Spurs at Bobcats Previews

[duncan228]

Game is Monday 6:00 CST.

San Antonio (4-1) at Charlotte (1-5)
Tipoff: 7:00 pm EST Mon Nov 8, 2010
TV: FSSW, SS
By Noey Kupchan

The San Antonio Spurs are rolling with three consecutive wins and have motivation for a fourth.

The Spurs look to avenge a rare loss to the Bobcats on Monday when the teams meet in Charlotte.

San Antonio is 10-2 all-time against the Bobcats and had won five in a row at Time Warner Cable Arena before losing 92-76 on Jan. 15.

The Bobcats have been held to an average of 82.7 points in their 12 games against the Spurs (4-1), their lowest against any team in the NBA, and offensive production could be again tough to come by for a team ranked 29th in the league at 89.7 per game.

Tony Parker scored San Antonio’s first seven points in overtime of its 124-121 victory over Houston on Saturday. While he finished with 21 points and a season-high 14 assists, Parker was upset with how the Spurs failed to finish off the Rockets in regulation.

“We have no excuse. We didn’t play well enough. We let them back in the game and then we had to fight,” he said. “I’m happy we ended up with a win. This would be tough loss because in March, you would be mad at yourself for losing. I’m happy we won and are learning from it and hopefully we play better next game.”

The Spurs should be looking for another solid performance out of their three-time All Star, as they are 7-0 against the Bobcats when Parker records five or more assists.

Charlotte is 1-5 for the third time in the seven-year history of the franchise, and is hoping to avoid its first 0-3 start at home.

Gerald Wallace scored 25 points and grabbed a season-high 14 rebounds in Saturday night’s 91-88 loss to Orlando as Charlotte was held to 36 first-half points.

“We’ve got the will,” Wallace, who leads the team with 19.0 points and 8.0 rebounds per game, told the Bobcats’ official website. “We know we have the heart to fight. Right now we’re like Rocky but we don’t start until after the sixth round when we’re all swollen up. We’ve got to come out in the first round and, as they say in boxing terms, establish our jab and get moving around the ring.

“We have to come out and be the aggressor and try to make a statement, and right now we aren’t doing that.”

While Wallace continues to be the Bobcats No. 1 option on offense, he is averaging just 9.1 points against the Spurs, his lowest total versus any team over his career.

The Bobcats are scoring an NBA-low 20.5 points in the first quarter, but Stephen Jackson - second on the team in scoring - feels that better days are ahead.

“We’ve got to continue to fight, follow our game plan and good things will happen,” said Jackson. “We have to find a way to bring the energy from the beginning of the game. We’ve got to keep working, stay positive and try to turn this thing around.”

*********************

Team Stat Leaders

Points
Manu Ginobili SA 21.0
Gerald Wallace Cha 19.0

Rebounds
Tim Duncan SA 10.8
Gerald Wallace Cha 8.0

Assists
Tony Parker SA 8.4
D.J. Augustin Cha 6.5

[duncan228]

Monday: San Antonio Spurs at Charlotte Bobcats
7 p.m., Time Warner Cable Arena
TV: SportSouth. Radio: WBCN-AM 1660
Rick Bonnell

Projected Starters
Pos, Player; Ppg;Rpg

Spurs
G, Tony Parker; 15.8;2.8
G, Manu Ginobili; 19.3;2.5
F, Richard Jefferson; 20.0;3.3
F, DeJuan Blair; 4.3;6.5
C, Tim Duncan; 17.3;10.8

Bobcats
G, D.J. Augustin; 13.6;3.6
G, Stephen Jackson; 17.4;4.2
F, Gerald Wallace; 17.8;6.8
F, Boris Diaw; 12.2;4.8
C, Nazr Mohammed; 7.2;4.0

Matchup to Watch

Tim Duncan vs. the Bobcats' front line: Tyrus Thomas might be the most logical player to match up with Duncan's mix of size and skill, but figure most every Bobcats big man will take a turn against him.

