Houston Rockets 116, San Antonio Spurs 109
by Timothy Varner
Some fans are hearing a death knell. I’m not quite there, but I’m a little worried and a lot confused.
Last night’s loss to the Rockets was a straightforward affair. Houston played better. The Spurs, if they’ve shown anything this season, are simply not good enough to get it done against playoff-caliber teams. The Spurs’ offense looks sloppy; their defense doesn’t make the critical stops.
After the game, Gregg Popovich could not have been more clear.
You got to play a lick of defense if you want to win in this league. Our defense against Utah and against Houston was very poor. 60 points in the second half against Utah and 61 in the second half tonight. That’s not going to win basketball games. It looks like the effort and all that sort of thing is great, but way too many mistakes…not enough focus…not enough execution. We’re scoring enough points to win games. We’re scoring more points than we’ve ever scored in our lives, but our defense is really sub-par and it’s killing us.
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This season has been rough, and it does not seem to be getting any easier. At this point, all I can do is hope for the best and hope something clicks.
Ya know what clicks?
soemthing clicked in 03, although that was a veteran laden team but the main guys were all young or new, Sjax, Parker, Speedy Bowen and Manu. this was a sorry team right up to that 40 pt loss to the Wolves that began the now infamous road trip. David missed that game with back problems but the came back against a good Pacers team and that team got it together.
05 was a little different, but the last half of the season it was like walking on needles with ankle injuries to both Tim and Rasho. Rasho never came back to really contribute and Timmy struggled with those ankles right down to the final game, a championship.
07 looked just as bad the team lacking defense, the getting old tag was now a reality, but iMO Pop's speech about no one is coming through that door to save us, this group will have to do it turned that season around.
I gotta hope that Tim, Tony and Manu can find a way to get RJ and McDyess to get off thier butts and start playing. McDyess is a guy who can lay some wood on people he was doing it in Detroit and New York, that guy has to show up to keep guys from making the rim a home.
anyway I am still hopefull, and if they don't that how it goes, I still love my spurs.
Like I said in another thread, what they've lost isn't all tangible, and that's what's always given me hope when they struggled in the years you mentioned; there was always something to fall back on.
It's true that this team is in need of front court help and maybe even a more well-rounded swingman/better-fitting stopper (Bell's really the only one that comes to mind in terms of fit), but it's more than that: they've lost the intangibles in their supporting cast that acted as the glue to align the stars both on and off the court; it's not often you can trade for that.
If you look at each member of this team, you'd think Pop was right when he said something like it has the best personnel overall since he's been here.
Maybe Pop ought to look at his rotations. Putting the right guys on the court together with enough minutes to play.
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