McDonald: Bobcats' D silences Spurs

[duncan228]

Bobcats' D silences Spurs
Jeff McDonald

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — They had tried scoring from long range and from up close, in transition and in the half court.

No matter where the Spurs turned in the third quarter of their 92-76 loss at Charlotte on Friday night, no matter how many different ways they attempted the simple task of putting a round ball in a round hole, there was always seemed to be a Bobcat in the way.

It took Roger Mason Jr. until the third quarter's final seconds to finally find the soft spot in the Charlotte defense. Nobody was guarding him as he pulled up for a wide-open 70-footer.

The shot swished, but, since it came about a half-tick after the horn, didn't count. Story of the night for the Spurs, who would eventually go 9:09 of the second half without a basket, and for the Bobcats, whose defensive ferocity was a major reason for that.

“At that point, it was getting tough, and it got tougher in the fourth,” said Manu Ginobili, whose 4-of-11 performance qualified as sizzling. “They took us out of everything we wanted to do.”

The Spurs (24-14) came in as the NBA's hottest team, having gone a league-best 15-4 since Dec. 9. Their feel-good run came to a grinding halt at Time Warner Cable Arena, thanks to the suddenly menacing defensive team that calls it home.

Charlotte held the Spurs, who came in averaging better than 102 points, to their lowest scoring output of the season, and to just 34 points in the second half. The Spurs avoided their most inaccurate shooting night of the season by eight-tenths of a percent, needing a late surge to get to 38.8.

Boris Diaw had 26 points and 11 rebounds for the Bobcats (18-19), who beat the Spurs in Charlotte for the first time in their six-season history, while Gerald Wallace added 21 points, four steals and five blocks.

“It's a typical Larry Brown team,” said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, whose team faces the second half of a deceptively difficult back-to-back tonight in Memphis.

“Tenacious, physical, pressure defense, creating turnovers, creating offense off turnovers. We knew it coming in, but we reacted very poorly to it.”

For 21/2 quarters, the game played out as a defensive tug-of-war only Popovich and Brown could love.

The Spurs ground to a 55-51 lead after a Tony Parker three-point play with 6:17 left in the third quarter. From that point on, the Bobcats began to make a few more shots than they'd been making.

And the Spurs stopped making shots altogether.

They missed 14 in a row until breaking the spell with 9:08 remaining in the fourth (anyone who had little-used Marcus Haislip pegged as the drought-buster should play the lottery today). Between Parker's final basket and Haislip's first, Charlotte put together a 19-2 run that sealed the game.

“I don't think it was bad shot selection,” said Tim Duncan, who had 10 points on 4-of-12 shooting and had four of his misses blocked. “I think it was just good defense on their part, and their pressure got to us a little bit.”

Back in the third quarter, when the Spurs were still in the game, Mason had a chance to break the lid atop of the Bobcats' basket with an unlikely at-the-horn heave.

Irony of ironies, after the Spurs had gone better than six minutes without a field goal, Mason's 70-footer was the one that went in.

Of course, it didn't count.

“I didn't know if I got it off in time, but I was hoping,” said Mason, who missed 7 of his 10 attempts from inside 70 feet. “I'd never made one of those in a game before.”

That, more than anything, told the tale of the Spurs' night, one in which points were so difficult to come by, they were left lamenting the 70-footer that got away.

[dbestpro]

I think the thing that bothers me about Pop is he never takes responsibility for bad rotations. There was nothing that Charlotte did that was impressive. What I saw was a bunch of tired perimeter players for the Spurs.

This game should be a revelation game for Pop. Pop loves playing small ball. Sometimes it has worked sometimes not. The reality that Pop must face is by playing small ball continually he is wearing down his players. try playing a game against someone 4-6 inches taller than you. You might get by occasionally on defense but you really have to exert your energy. Now try doing that every game and with guys who are not teenagers.

So the revelation for Pop (when he decides to see it) is that he must play more bigs in order to keep his smalls fresh. If not, the end will not be pretty as injury to the smalls will be the next step.

This loss could become very valuable to the team if Pop will learn that lesson from this loss. Not sure how many more we will have to go through before he has the revelation.

[pjjrfan]

my take is the team never showed up. Right off the bat in the 1st qtr. First Tony fell down like 2 or 3 times, then Tim fell down then Manu came in and immediately hit the floor all trying to break through double teams. From that point everyone but Blair couldn't get off the floor. And Jefferson and McDyess are really starting to tick me off. McDyess looks like he wants to go back to Detroit and Jefferson is a whiner.