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Good to hear that.“Yep, it’s working,” Blair said. “Chip is amazing. I give him a hug every day. I work on it every day. He’s an amazing coach, and it’s wonderful, the outcome that you see.”
Spurs' defense holds down shaky-shooting Wade
Web Posted: 12/31/2009
By Mike Monroe - Express-News
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich insisted his team did nothing special to limit the scoring opportunities of the Heat’s All-NBA guard Dwyane Wade, who came into Thursday’s game at the AT&T Center with a scoring average of 26.6 points per game.
“We played him more straight-up tonight than we usually would, for whatever reason,” Popovich said. “We just did.”
The most likely reason: Wade’s shaky perimeter shooting this season. A 48 percent shooter for his career, Wade came into the game at 44.2 percent for the season.
Never in any of his previous six seasons had he made less than 46.5 percent, and he made 49.1 percent last season.
Keith Bogans, who always gets first crack at the opposition’s top perimeter scorer, said the strategy Thursday was to make Wade shoot from the perimeter or send him to areas where his teammates make things tough for him.
“I just tried to stick to our game plan and force him to where the help was,” Bogans said. “My teammates did a great job of helping me out with him, because it’s almost impossible to stop him by yourself.
“As long as I took him to where my help was, we were in great shape tonight.”
Wade made only six of 18 shots in 29 minutes of the Spurs’ 108-78 victory and had seven turnovers.
“He looked a little tired, but he still tried to fight through it,” Bogans said “He’s a great player, and if it wasn’t for my teammates, it could have been a long night.”
Free DeJuan: Spurs rookie DeJuan Blair looked incredulous when approached for a postgame interview after Thursday’s game.
“No limelight over here,” said Blair, whose 14 points and five rebounds were relatively pedestrian.
Told that the topic was his improved foul shooting, Blair smiled broadly.
“Aw, snap,” he said. “The free throws.”
Blair came into the game having made only 46.5 percent of his foul shots, and that was after making 5 of 8 Tuesday against Minnesota.
It was in the Minnesota game that he unveiled a new free throw technique, the result of weeks of work with Spurs shooting coach Chip Engelland. The rookie from Pittsburgh now is releasing the ball with one hand and putting more arc on his shot.
Blair’s line at the line Thursday: 4 for 4.
“Yep, it’s working,” Blair said. “Chip is amazing. I give him a hug every day. I work on it every day. He’s an amazing coach, and it’s wonderful, the outcome that you see.”
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/80454782.html
Good to hear that.“Yep, it’s working,” Blair said. “Chip is amazing. I give him a hug every day. I work on it every day. He’s an amazing coach, and it’s wonderful, the outcome that you see.”
That win was not that impressive as heat were on a b2b with a mental loss to the NOH
but we can see the spurs playing better with better understanding, plus Tony and Manu printing their role in new invoirnment.
All we need is health - again.
When you beat someone by 30 it is always an impressive win.
I beat my 7 year old brother by 30 - that was impressive
Now, if we need something to worry about, it's how Bonner and Finley will fit in when they come back.
Bonner can come back and immediately play decent minutes, eliminating small ball lineups. But Finley has no more space on this team IMO. He needs to be used for locker room experience and garbage minutes. But we all know that won't happen. He'll take minutes from other guys that are really starting to play well and it's going to up the rotations and on-court chemistry.
Your brother isn't in the NBA.
Glad to see DeJuan is making progress on his FTs because he has the ability to get to the line 6 to 7 times a game with the way he uses his body but if he can't make them what good is it.
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