My God, I have never seen a more boring series. Feels like a preaseason game.

[houston spurs fan]

I missed game 1 live and only watched the 2nd half tonight..it's some of the worst basketball I've ever seen in the playoffs, looks like 90s ball out there, tbh

I can't believe people are worried or trying to analyze anything..the only thing to take away from this series is that the Spurs are going to be in serious trouble of losing game 1 of the 2nd round after playing one of the worst playoff teams I've ever seen for an entire series..

This is why you shouldn't post here. You don't watch the games and are a bandwagon "fan". You say stuff merely to arouse or antagonize people with really no knowledge of what you speak of. You should go route for the Warriors now, more their style.

[Kawhitstorm]

I'm sure harlem is concenred. Like with anyone else..(Tim Duncan is really the biggest culprit of the slow starts and Parker to a lesser extent) but at this point this team isnt going tl change its starting lineup.

The "slow" starts in this series can be attributed to Kawhi/LMA starting out cold. (Tony hasn't been hot either but that's expected)

[Kawhitstorm]

I'm just frustrated because we have to wait until the second round at least to find out if Aldridge was really worth it or not

He's playing Z-Bo as well as Tiago.

[HarlemHeat37]

This is why you shouldn't post here. You don't watch the games and are a bandwagon "fan". You say stuff merely to arouse or antagonize people with really no knowledge of what you speak of. You should go route for the Warriors now, more their style.

[apalisoc_9]

The "slow" starts in this series can be attributed to Kawhi/LMA starting out cold. (Tony hasn't been hot either but that's expected)

The spacing with the starters is atrocious.

I was just.going through some of Kawhi and Aldridge post ups yesterday. I'm.embarrased to say I only realized yesterday but Kawhi is most efficient when Aldridge makes the post pass and moves to wait for a long range two. He's also had the easiest time to make that post pass. Tony and Danny are always throwing dangerous passes.

When Kawhi makes the post pass to Aldridge, he gets so much room in the post. Its unreal. He can really eat Green there. I'm surprsied pop hasnt utilized that post up set that much against GSW

[apalisoc_9]

Another solid take

This team can't beat Golden State in a series running iso ball. Golden State thrives against that kind of O, it lets Green roam and cause problems.

, I'm not even sure we'll get past OKC with it.

You about Danny's shooting? Well guess what? Two years ago he and Patty both were open repeatedly with no man within ten feet of them thanks to that motion O. Now? He's got a guy all over him, or within a step at best. Figure it out. You run a mid-post offense with Aldridge and it changes the spacing on the court, and compresses the distance the defense has to cover on any rotation.

But keep bringing the insults, it's a lot easier than actually talking about the problems with our offense.

I'm dying here.

This re has no idea and has zero knwoledge about the lrocess of slowing the game down and what entails it. Its almost like talking to a 12 year old kid who has never studied the game enough.

Beautifull game

[apalisoc_9]

l

[houston spurs fan]

Definitely a GSW fan, thanks for admitting

[313]

We destroyed a ty Portland team in the 2nd round of the 2014 playoffs and didn't have any rust problems in game 1 of the WCF finals. I guess you could argue we had already had a test in the 1st round that got us engaged, but how long does that placebo effect last?

All in all, I think any problems we face in the 2nd round, will be the same problems we faced all year(slow starts, lack of elite guard play, bench inconsistency, etc etc)...

[YGWHI]

Also to consider DPG, a lot of these slow starts are a result of our team trying to control the pace of the game. They've been working really hard the whole season doing that. Sometimes it's ugly and its been ugly the whole march, but you got to understand this team went from fast penetrating attack to Iso heacy sets to control the pace.

They just need to digure out how to play more efficiently because they've mastered the art of dictating the pace already. In just one season.

We can say that Pop is making moves in order to beat Warriors...Sign LMA to compete with their small ball...Adopt this style of offense to slow the pace...

Also, in the first part of the season, Pop didn't seem to want to establish Parker-LMA two-man game early in the games like now, just let him play and the offense looked a bit more fluid.

In the last games, force-feed means that the first quarter is all about to try to find a good angle to pass the ball to LMA, or just give it to Parker to drive to the hoop... and we know that the latter is an issue.

There aren't goods "drive and kick" situations, they park Kawhi in the corner for nothing because Pop doesn't call plays for his 3's, Pop wants Parker to stay aggressive and look for his own shots in the first minutes and most times he misses those shots...
This kinda sums up the 1st quarters for the Spurs and their slow starts in the games.

[Kawhitstorm]

When Kawhi makes the post pass to Aldridge, he gets so much room in the post. Its unreal. He can really eat Green there. I'm surprsied pop hasnt utilized that post up set that much against GSW

Based on the regular season, it seems like Pop doesn't want Kawhi/LMA on the same side of the court to prevent the defense from loading up the strongside which is why he insists on using Danny to make the post entry pass.

Otherwise, LMA destroyed the Grizz in the regular season.

