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  1. #1
    Starter off the bench Uriel's Avatar
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    There's already an abundance of basketball analysis on how the Spurs got obliterated by the Warriors, so I'd like to present some non-basketball theories that might explain why the Spurs played so poorly the other night:

    1. Late Start Time
    The game started at 10:30 PM EST, which is relatively late for an NBA game. In Oakland time, this was only 7:30 PM, so it was normal for the Warriors. However, in San Antonio time, this was 9:30 PM, which is much later than the Spurs are used to. We know that peoples' internal body clocks are naturally hard-wired to peak during the early evening and then taper off dramatically as one gets closer to sleeping time. In this case, it seems as though the game's late start time meant that the Spurs had to play the game at a time when their energy levels would naturally start to decline. This is backed by empirical evidence. The Spurs' best quarter was in the first, when their energy levels were still relatively normal. However, by the 2nd half, when the game got later into the night, the team became noticeably sluggish, so it was unsurprising that this was the time when the game really got away from them.

    2. Too Much Rest
    The Spurs were playing only their 3rd game in the past 8 days. While this might seem like a good thing on the surface, for a team like the Spurs, which relies on precision ball movement and sharpness of execution, the lack of games actually served to take them out of their natural rhythm and flow, strongly contributing to their sloppy play. That the Spurs turned the ball over 25 times in this particular game is no accident. All those errant passes, failed catches, and costly turnovers were a direct result of the Spurs being taken out of the rhythm that they had established in their 13-game winning streak, when all their games were held on a consistent every-other-night schedule. Even Parker admitted this, saying after the game, "We had 2 days off, 3 days off before that; too many days off, maybe."

    3. The Team's Timid Personality
    This one actually comes from tim_duncan_fan, who said:

    It was pure timidity. They panicked from the jump.

    Not the first time we've seen something like this, won't be the last. It's a side-effect of a contemplative, thinking-team personality.
    This makes sense on a lot of levels. The Spurs have a history of being mentally overwhelmed whenever they play a big-time opponent. It happened in 2012, when the Spurs got obliterated by the Lakers, leading to this classic meltdown thread. It happened as recently as the Cavs game, when the Spurs started off poorly against the Cavs, leading Pop to remark that the Spurs were acting as if they were "playing their big brother." For whatever reason, whenever the Spurs play a game of enormous magnitude, they tend to overthink the matchup and end up getting destroyed.

    4. The "It's Just Another Game" Mentality
    In the week leading up to this game, the Warriors had been looking ahead to the Spurs. Bogut said, "We understand that we have to get through San Antonio to achieve our goal." Curry callled the Spurs "legends" and the "standard" by which every team should be measured. Clearly, the Warriors understood the enormity of this game and were extra motivated to work hard and put on their best performance. Meanwhile, the Spurs were busy spending their day off in Oakland doing this:



    There was a clear disparity in the focus and motivation level between the two teams prior to this game, and it showed on the court, where the Spurs played sloppy basketball all around, and the Warriors played with a laser-like focus.

    5. Pop Wanted To Lose
    Every Spurs fan knows how Pop abhors long winning streaks and almost acts as if he wants the team to lose. We also know how he likes it when the team goes through adversity, as it allows them to stay humble while keeping their eye on the big picture. This probably explains why he seemed almost too happy to let the Warriors win this game. And this goes beyond simply not playing Duncan: he was noticeably listless during the game, not even patrolling the sidelines the way Kerr did, and contenting himself with just watching the game from the bench. When the Warriors made a run, he didn't call a timeout. When the referees made a bad call, he didn't bother to complain. When the Spurs made a lazy pass, he didn't bother to yell at his players. And even before the game got out of hand, he was already playing Rasual Butler and Kyle Anderson.

    --

    Now, I'm not saying that any one of these theories in and of itself definitively accounts for why the Spurs lost. Clearly, there are many reasons, including, perhaps, the Warriors simply being the better team at the moment. However, I am saying that all of these reasons combined do help to explain why the Spurs played so poorly the other night.

    And if I'm right, and none of these scenarios continue to hold true in our next matchup against the Warriors, I'm confident the Spurs will pay them back big time when they come to San Antonio in March.
    Last edited by Uriel; 01-27-2016 at 09:02 AM.

  2. #2
    Cash money Benoit's Avatar
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    lol @ #1, #2 and #5

  3. #3
    Starter off the bench Uriel's Avatar
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    lol @ #1, #2 and #5
    What's wrong with #2? Did you even read the entire post? Even Parker said after the game, "We had 2 days off, 3 days off before that; too many days off, maybe."

  4. #4
    Veteran DarrinS's Avatar
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    Excuses

  5. #5
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    A lot of plausible excuses. However, Dubs just dominated.

