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Thanks. Need to get these down if Pop is going to give him regular minutes next year. Seems like many of his turnovers can be corrected with experience.
IIRC on both TOs he was driving towards the hoop and made one of those leaping passes that got deflected each time. One of them he should have just shot the ball.
Thanks. Need to get these down if Pop is going to give him regular minutes next year. Seems like many of his turnovers can be corrected with experience.
I don't know how you can say it wasn't accurate. Do you really think the intensity the Suns showed in quarters 1-3 was the same they showed in the fourth? I mean com'on man.
Intensity is such an intangible thing that it puzzles me when people act like they know how to compare such a thing. The are y’all using to measure that? The sweat drops? The number of times they grunt? You can measure their speed and acceleration on TV? Is it based on their emotions? If they frown, that means they’re playing intense? What the ?
It's not hard to look at the effort a team is putting in on the court and see when it's been raised. If you really can't tell the difference between a team that is going through the motions and one that is actually trying then I'm not sure what to tell you. The space they give in defense amd the effort they give on the glass is extremely noticable. It's far from intangible.
I don't know why you're talking about frowns dude. It's about visible effort.
I question the basketball knowledge of anyone who didn't see the change in defensive intensity in the sun's in the fourth.
Not to mention that intensity doesn't always equal results. Obviously, playing hard and being compe ive are important...but it's an intangible. One of those things that you just kinda know it when you see it.
You also need the level of talent to transfer that activity and energy into actual results. Most of us have probably seen those guys on the pickup courts that play with a lot of "intensity"....but that doesn't help if you are missing assignments because you want to chase the ball, or running as fast as you can just to throw a layup over the backboard.
But sandbagging though? I mean the Spurs really played god the 1-3 quarters. I think they shot like 58%. It’s the 4th quarter that our guys normally comes out short, arguably because of the kind of defense they play, switching and helping. And the ball movement on offense. The Spurs lead the league in assist. So those people calling Pop “overrated.” Pop is coaching these kids team basketball, albeit because of lack of tier 1 players to rely on. Just the same, the team played great 1-3 quarters. Just need to learn more to close or pace to have enough to close the game.
Yeah, it reminds me of the Warriors win (and a couple of others, but that was the sweetest). Clearly GS hit another gear to take a late lead, but a close game at the end of the fourth isn't an open field where the more talented team can juke and outrun lesser compe ion. It's a phone booth where both sides have a limited number of possessions to execute or make mistakes. You can try hard and miss shots or defend hard and still give up points to better offense. If this were a situation where the Spurs had a big first-quarter lead and got run down before losing handily by the end, then I get saying that it was a loss the moment the other team turned up the intensity. But the Suns definitely could have lost that game.
I think that's true and a better way to look at it than the Suns turning it on. I don't believe in clutchness; you show me a guy who's "clutch" in the playoffs, I'll show you a guy who's lazy during the season. But I do believe in guys folding under pressure or a team panicking. The Spurs have a couple of good close wins like against Boston and GS. But they have had execution problems down the stretch in a few of their losses. I don't know that I really blame Walker's turnover on him being unable to handle pressure; he has the single best clutch shot of the team's season. But it was also clear they didn't have a plan on how to get good shots consistently.
Damn man.
That's like yeah.
Good post bro.
What's with the big gash in the side of Pop's head? Is he alright?
Its like the definition of porn...you know it when you see it.
Yeah Sandbagging. Are you misunderstanding what my point is here? I don't get it, are you upset that I don't think a fairly bad Spurs team without its 3 best players is much of a match for the best team in the NBA right now? I think Pop has done a good job with the system he's put in place and that system is doing well. I give Pop a lot of credit and way more than most posters on this site. I'm not sure why you're brining him into it? The problem is Pop can't teach that group to beat that Suns team or equivalents when they are truly turned on. Look at the shots Tre got early in the game. Wide open layups. In the first, there were even two back to back plays where Tre gets easy layups in the lane. Now look at the quality of shots he got in the fourth. They were FAR more difficult because the Suns had dramatically increased their effort on the defensive end of the floor.
