltl has been up to the task.
-Against the Grizzlies, White led the way offensive with 19 points on 8-for-9 shooting from the field. In his last three games, White is now an amazing 24-for-29 from the field for an incomprehensible 82.8 percent. After shooting 38.7 percent from the field and 24.1 percent on three-pointers in his first 19 games of the season, White’s blistering offensive explosion has risen his percentages to 47.3 percent from the floor and 33.3 percent on threes.
-Why is White suddenly an offensive powerhouse? Well, first of all, some of this is probably just – as Manu taught us – progressing to the mean. White is a better offensive player than his early season numbers indicated so he was due for a hot streak. But while he’s not going to shoot 80 percent from the field, White does look like a totally different player the last couple weeks. He’s much more under control, more confident when it comes to making decisions and less hesitant to shoot open shots. He looks comfortable and appears to know exactly what he should do in each possession.
-LaMarcus Aldridge had another quality game against Memphis. He posted the odd line of 18 points, two rebounds, seven assists and no turnovers while handily outplaying another star bigman in Marc Gasol. I can’t remember the last time a star bigman got the better of Aldridge; it had to be prior to this 15-game renaissance. The subtle gameplan switch I’ve previously mentioned that made feeding Aldridge in the low block the primary goal of San Antonio’s early-offense attack has done wonders for his game. He’s running harder and has upped his physicality two- or three-fold. And versus the Grizzlies, he punished double-teams with his passing to register a season-high in that category. (Aldridge actually now has the team’s highest PER for the first time this season at 21.42, passing DeRozan [21.04]. PER is considered a meaningless stat by many these days with the rise of alternative advanced stats but with All-Star selections around the corner, that could conceivably be factored in when deciding which one [if either] deserves to make the All-Star team.)
-DeMar DeRozan and Bryn Forbes were two of the must hungover players Saturday night. Understandable, especially DeRozan. Rudy Gay had some pep to his step but was mostly off (though his rebounding helped quite a bit). Troublingly, Gay grabbed his injured wrist a couple times in obvious pain. Let’s hope he doesn’t suffer a setback and can instead work through his latest ailment without missing more time.
-The bench, namely Poeltl and Mills, helped give the Spurs life. Poeltl had three consecutive dunks in the third quarter in one minute of play to breathe a little enthusiasm into the home crowd. The big Austrian struggled early in terms of being prepared to catch and finish but ironed out that issue by the second half. It was also good to see Mills shoot straight for a change. In his previous 16 games, he has hit only 36.5 percent from the floor and 36.4 percent from the field.
-Speaking of Mills, I’m surprised by how much confidence he has in Poeltl. He’s not really known to attempt difficult or high-risk passes but he’s always looking to feed Poeltl, no matter how little airspace he has to deliver the pass. I’m not complaining; I actually like it. Really, this is a change Mills had to make in his post-Ginobili career. Without Manu around to feed pick-and-roll bigs with ballsy passes, someone had to pick up that baton.
-Davis Bertans and Marco Belinelli were off, shooting a combined 1-for-8 from extra point land. But I didn’t think they played poorly. The duo was aggressive offensively and they both picked it up rebounding-wise and their defensive intensity was higher than usual.
-Next up, after going 3-0 on their homestand, the Spurs head to Detroit on Monday night. This will be another reunion for DeRozan as the Pistons are coached by Dwane Casey, who coached DeRozan for seven years in Toronto.
-The Pistons are 11-9 at home so this won’t be an easy game. Moreover, I’m still concerned about the emotional letdown lingering. Hopefully I’m needlessly worrying but it may take a loss to wake the group up and move forward from the regular season’s Super Bowl.
"What about fathead?"- ElNono
Hope you didn't feel pressured into doing this. If you've got something like a vacation going on, you can just let us know beforehand. I'm sure one of us doesn't mind filling in for a night or two.
Anyway, I didn't see much of this game outside of highlights. This type of play is essentially the Spurs leaning on their only win condition for a possible le run. It is a good mix of what they were doing last year and what they were doing to start this year. The only thing they're really missing is the dominate rebounding that came from Anderson, Motivated Aldridge and obviously Murray. It's hard to see them winning big playoff series without getting more possessions than their opponents. Still, it's nice to see that they can still win games without unreal three-point shooting. Aldridge as the first option of their offense has long been the most stable way to build their offense. They just need to compliment that sort of "big-man offense" with a more dominant glass game.
