Random Thoughts After Game 2 Heat Blowout in 2013 NBA Finals

[AFBlue]

Just a few thoughts:

-- After Parker flopped the first two times and got no calls, he should have gave up flopping for the night.

-- Hopefully Splitter can recover psychologically from that block.

-- I knew the Spurs were going to get seriously rocked in one game this series. Glad it was Game 2 instead of the elimination game.

-- Spurs in 6.

Completely agree.

Kori's takes > timvp's takes imo tbh

[SnakeBoy]

i am talking about best players.Play the best players.

Game 1 Joseph looked like he just wasn't ready for the pressure of the finals so it's understandable why Pop went with Neal. Tonight I think Joseph earned his way back in the rotation. Impossible to predict what Pop will do but I expect to see more of Joseph in game 3.

[hommeaetage]

the only frustrating thing about this game is while they were not playing well, the Spurs had them on the rope. Things started going downhill when Pop subbed Green/Leonard for Neal/Manu when they had all the momentum. Things started going downhill since

[gameFACE]

Splitter looked gassed for some reason. Manu couldn't handle the ball. Out-rebounding the Heat by 8 didn't help since the Spurs had 10 more turnovers.

Spurs got this. This loss was so Spurs. Prime time and on Sunday to top it off. Away game. Huge opponent. That reeks of a Spurs loss.

[Pirate_Ghost]

Getting this game would have been great, but Spurs still heading home with a split.

[taps]

First team to win two in a row takes the series tbh.

That seems obvious, no Finals team has come back from 3-1

[Agloco]

Gotta stick Green or Ginobili on Chalmers and put Tony on one of Allen or Miller. Tony can't be part of the PNR equation on the defensive end of the court.

Yes, this means that Kawhai, Manu and Danny need to be on the court together a whole of a lot.

[TampaDude]

Spurs played like a team that didn't really need to win Game 2.

Heat played like a team that desperately needed to win Game 2.

It matters not. Spurs in 5.

[milkyway21]

I am just 40% hopeful that we can beat Miami in game 2.
Before the finals started, I only asked & pray we can win 1 game in Miami, just 1 game, and let's just take care of the rest in San Antonio. My wishes granted, we are not down 0-2, we are tied @ 1-1. and the Spurs are heading home.. And I am positive they can get back to form when the play games 3-4-5 here.

back to my original prediction Spurs in 6

[Pirate_Ghost]

Maybe "everything" was a poor choice of words but you're up in the third with LeBron sucking, the Heat with no rhythm and the Big 3 having nowhere to go but up. That was a damn great opportunity, IMO.

To be fair, LeBron was having a subpar game as well up until that ridiculous run they went on. But yea, that bron/chalmers combo is glaring.

[Agloco]

It was embarrassing tonight, The Spurs didn't show up but Danny Green did. Tim, Tony and Manu need to get a tongue lashing by Pop and Pop needs to reconsider all the playing time for Gary Neal. He hit some shots, but damn his defense during that stretch was piss poor. The only thoughts that I had is the Spurs need to make shots and be aggressive. Tim can't be fading away on the baseline and Tony can't be passive in the paint.

Kawahi Leonard showed up as well.

[Mugen]

Not unexpected. I'm ecstatic the Spurs got the split going home tbh. Momentum rarely transfers game to game and I like our chances getting 2 out of 3 in San Antonio.

[lefty]

-Worst case scenario coming into this game was Heat blowout that makes them feel great about themselves going forward. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.

-This is a tough result to swallow because everything was going so well. LeBron was playing perhaps the worst game he's played in the last two seasons. Danny Green was on fire. The Spurs were right there, Miami looked kinda nervous ... and then it fell apart. Part of it was due to the Heat being a great team that started living up to their ability. The other part was the Spurs had so few players play well.

-I'm a bit scared following some of Miami's adjustment. Going all out blitz in Game 1 on Parker I thought was dumb because TP is too smart and will figure it out. Tonight, they not only switched up tactics continuously, they also switched up defenders. That's really, really tough to handle if you're Parker -- infinitely tougher than the blitzing gimmick of Game 1.

-That Chalmers-LeBron pick-and-roll is terrifying. It gets LeBron close to the basket with Duncan out of the play. The Spurs can't switch it because TP can't guard LeBron. If they don't switch, you're giving up a layup for Chalmers or have to leave an outside shooter on the weakside. It's going to be difficult to stop going forward....

-Ginobili was pretty damn terrible. He wasn't alone but he struggled to do just about everything. I've never seen him turn into such a klutz just trying to dribble the ball twice.

-Parker is going to have to be in attack mode in Game 3. If they aren't going to blitz him every play, he has to attack. He did that well at times this game ... but not nearly often enough.

