Game Thread: Spurs at Guests - Sat. (10/20) - 9:00PM CST, 7:00PM PST (5:00AM Riga Time)

[Chucho]

Bonner conned the Spurs into playing for 10 seasons...that's the biggest ripoff of all time, tbh.

This is the whole and finality to that conversation.

[NASpurs]

yeah.. rondo and ingram shoud be suspended. we might actually get a win after all

Meh, Lonzo will make 6 threes against us like last time

[james evans]

Well we won’t have to worry about rondo and Ingram on Monday lol

[SAGirl]

Murray would have helped the D, obviously. But at best, he would have cut a cover over all of these open sores. Purposefully getting guys like DeRozan and Beli, re-signing Forbes and not moving Mills was already going to hurt the defense. Trading away WS and letting Kyle walk just tanked it. It's annoying to pretend like Murray was the only guy holding up the D last year. They had a lot of good defensive guys and lost all of them except Aldridge. They replaced those guys with relative sieves. That wasn't inevitable. This roster is the product of choices PATFO made. We'll just have to see how well it works out. I'm still hopeful, but to act like Murray could have fixed all of this is foolish. Not even prime Kawhi would make this defense anything more than mediocre.

Agreed 100%. It can be the same system but the personnel is different and even if they wanted to move on from some guys they could have looked at some replacements.

Theres not a single one of the best teams that doesn’t have a couple of quality defenders. The Raptors has severals even before the trade and now are stacked. Spurs had several too and had depth sufficient to survive injuries to a guy here or there. The best teams have more than one or two guys who are good defensively.

Spurs just traded their main guys and let their depth go all in one season and replaced those minutes with nothing basically. They need to look around exactly like how they discovered Danny. What’s upsetting was them signing Cunningham and Pondexter and thinking they are fine. I get they already have a lot of youngsters but they need to pick a flier or two on some wings too. Specially since they gave theirs away.

[Immortal Spur]

Agreed 100%. It can be the same system but the personnel is different and even if they wanted to move on from some guys they could have looked at some replacements.

Theres not a single one of the best teams that doesn’t have a couple of quality defenders. The Raptors has severals even before the trade and now are stacked. Spurs had several too and had depth sufficient to survive injuries to a guy here or there. The best teams have more than one or two guys who are good defensively.

Spurs just traded their main guys and let their depth go all in one season and replaced those minutes with nothing basically. They need to look around exactly like how they discovered Danny. What’s upsetting was them signing Cunningham and Pondexter and thinking they are fine. I get they already have a lot of youngsters but they need to pick a flier or two on some wings too. Specially since they gave theirs away.

it's honestly infuriating.

[BillMc]

Well, probably no Rondo next game.

[BillMc]

at the fight in the Rockets Lakers game

Sissies all of 'em.

[Fusternino]

My Internet was awful the whole night and I couldn't stream the game. I see we got beaten bad and Forbes/Mills played no defense while Mills/Beli provided nothing on the other end. Glad to see Rudy was able to play heavy minutes, though.

Yeah, I dunno why we got Dante and Q-Pon. I really think even Acy or Blossomgame would've been better choices. Letting Anderson go and keeping Forbes made no sense. Same issues as always . . .

[Fusternino]

Agreed 100%. It can be the same system but the personnel is different and even if they wanted to move on from some guys they could have looked at some replacements.

Theres not a single one of the best teams that doesn’t have a couple of quality defenders. The Raptors has severals even before the trade and now are stacked. Spurs had several too and had depth sufficient to survive injuries to a guy here or there. The best teams have more than one or two guys who are good defensively.

Spurs just traded their main guys and let their depth go all in one season and replaced those minutes with nothing basically. They need to look around exactly like how they discovered Danny. What’s upsetting was them signing Cunningham and Pondexter and thinking they are fine. I get they already have a lot of youngsters but they need to pick a flier or two on some wings too. Specially since they gave theirs away.