The Spurs are on this tear despite playing a difficult schedule, and I don't think that's said enough. They had had some success over their homestand to get back to .500, but many people pointed to this stretch of games as what would ultimately break them. There are still some difficult games coming up, but they've already played nine games against playoff teams in the last 15. Even if they get swept this week, that would put them over .500 against the best teams on the docket. In general, this year's record has been as much the product of losing to bad teams (Orlando, Chicago, Phoenix) than it has been getting checked by superior compe ion. Their record against the best can stand with anyone's.
I'm really not looking too much at White's offense right now. When Gay and DeRozan are going along with Aldridge, the attempts just aren't going to be there. The main takeaway from that for me is really that the Spurs have no one in the SL where the other team could hide a bad defender. Other than that, dude just has to fit in. Ten points on a TS% around 60 is plenty good for what he should be asked to do.
Not that it had anything to do with this game, but I've heard today is the last day to waive Pon before his deal becomes guaranteed. As I've mentioned, the Spurs are probably an underrated buyout destination this year given their unique mix of performance and perceived holes. That's just more valuable to Pondexter, especially since Moore should still have his whole 45 days left to fill in if someone gets hurt.
Spurs deserve and were more likely than not to receive an All-Star before the surge. Now, it's a virtual wrap. I expect it to be DeRozan. Since re-gaining form, Aldridge has been back to being the best player on the team, but the former has been more consistent and garnered more attention, both because of the trade/reaction and the fact that he's a perimeter player.
Locks: Jokic, Curry, Durant, Harden, James, Davis, George, Lillard.
Likely: Westbrook, DeRozan
On the bubble: Green, Thompson, Conley, Gasol, Towns, Holiday, Aldridge, Gobert.
At this writing, I'd guess Thompson and Gobert. Of course, neither Warrior should even receive consideration (Doncic, Harris, Fox, etc. are more deserving), but they will.
We are on ice fishing vacation at a cabin on the lake. He still watches all the games though, just sometimes he watches them late. (Right now he's fishing, that's why I'm answering.)
That's cool. I'm just saying that because I organized the GT threads a couple of years ago, and I know how much work it takes just keeping up with them. I never had to actually write one for every game. His threads have brought a sense of stability back to the forum that I think most of us appreciate, and the last thing that needs to happen is burnout. Enjoy your fishing vacation, though I'm not sure what this "ice" thing is you're talking about.
Thanks.
I suppose some or much of Aldridge's early struggles were from how out of shape he was at his age.
He usually shows up looking fat and as he ages it's harder to get in shape. In pre-season he only played 4 games and 95 minutes, then once the regular season hit he played 3 hard games averaging 39.5 minutes and I think his gas tank ran empty and at his age he had to struggle to play his way back in shape over the next month. It wasn't helped by Poeltl being bad early and Pau being hurt.
I hope next summer he takes a cue from Duncan and stays trim and ready going into camp. He's too old to be playing his way into shape at his size.
Much like after 5, everything else seems like gravy this season. Just destroy the one who shall remain nameless and move on. Try to recover some of the luster the franchise lost by dealing with his stupid camp.
always greatly appreciated
The interesting thing about watching White isn't how much he is scoring, it is how decisive he is once he gets the ball in his hands. He has a plan on where he is going and what move he is going to make, which many young players don't have.
Always been on my bucket list. I bet that warm thermos of coffee and whisky taste delightful with fire roasted catch of the day!!Thanks.
Sup brah
Wild cobra about to get his google earth onThanks.
Of course winning has much to do with it but the players look happy and like they are enjoying themselves. I haven't paid as much attention in the past but LaMarcus seems to be smiling more whether he is on the floor or on the bench during garbage time. It appears the chemistry thing is coming together and is a joy to see especially after last season.
Emotional hangover?
True about Aldridge on the bench, there was a shot of him and DeRozan on the bench taking and smiling that was good to see. I don't off hand remember anything similar of Aldridge and Kawhi.
They did it from time to time. , they even did it last year when Kawhi was in a suit.
It's a strange new world (for one game) where DeMar leads the team in rebounds, LMA leads the team in assists, White leads in scoring, and Mills leads with a +31.
Have a great time! Thanks for the not so 'random thoughts!'
Love reading your write up hope you catch a whole bunch of fish
I agree I like what I saw out of Mills he was actually penetrating into the paint and setting up other players he was in PG mode. He still should be used as a spark plug when used that way he brings a lot of energy hope he keeps rolling this way.
Why would you expect an old dog to learn a new trick before next season?
I've been really impressed with DeRozan's rebounding this year.
As you say, I thought Marco and Davis played ok too. 2 of Davis's 3point misses were end of quarter full court heaves, so they really shouldn't count against him in assessing his play.
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