That was Pop's excuse last year for not giving Tiago more playing time in the regular season last year.
Agree. Bonner gets too much criticism for being a role player but when he plays the amount of minutes he does it's inevitable. When Dice suffered in a stinger in game 6 who did Pop turn to? Bonner. I would have taken a partially injured Dice over him. By the time Dice came back into the game Randolph's confidence was sky high and he was on fire.
I have a strange feeling that you are trying to lump Horry in the same class as Matt Bonner.
There is no way you could be that dense so I assume that's not what you're doing.
Yet he was a starter. Go figure.
Matt Bonner got more minutes than any big not named Tim Duncan last year. Go figure.
That's what you keep saying, but it doesn't matter. The REAL point of the conversation is that Bonner was abused so badly on the other end of the floor that even if he'd hit his shots consistently to his average (he didn't), he wasn't helpful to the team.
If your point in bringing up offensive stats is that he's not a "playoff choker" then you probably have a point, and perhaps we're talking past each other. My point is that he's in over his head for what he's asked to do, and has been for several years. There is, and always have been, better options for his role and his minutes, and his role should be reduced to what he does best: Shoot lots of threes in a row when he's hot. If you're trying to make the case that he should be getting the same minutes and role in the playoffs, even at the expense of Splitter, then I'm going to disagree.
Even in series Horry didn't impact too much that was probably much more than Bonner ever did. The best way for Bonner to impact a series positively is to not play much. He's just not playoff basketball material.
The whole team sucked against Memphis so I'm not gonna rip on Matt too much, what excuse do you have for his shooting percentages dipping south in the playoffs over his career? .370 is awful for a player who's only skill is shooting.
You accuse me of using hyperbole and then say Splitter would've been "a thousand times better" than Bonner. Got it.
The Spurs were outscored by 8.5 per 100 possessions with Tiago on the floor against Memphis. I don't know how much simpler I can express that to you.
With Bonner, they were outscored by 4.7 per 100 possessions.
That's a 3.8 point difference AND Bonner has the disadvantage of having a much larger sample size in this comparison.
For the 1,000 time, people blaming Bonner are ignoring the forest for the trees. The Spurs lost because of, in order 1. Duncan 2. Tony 3. Jefferson 4. McDyess 5. Hill
I've lost count the number of times the goalposts have moved.
And yeah, Bonner got bent over by every single Memphis big man. That was some of the worst defending i've ever seen by a player, even by Matt Bonner standards.
Thank you. I was more looking for a link to an article with the quote. Couldn't find one when I googled it. There are a lot of mentions in comments about it, and on ST of course.
Don't know what stats you're looking at. Actually the numbers are worse. He's a career 39% shooter in the playoffs and 32% from 3.
If you want to rip him for choking in the playoffs, you'd be a lot better served to point out 2009 and 2010, tbh.
That's the point. Thanks for catching on.
You really, really need to stop quoting stats about this since you're using them to argue against having Splitter getting minutes last season. Just makes you look stupid. I don't know how much simpler I can express that to you.
Is it so hard to admit the starters whose names don't end in -obili sucked? Anybody who can look at it objectively would come to that conclusion pretty easily.
Matt Bonner is a career .414 3 point shooter in the regular season and a .323 3 point shooter in the playoffs. That's a pretty big fall don't you think?
.370 was his best percentage in the playoffs in 2010, which like I said for a one dimensional player who brings nothing else to the table is pretty bad.
Then go blame Pop for being a crappy coach. Clearly your blame lies with him.
Warmer...
I didn't blame Splitter for losing the series. I blamed the starters. Pay attention. Again, if you wanted Tiago to play more, then your issue is with Pop, not Bonner.
You yourself have acknowledged that there were several reasons why the Spurs lost. Is it so wrong for people to be mad at the starters, Pop, and Bonner?
Bonner was like their 8th most important player and deserves the 8th most blame. Oddly, I don't think that's the ratio of blame he's getting.
When you all start the "Tim and Tony have to play much better these playoffs" thread, I'll take note.
Bonner was like 5% of the problem and gets 50% of the blame.
I don't think anyone is saying they weren't bad. It's not just about last year. He's never been reliable in the playoffs. Ever.
I'd wager that most people are cool with Bonner (not his playoff production or anything). What's not okay is the minutes he's playing at the expense of a taller, more dependable, superior basketball player in Splitter and quite recently Diaw. So some of Bonner's hate is really for Pop but it's been a little bit misdirected.
Due to his disappointing playoff performances vs his regular season work, they're not wrong to be mad.
Bonner averaged around 20 minutes both in the playoffs and in the regular season. But the difference in production was clear.
Reg season: 7.3 pts, 3.6 rpg, .457 3pt% .457% fg%
Playoffs: 6.3 pts, 3.2 rpg, .333 3pt%, .480fg%
Again, the difference in most categories are quite small except for 3 point shooting. To me, that drop off was disappointing to see because that was offsetting his poor rebounding and defense in the regular season.
Well no , everyone has poor shooting streaks and poor playoff series. The difference is that guys like Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker built their reputation on playoff basketball and are consistent over the course of their careers. My confidence in them doesn't waver after one poor performance. Guys like Hill (whose always had confidence issues), Blair, or RJ on the other hand, was always worrisome. People like to talk about playoff basketball being too small of a sample size. But the bottom line is that the small sample size argument is true for all players. Yet we're able to see a separation between the men and the boys. Additionally, Bonner's career 3pt shooting % is only .323 and a lowly .39% overall.The area where he dipped was from .457 in 3s to .333 in the playoffs, but come on, we're talking about a sample size of 18 shots. If you think the best "clutch" shooters in the world didn't have 6-for-18 stretches during the playoffs, I don't know what to tell you.
I agree, I never think of Bonner and turnovers being in the same sentence. I got nervous when he introduced his dribble drive but so far hes been very consistent with that move.As for the people who think Bonner turned into a turnover prone butter fingers in the playoffs, his turnover rate went from 6.7 in the regular season to 3.3 in the playoffs....
Again, I disagree. Bonner's role on offense is to make 3s and contribute to spacing. He failed to do that for multiple playoffs now. As OV stated, when he can't make his 3s, the rest of his flaws become magnified.Again, his so-called "choking" came on the defensive end. On offense, he was the same ol' Matt Bonner.
I don't solely blame Bonner for our early playoff exit, but he was one of the more disappointing players for me to watch.
Honestly Stephen Jackson was yesterday as well as Green and I don't understand Pop not playing Diaw.
Nobody said you did, strawman. You're defending Bonner getting more PT than Splitter, though, and when you point out how much worse the defense is with Splitter on the floor, you really do come dangerously close to what you just said you didn't do.
And nobody's said exactly that more times than I have. I'm not the one going and digging up stats to try to justify Bonner's minutes. You are. If you want to make any of those other cases, make them. What you did instead was reply to a post I made in response to someone else showing me stats of why Matt Bonner was so good against Memphis. Again, sorry you picked such a ty horse to back in this race.
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