Game Grades: Spurs Versus Pelicans (1 of 4) 3-0

[bigfan]

Thanks much for the good Sunday morning read over coffee.

[toki9]

Spurs still need a mean player.

I think David Lee is surprisingly "mean", but in an understated way.

[Mr. Body]

Murray is going to be fine. He has a lot of buyers and needs to strengthen up. You choads hated Joseph, too.

[toki9]

Murray is going to be fine. He has a lot of buyers and needs to strengthen up. You choads hated Joseph, too.

The dude is 19. I would have been extremely (but pleasantly) surprised if he didn't look lost out there last night. He just needs time (since he will definitely get good coaching).

[Thunder1]

Thanx for the great job w/ the grades..

[Biggems]

I mentioned it in the game thread, but I'm getting a little tired of watching Pau concede rebounds that don't come right to him. Rebounds and 50-50 balls decide a lot of games against good teams. It's a bad habit he's getting into, even allowing for the fact that these first games have been fairly easy W's.

I struggle with game grades a lot - whether they should be adjusted for expectations. You gave Simmons a B-, and that's pretty fair I think. But Simmons is a B- player, so for him he had a pretty respectable outing. You ran into the same thing with Kawhi, in the other direction. If another player had Kawhi's numbers, it would have been an A+. But for Kawhi, it was almost a letdown. But he had one of those Duncan-esque nights where it doesn't seem like he's had a good game, but the stat sheet says different. I'd like to see him keep getting at least 8 FTA's per game (tonight he had 6), but there were a couple of pretty obvious whistles that the zebras just refused to blow.

When Forbes first came into the game, Simmons tried to hit him with a pass for what would have been a wide-open 3. But LMA intercepted the pass, and deprive him of an opportunity to show us that smooth stroke. The next time up the floor, he got his chance and, yeah, that stroke looked like what I remembered from preseason.

Twice they fed the ball to Bertans with less than 2 seconds left. He had to take two circus shots. One went in, and the other looked as good as a miss can look. He needs some court time, but his 3P shooting is no fluke. I like the fact that he's looking better on defense than we might have expected, and he keeps showing that he can defend the rim.

The Pelicans were missing a couple of guys, but in 3 games, the Spurs are giving up an average of 91 points. You have to give the team defense an A for the night. People will argue that maybe their defense hasn't been tested, but we've seen a lot of Spurs teams get complacent and give up a lot of unnecessary points to bad teams. So far, at least, this bunch has continued to push on the defensive end. And, of course, Kawhi is leading that defensive effort.

Bertans passes up some open 3s. He needs to just shoot if they get him the ball in rhythm and he is open.

[Drom John]

One play to drop Simmons grade a bit and raise Laprovittola's, Jonathon taking 2 points away from Nico with the sensational, but stupid, goal tending.

[AFBlue]

I'm loving Lee's contributions night in and night out. I knew about the scoring mentality and ability, but the passing and rebounding have been a welcomed surprise. If this is his "B", I'll take a B every night.

[daledondale]

Thanks OP, nice read.

[SAGirl]

Put your chips on the table SAGirl, are you starting the "Bench Pau/Start Dedmon" bandwagon???

Not yet. My mojo is not very good on early predictions apparently. I need to see more games and I doubt Pop overreacts. He has been giving other guys opportunities to fix things and make adjustments and it has paid off, with noticeable improvement. I don't expect Pop to overreact to Pau either, but his minutes will suffer if he's not defending well.

For now, let's just say I want to see more games. The only truly elite team so far was GSW and Pau was benched and played less minutes. It is early.

[SAGirl]

The dude is 19. I would have been extremely (but pleasantly) surprised if he didn't look lost out there last night. He just needs time (since he will definitely get good coaching).

He is 20... had a birthday in September. I just wanted to correct that, but it doesn't make a difference. He is young with just 1 season of college still, very raw.
I didn't even comment about him myself either, bc I agreed with Chinook, best to pretend it didn't happen. He needs a lot of d'league.

[cariocaz]

A nice read. Thank you!

[wildbill2u]

The dude is 19. I would have been extremely (but pleasantly) surprised if he didn't look lost out there last night. He just needs time (since he will definitely get good coaching).

He didn't look "lost". He looked like a 19 y.o. who was determined to make a splash in his first game. Instead, whether from nervousness or unformed skillset, he looked like he didn't belong out there and needs a lot of work in the D league.

By the way, on Lee it doesn't matter to me whether his grade is one slot up or down, but at one point out there he was the only vet and only big with a bunch of rookies and smalls and he was directing traffic on defense. That, my friends, demonstrates his BB IQ because it's tough to learn defensive schemes on a team like the Spurs so quickly and bring them to bear to help rookies. That really bodes well for the future.

[Spur|n|Austin]

Thanks for the grades Chinook - pretty much agree with all points. Maybe give Nico a B+ haha, I just rewatched the game and he was pretty damn dependable. Your Dedmon review was spot on, I'm pretty excited for this guy's growth in the system. I think Borrego had a lot to do with bringing him over, solid move this summer

[BackHome]

The dude is 19. I would have been extremely (but pleasantly) surprised if he didn't look lost out there last night. He just needs time (since he will definitely get good coaching).

I think Pop did this to make him get over him self and make him realize that he has a lot of work to do before he is ready to play in the NBA.