Observations

The Bobcats have won just two of 10 meetings with the Spurs, but one of those was in Charlotte last season.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is one of Bobcats coach Larry Brown's closest friends, from their time together in San Antonio.

Bobcats guard Stephen Jackson has a le ring from his time with the Spurs.

Charlotte's Boris Diaw and San Antonio's Tony Parker were once teenage roommates at a Paris-based sports academy. They remain close friends.

Tap-ins

The Bobcats are taking a patient approach with reserve big man Kwame Brown (sprained ankle). Brown missed the entire preseason and is getting back in game shape.

DeJuan Blair lasted to the second round of the 2009 draft, and is now a Spurs starter. Teams were scared off by Blair's knee injuries. The Spurs have finished first or second in their division 13 straight seasons.

Did you know?

The Spurs waited three years between drafting NBA rookie Tiago Splitter and signing him. The Brazilian, former MVP of the Spanish League, has played seven pro seasons, since he was 15.

[duncan228]

Monday: Spurs (4-1) at Bobcats (1-5)
by Jeff McDonald

...Anderson, the Spurs’ rookie guard, is expected to make the trip after missing the Houston game to attend to the birth of his daughter.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursna...t-bobcats-1-5/

[duncan228]

Wallace and Jackson Out to Stop Bobcats Slow Starts
by Brandon Adolph
Bobcats Break

The Charlotte Bobcats are fresh off a weekend of tough losses after falling to the winless Pistons on Friday and one of the best teams in the NBA on Saturday in the Orlando Magic.

On the road against Detroit, the Bobcats were down by as many as 22 points early and almost completed the greatest comeback in franchise history. Charlotte chipped away at the lead to one before eventually losing 97-90.

The following night at home against the Magic, Charlotte started the contest taking it right at Orlando. Gerald Wallace came out shooting from the hip. Wallace hit several of his jump shots, going 60 percent from the floor and 4-of-4 from behind the arc. He finished the game leading all scorers (25 points, 14 rebounds). However, Charlotte came up on the wrong side of the win column with a 91-88 defeat.

“We (Wallace and Stephen Jackson) both know our offense and our defense starts with both of us,” said Wallace. “We’ve got to come out and be more aggressive offensively and get our teammates involved more – defensively too. Nine times out of 10, the two and the three are one of the best positions on opposing teams on any given night. We’ve got to take that responsibility of coming out and making our defense aggressive.”

The Bobcats continue to have problems with protecting the ball. In the loss to Orlando, they totaled 16 turnovers that led to 17 Magic points. Furthermore, Charlotte must be able to bring the excitement in all four periods and play a complete game.

There is no panic in Charlotte as the Bobcats have another chance to redeem themselves against the San Antonio Spurs on Monday at 7:00 p.m. at Time Warner Cable Arena®.

“We’re six games in,” said Jackson. “We’ve got a lot of games left. It’s still early and we’ve got to stay positive, that’s the biggest thing. We can’t get down and expect things to automatically happen.”

The Spurs come in with the sixth-ranked scoring offense in the league (105.3 points). Even though San Antonio records over 100 points per game, they also give up 101.5 points per contest. So it is critical for the Bobcats to find the offensive firepower to battle with the Spurs.

San Antonio will apply pressure with their championship pedigree of Richard Jefferson (20.4 points), Manu Ginobili (21.0 points, 5.0 assists), Tim Duncan (17.6 points, 10.8 rebounds) and Tony Parker (16.8 points, 8.0 assists).

Key Matchups: The play of Wallace and Jackson against Jefferson and Ginobili could determine the outcome of the game. Wallace and Jackson will have to find their offense in the same game for the first time this season to be victorious. The thing to watch will be the matchup on the boards. San Antonio averages 40.0 rebounds a game and Charlotte grabs 36.4. If the Bobcats can keep the Spurs off the glass, they should be in good shape to pull out a win.