I'm fairly sure it was you who I said this to but back in the summer in made no sense to me why we didn't at least pursue Mbah a Moute over Beli unless his shoulder injury was really that bad or he was set on returning to the Clippers.

[Dhbsr555]

No Ingram and rondo !!!

[Mugen]

Blazers -4.5 might be one of easiest lines this early season. That's an easy cover tbh...

Spurs on the road is going to be easy, easy money this year tbh.

[daslicer]

as long as the lakers lose tonight i'll be fine.

yes that's pretty much my mentality for the whole entire year.

[Hoops Czar]

No Ingram and rondo !!!

They don't need them to takedown the toothless Spurs.

[TimDunkem]

They don't need them to takedown the toothless Spurs.

Truth bomb.

[TDMVPDPOY]

spurs with all that talent...is even crap then the td spurs during the lakers 3peat years...

[Kurgan]

spurs with all that talent...is even crap then the td spurs during the lakers 3peat years...

at least those spurs teams had prime duncan which guaranteed 60 wins. this year's group is probably the worst spurs team since 1997.

[Mirrornick]

I agree but it's also the Dubs that have forced teams to play this way tbh. I don't really find it that exciting.

According to the analytics nerds, it is the most exciting brand of basketball. I wish these knowitall smart ass nerds would simply fall of or get abducted and brought to a different planet. All they do is ruin sports. It's like sports are played on a calculator.

[dbestpro]

at the fight in the Rockets Lakers game

The Lakers are doing the league a favor. They are going to try and bring Piston style defense back to the league. If there is one team that can get away with that without getting called, it is the Lakers.

[cd98]

I have a feeling this season is going to bring new found respect for Parker and Manu and what they did to make the Spurs a great team with a chance to win every year.

[bklynspursfan]

More 3s, new rules, shorter preseason making defenses starting behind. These will come down as the season progresses, I think. But it'll be an upward trend though not this extreme.

Absolutely. I'm just pointing it out to the cliff Jumpers who think we have the worst defense ever. They clearly aren't watching the games. And in our case, we got hit with the injury bug. They should improve once White gets back, and the team understands the rotations and what not better. We won't be last year good, but better.

[Dex]

Seriously tho, who's happy about defense this week lol . Our backcourt is decimated with injuries. It should get better with Walker/White, but seems no one is showing elite or even great D yet, especially so early in the season that's starting earlier than normal.

Yeesh, how did the Timberwolves give up 140 points to the freaking Mavericks?

I thought Thibs was supposed to be a defensive coach.

[Immortal Spur]

Absolutely. I'm just pointing it out to the cliff Jumpers who think we have the worst defense ever. They clearly aren't watching the games. And in our case, we got hit with the injury bug. They should improve once White gets back, and the team understands the rotations and what not better. We won't be last year good, but better.

Paul Garcia said our D was 25th in the league right now so... yeah

[skookumchuck]

Absolutely. I'm just pointing it out to the cliff Jumpers who think we have the worst defense ever. They clearly aren't watching the games. And in our case, we got hit with the injury bug. They should improve once White gets back, and the team understands the rotations and what not better. We won't be last year good, but better.

Defense has actually been good at times, but there are some players that don't work in these particular line ups, thus making it look so bad, that it drags down the whole team in perspective. I mean, a couple of guys are so helpless, that the rest of the team struggles to cope with help defense.

[bklynspursfan]

Paul Garcia said our D was 25th in the league right now so... yeah

I mean we're 2 games in haha. A few more performances like these teams had last night and we could jump up several spots. It's just too much fluidity now, but the point remains.... This first week teams are scoring at crazy levels. We're 6th offensively atm too

[John B]

Can’t get forced into this fast tempo. Spurs don’t have enough scorers to put 120+ a night. Slow it down to 90’s and let LMA/Demar work it in the paint. I know Spurs was designed to play fast pace to take advantage of Murray’s rebounding, long strides and athleticism. But without him, it doesn’t work with Forbes and Mills. Walk it, pound it low, pnr with Demar/LMA. Score has to be in the 90’s for Spurs to have a chance in my opinion. GSG