Reply With Quote
Kiwi is far and away the best player on our squad. He had a mediocre game tonight, that's all. Happens to everybody. An with TP having a great night I like that KL took the backseat tonight.
I'm not sure if people are just having fun and trolling or they are truly ignorant when they attack Kawhi when he has a game that isn't over the top. We are a team. When Kawhi is off a bit and Tony and LMA can cover....great!! That's the name of the game!
Kiwi is far and away the best player on our squad. He had a mediocre game tonight, that's all. Happens to everybody. An with TP having a great night I like that KL took the backseat tonight.
I would call it closer to putrid.
Well aren't we a lucky team
Leonard is averaging 20.2ppg and 7rpg, last 5 games Leonard is averaging 16.4ppg and 6rpg while shooting 47%from the field
Aldridge is averaging 16.2ppg and 9rpg, last 5 games Aldridge is averaging 20.6ppg and 10.6rpg while shooting 55% from the field and the Spurs are 5-0 in this span.
Last 5 games they have pretty much swapped offensive stats, both playing D really well, both rebounding fantastic and adapting to their new roles really well. So is Tim and Tony. I'm kind of expecting LMA to overtake Kawhi in PPG by years end. Who gives a about that anyway, Spurs are 34-6 while incorporating a new all-star starter who averaged 23ppg last year, withstanding a starter sucking (DG) and adding some new blood to the bench. It's a nasty team from top to bottom. Adding Simmons, West and Boban to the bench has been huge. West's nastiness and experience, Simmons energy and athleticism and a skillful Big Friendly (but fkn intimidating) giant. A great team off to a 34-6 start and they haven't gotten close to reaching their potential. Oh and i haven't even mentioned the fossils on the team Manu and Tim are doing fantastic in limited minutes. Only 1 player on the team averaging over 30 mpg (Kawhi at 33.1 and LMA next at 29.8) All good stuff for SA!
He just had to go against one of the most physical SF in the game in Melo and held him to 5-15 shooting the night before. And Melo was 2-12 before hitting his last 3 shots. You can tell Kawhi was exhausted. He kept losing his dribble and was not sharp at all last night. Despite that, Kawhi was still stellar on D. He just didn't have enough gas to play both sides of the court last night.
control panel > edit ignore list > op > okay
This shall be bumped Thursday night
Kawhi did look tired. As did other Spurs last night.
I think I heard the commentators talking about some changes in their flights the previous night.
If that's right, paired with a b2b, that could have been the reason for their struggles and it's great they still won.
Travel, jet lag, and delays can wear you down...great we got the win!
17 PPG here we come
I don't understand why Pop thought it would be cool ing with his minutes like some 35 yo (on nights when he is not matched up with guys like Lebron/Butler etc)...From playing entire first quarters in November he's been lately getting subbed at 3 minutes mark of Q only to comeback for at 8-7 minutes of the next one--enough for him lose rhythm and for certain teams to gather offensive momentum..
Do you think Pop cares about disrupting individual players rhythm?
Pop is developing guys for the postseason. He has too many guys to play, and this particular past game, Pop let guys in there longer who got the job done. He was subbing in guys left and right, looking for some combination of players that could get it done. I thought he was going to play 30 minutes anway, but in the 3rd and 4th Q an unlikely unit got hot and madea run that opened the game, and I think Pop didn't want to screw up with them when they got rolling.
Pop subbed him out/in way too early in 1st quarter and way too late in the second, enough for the Magic to whittle down an 18 point lead to 8..In absence of TD, Kawhi should actually get more minutes for his impact on D.. It would great if he makes a concentrated effort to hit the glass more as we are getting killed without Duncan..you just don't develop at the expense of your best player who happens to be a spring chicken himself when the game is still not out of reach yet..
It's nice to get some guys minutes to develop but we're screwed if Leonard is playing 25 minutes in the post season.
He wont. He will be screwed too if he has no support or just veterans who may be injured or not rise to the occasion.
How do you see the playoff minutes assuming all are healthy? Right now Leonard and Green are being monitored as if they're the 39 year old with knee pain. Manu seems to be at his average. So if Leonard and Green go back up in minutes during post season who's minutes are dialed back for Simmons and Anderson?
Leonard could use some minutes to work out some things. Ball handling, P/R, P/P, etc... His development shouldn't be dismissed either. He doesn't need to play 40 minutes but these 25 minute games are a bit tiresome.
Those 25 minutes are a lot longer when you play defense and offense the way he does.
Except he hasn't played good defense in a couple of weeks.
Absence of Duncan is exposing him tbqh
If he would only follow MVParkers defense we wouldn't be in this mess.
That's interesting. Legit question, do you guys think that Tim makes him look better defensively than he actually is? He definitely does help a perimeter defender look better by being in that last line of defense protecting the rim, but how much of a difference do you guys think it makes?
I still keep referring back to something Pippen said back in the day. He said that Bruce was a pretty good defender, but Tim backing him up was the main reason he looked great. When I originally read that years ago, I thought Pippen was being a bit of a hater, but maybe he was right. Pippen said something along the lines of that he'd be the best defender in the world too if he had Tim Duncan behind him backing him up. I'd love to read that article again. Don't remember where I read it though.
I actually see his minutes just as he has played them against elite compe ion. He will likely play the 37-40 minutes, but he will not get the toughest defensive assignments the whole game. Just my opinion that Pop wants to spare his energy a little bit. Which means, he needs to get Danny and Simmons hopefully able to handle some guys. I mean Pop has really given Simmons' tough assignments, part of it is getting him ready to contribute, but I wonder if we will see switching a lot, and other things we are not seeing now in the RS, and he needs to get Simmons ready. Kyle is more of a mystery to me. I don't think he will have his real role until Manu retires, but as we have faced elite compe ion or have encountered games where we need come backs from behind, Kyle has been coming off the bench very aggressive with leadership and looking to make plays for himself or others. He has taken care of the ball, and just made heady decisions that have gotten himself and others rolling. I think has been emboldened by Pop calling plays for him and putting him in spots to lead. So I think Kyle's performance can't be ignored either. What that turns into, I don't know. It certainly takes a bit of pressure off Manu and makes the team better.
So I don't think Pop is monitoring Kawhi or Danny to "preserve" them or anything. He's really just developing guys. He has played these guys enough in garbage time already, and they just blow out other teams' benches not matter who you put around them, so they have earned their chance to see if they can hang with the real starters in other teams. In order to test them, some guys have to give up some minutes. To me that is all it is.
Last edited by SAGirl; 02-03-2016 at 02:36 AM.
His lateral quickness is above average at best, but he has the physical attributes/instincts to recover and stay in the play to contest, and he's smart enough as a defender to know how to funnel his man baseline or into the big behind him(no middle) when he gets beat. Nevertheless, he looks a lot better when it's Tim behind him and not DWest. Kawhi is slightly overrated as an on ball defender(he's not bad or average by any means, just not as good as people would like to believe), but we've always known he was better off the ball, using his IQ to play the passing lanes and help off his man.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