-Duncan wasn't good, especially offensively. But really, I didn't love the touches he was getting. He rarely got a clean look with adequate space around him. Give the Heat credit for swarming him constantly but the Spurs need to create the spacing to give Duncan a chance to have a big game.

-Leonard's rebounding was great. The Spurs need better shotmaking going forward but his rebounding and defense on LeBron made it a positive night at the office for him.

-Green was damn good. It was great to see him step up big in the huge moments. Let's hope he can remain hope for the duration of the series.

-Splitter needs to make more of an impact. Not rebounding against this poor rebounding team is inexcusable. He also needs to use his size more consistently on offense.

-I know Spurs fans love a scapegoat and Neal is that man right now but I don't think he was too horrible when factoring in expectations. He scored some useful buckets early and held it together defensively for a while. He fell apart in the collapse -- but so did just about everyone else.

-I'm hoping the Spurs can sustain a healthy level of confidence. Being at home will help; hopefully more player step up in the friendly confines of the AT&T Center.

-This remains the biggest challenge the Spurs have ever faced. If the Heat take momentum into Game 3, S.A. is going to have to play close to flawless basketball to win three more in this series.

-We'll know much more after Game 3. The scary thing is the Heat have actually looked better on the road than at home for much of these playoffs.

-The bright side is the Spurs had the lead in the third despite playing C- basketball on the road. Time to get some better individual performances, get the home crowd involved and play with more desperation to get Game 3. Now is the time show how much you want this.

Believe.

No

[MR-Clutch]

-Agree that parker flopped too much, I also thought he was uncomfortable offensively,as he seemed to force things too much.

-Kawhi is playing great D. If he keeps limiting Lebron the way he has,the Spurs should win this series.

-I'll live with Chris Bosh shooting jumpers and Mario Chalmers being their lead scorer on the team.

-Pop gave up on Cory way too early. He played well in garbage time and closed out on shooters 10x what Neal was doing.

-Don't understand WTF Pop is trying to do with Neal. Diaw pissed me off a lot tonight too. Diaw was late on rotations, and his hesitations were hurting the offense. When he plays like that I would rather have Bonner in.

-Manu hopefully played the worst game of this series. If he keeps playing like bad Manu, the Spurs are doomed. Manu just had one of those nights, and unfortunately he could barely dribble out there.

-The Spurs gotta do a better job of getting Duncan better positions in the post, and more spacing (looking at you Kawhi).I also thought Duncan did get the ball, that he should've attacked and gone towards the rim, rather then settling for jumpers and over the shoulder shots away from the basket.

-First half, Kawhi was getting murdered on offense, and all those offensive boards that he was sucking up.The refs swallowed their whistles, and called ticky tack on our players.

-It was a frustrating game, because I felt the Spurs were the better team all game, and there was just so many brain farts by both Pop, and the players (Neal,Manu,TP,Duncan), and those mistakes blew the game wide open.

[TheGoldStandard]

Kawahi Leonard showed up as well.

Not offensively but he played well on the defensive end. 4 of 12 & 1-3 at the 3pt line isn't going to cut it plain and simple. Manu checked out tonight, had a horrible performance tonight and can only hope that he rebounds at some point in the series.

[milkyway21]

Almost everybody panicking, bring memories when in those old days during their championship runs the Spurs LOST their 1st playoff game, fans acting like it was the end of the world

[TacoCabanaFajitas]

-The Spurs need to either commit to staying Big or staying small.

- A lineup of Duncan/Green/Leonard/Parker/Ginobili gives us our best chance to win.
If Tiago continues to not crash the boards and lack toughness inside, why lose that way? Put our best on the floor and let the chips fall where they may,
this lineup would also neutralize that Chalmers/lebron . If Miami is going to trot out Lebron/Bosh/Wade/Chalmers/Miller then lets matchup with:

Parker-Miller
Leonard-Lebron
Duncan-Bosh
Manu-Wade
Green-Chalmers

[Borosai]

Parker had tunnel vision. Ginobili couldn't bounce the ball. Duncan settled for bad spots and shots.

That's not a winning combination.

I hope they have a better plan for game 3.

[TheGreatYacht]

I will give you my take and I'll start by criticizing our big 3. Tim Duncan was pathetic on defense. Early on he was extending outside trying to block jumpers instead of staying on the paint and protect the rim. I don't know how the he had 11 rebounds because Chris Bosch absolutely outplayed him on those offensive boards. Timmy does not box out his man after we get a defensive stop. Duncan had ZERO blocks. When Duncan posts up, instead of using brute force or using foot work to get to the rim, he does some tough fade away shots. This is probably the worst playoff game that Duncan has had this year. Duncan looked old tonight.

