Game Thoughts: Spurs vs. Mavs - Dec. 5

[SRJ]

I was impressed by the rebounding. It looked as though every guy one the floor was concentrating on it, like it was a point of emphasis by Popovich. There was a lot of boxing out going on.

As Bruno pointed out, the Mavs grabbed just 4 ORBS. That's 4 out of 38 missed shots. OTOH, the Spurs rebounded 6 of their 43 misses. Very nice job.

[LEONARD]

That cheap shot by Jet was VISCIOUS!! I'm surprised Tony got up from it...tough SOB...

[jack0fspeed]

I hope the league office takes a look at Terry's play last night and hands down a nice fine. That was inexcusable.

And Diop looked like he was studying from the same book.

You know what I think is funny? The team that bloodied Steve Nash and hip checked him into the scorer's table is complaining about rough play.

[phxspurfan]

Does anybody have a youtube link of Terry's cheapshot?

[SRJ]

You know what I think is funny? The team that bloodied Steve Nash and hip checked him into the scorer's table is complaining about rough play.

Nash bloodied Nash's nose, you infant. Nash reached in trying to get his turnover back, and (surprise, surprise) heads collided.

[FromWayDowntown]

Nash bloodied Nash's nose, you infant. Nash reached in trying to get his turnover back, and (surprise, surprise) heads collided.

That, and I don't think anyone on this board (or at least very, very few on this board) questioned the league's action in suspending Horry for his hip check on Nash. Horry's play deserved punishment and I think that most every Spurs fan I know understood that. There were questions about the extent of the punishment (2 games instead of 1) but not about whether punishment was warranted.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

Bass was having his way with Oberto, but Pop still kept him in. I didn't notice, but did Elson shut Bass down or did the mavs stop running the ball thru him at that point?

[Viva Las Espuelas]

Does anybody have a youtube link of Terry's cheapshot?

which one?

[td4mvp21]

You know what I think is funny? The team that bloodied Steve Nash and hip checked him into the scorer's table is complaining about rough play.

You know what I think is funny? Is that Tony Parker bumped heads with Nash, on accident, and that Robert Horry chose to hip check Nash. The team as a whole didn't do anything. And where did the team complain about rough play?

[timvp]

One thing I can't figure out is why Elson isn't blocking more shots. He's basically averaging half of what he averaged last year. He's averaging a career-low in blocks per game ... even though he had two seasons with the Nuggets in which he played fewer minutes per game.

Has he regressed? Is it just bad luck? Was last year a fluke?

The Spurs' defense is designed to funnel perimeter players into shot blockers. There's really no excuse for Elson not to be blocking shots. At least Oberto has the excuse of being short with short arms. Elson, despite being tall and athletic, averages less blocks than Ian Mahinmi did in a couple minutes of garbage time and as many blocks as Manu Ginobili.

Almost every bigman with an ounce of athleticism blocked shots at a healthy clip with the Spurs. An out of shape Horry has as many blocks in his first twelve minutes of the season as Elson has had in his last 11 games.

It's mystifying.

[Bruno]

Elson is blocking so few shots that you have a huge random effect.
Elson has 9 blocks and if he had blocked 15 shots, he would have averaged the same amount of blocks per minute than last year. When the number are so little, it's kinda hard to draw a conclusion.