I'm not advocating playing small, LJ is. I think we have to stay big, just majorly cut down Bowen's on court time. Also, we have to play the out of the big three. There is no point in saving them for anything, this team we're playing now is the best one left.
I think Stoudemire (same with Bell, Diaw and Marion) can guard Barry, Bowen and Finley.
Phoenix is more versatile than Spurs who are more of specialists. Harder for Pop to make effective adjustments offensively or defensively.
They can iso Spurs like Dallas does to create mismatches do and that's why our defense breakdown.
My fix
1. Start Manu
He started the last time we beat them, and he has had huge games against them as a starter.
I think Manu is forcing it, and then getting down on himself, and starting him might possibly cause him to relax a bit.
Plus Finley should be able to destroy the Suns bench...
2. Raja Bell - The less this wad is on the court the better.
My strategy with him -
Get him in foul trouble
Knock his ass to the dirt every time he goes into the paint
Have Bruce guard him at his absolute rashiest. Parker can guard Nash.
Run picks for Manu with him as much as humanly possible.
Bell, he's smacking our guys around and knocking down shots, he gives the Suns a toughness they have lacked previously...
Why the does Pop cut guys like he and Barnes?
Anyway, he's playing well, but I think Bell is the type of player that can be provoked into doing something stupid...and the Spurs need to work on that aspect.
Level him, frustrate him.
Kick his ing ass like the Lakers kicked Bruce's in 04...
This series is ours if we get him off the court.
I know you probably ask...why not level Nash?
Because Nash plays even better when he's pissed...
Bell begins pissed off, so pissing him off more can only work to our benefit...
Make no mistake about it, Raja Bell is the key to us winning this series. We need him off the court.
I'm not sure Bowen has had much of a defensive effect on this series yet. And the difference between Elson/Oberto and small ball isn't that great in terms of interior defense against the drive.
As I said in the original post, Finley has had some success against Amare. Both with the Mavs and a few times with the Spurs.
It'd be nice to dominate on the boards, but the Spurs just aren't that good of a rebounding team even when they are "big". In fact, some numbers point to this being the Spurs worst rebounding team of all-time.
As I've stated, I'm not sold on small ball myself, but I think in spurts it could be effective and help the Spurs score -- which was their major problem in Game 2.
I think guarding Bell with someone who isn't a point guard would be a good start. I'm not sure how you gameplan how to bait someone into a fight, but I guess all is fair in the playoffs.
The Spurs playing small against PHX has worked well the past 3 years. However, in this series, any time Barry has been inserted into the game, D'Antoni has exploited Barry's poor defense by posting him up or iso'ing him...often with Diaw. Whether it is Diaw, Marion, Barbosa, or Stoudamire that Barry ends up defending...and it varies in switches and cross-matches in transition...Barry has been a liability defensively.
When Brent is a defensive eye-sore and then doesn't contribute offensively, often giving up long rebounds to jumpstart a fast break, it ends up being ugly.
Point I forgot to add...
Manu struggling is killing our bench...for the same reason we move him there when Finley and Barry suck we need to move Finley there because Manu sucks...
I mean Manu is cleaning glass and getting steals and passes and stuff...but he's not playing like Manu and our bench sucks when he's not.
As for Barry...you can fret over the fact that Barry isn't a scorer, but he can go scoreless and we still blow a team out by 20....he's a smart offesive player...well he used to be anyway...
If he's on....it'll be a blowout. Whether scoring/"jackup shots like there's no tomorrow" fetishists, appreciate his contributions, or not.
Horry too, plus Horry has the addition of boosting our half court D...
If the Suns are starting Thomas, IMO, Horry needs to be on the court more...he's our PF in our traditional lineup.
Yeah, that's a good point. Everyone pointed to Phoenix as the series that Barry can contribute.
So far he's been the worst player on the team. But I think Barry is going to be needed in beating the Suns. The Spurs can beat them without Barry, but it'd be tougher.
