Overall, I was actually really happy with the way the Spurs performed in this game. In fact, I’m happier about this game than a lot of the wins the Spurs had this season. The Spurs were minus Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, got a horrible performance from Manu Ginobili and still stayed in it the whole way. You can’t be upset about that.
I also liked how the Spurs didn’t back down. The Lakers decided to get physical and the Spurs were willing to up their level of physicality. There was no backing down from the Spurs tonight. That’s great to see when you're out on the road and the other team has much more talent than you.
The Lakers can’t really take many positives out of this game. Their bench saved them. Without quality efforts from players like Vladimir Radmanovic and Ronny Turiaf, the Spurs could have easily won this game. For the first time in a long time the Lakers actually have a quality bench, which allows Phil Jackson to better use some of the coaching tricks he’s picked up throughout the years.
-Manu Ginobili was simply horrible or terrible or whatever other synonym you can think of that means really, really bad. It seemed as if every time he caught the ball, he thought he had to be the hero. And while sometimes he can be that hero, it wasn’t happening tonight when he had no energy, no explosion in his legs and a team focused to stop him. I would blame it on fatigue but a lot of it was just uncharacteristically dumb plays. For the game, Ginobili finished with 14 points on 5-for-17 shooting and seven turnovers. With Duncan sitting, Ginobili obviously missed having at least Tony Parker on his side because even if Parker isn’t playing well, he absorbs a lot of the defensive pressure from the opponents. Without Parker, Ginobili became the focal point and the Lakers were able to eat him up. It’s no mistake that Ginobili finished with a team worst plus/minus of -12, which was double as bad as anyone else on the team.
-If Bruce Bowen got to play against the Lakers every game, he might be in the league leaders in scoring. Earlier this year, Bowen had 23 against the Lakers. In this game, he went for 22 points on 8-for-14 shooting from the field. More impressively, he guarded Kobe Bryant amazingly well, especially considering Bowen literally had no shotblocker behind him at any point. For all those league pundits that say Bowen is only a good defender because he has Duncan behind him, this is a classic example of why that’s untrue.
-Fabricio Oberto had yet another good game. In a shade over 37 minutes, Oberto scored nine points and pulled down a career-high 16 rebounds. He also chipped in with three assists, one steal and one block. I also thought his defense on Andrew Bynum was rather solid and he was protecting the rim better than usual. Oberto gave it absolutely everything he had, which is all you can ask.
-Jacque Vaughn started and showed why he’s a bench player. He hit only 1-of-7 shots from the field and didn’t handle the defensive pressure very well. I loved his energy and toughness, but there’s more to basketball than energy and toughness. Overall though, Vaughn didn’t lose the game. He played his role well enough for the Spurs to win.
-Coming off the best game of his life, Matt Bonner came crashing back down to earth. In 16 minutes, Bonner went scoreless and only grabbed three rebounds. The Lakers did a good job of closing out on him, but Bonner was hesitating much more than he usually does. Bonner could have really made a case to for himself to earn consistent playing time when Duncan returns if he would have played well. Instead, Bonner laid an egg.
-Brent Barry got some rare minutes at point guard and performed rather nicely. He finished with 17 points, four rebounds and four assists while hitting 6-of-11 shots from the field. His defense suffered at points but he proved to be a capable option when it comes to running the show. Pop is never going to let him play extended minutes at point guard due to his defensive deficiencies, but for a few minutes here and there Barry can handle it. If nothing else, this game was valuable since it let Barry test the waters at point guard for the first time in a long time.
-Robert Horry is still out of shape but I thought he played very well, all things considered. He finished with six points, four rebounds, four assists, three blocked shots and two steals. That’s a vintage Horry line from his heyday. Since Horry has returned to the Spurs, I’ve been very impressed by his focus. He usually loafs through the regular season, but he’s playing with a purpose.
-Michael Finley is another Spur who went down swinging. He had 11 points, three rebounds and four assists and played physically on the defensive end of the court. He shot poorly (4-for-13) but he was at least taking good shots for the most part. He did a good job on Lamar Odom when Odom was giving the Spurs trouble. On the night, Finley led the Spurs in plus/minus at +6.
-Darius Washington stepped off the plane and played decently enough. He almost had a highlight reel dunk over a couple Lakers where he showed athleticism I didn’t know he had. He’s still early in his development but he continues to be relatively impressive.
-Ime Udoka came in and had a few possessions against Bryant. Bowen got in foul trouble early and Pop went with Udoka for his defense. Although Bryant scored a couple baskets on him, Udoka’s defense was fine. Obviously, he’s not going to play Bowen level defense but he’s proving himself to be the second best one-on-one perimeter defender on the team already.
-Francisco Elson came off the bench, blew some defensive assignments and found himself back on the bench. He actually had a nice move on the low block but bad defense and no rebounds in six minutes gets you some added pine time.
-On one hand, I want to give Pop props for getting the players ready to play and giving this good effort. However, I disagreed with a lot of his decisions. First of all, without Duncan and Parker in the lineup, I think you have to get the most offense as possible in the starting lineup. Going with Vaughn to start with was just asking for the offense to become stagnant. I would have rather seen Pop go with Barry, Ginobili or even Washington at point guard to start the game. And as tough of a decision as it would have been, I would have liked to have seen Pop keep Ginobili on the bench when the Spurs were rolling without him and Ginobili was so obviously out of rhythm. A lot of times during the game, the Spurs were best without Ginobili on the court. Keeping Ginobili on the bench while letting him get an extended rest for a late push made more sense to me than playing him 35 minutes. Overall though, I was more than pleased with the effort and it’s games like these that a team needs to build. You don’t improve much when you blowout a bad team by 30 points. However, you can improve when you are basically without your three best players in a hostile environment with your backs against the wall. Nice showing and should help down the line when the Spurs again face adversity.
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