Has Bonner Improved The Spurs Frontline?

[cd021]

Actually, if THERE WERE one criticism you could LEVEL (yeah sorry that's just nitpicking ) at Pop would be that Splitter should have been fully established in the rotation by that time. Another big criticism is that you don't just decide that one of your players "doesn't match up" and then stop playing him, particularly against a weaker opponent. One would think someone would have learned that lesson from 2006, though many of us know the "doesn't match up" argument is justification by Popsuckers well after the fact. That fallacy is only matched by the 'Arthur was tearing up Blair' line.

The above must be directed toward someone else, as I'm already on record saying that Blair's playing time wasn't the difference in anything that happened in the playoffs the last two years. I do love that you spent several paragraphs second-guessing the coach on a message board, and then you call yourself out at the end. Well done.

When did i second guess him?The quotes you picked actually doesn't critisize him at all. He is a of a coach. Do you think of theirs a better coach available with you "Popsucker" comment? Blair has history of playing well vs OKC Pop knew it and took it under consideration. He opted against it, i get it. I said he had problems defending Ahur, He didn't get dominated Arthur was just a difficult matchup. I'm a fan of Twilght but he got outplayed by Collison. Collison is fantastic at defending pick and rolls. His lateral quickness is insane I remeber several times he cut Neal, Manu and even Parker from getting to the rim. Splitter rolled and caught the ball near the rim only to be met by Collison who was set and had his arms raised making it a diffucult finish. Granted Splitter looked to pass out rather than taking it too him in hopes of drawing a foul (we both probably know why Splitter was hesitant at going to the line).

Matchup are matchups if one of your player struggles to defend another player, than you try to put in a situation where he can play his best. Your point I take was that the spurs needed 2 bigs in the game & the Mavs wings were driving to the lane and forcing Duncan to do his best Dwight impersantion. Fair enough but Rember every wing we played (except Parker, Manu may have been like 29) was at least 34. Terry, Harris, & Josh Howard were each either athletic, & or very quick. Parker actually said he was relieved that they traded Harris because he was a difficult cover. Horry defened P&Rs better than Rasho & Nazr. He also took charges.

Granted your memory seems to be better than mine about that series 6 years ago, Bowen played PF similar to Jackson now, for stretches, Duncan was playing heavy minutes (38mpg), so their wasn't a ton of "Big man" minutes to go around maybe 58 total minutes split between 4 other players . Horry average 17.5 minutes and the rest was small ball (split between Bowen, Barry, Finley). Dallas happened to be a juggernaunt offensively and playing Nazr & Rasho exclusive at Center gave the spurs about 13 pts a game (based on RS #s). Playing 4 wings who could hit 3's (Parker when wide open) forced Dallas to play Duncan straight up and Duncan forced Damp (5 Fouls Per 36 minutes), Diop (6 Fouls Per 36 minutes) & Mbenga (7 Fouls Per 36 minutes)into serious foul trouble. Remeber we came within a bad foul away from going to the WCF. Dallas finished only 3 games off from our record. They were just as good as us and we nearly won that series.

[cd021]

playoff bump

[Kidd K]

I agree with the main premise of the OP's point. Even when Bonner isn't putting shots into the basket, he is changing the opposing defense's strategy which opens things up. The main ty thing about Bonner has been that this hasn't translated to the playoffs because his occaisional off-game turned into practically every night, so there wasn't much impact on the opposing defense since Bonner rarely made them pay for sneaking off him to help defend.

While Bonner doesn't need to be actively scoring to make a difference, it does need to come often enough to keep the defense honest. Right now he's doing that and it's getting results. Glad for Bonner. . .and more glad for us since Pop was gonna use him regardless.

[ohmwrecker]

Bonner has been really good the last couple of games, but there is always a concern that one bad game could make him tailspin into an abyss of suck.