The Ups and Downs of Manu's Play

[myhc]

man, Manu's drives and rebounding are some of the few things that kept us in the game through the first three quarters. He tried to do too much late in the game but at that point it was obvious that someone needed to step up and take over. I can't fault him for that.

It's funny how you always know after a loss which posters will bag on which players (or coaches).

Of course you can fault him for that. He committed crucial turnovers late in the game with the game still up in the air. I can live with anything, bad shots or shots that don't go in. But turnovers are unacceptable and you don't get a free pass for that.

[1Parker1]

Everyone choked. Manu with the TO's and bad shots, Parker with the airball and passive play, Duncan with the missed FT's and not demanding the ball more, Bowen's defense wasn't so great at the end either, Barry missed and took so many 3's that I can't even say. Horry missed shots, not great defense, Nazr---well he did everything bad except make his 2 FT's.

Bottom line, Spurs sucked last night and were lucky to be down by only 1 pt in the closing 4th quarter last night. Hopefully this will motivate them to play harder and smarter on Thursday. It's just sad that they needed some motivation in the first place.

[manubili]

I don't like it seeing manu going alone with the ball. But I think it was Pop's order. TD was missing too many FT, the 3 pointers didn't fall down, so Manu seemed like the right choice. I wish he had passed more to Tony or Barry that were playing good last night.

But Billups was something special. They diserved to win this game, anyway.

Why Pop doesn't put Bowen guarding Billpus? Ant Tony on Rip? That's something I just can't understand.

[timvp]

man, Manu's drives and rebounding are some of the few things that kept us in the game through the first three quarters. He tried to do too much late in the game but at that point it was obvious that someone needed to step up and take over. I can't fault him for that.

It's funny how you always know after a loss which posters will bag on which players (or coaches).

All Manu had to do was pass the ball. He broke down the defense several times, but just tried to be supermanu and it cost the Spurs. He admitted afterwards and so did Pop.

And I "bagged" on a lot more players than Manu. But yeah, Manu was a main culprit of the Spurs choking down the stretch of the game.

[FoxMulder]

C´mon do you want someone to blame??
Manu wasn´t the only player who commited mistakes. Why he was playing Point Guard? Why he was pickng rebounds? Why he take the last shots? Because no one else was playing well or confident. Even Duncan miss two shots UNDER THE BASKET!!

But the guy looks tired. He miss open 3s that he always sink.
Bad ending. Lets hope he will recover for tomorrow night.

[caspian]

Detroit made the plays and got all the loose balls. It wasn't just about the Spurs not scoring. Detroit was scoring and getting quality shots, and whenever they missed they got rebounds and found ways to score each time down the floor. Duncan's FTs and Ginobili's turnovers didn't help, but the Spurs needed to clamp down a lot earlier than the last few minutes.

They kept it close because Detroit was shooting lights out, actually. And they were not quality shots. They were making difficult shots time and time again...many times in a row. Our defense was actually pretty good. They were making 'impossible' shots at an 'impossible' percentage. I credit their confidence.

We needed offense.