Manu was terrible on handling the ball. The man looked like he needed to be on a cane out there. This game looked like he completely lost all of his ball handling skills. He did a decent job on Dwayne Wade but he did leave Mike Miller and Ray Allen open at times. Another thing that pissed me off about Manu was those canon ball passes that he would do after being double teamed off a pick n roll. Manu looked like an old man today.

Tony was non-existent for the most part. Early on he had his couple of moments but for the most part he looked like the TP from the last month of the regular season. Seems to me like he completely gave up on the pick n rolls because of the way the Heat defend it. I give the Heat some credit for mixing their pick n roll defense and also mixing up their defense on Parker. Parker needs to move around and try to play off the ball. After being double teamed and passing up the ball, he just stays stationary on the perimter spectating his teammates (Gary Neal trying to play point guard). Tony is going to have to try to be more effective off the ball.

TIAGO SPLITTER. He playe 22 minutes and one fu**ing rebound. Are you fu**ing kidding me?

I give props to Danny Green and Gary Neal. They played well offensively. Khawi Leonard played pretty good defense on Lebron James. On the other hand perimeter defense is another story. Everyone kept leaving Mike Miller and Ray Allen open for three's. Credit Lebron for collapsing our defense. Mario Chalmers had the game of his career.

The officiating was so blatantly one-sided. We got no calls at all. I can't blame the officiating today because of the Spurs terrible defense.

[Darius McCrary]

Gotta agree with that. There was no point of the game where I thought anything was going well. Most of the first 2.5 quarters I felt the Spurs were extremely fortunate to still be in the game and I kept expecting that big run to surface some time with how badly the Spurs were playing.

This :

[Spurminator]

- The whole first half felt like fool's gold. Even with the wide open looks we were getting from 3, you can't rely on hitting that high of a percentage. A normal shooting night and this started to look like a blowout even earlier.

- Manu looked like he was playing with a ball that didn't have enough air in it.

- I'm so sick of seeing Splitter take so much weak to the rim. And on the block, I think Lebron spared him from bricking a dunk off the front of the rim.

[Spurs21Fan4Ever]

Here are my thoughts:

The Big three never looked so immature and inexperienced, especially in the playoffs. Tony only tried to draw fouls by initiating contact, that's all he did. He would drive, go nowhere, throw up a crap shot, fall down, and yell at the refs. He looked like Stephen Jackson out there and he was embarrassing.

Manu was also embarrassing. He couldn't dribble the ball, and he was so rattled, he literally tried to force plays, he didn't let the game come to him. He looked like a scared rookie out there. He looked like Danny Green in the WCF last year!

Tim Duncan was playing so soft. He never made things easy for himself. He started off the game also trying to draw fouls, and he never went up strong. Every time he got the ball on the post, he faded away. Why?! You're better than Bosh! Go up strong! Birdman outplayed him tonight and that's just sad.

Overall, the big three looked like a bunch of kids out there. They tried to force things that weren't there, they weren't passing the ball well, they weren't including their teammates, and they just looked dumb and embarrassing. It was horrible. They need to relax, let the game come to them, and do what they do best, outsmart opponents.

Pop's rotations have always been a problem at times, but it was a huge problem tonight. At no point in the 3rd quarter should he have not had both Kawhi and Green on the court. Those two gave the team a chance at winning and carried the team. Both guys were playing tremendous defense, and they wore out LeBron. You could see how tired LeBron was when Green swatted him. The Spurs looked like they would be able to shut the Heat down for the rest of the night and go up 3-0. Then cue the bad rotations. After hitting a three, Pop takes Leonard out. Then after getting two straight fouls. Green goes out. Now, we have Manu and Neal in there.

That brings me up to me next spot, Neal should never play again. When Neal and Manu went in, LeBron started driving, and when he drives, Neal stands in the most useless spot ever. Neal doesn't put himself in a position where he could double LeBron, but he also isn't in a position where he could close out on the shooter. He is literally in the most ineffective spot possible. He is a dummy on defense! Miami hits a few threes, Chalmers scores easily on Neal, and Miami goes on a run, picks up a 10 point lead, and they have momentum. Once they got momentum, LeBron found his second wind and got his energy back. If Pop never puts Neal in, the Spurs may have won this game. This was a HUGE mistake by Pop that potentially cost SA a 2-0 lead. Duncan sucked, but we've seen Duncan suck and have a great 4th quarter before. We didn't even get a chance to see what Duncan, Parker, and Manu could do in the 4th quarter with a tired Miami team and a LeBron with no legs because Pop put in Neal and Neal ruined the team. The guy was -28 with 22 minutes. He's a joke of a player.