Pop is an absolutely atrocious end of game coach, and this game showed that as well. His failure to challenge late was a mistake (should have been an instant time out to challenge regardless of the chances of success), the Spurs letting the Suns take off 18+ seconds off the shot clock on the possession that started at 36 seconds while down 4 was a gigantic mistake, and Lonnie's drive to the rack with less than 15 seconds left in a 6 point game were all giant mistakes I've grown accustomed to seeing from the Spurs in the final minute. Pop for years - maybe always? - has never properly valued time in the last part of a game, and this continues. Had he not done these things, it increases the chances of a Spurs win. The Spurs still had chances to win down the stretch. If they make some of these more difficult shots then they can definitely pull out a win. Those shots are low percentage, and while the Spurs are less talented there's nothing that prevents low percentage shots from going in. They are low percentage not null percentage. So the Suns, by not trying for 3 quarters, lower their chances to win, obviously.
But all good teams do this. Its impossible to play an 82 game season like every game is game 7 of the playoffs. No one expects that and we saw the Spurs do the same every year. Spurs peak after March used to be this forums motto.
You ever watch sprinters or swimmers in the Olympics? When they have to run qualifying heats, to get into the final race, they never run their hardest unless they absolutely have to. They save that for the final race. They are sandbagging. This is what the Suns did last game. They came in, saw a depleted Spurs team, and didn't really try hard until they absolutely had to in order to win.
There's a dramatic difference in the defense played by the Suns in quarters 1-3 and the fourth. There's a dramatic difference in the quality of shots the Spurs got in those same two different periods. There's a reason they went from scoring 36 in the third to 19 in the fourth and its not because they need to learn how to play in the fourth. Pop has done well, but he's not going to teach Tre Young to better than Chris Paul and I really hope this isn't the level of expectation Spurs have for Pop.
That assumes its possible to create a plan with the team as currently constructed. When good defensive teams are locked in, its not so much about a plan as it is about individual brilliance. Lonnie's shot you mention, there was no plan for Lonnie to hit that shot ever. That's not something Pop can possibly draw up. That's Lonnie hitting an incredibly low percentage shot over the best interior defender in the league. If Lonnie was capable of doing that more, we'd win more.
I don't think Pop is a great end of game coach by any stretch. I think he's ing awful, frankly. Its his worst coaching attribute, IMO. But the reason the Spurs struggle more at the end of close games is because they don't have a dominant offensive force capable of creating shots all the time and doesn't have to do with Pop. IMO anyway.
Yeah, words like clutchness, intensity, positionless, & momentum are thrown around a lot these days, often with very gauzy definitions or exaggerated value added to them. Tim Duncan had a stoic's face but won a of a lot more than Garnett or Kenyon Martin, who looked like they were trying out for some Musical Theater production about the NBA. The only guy I've ever heard say he doesn't believe in momentum is Bill Russell, the most successful player in history. His theory was you just keep playing as hard as you can, regardless of what has happened previously. Almost everyone else embraces the concept of momentum and endorses it as gospel, but Russell kicked it to the curb and was rewarded dramatically for that unusual viewpoint.
That's why I always liked the "pounding the rock" mentality. Seems very similar to Russell's mindset.
Whether it is over the course of a game or the course of a season...don't get too up or too down emotionally. Don't get y if you go up 20, and don't give up if you are down 20.
Just keep doing what you do and wear your opponent out with consistency. Points in the first quarter count just as much as points in the fourth, and all that matters is what the scoreboard says when the clock hits zero.
That’s Spurs system actually, just trusting the system, continue playing thru mistakes and not getting rattled. Don’t get caught in the moment. It takes a lot of discipline because Bball by nature is a game of runs, and momentum’s. But Spurs system is to weather the storm by trusting the system. It’s harder for these young guys because they haven’t won enough, nothing a lot to base on. Unlike the big 3 when trusting the system won them rings. These kids just need to keep on trusting their coach that it’s a long process, Pounding the Rock.
Have you considered coaching? I think you’d be good at it.
Nah but I’ve used the Spurs as an example in many of my sales pep talks before, trusting the system, doing your part in the team, even Pounding the Rock. It wasn’t my original, but none of them read ST
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