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Especially David West. He hit a ridiculous amount of jumpers in NO, even more than the HCA would account for.
I agree with that. Don't be surprised if you see either Parker or Manu get creamed hard by a Bonzi type of player. He would not risk getting any of his starters suspended for something like that.
Especially David West. He hit a ridiculous amount of jumpers in NO, even more than the HCA would account for.
This was what I was hoping for. For once, I was hoping we'd get some calls to go our way. Especially with West and Paul b/c those two are the ones who get frustrated when they don't get calls going their way. Now, if they could just call Paul on a carry or a push off, that would be enough to make him loose it.
UDOKA!!!
When your nuts shrink up into your scrotum, gimmes get hard.
Scott acknowledged as much in his halftime talk and his little on-court interview after the first quarter when he said they needed to "loosen up".
They're feeling the pressure now.
In game 2 West hit for 10 points on 2 for 11 shooting. And that was in NO.
In game 1, he managed to go off. But since then, he really hasn't showed that same game 1 fire.
West is good, but he isn't as good as the media makes him out to be. As this series goes on, he seems at times on the verge of actually breaking down and doing something really stupid.
CP3 also didn't look too gung ho last night either. I think it has finally dawned on the Hornets that they are in a fight with the champs.
So far in the playoffs, they have had almost everything go their way. Now, not so much. Maybe they are starting to doubt themselves in crunch time.
You know, Scott is going to let them know, it won't get any easier. Scott has seen his team (the Nets) be dismantled by the Spurs before.
If the Spurs can win game 5, and I don't see why they can't, I wonder how much fight the Hornets will put up in game 6.
Maybe experience if finally starting to win out over emotion.
Guess we will see tomorrow night.
Manu looked a lot better but still doesn't look great especially his shooting game. Hopefully he gets it back soon
Next 2 games are game 7s
I do expect Byron Scott to make some adjustments for game 5. Probably, he'll change the double team strategy on Duncan to do it only after he puts the ball down (instead of automatic). If that's the case, the Spurs will have to move the ball quicker to keep finding open looks.
The Spurs need to keep playing defense the same way they have, keep going into the paint, and hit a reasonable percentage of outside shots. If they do that, they can win this series by Thursday. If not, they get a game seven in NO where anything can happen.
That, and they need to stay out of foul trouble.
If I'm RC I'm having by video guys make some tape of every Paul drive specifically highlighting the push off every time. I'm sending that to the league office to try to get the refs looking for it in game 5. His travelling doesnt bother me because everyone gets away with it, but blatantly pushing off with your off arm to get your shot up should be called 90% of the time. And he does it on every drive to the rim.
It would be foolish to think that the Hornets are done. They will be energized by their crowd and out to overcome the embarassment of losing Game 4 the way they did. I think they know that they can play better and I think they have to believe that the Spurs probably can't play any better than they did in Game 4. I think the Spurs managed to put a lot of pressure on the Hornets and, for the first time in the playoffs, those guys are now dealing with some adversity. I didn't think the Hornets handled true adversity very well in Game 4.
Of course, all of that pressure and adversity can go away very quickly if they put it on the Spurs again in New Orleans.
On the whole, I thought the Spurs were fantastic in Game 4 and they've done a good job of dealing with the adjustments that Scott has been making. I thought the Spurs did a pretty good job in Game 4 of not forcing Duncan to catch the ball in the post everytime and allowing him to move to catch the ball a bit more -- while Scott didn't bring doubles as frequently, it does seem to me that if the Spurs want to free Duncan from those doubles, one solution is to have him more on the move and change the angles for the help. With that said, Duncan's post-game quotes almost seemed to beg for more doubles -- he said something about knowing where they're coming from and being able to move the defense by exploiting that. The Spurs' ball movement in Game 4 bore that out.
Tony Parker has played Chris Paul to draws (at worst) in each of the last 2 games, which has been huge for the Spurs -- I actually think Parker has been better than Paul in the last 2 games. It seems pretty clear that Paul can do little to deter Tony Parker's drives and the more Tony attacks, the more things open up for the rest of the Spurs' shooters. But, importantly, Tony has understood his role defensively and not let Paul's scoring successes affect his aggressiveness on either end. Paul is going to score and Parker might look bad defensively sometimes, but if Parker can even come close to matching Paul's offense, the Spurs are in great shape.
