This is not an attempt to sour a win or complain about a role player scoring only 2 points.
Tonight's game was relieving. Strong bench play was exciting. Aggressive Tony Parker was alleviating. Bench roles of McDyess and Ratliff looked promising. Is this the final rotation? Are we all set for the WCF? No. But it's a good start for a tough week. There were a lot of plays that showed that all the players we have can still do what we wanted them to do when we acquired them. RJ can even get to the foul line and make them.
I see a lot of fans make the mistake of relishing a victory for too long and then getting really bummed out when we lose next(or soon after) game. Just like the players, by the next day the game that just happened is history. It means nothing compared to the next game. Be ready to continue the success achieved in this win, but be ready for the challenges of fixing what did not work.
During tonight's win over the Clippers one concern I had is interior defense, mostly the post. Kaman really had his way on the block. I give him a lot of credit for his performance. I'm not really thinking it's time to say that Timmy is totally weak on defense. There were some moves Kaman made that were fantastic All-Star caliber moves. I think Timmy also wanted to hold back a little and stay out of foul trouble. But I still feel like TD could have done a little better.
What are we going to do against the top power forward/center teams?
(later this week we face Aldridge, Bogut, Ilyasova, Warrick, Lee, and Harrington)
Blair got into foul trouble in less than four minutes. Duncan, McDyess, and Ratliff showed some holes in their man defense. As much as I enjoyed the win tonight and want to commend Mason, Parker, Duncan, McDyess, Ratliff, and Bogans I can't help but want to immediately address the negative parts of the game.
Dyess looked more comfortable than he has since Houston. Maybe he will up his game on D. Ratliff stands to get more minutes after tonight. I hope both of them can make an impact on the game through defense without getting into foul trouble.
I also hope Blair can slow down committing fouls AND missing foul shots.
p.s. if Dyess's 18 footers don't go in I'm telling you that we totally hear from the team that they miss Bonner already. Don't be fooled by some absurd hatred of Red Rocket. Unless Haislip gets another chance there's no one in the front court that can stretch the floor besides Timmy...and he's the guy you're trying to stretch it for.
if you do a quick scan of the box scores in the previous spurs game, you can quickly draw the conclusion that almost every big has had it's way with the spurs. i'm not going to lie, the spurs' interior defense is one of it's greatest weakness. whether it's boozer, okur, kaman, garnett, nene, troy murphy, hibbert, or some PF named llyasova, the spurs have had immense trouble stopping these bigs from ending up with unreasonably high FG% or points.
Half the guys u mention are 3pt shooting specialists, which has nothing to do with the interior defense. You can add Channing Frye to that list. I'd make a case for closing out the 3 point shooters, esp on pick and rolls.. as being more of a problem than the "interior defense".
Lets see...
Murphy got half his points from beyond the arc and has been hot lately, check his last few box scores beyond last night. Okur, all that dude does is shoot 3's.
As for the non-3pt shooters, Boozer and Kaman have been posting these types of numbers consistently on everyone lately. Check their box scores the past few. Garnett is a good bet to get 20/10.... been doing it for his entire career, so what's new. Nene got 12pts/1reb .. wouldn't exactly call that domination.
Well, only murphy and okur are the three point shooting bigs. And, letting the bigs get their points isn't exactly a solution. Just because a big is doing well against other teams isn't an excuse. Spurs need to cut down on the efficiency of bigs playing against them. If you look at past games versus the lakers last year, gasol and/or bynum put up riddiculously efficient numbers against the spurs. If the spurs let the lakers put up their averages very game, the lakers would score 100+ every time.
And I doubt the spurs are hoping to hold the lakers to 100 or garnett to 20 and 10.
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