It might be getting to the point that Barry should get more minutes (his own plus Vaughn's) to see if he can ever do anything ... or go the other direction and put him behind Beno in the rotation.
Use the connection...
And it doesn't appear to be that hard to bait Bell into doing something stupid....he's already hitting Manu in the face...and he's not even that pissed off yet.
Anyway...Bruce has a knack for pissing guys off...
I'm not so sure his being on Nash is a matchup that benefits us...he does a much better job on Marion IMO. He did't do to stop Nash in the last game. I mean what'd we give up about 40 points and 20 assists? after 30 and 8 in the first?
Exactly how could our D be any worse on him? Use Bruce on someone he can be effective against...like Bell.
Yeah, I'm starting to lean toward Manu starting as well. The Spurs have to try to something to get him kick started. They will not win the series if Manu averages < 10 points per game. No way.
Start Manu, run the first couple plays for him and just try to get him rolling. For whatever reason, he's regressed to the point that he's unrecognizable coming off the bench. Start him, have him to play backup point and maybe increase his defensive responsibilities just to try to get him going again.
Just from watching the game, I don't see anything Bruce is doing to Nash that anyone else can't do. Like I've said since the beginning of the series, I'd rather have Bowen on Marion to just eliminate Marion from the series.
Parker on Nash seems to be fine. Maybe even though Manu on him for a couple possessions to see if that snaps Manu back into his frenzied, attack-at-all-costs mode.
Seriously...keeping Bruce on Nash is a lot like keeping him on Dirk...
He's wasted because the guy he's going up against is an MVP player who is dominating us...and it's like, we're afraid to take Bruce off them because they'll dominate us or something...
Well Dirk was Wilt against us last year...
And Nash is ing...whoever this year.
Dirk could not have put up better numbers against us last year if I had been guarding him...and I am serious about that...he was ing Wilt Chamberlain...it doesn't get worse than that.
We give up 15 assists to Nash...it doesn't get worse than that.
That's just a bad coaching move. Bowen is a very good defender against shooting guards and small forwards. To put him on point guards and power forwards is just stretching it.
Sometimes it works against slower points guards or small power forwards, but to ask him to guard Nowitzki and Nash doesn't make much sense. That'd be like D'Antoni putting Bell on Duncan or Parker ... it'd just be dumb and Bell would get abused in either matchup.
I'm interested to see if this strategy would work. Bell is a fiery, aggressive player for all 39 minutes that he's in the game, so I'm not sure if attacking him is the best idea. Normally, you'd want to attack the softest part of the Suns' defense, not the strongest. And Bell has a Bowen-like reputation, so the refs allow him to get really physical with his opponent.
If you can get Bell in foul trouble, though, there's not really anyone (except...ugg...Barbosa) to guard Manu. Nothing would spark Manu like Bell on the bench.
Putting Bowen on Bell, and Parker on Nash...now that's a great idea. Bell was freakishly aggressive on offense the other night because Parker isn't strong or long enough to defend him. Take Bell out of the offense, force him into the same role he played during the Lakers series... I could see Pop making that kind of adjustment.
As for Marion, I don't think D'Antoni is looking for him to score in this series. Before Game 2, he specifically told Marion to focus entirely on stopping Tony Parker. Forget about scoring, just stop Tony Parker. Marion only ended up scoring 5 points on a small handful of FG attempts, and the Suns still won by 20.
Exactly...I mean if it comes to down to end of the game posessions, by all means put Bruce on them....but giving him heavy minutes against them kind of works to our disadvantage in the long run...the great players adjust to him over a series if they see him a lot. I mean I know why we did it against the Lakers...but this aint LA.
The thing is...Bruce has been the only reliable 3 shooter in this series....and he's being doubled off of...so he needs to be on the court as much as possible, and it'll probably help us more if he saves his legs by not guarding Nash and guarding someone less mobile instead.
In the first two games with Bowen on the bench and Nash on the court, Nash is 3-for-8 from the field, 4-for-4 from the line and has 8 assists in somewhere around 20 minutes. The assist numbers are pretty high, but the Spurs seem to be fine in making him miss when Bowen isn't on Nash.