    Only bright side is that its just midway in the regular season, so Spurs have time to adjust their game and maybe even their personnel.

  6. #6
    Veteran BG_Spurs_Fan's Avatar
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    They lacked Duncan's leadership and calming intangibles. Pop was also pretty mad, don't think he wanted to lose, or even set them up to try things that could have jeaopardized their chances. They just weren't up for it, he saw it early on and threw everybody in there trying to find a couple of cool heads but couldn't.

    I think Pop's really mad because they couldn't make the game an important film room exercise, even in defeat. It was more of a burn the tape kinda game and the Spurs needed to learn some things out of this.

  7. #7
    Klaw apalisoc_9's Avatar
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    What's wrong with #2? Did you even read the entire post? Even Parker said after the game, "We had 2 days off, 3 days off before that; too many days off, maybe."
    Its called humor. Try it sometimes.

  8. #8
    America runs on Duncan! Horse's Avatar
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    Pop definitely didn't coach like he usually does and we've seen this before

  9. #9
    🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 ElNono's Avatar
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    How about we just had a bad game against a better team at this point in time?

    And, there was nothing 'enormous' about last night game other than the major hype. Nothing changed, win or lose, they are 1st, we're 2nd. It was just another regular season game.

  10. #10
    Starter off the bench Uriel's Avatar
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    How about we just had a bad game against a better team at this point in time?

    And, there was nothing 'enormous' about last night game other than the major hype. Nothing changed, win or lose, they are 1st, we're 2nd. It was just another regular season game.
    That's what I said at the end. We had a bad game against a team that is better than us at this point in time. The whole point of the post is to give reasons for why we might have had a bad game.

  11. #11
    Not in POs roster NameLess Scrub's Avatar
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    A lot of plausible excuses. However, Dubs just dominated.

    Only bright side is that its just midway in the regular season, so Spurs have time to adjust their game and maybe even their personnel.
    How do they adjust for a consistent this


  12. #12
    🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 ElNono's Avatar
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    That's what I said at the end. We had a bad game against a team that is better than us at this point in time. The whole point of the post is to give reasons for why we might have had a bad game.
    It's just silly. Because the team took this game for what it is, just another regular season game, it doesn't mean that's why we had a bad game. We take a lot of games like that and we don't happen to have 10 turnovers in a quarter.

    Sometimes ulterior motives are not at play. One or more players having bad nights are enough of a reason to play badly.

  13. #13
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    How do they adjust for a consistent this

    They're going to have to go old school and put some bruises on him



    Probably another team will do it before we ever meet them in the playoffs.

  14. #14
    5 is real faggy! Mikeanaro's Avatar
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    They're going to have to go old school and put some bruises on him



    Probably another team will do it before we ever meet them in the playoffs.
    DeMarcus or Rondo maybe.

  15. #15
    Big in Japan GSH's Avatar
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    There's already an abundance of basketball analysis on how the Spurs got obliterated by the Warriors, so I'd like to present some non-basketball theories that might explain why the Spurs played so poorly the other night:

    I only opened the thread because I saw you started it. I understand what you're saying. But I think it's probably best to look at the basketball reasons the Spurs lost. The Spurs turned the ball over 25 times on the road. That's a loss almost every time. Were they rusty? Mostly, I think, the Warriors played a lot more physical, and never let the Spurs get into any kind of rhythm. On a night when the zebras call the game tight, they might have been forced to change that strategy. But last night it worked perfectly. The Spurs missed Tim on defense. The rest was just an avalanche.

  16. #16
    Big in Japan GSH's Avatar
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    BTW - in addition to all the turnovers, the Dubs got a BUNCH of deflections. A lot of those happened when the Spurs tried to post up. The Dubs focused on denying the ball to any Spur in the post. The Spurs failed to get the ball (cleanly) to their post players pretty much all night. Yeah, there was a lot of contact, but it's a great strategy if you can get by with it.

    I would rather have seen the Spurs push back and be even more physical, and dare the zebras to foul out all of their bigs, if necessary. Playing passive against an aggressive team is a recipe for a loss.

  17. #17
    Hope springs eternal. SAGirl's Avatar
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    I think this is a new team Pop is getting to test against the new warriors. I am guessing he had a laundry list of things and guys he wanted to see.
    A lot of the guys failed in their objectives, which caused a cascade failure situation.
    The only positive is they learn from this as a team, get film, got some young guys/rookies experience. Hopefully they keep improving, and vets that are relied upon, realize their importance for the team/roles and step up next time.