For game 3, Spurs need to try and wear out the Heat again, and when they do, Pop's sole focus needs to be defense, not offense. No Neal, and the Spurs need to make sure they're not getting lost on defense and that they're blocking out and getting rebounds (seriously, only Kawhi was blocking out tonight, really?!).

I'm not sure, but it almost felt at times as if they were complacent after winning game 1.

Hopefully the spurs bounce back and win game 3, because game 3 is a must win for SA.

[Agloco]

Not offensively but he played well on the defensive end. 4 of 12 & 1-3 at the 3pt line isn't going to cut it plain and simple. Manu checked out tonight, had a horrible performance tonight and can only hope that he rebounds at some point in the series.

He had 8 offensive rebounds. I'll forgive him the 4 of 12 performance if he gives us that each night. It would be nice to see him hitting his threes because hes definitely in a slump. Id expect that to continue though seeing as hes on Lebron most of the game.

[timtonymanurich]

It's times like this that heading back to San Antonio, Pop will get the guys in the frame of mind to play above the officiating. Granted there are nights where no matter how good you are, the Heat +3 (officials) can always have a better game plan like tonight, but IN San Antonio is very hard to win. Miami will be fortunate to win one of three which I see happening. But I also expect the Spurs to play OUT OF THEIR MINDS for the three games and close the LeB!TCH out in 5.

Everyone get's lucky. Miami can't expect to shoot 75% in every 4th, and for the Spurs to go ICE COLD and have no execution in the next 5 - 4th Q's either.

[LongtimeSpursFan]

-Worst case scenario coming into this game was Heat blowout that makes them feel great about themselves going forward. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.

-This is a tough result to swallow because everything was going so well. LeBron was playing perhaps the worst game he's played in the last two seasons. Danny Green was on fire. The Spurs were right there, Miami looked kinda nervous ... and then it fell apart. Part of it was due to the Heat being a great team that started living up to their ability. The other part was the Spurs had so few players play well.

-I'm a bit scared following some of Miami's adjustment. Going all out blitz in Game 1 on Parker I thought was dumb because TP is too smart and will figure it out. Tonight, they not only switched up tactics continuously, they also switched up defenders. That's really, really tough to handle if you're Parker -- infinitely tougher than the blitzing gimmick of Game 1.

-That Chalmers-LeBron pick-and-roll is terrifying. It gets LeBron close to the basket with Duncan out of the play. The Spurs can't switch it because TP can't guard LeBron. If they don't switch, you're giving up a layup for Chalmers or have to leave an outside shooter on the weakside. It's going to be difficult to stop going forward....

-Ginobili was pretty damn terrible. He wasn't alone but he struggled to do just about everything. I've never seen him turn into such a klutz just trying to dribble the ball twice.

-Parker is going to have to be in attack mode in Game 3. If they aren't going to blitz him every play, he has to attack. He did that well at times this game ... but not nearly often enough.

-Duncan wasn't good, especially offensively. But really, I didn't love the touches he was getting. He rarely got a clean look with adequate space around him. Give the Heat credit for swarming him constantly but the Spurs need to create the spacing to give Duncan a chance to have a big game.

-Leonard's rebounding was great. The Spurs need better shotmaking going forward but his rebounding and defense on LeBron made it a positive night at the office for him.

-Green was damn good. It was great to see him step up big in the huge moments. Let's hope he can remain hope for the duration of the series.

-Splitter needs to make more of an impact. Not rebounding against this poor rebounding team is inexcusable. He also needs to use his size more consistently on offense.

-I know Spurs fans love a scapegoat and Neal is that man right now but I don't think he was too horrible when factoring in expectations. He scored some useful buckets early and held it together defensively for a while. He fell apart in the collapse -- but so did just about everyone else.

-I'm hoping the Spurs can sustain a healthy level of confidence. Being at home will help; hopefully more player step up in the friendly confines of the AT&T Center.

-This remains the biggest challenge the Spurs have ever faced. If the Heat take momentum into Game 3, S.A. is going to have to play close to flawless basketball to win three more in this series.

-We'll know much more after Game 3. The scary thing is the Heat have actually looked better on the road than at home for much of these playoffs.

-The bright side is the Spurs had the lead in the third despite playing C- basketball on the road. Time to get some better individual performances, get the home crowd involved and play with more desperation to get Game 3. Now is the time show how much you want this.

Believe.

There really is no such thing as momentum in basketball. Each game is uniquely different. Next game maybe Spurs don't make as many turnovers, maybe shots fall, maybe Spurs guards are able to get into lane a little easier, maybe defense plays with a little more energy, maybe Chalmers doesn't play like he part of the big three, maybe Timmy hits his outside jumper, etc. These are two equally good teams and sometimes things go your way that enable you to win. You try to control as many variables as you can via practice and coaching but there are some that inherently left to chance.