[apalisoc_9]

Based on the regular season, it seems like Pop doesn't want Kawhi/LMA on the same side of the court to prevent the defense from loading up the strongside which is why he insists on using Danny to make the post entry pass.

Otherwise, LMA destroyed the Grizz in the regular season.

Yeah, i get the reasoning. It's just hard to deny how much they're better off when one of the other makes the entry pass.

[Hoops Czar]

Obviously this is more preferable to playing a team like the Clippers in the 1st round, but I am starting to wonder if it'd be better to play a team like Dallas/Houston/Portland where we would've at least been challenged somewhat. We're getting no opportunity to work on late-game execution, the games don't have typical playoff intensity, and the rotations aren't what they'll be in the later rounds (guys like Kawhi/Aldridge aren't even playing 30 mpg). Again, of course I'd rather have a series like this compared to a crazy challenging series where we're in danger of being eliminated...but I feel like there's a medium that's probably better than both.

So at first, it was wanting to tank for Memphis so the Spurs could ease into the playoffs and now, it's wishing for tougher compe ion because the Spurs aren't being challenged ? You can't have it both ways. As far as the late game execution, it's too late for that. That's what practice and regular season games are for. What you're seeing out there isn't rust though. That's actually what the offense has looked like over the last month and a half. It's a good thing the Grizzlies were ranked 29th in total team defense since March because a solid defense would have given them a ton of problems.

[Kawhitstorm]

Yeah, i get the reasoning. It's just hard to deny how much they're better off when one of the other makes the entry pass.

That would be a play Pop could run at the end of games ala the Tim/Manu give & go.

[Nathan89]

This is less entertaining than a preseason game. There is a lot of anticipation during the preseason to at least watch new players or players trying to make the team. These games are just boring.

[SouthernFried]

These ARE boring games. But, LMA gets to rest his pinky, Parker looks like he's starting to gear up, Patty is coming out...even Diaw is looking more mobile.

Great playoff warmup games, imho. And I'll take it over the 1st round slugfest we had last year any day. We're gonna have plenty of Slugfests to come...

[sexinthatsx]

Welcome to Spurstalk - where if the Spurs suck people cliff jump. When the Spurs are dominating, people STILL cliff jump. Posters here want the best of both worlds; they want to have the cake and eat it too.

[Spurtacular]

Never post again

/thread

[100%duncan]

Agreed. Missed both games due to class. I watched game 1's replay because Kawhi scored 20. I dont know if I wanna watch game 2.

[siraulo23]

2nd rounds gonna be fire tho

okc spurs, clippers warriors

damn

[SpursFan86]

let's not act like playing against a bunch of bickering quitters like Houston would have done us any favor..Spurs would have still beaten up on Dallas IMO (terrible matchup for them)..Portland was the only other that would have pushed us a bit...THIS 1ST round was going to be a BYE anyhow due to tiness of the West outside the top 4..Spurs would have still swept Memphis with Gasol/Conley only that the margin would be +10 point instead of +25
..

I think you're underestimating the difference between teams like Portland/Dallas/Houston and this current Memphis squad. Those first 3 teams are at least 40-45 win teams and are capable of occasionally pushing us and making us work for a win. Memphis with their injuries legitimately has an argument for being the worst team in the league outside of Philadelphia. The dropoff from teams like Dallas/Portland/Houston to Memphis is astonishing.

[Spurs 4 The Win]

I think you're underestimating the difference between teams like Portland/Dallas/Houston and this current Memphis squad. Those first 3 teams are at least 40-45 win teams and are capable of occasionally pushing us and making us work for a win. Memphis with their injuries legitimately has an argument for being the worst team in the league outside of Philadelphia. The dropoff from teams like Dallas/Portland/Houston to Memphis is astonishing.

This tbh, they have lost something like 15 of the last 17 games, and those werent games they were throwing away, they were playing for seeding. They are really really bad.

[pgardn]

Preseason effort?

I don't think so. These games have all turned up a notch. They may be ugly but this is not preseason intensity. Last night they forced us to move the ball around a bit. The lazy ISO went wanting and that's good. This is another game that you would look at the stats (assists) and think we did not move the ball. So the crew needs to keep up with the games and quit assessing via a stat line and board comments.

[TDomination]

This series reminds me of the 1999 Spurs championship team. Great defensive play, avg to bad offensive play. But defense was so great that it didn't matter that they didn't do that well on offense.

I remember rewatching the entire finals of 99 and I finally realized why so many people labeled the Spurs as boring at that point. Defensive basketball seemed to translate to ugly basketball. The games were low scoring. I mean Game 5 where we won our first championship was 78-77. The most points the Spurs allowed the Knicks to score was 89.

The Spurs held the Warriors to their lowest point total of the year at 79 or something like that. This defense is awesome. But i know that we all wish the offense was at least slightly better. But hopefully its good enough going forward to win 14 more games.

[james evans]

I'm seeing all of these headlines on yahoo about us having a boring game and series. Guys we're ed. NO way is the league gonna have us in the finals. NO one would watch it. We're ed