[sa_kid20]

Spurs really have a good chance of being 7-1 going into the game with OKC if they win this one.

[Mal]

Bobcats are weird team. They can win with everybody at home, and lost by 30 to everyone on the road. But often they just suck.

[Brazil]

it would be interesting charlotte is usually a very very tough defensive team. It will be an old fashion game <90 pts, I'm curious to see our offense against them.
The key is to prevent steph being crazy hot

[AussieFanKurt]

I really like Gerald Wallace and of course like Capt Jack but I think Spurs have got this one

[tuncaboylu]

Spurs by 8.

[ElNono]

This is a winnable game.

[shelshor]

http://www.nba.com/news/referee.html
Referee Assignments
Mon. Nov. 8
San Antonio @ Charlotte: Joe Crawford; Tommy Nunez Jr.; Tom Washington

[101A]

http://www.nba.com/news/referee.html
Referee Assignments
Mon. Nov. 8
San Antonio @ Charlotte: Joe Crawford; Tommy Nunez Jr.; Tom Washington

Charlotte ftw.

[rjv]

Assists
Tony Parker SA 8.4

sure would be nice if that # could last for a while (not likely of course).

[TJastal]

sure would be nice if that # could last for a while (not likely of course).

I'm more worried about Manu's growing love affair with step back 3's in late game situations.

Maybe Pop needs to realize he cannot close ball games anymore, maybe his role should be sparking the spurs in quarters 1-3, and then let somebody finish off.

George Hill, are you up to the task, young jedi knight?

[Ditty]

I'm more worried about Manu's growing love affair with step back 3's in late game situations.

Maybe Pop needs to realize he cannot close ball games anymore, maybe his role should be sparking the spurs in quarters 1-3, and then let somebody finish off.

George Hill, are you up to the task, young jedi knight?

Ginobili is the best scorer and probably the best pure shooter on the team..if it wasn't for him we would of lost against houston

he did chuck up some bad some bad shots at times, but all scorers do that but the guy was clutch on saturday

hill's offense game is limited so far, we haven't been seeing him taking it to the basket with that floater that he was using so well in the open practice, but I am loving that pick and roll jumper nice, but so far not too many or any corner 3's this year,hopefully he can start getting it going though, he sure looked like it vs the rockets.

[Pauleta14]

sure would be nice if that # could last for a while (not likely of course).

I was thinking the same thing!

There is a chance he keeps this average or even a get better one, now that he has his extention, he doesn't care about his scoring average...

[8FOR!3]

You would think the best coach of all time (Larry Brown) would have his team playing better defense...

[miserableman]

he did chuck up some bad some bad shots at times, but all scorers do that but the guy was clutch on saturday

I guess they're only bad shots cause he misses them, cuz all the manu animated sigs I see look like he's forcing and doing too much until he makes it.. and then he's amazing?

[Leonard Curse]

http://www.nba.com/news/referee.html
Referee Assignments
Mon. Nov. 8
San Antonio @ Charlotte: Joe Crawford; Tommy Nunez Jr.; Tom Washington

fml i was gona say spurs by six but it looks like stern had to put a stop to the spurs winning b4 we get any momentum. expect a very ridiculous game folks

[duncan228]

Pop, Parker meet up with old friends tonight at Charlotte
by Tim Griffin

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursna...lotte-tonight/

[duncan228]

Charlotte Bobcats vs. San Antonio Spurs preview -- Game 7
by David A. Arnott
Rufus on Fire
SB Nation

The Big Picture: An appreciation of Tim Duncan begins with his basic statistical record. The man was a guaranteed 22/12 per game for the first eight seasons of his career, and has since "declined" to 18/10, mainly because he's playing fewer minutes, in order to be ready for the playoffs.

