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Not saying it's not good or impressive. I was just minimizing the framing of their prowess. It's nowhere near the record.
How much farther behind should the 2nd team be? If Miami continue maintaining their defensive level the Spurs would have to allow 100 points for the next 10 games in order to fall behind them ( on a per game basis ). That's pretty good - more than half the season's worth of games played.
Not saying it's not good or impressive. I was just minimizing the framing of their prowess. It's nowhere near the record.
they are 3points behind in defensive rating. So it's pretty ridiculous.
i've checked the stats until 1996 and the current spurs defensive rating would top any record. Only close are two other spurs seasons. So... yeah.
Mmm....I'd have to study the team defense rating to make an educated rebuttal.
Pace stats here is deceptive. Spurs aren't slowing the game down, they are actually passing a lot more. What this does is make the defense work a lot more.
I haven't look at the stats, but I think the Spurs are also crashing the offensive board more.
The team is slowly being morphed into one that can take on GS.
Ideal situation is to shut down GS late in the season, pop their invincibility bubble and hope they lose confidence.
I swear, Spurs fan anxiety is a real thing. Lol.
there's not much to study, it's simply the points allowed per 100 possessions.
It's also pace neutral, and better for comparing one team's defense to another's.
Well Spurs are relying on Defense while offense is still a work in progress... I prefer this to the opposite...
Laugh All you want, but the Spurs defense is this good because of LMA. His offense has suffered b/c Pop always wants defense to become first. LMA is expending so much effort on the defensive you can tell at times he doesn't even care to touch the ball on the offensive end. He had 5 blocks last night. With two 6'11 guys guarding the rim, and Green and Kawhi hounding wing players on the perimeter, teams are finding easy shots hard to come by against the Spurs. Giannis was scoring like 20 ppg and Kawhi held him to 7 last night.
People keep on ing about LMA not scoring like he did in Portland but what they fail to realize is how much he has improved on the defense end this year. He is the reason the Spurs are the best defensive team in the league. Combo on Duncan, LMA, Green, Kawhi and now even Parker picking up his defense of late, that is the best starting defensive 5 in the league.
"Splitter was the key" ... They said
while you make a good point, I still think that the reason our D is so great this year, is because we don't have Cancernelli anymore.
Yes was. But LMA has been better this year to be quite honest. LMA is becoming an Elite defender and that is due to Pop for sure. LMA seems to want to win a championship and is doing everything Pop is telling him to do to achieve that. That's a good sign for the Spurs.
LMA become a much better defender. Parker FINALLY transitioning his game so he can continue to be successful. KA and Simmons continuing to improve since the Preseason. Butler being a solid bench contributor from day 1.
The Spurs could have asked for a better first month this season considering all the new guys stepping in.
That's somewhat true. But Beli wasn't that bad. It's just LMA has been playing the best D I have ever seen him play. But Butler for Beli has definitely is an improvement in D as well.
For single seasons, from 1946-47 to 2015-16, played in the NBA/BAA, playing for the San Antonios Spurs (Tex/Dal), requiring Opp PTS<= 90, sorted by descending Wins.
Opponent Per Game Rk Season Tm Lg G W L W/L% FG FGA 2P 2PA 3P 3PA FT FTA ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS 1 2005-06 SAS* NBA 82 63 19 .768 33.9 78.3 30.3 67.5 3.7 10.8 17.2 23.3 10.8 29.5 40.3 16.3 7.3 4.2 13.9 20.8 88.8 2 2004-05 SAS* NBA 82 59 23 .720 33.1 77.5 29.1 66.8 3.9 10.7 18.3 23.8 10.9 29.3 40.2 16.9 7.2 5.1 15.1 23.1 88.4 3 2000-01 SAS* NBA 82 58 24 .707 34.6 82.6 30.4 69.8 4.2 12.7 15.0 20.3 11.8 29.7 41.5 19.7 7.3 5.2 13.5 23.7 88.4 4 2003-04 SAS* NBA 82 57 25 .695 31.9 77.9 28.1 66.3 3.8 11.6 16.7 22.5 11.1 30.0 41.1 17.3 7.7 4.6 15.3 22.4 84.3 5 1997-98 SAS* NBA 82 56 26 .683 33.4 81.2 29.3 68.6 4.1 12.5 17.7 23.9 12.4 27.3 39.7 19.0 8.9 4.6 12.7 22.5 88.5 6 1998-99 SAS* NBA 50 37 13 .740 32.6 81.2 29.2 70.0 3.4 11.2 16.1 23.0 13.9 28.1 42.1 18.8 8.7 4.9 14.6 23.0 84.7 7 2015-16 SAS NBA 19 15 4 .789 34.8 83.3 28.7 64.2 6.1 19.1 13.0 16.9 9.2 32.5 41.6 21.1 7.7 3.6 14.6 18.6 88.8
This isn't like football where the offense decides how quickly to snap the ball. Controlling the pace is part of defense in basketball. Efficient offenses want to move quickly (SSOL being the obvious example, but the Spurs also believe in a two-second rule or whatever; then you have a bunch of people wanting to get out and run all the time). If you discourage quick shots and force the other team to hold the ball, you start to drop their efficiency.