I'd like Bowen to stay on Marion when Bowen is paired with Manu and on Bell when Bowen is paired with Finley. You put Bowen on Marion or Bell and Bowen could totally shut them down. You put Bowen on Nash and he's not going to do much more than Parker can do.
Last edited by timvp; 05-10-2007 at 05:19 AM.
I don't know if it well help him get his confidence back, but I'm going to have to hop on the Ginobili starts bandwagon too. Try it out next game and see if it works for Manu. Whatever the case, he needs to try and attack the rim more because his jumper isn't falling. All those missed shots are killing his game, and he's had some open looks. He's my favorite Spur after Duncan, and it sucks to see him like this.
Going small should work against the Suns as long as Oberto isn't the sole big out there. Also would help if they would try running some motion offense instead of trying their usual half-court sets with the small lineup.
Great posts to all - excellent thread! Especially you whottt (where does the anger come from? But in this case I like it!) and timvp and Solid D and Xylus (what is that avatar?).
Um, that IS small ball!
However, I strangely agree with SD here that it was an aberration.
"Fluke" is a bad word because it gives no credit to the Suns who played a poor first half, but when they smelled blood in the second, hit their stride and played wonderfully.
We lost the game from the start because the intensity/effort and execution wasn't there, and that is not our team. They were happy with their split. But they will bounce back and play hard and focussed like they did in game 2 of the Nuggets series, and take a close win in the 90s, unless the Suns bring absolutely their best game like Detroit did in game 3 and 4 of 2005 (one of the most clinical 2-game displays of basketball excellence I've ever seen).
timvp, as for your idea, I think we try it if the trend continues in game 3 and it really is the matchup that's messing up our play. I doubt it is though. We stay the course for another half a game until we can tell what's going on (matchup or aberration), and then make a decision.
Oh, and Manu should start again. Unleash the BEAST I say (is it that he needs to grow his hair?). I entertained the thought of actually trading Manu this offseason for the FIRST TIME EVER the other day... but I really want to be WRONG!!! Prove me wrong Manu, show us the most exciting player in the NBA that goes for 48 on the Suns in 2005 and destroys everyone for the next 18 months... COME BACK TO US MANU!!!!!!
Last edited by RuffnReadyOzStyle; 05-10-2007 at 06:54 AM.
I find that Elson is surprisingly effective in Game 1 esp in the fourth quarter. I think in Game 2, Pop just played Oberto alot of minutes and Elson was totally ed up. I don't know about the small line-up but I am not comfortable for it to eat up major minutes. Use it like surprises, like the series against Denver, when inserted at the right time, it is a surprisingly good lineup. I think Game 3 is still too early to use this lineup alot.. I will stick to the big line-up. But I am all for starting Manu in place of Bowen or Finley..
This is where I see the theory having holes in it. Stoudemire could use and abuse Barry all day long. Barry does not have the foot speed or athleticism to challenge Stoudemire. If his shot was falling it would be another thing, but I think we're talking about Barry being able to challenge Stoudemire on both ends of the floor.
I think Horry has a better shot on savvy alone.
There is no way that Barry would defend on Amare!
The idea is to make Amare defend on Barry and make him work.
On the other end, Finley who was succesful in the past defending Amare will be in charged of this duty.
Oberto has been better--by a lot--than Cisco. He should start.
Manu should start. He needs to get going early, as people said. Finley can come off the bench for punch (he wants the ring bad enough to put up with it).
Vaughn sux. Use Barry and Manu as backup PG.
Where's the Red Rocket? Isn't he the type of energy player with shooting touch that this series calls for? Basically, what Barry should be doing?
I like timvp's thinking but it won't happen for two reasons;
1. Pop is too set in his ways to not start Bowen, a staple in the Spurs' starting lineup for the last 5 years.
2. That lineup means we would basically have only serviceable bench player- Robert Horry
Diaw would make mince meat of Finley, Ginobil or Barry.
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