Then, you can talk about his defense, and how he was a guaranteed 2 blocks per game for ten years, and, again, has "declined" to 1.5 blocks per game, mainly due to fewer minutes. And how, beyond that, he was the linchpin of a top-rated defense year after year, and his coach gave him all the credit in the world for directing traffic and remaining a constant force, even while the cast of characters around him changed.

But to my mind, Duncan's greatest accomplishment is not that he's won four les, going 4-0 in the Finals; it's that in the post-1979 NBA (Larry, Magic, et cetera), he is one of two Hall of Famers to lead his team to a championship without the aid of at least an All Star caliber sidekick. The list of teams to win championships with as little as one HOFer and no additional All Stars:

Hakeem - 1994

Duncan - 2003

Pistons (no HOFers) - 2004

And that's it. You could even make a case that in 1999, David Robinson wasn't quite an All Star sidekick, which would make Duncan the only player in the modern era to lead his team to multiple les without that kind of help. All that's to say that Duncan may not have been as individually dominant as Shaquille O'Neal was in his prime, or quite as versatile as Kevin Garnett or Dirk Nowitzki, but he was certainly better than all of them at at least one important facet of the game while being nearly as good at everything else, for a ridiculously long period of time.

Knowing what we know happened since then, if the league started over in 2000, and held a dispersal draft, and you had the number one pick, I wouldn't blame you for picking Kobe Bryant, Shaq, or a fifteen-year-old LeBron James, but I'd probably go with Tim Duncan.

Musical Interlude: Canibus -- "Second Round K.O."



Key to Victory: Hardly anybody thinks of the Spurs as the vanguard of positional creativity and basketball freedom, but Greg Popovich and company have long resisted labels in favor of the role construct. Consider that Duncan has always been listed as a "forward", despite playing alongside shorter, more perimeter-oriented guys at "center" like Matt Bonner. Or that Manu Ginobili isn't really a "small forward", "shooting guard", or "point guard" so much as he's a dude who shoots when he shoots, passes when he passes, and slashes when he slashes. Or that DeJuan Blair isn't a "forward" or "center" so much as he's a monster rebounder trapped in a fire hydrant body.

The Bobcats are going to have trouble with Duncan. That's not difficult to predict. What is tough to predict is where the Cats might try to press an advantage on the Spurs. Tony Parker and George Hill can attack D.J. Augustin in myriad ways, but at the same time, I'm not sure either of them can really keep up with this new model of D.J., either. Ginobili plays a very similar role to Stephen Jackson, and I expect both badasses to go at it hard, and early, but if Jax's shots are falling, I don't see a strategic advantage to be gained there.

What I hope to see is Gerald Wallace abusing Richard Jefferson and making him curl up into the fetal position (metaphorically). Just because Tyrus Thomas is around for 20-30 minutes doesn't mean that Wallace should lower the swag and stop flying for rebounds, because two tornadoes on the floor is almost always better than one. Jefferson supposedly stepped up his workouts and shooting exercises this offseason, and through five games, he's taken a massive step forward. That said, it's just five games. Make him work, Gerald.

I also hope to see Boris Diaw actually putting his versatility to work and forcing Blair to defend in places and ways he's uncomfortable defending, and then I hope to see Thomas come in and change the whole paradigm. Of course, Tiago Splitter frightens me because if he lives up to his legend, he's Blake Griffin combined with Chris Webber, so yeah, I've got an overactive imagination.

Detail That May Interest .08% of You: The guy arrested at the Bobcats game on su ion of murdering someone in New York was captured "in one of the VIP areas".

[DJB]

Unfortunately I attended 1 of the 2 losses that they've handed us. I got free tickets to watch Adam Morrison drop 27 on Bruce Bowen... it was like a bad dream...

[MinuteByMinuteSports]

From Twitter:
@spurs fans, join Stephen Anderson as he chats live from the Spurs Center before the game against the bobcats. Now at http://dailysportsupdates.webs.com/