If the Spurs play Golden State, you hope the Spurs' defense can slow down the Warriors' offense (literally) and hope the Spurs' offense can methodically score on the Warriors' D. You don't just throw up your hands and concede that they are going to run all over the Spurs on that end.
And we have to take into account how disruptive we have been on the perimeter. Kawhi and Danny of course, but Kyle is immensely better on that end than Marco. Literally, no comparison. Also, the switches, Kyle has switched on anyone, fearlessly. Yea someone will get the better of him occasionally , but he's also gotten the better of most, and discouraged a lot of shots. Even as a small ball stretch 4, he was scary. Rasual has been hustling and blocking shots left and right, still has spring on those legs. Of all our wings Manu is the one who has been poor with too many defensive gambles, and slow getting back in transition and stuff. When the team depends too much on him offensively, he sometimes just doesn't have it for D like he used to.
Simmons is a late addition and his defensive fundamentals have been lacking, but he's probably getting chewed up by Pop and will be motivated to get better in order to play. He's already better than Marco even as he is, defensively.
Seems like our free throw defense improved. Even though that may sound odd, Spurs are fouling at a much lower rate than other years.
Superficially it would also seem like we're not doing as good of guarding the 3pt line since we are giving up almost 2 threes more per game... until one notices that the opposition is taking over 7 more 3 point attempts per game to get there (the state of today's NBA).
The opposition seems to be moving the ball more on the Spurs (taking a page out of our own book) given that their assists per game totals against the Spurs is one of the higher averages conceded in the Duncan era.
For some context, 3 points in DRtg is about 0.79 standard deviations (1 is 3.78). Right now the Spurs are 3.6 ahead of Indiana. 1 SD at the top is a huge gap.
Even more ridiculous is Golden State's lead in offense. They're +12.1 over the league average in ORtg (over 3 SD) and 5.9 ahead of 2nd place. Insanity.
You have to remember the table shows only the seasons when the Spurs were reasonably (and successfully) focusing on D.
What's interesting is that the last time the Spurs held their opponents to 90 points or less was 2005-2006... ten years ago! There's clearly a shift in focus going on, after a few years of run & gun.
NBA.COM League Lineup Stats
Sample size issues. Seems that they have an 18 minute cutoff, 18-368 minutes range.
League best
50.3 Isaiah Canaan, Robert Covington, Jahil Okafor, JaKarr Sampson, Hollis Thompson
Best Spurs:
79.1 LaMarcus Aldridge, Kyle Anderson, Tim Duncan, Danny Green, Tony Parker
League worst:
146.1 Jamal Crawford, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Chris Paul, Paul Pierce
Spurs worst:
124.6 Kyle Anderson, Boris Diaw, Manu Ginobili, Patty Mills, David West
Last edited by Drom John; 12-03-2015 at 11:32 AM.
Spurs lineups
79.1 (18 min) Aldridge, Anderson, Duncan, Green, Parker
79.7 (20 min) Butler, Diaw, Ginobili, Mills, West
82.0 (36 min) Aldridge, Diaw, Ginobili, Leonard, Mills
94.1 (36 min) Aldridge, Duncan, Ginobili, Leonard, Parker
94.9 (238 min) Aldridge, Duncan, Green, Leonard, Parker
100.0 (52 min) Duncan, Green, Leonard, Parker, West
104.8 (18 min) Diaw, Ginobili, Green, Mills, West
124.6 (21 min) Anderson, Diaw, Ginobili, Mills, West
LMA spearheading the D. No surprise the metrics back it up, as my eye test sees the very same thing.
Nowhere near the record in terms of oppPPG of course, because we're in millennial ball era now... probably is the record for the millennial ball era though. Of course, there were teams with lower oppPPGs in the 90s when isoball reigned supreme, and in the early and mid 2000s when close to half the league still played at a slow tempo (and the Suns' fast style was largely frowned upon).
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