I still think a telling stat in this series is the Hornets' assist-to-FG ratio. The lower that number is, the more the Hornets are out of their natural state because it means that Paul isn't creating as many easy shots for his teammates, who aren't necessarily great at creating for themselves. In Games 1 and 2, the Hornets had assists on well more than half of their baskets -- 53.5% in Game 1 (23/43) and 61.1% in Game 2 (22/36). That number has completely changed in Games 3 and 4. The Hornets had assists on well under 40% of their field goals in San Antonio -- 36.6% in Game 3 (15/41) and 36.4% in Game 4 (12/33). If Paul doesn't create, nobody does for the Hornets -- they only had 3 guys average more than 2 assists per game during the season (Paul (11.6), Pargo (2.4), and West (2.3)).
I still think a telling stat in this series is the Hornets' assist-to-FG ratio. The lower that number is, the more the Hornets are out of their natural state because it means that Paul isn't creating as many easy shots for his teammates, who aren't necessarily great at creating for themselves. In Games 1 and 2, the Hornets had assists on well more than half of their baskets -- 53.5% in Game 1 (23/43) and 61.1% in Game 2 (22/36). That number has completely changed in Games 3 and 4. The Hornets had assists on well under 40% of their field goals in San Antonio -- 36.6% in Game 3 (15/41) and 36.4% in Game 4 (12/33). If Paul doesn't create, nobody does for the Hornets -- they only had 3 guys average more than 2 assists per game during the season (Paul (11.6), Pargo (2.4), and West (2.3)).
That is a big reason why this series is close to being over.
Udoka plays like that consistently and we have two Bowens.
They don't have anyone long to put on him. Neither Peterson or Peja can keep up with Tony, and they don't have someone like Kerry Kittles or Grant Hill sitting on the bench either.
Yeah, nice call on that Hornets adjustment. SpursTalk on a whole seems to be one step ahead of the coaches in this series. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad sign for the coaches
It was just a matter of time before the Spurs got the Hornets out of their double-team look. You double-team Duncan hard and fast and the Spurs will eventually adjust.
The Hornets main adjustment in Game 5 will probably just be emotional. They'll be amped up in front of their fans. I also expect them to go back to double-teaming Duncan and hope the players have more energy to swarm in front of their home fans (no put intended). Double-teaming also makes sense for the Hornets because otherwise Chandler will almost positively get in foul trouble.
We'll see though. The ball is in Scott's court now. If I'm him, I probably go back to the original gameplan and hope that the Spurs' shooters aren't hitting on the road.
They're going to have to get more accommodating play calls from Pop to make the double worth anything. We only ran 4down eight times in game 4. NO is getting a heavy dose of the PnR.
Or maybe Vaughn shouldn't be leading a guy coming off a leg injury like that
If Brent can't manage to chase down passes then he needs to hang it up.
Once again, if he can't chase down a pass like that, then he needs to hang it up.Or maybe Vaughn shouldn't be leading a guy coming off a leg injury like that
He's been getting away with it all series, that's not going to change.
You're re ed. Barry is playing on a bum wheel, and you're defending a ty pass by Vaughn.
Once again, maybe Vaughn shouldn't be leading a guy with a bum wheel by fifteen feet.
You're re ed. Barry is playing on a bum wheel, and you're defending a ty pass by Vaughn.
Once again, maybe Vaughn shouldn't be leading a guy with a bum wheel by fifteen feet.
Get off the court if you can't handle it.
That simple.
I don't think it's too much to ask your point guard to be aware of the fact that he's leading a guy who's suffered a calf injury and a recurrence and suggest that he might not throw ridiculous lead passes to him in garbage time. Barry is obviously healthy enough to make contributions when called upon; why stress his injury more than necessary? Particularly because Barry's small contributions in this series have seriously outweighed anything that Vaughn has done.
There's a difference between being reasonably cautious and concluding that a guy just can't play anymore. Barry can obviously play and play effectively (the argument for why he should be on the court), but he's got an injury question that the Spurs should be careful not to stress in garbage moments.
Ultimately, for all of that, Barry went and got the ball, so the notion that he needs to "hang it up" was invalidated by demonstrated ability to catch up to the pass.
Didn't say quit.Ultimately, for all of that, Barry went and got the ball, so the notion that he needs to "hang it up" was invalidated by demonstrated ability to catch up to the pass
But if hes that hurt he can't chase the ball down or have the ability, then get off the court for a healthy player.
if he throws a pass in garbage time to barry again
he needs to always stay on the bench
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