  18. #18
    Starter off the bench Uriel's Avatar
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    I only opened the thread because I saw you started it. I understand what you're saying. But I think it's probably best to look at the basketball reasons the Spurs lost. The Spurs turned the ball over 25 times on the road. That's a loss almost every time. Were they rusty? Mostly, I think, the Warriors played a lot more physical, and never let the Spurs get into any kind of rhythm. On a night when the zebras call the game tight, they might have been forced to change that strategy. But last night it worked perfectly. The Spurs missed Tim on defense. The rest was just an avalanche.
    Of course you're right that many of the turnovers were caused by the Warriors' aggressive defense; there's no doubt about that. But a lot of those turnovers were also on sloppy passes, failed catches, and players just plain stepping out of bounds--mistakes that I believe could have been avoided if the team hadn't been as rusty and out-of-sync as the excessive rest had made them.

  19. #19
    Emperor Duncan>>>>>King James tim_duncan_fan's Avatar
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    Lol I recognize this same quality in myself at times, tbh.

    We just make something out of nothing and clench the buttholes a little too tight for no reason at times, which leads to hesitation and second guessing. It was to be expected with all the hype built into that Warriors game.
    Last edited by tim_duncan_fan; 01-27-2016 at 10:20 PM.

  20. #20
    Believe. SpursBig3s's Avatar
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    How about we just had a bad game against a better team at this point in time?

    And, there was nothing 'enormous' about last night game other than the major hype. Nothing changed, win or lose, they are 1st, we're 2nd. It was just another regular season game.


    I understand that its just a regular season game. The reason why I'm agreeing with #4 is that against THIS particular team who goes balls to the walls for games like this, if you're not going to match that type of intensity, then you better expect a blowout because that's what's going to happen. Nobody can be surprised at the result if we don't make a concerted effort to be extra sharp and more engaged than just another game. i mean you're right that nothing meaningful comes of it, but you have to match their "state of mind" in order to give yourself a chance
    Last edited by SpursBig3s; 01-27-2016 at 10:42 PM.

  21. #21
    🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆 ElNono's Avatar
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    I understand its its just a regular season game. The reason why I'm agreeing with #4 is that against THIS particular team who goes balls to the walls for games like this, if you're not going to match that type of intensity, then you better expect a blowout because that's what's going to happen. Nobody can be surprised at the result if we don't make a concerted effort to be extra shard and more engaged than just another game. i mean you're right that nothing meaningful comes of it, but you have to match their "state of mind" in order to give yourself a chance
    That's fine. I don't think the Spurs went out there with the mindset to lose the game. But bad games happen, and it's just unfortunate that happened against that team. I don't want that to sound like I'm taking anything away from the Dubs, just that bad games happen. Having 10 unforced TOs in like a half it's just uncharacteristic for our team, even for a regular season game. I don't think that was mental or there were any ulterior motives, we just had a ty game, and against a team that punish you like the Dubs can, it won't be a 10 pt loss, it will be a blowout.

    I look at Pop while the game is going on and he looks like an spectator. He's not calling TOs after stupid plays or runs. He's instead shuffling lineups, playing end of the bench guys. So my general feeling is that he himself didn't care that much whether it was a win or a loss. He just wanted to try stuff out. And we'll be better for it if it pays off in the long run.

  22. #22
    Believe. SpursBig3s's Avatar
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    That's fine. I don't think the Spurs went out there with the mindset to lose the game. But bad games happen, and it's just unfortunate that happened against that team. I don't want that to sound like I'm taking anything away from the Dubs, just that bad games happen. Having 10 unforced TOs in like a half it's just uncharacteristic for our team, even for a regular season game. I don't think that was mental or there were any ulterior motives, we just had a ty game, and against a team that punish you like the Dubs can, it won't be a 10 pt loss, it will be a blowout.

    I look at Pop while the game is going on and he looks like an spectator. He's not calling TOs after stupid plays or runs. He's instead shuffling lineups, playing end of the bench guys. So my general feeling is that he himself didn't care that much whether it was a win or a loss. He just wanted to try stuff out. And we'll be better for it if it pays off in the long run.

    Yeah I agree with you on Pop. , it might turn out that GS is just a better team, and things like that happen every few years or so.

  23. #23
    Millennial Messiah UNT Eagles 2016's Avatar
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    A lot of plausible excuses. However, Dubs just dominated.

    Only bright side is that its just midway in the regular season, so Spurs have time to adjust their game and maybe even their personnel.
    Who do we trade, and what do we need?

  24. #24
    Veteran Spurs9's Avatar
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    They're going to have to go old school and put some bruises on him



    Probably another team will do it before we ever meet them in the playoffs.
    How come it hasnt happend yet?

  25. #25
    Savvy Veteran spurraider21's Avatar
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    legitimately shocked OP didn't blame political conservatism
    Last edited by spurraider21; 01-28-2016 at 06:31 PM.

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