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The last meeting of the regular season, and games 1 through 4 have proven that.Diaw has abused Udoka even more than other players.
NBA fan in 2005 much?
The last meeting of the regular season, and games 1 through 4 have proven that.Diaw has abused Udoka even more than other players.
No offense, cuz I love the guy, but Horry looked horrible out there today!
Horry on Shaq I would like though.
Actually Manu's done a pretty good job showing up considering he's been the third option (behind Tony and Timmy) and playing on a bad ankle.If Tony's J isn't falling, it's really up to Manu who has been mostly MIA in this series.
This is 2008, not 2005. If you haven't noticed Finley is not a lockdown defender by any means anymore. Who exactly has he shutdown this season? If anything he gets lit up by whomever he is guarding.
The shots Amare missed were point blank gimmes from 2-3 feet away, he won't miss many of those if given the opportunity. I'm not sure what the solution is for Diaw, but I can guarantee you it won't be to put Finley on Amare and Oberto on Diaw.
Horry in the game was just desperation from Pop, he knew they were done
so if the Spurs are getting killed why not give Horry some time under his legs ??
Is bonner even alive? The has not even got a whiff of PT this whole series..Lets see what he can do since horry is still searching for his "O" and now his "D"...
Anymore? Finley has never been a lockdown defender. He has always been a poor defender. But that doesn't take away past success. Finley is slower but so is Amare.
Manu's had a stellar season, better than Timmy and Tony, I guess I just raised my expectations too high.I just feel that Tony and TImmy have played much better than Manu this series but I guess that's normal, I just forgot he is a 3rd option.
Bonner on Diaw?
He's been in street clothes the last few games in favor of keeping Damon active.
I'm very surprised Mike has not exploited our lack of a small 3 earlier, because Diaw has been chode regulating Udoka from game 1.
Now you want to put the spurs #1 defender on a sub starter cause of 1 good game...Not Finley
I'm more worried about the Suns posting up finley every time down the road.
Can't double Diaw and give help to finley b/c of the pass to Shaq or Amare.
It may have been 1 good game but he's gotten what he wanted this entire series. Who would you suggest?Now you want to put the spurs #1 defender on a sub starter cause of 1 good game...
He's actually been trying to since game 2. the last two games Diaw missed most of his shots and ed up possessions
If I'm the Spurs I bank on Diaw laying an egg in at least one of the next 3 games. Take your chances with that rather than try and retool your entire gameplan to beat the Suns.
Your not retooling anything.
Your adjusting to D'Antoni's starting 5.
I know I am going to get hammered by some of the Spurs fans for this. (I really don't give a damn what the trolls say or think.) But Pop is going to have to work the refs over about 3 second calls in the next game, and hope he can get them to call it. The Suns left one of their bigs camped in the paint, playing center field, for a large part of the game. The perimeter defenders got in front of Tony and Manu, and fed them right up the middle into a waiting Shaq and/or Amare. It's a lot easier for Shaq to get position when he doesn't have to move.
When they were sitting in the paint, they kept extending their arms, pretending like they were within arm's reach of the person they were "defending". Sometimes it was just ridiculous, because there was no one close to arm's reach, and hadn't been. Don't get me wrong. It's a great strategy if you can pull it off.
The Spurs are going to have to knock down some jumpers, but I think it will be especially important for Tim to knock down some of those 15-footers off the glass to force the Phoenix bigs to come out a little. Tim got upset several times because he got hacked on the arms when he was trying to shoot those shots in the paint. Right or wrong, it's easier for a ref to no-call when there is so much contact going on in the paint. If that same contact occurs when Shaq is isolated on Tim away from the basket, they won't have any choice but to blow a few whistles.
you're right he was a pussy against the mavs in 2006.
Cleveland said that every game last year in the Finals.
Diaw has caused matchup problems every game, and if Bell is going to hit those shots, we're going to struggle. Fortunately, I think Tony has another one of HIS type games coming before Bell does his Ray Allen impression again.
putting ian on him would be intresting
The Spurs need to hit their shots - that's it, if they do that, the whole tritowers myth will be just that, a myth.
Eh - I don't really like the idea of Finely playing defense on Stodamire over Diaw. He's not the same player that he was when Finely guarded him before. He has a much better jumpshot which is just going to let him use his length to blow by Finely.
I'm not too worried about Diaw either. If they're going to run the offense through him and he's going to beat us, then so be it. But I don't think he'll produce at this rate by any means. He's long and he'll be able to get shots but the answer to all of this is positioning. You can't let him catch the ball too close to the rim. If he's going to drive then you can bring weak side help. The problem with that is that you leave Amare and Shaq to clean up the offensive boards, but that all sounds much better to me than Stodamire going against Finely.
Either way, the tempo in this series is always set by the Spurs on the offensive end. If they don't allow the Suns to run off of turnovers then they usually do fine. It really wasn't a D'Antoni adjustment that won ths game but rather the horrible first quarter start with six give aways that led to the Suns jumping all over the Spurs. Then, you couple that with a 2nd quarter where Bell stemed the Spurs run all by himself then you have a game thats out of hand and a Suns team playing with confidence.
This game was lost on first quarter turnovers and poor play.
I think there are some solid things being said here as well. The Suns bigs really did just take up residence in the lane. The spacing you need isn't going to come if you never take the midrange jumpers that are given to you when that happens but instead continue to force it right into their defense. Thats what led to the turnovers and bad shots which then turned into easy Suns offense.
When this happens you have stretch and hurt those bigs. You probably have to play small against the lineup and Finley, Barry, or Udoka have to make some shots as well. Tim needs some touches facing the basket and everyone needs to be ready to hit 15 footers off of screens. I did notice that the Suns finally accomplished what most high school basketball players know and stopped going under every screen on a hot shooter but the shots were usually still there.
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