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Oh well Spurs didnt look like they had energy to play. Hope they turn it around after the All Star break
What a disappointing loss for the Spurs. The Clippers, losers of five straight, were in San Antonio without two of their three best players in Danilo Gallinari and Lou Williams. But instead of building on the momentum on their successful road trip, the Spurs laid an egg. Los Angeles won by a final count of 103-95 as the good guy put forth a bad effort and 48 minutes of uninspired play.
The Spurs were outplayed from the jump. The starters fell into a 17-8 hole early and then the bench came in and made things worse. At the end of the first quarter, San Antonio trailed 38-25.
While the Spurs made more than a handful of legitimate runs to get back into the game, give the Clippers credit: they played extremely hard and were cohesive no matter who was on the court. They deserved the win.
San Antonio, on the other hand, basically wiped out away the good work they did on their two-game, two-win road trip. Very disappointing.
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LaMarcus Aldridge
The numbers were gaudy for LaMarcus Aldridge: 30 points, 14 rebounds, two assists and two blocks. But his true impact wasn’t nearly what it has been during the last few weeks. That physicality on the low block that has been his staple lately simply wasn’t there. Aldridge was allowing smaller defenders to guard him and reverted to his bad habit from earlier in the season of settling for fadeaway jumpers. When the Spurs were taking on water, Aldridge could have righted the ship by manhandling the smaller Clippers on the block, forcing double-teams and thus generating spacing for his teammates. But that never happened. Defensively, his rebounding was good but his defending of the rim was lacking, his help was slow and his transition D was poor.
Grade: C+
Summary: Don’t be fooled, Aldridge wasn’t as good as the stats suggest.
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DeMar DeRozan
This was a low point for DeMar DeRozan. He was horrible; there’s no way to sugarcoat it. He shot poorly, he wasn’t making many plays, he was sloppy with the ball and his defense was atrocious. To make matters worse, he was lethargic and moped around the court. What’s wrong with him? I thought his recent troubles were caused by fatigue … but he sat out the previous game with an ankle injury. Could DeRozan be more injured than he let’s on? Pop says DeRozan is dealing with multiple nagging injuries including the ankle but DeRozan says he’s feeling fine. Whatever ails him, let us hope he finds a solution because it’s difficult for the Spurs to win when DeRozan is a millstone around their collective neck.
Grade: F
Summary: Terrible.
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Rudy Gay
The good: Rudy Gay shot efficiently. His jumper looked smooth, he was getting good elevation and appeared to be more nimble than usual. On defense, he was an asset on the boards. The bad: Even though he hit his shots, I didn’t love Gay’s shot-selection or overall decision-making on offense. He broke the offense too often and was too quick to force the issue. Defensively, he was charged with slowing Tobias Harris and that didn’t happen. At all.
Grade: B-
Summary: Gay scored well but other aspects of his performance were lacking.
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Bryn Forbes
I’m not sure why Bryn Forbes was allowed to play 27 minutes. He was disastrous across the board. Forbes wasn’t hitting shots, was mistake-prone and looked unsure of himself. His effort was decent on defense but the results were poor. The Clippers had no problem going at, over and around him.
Grade: D-
Summary: Forbes was a liability.
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Derrick White
Defensively, I thought Derrick White was pretty good. He had a couple unwise fouls but otherwise played rugged individual defense, was quick to help and even defended the rim adequately a number of times. The offensive side of the court wasn’t as kind, unfortunately. He was slow (even slower than usual) bringing the ball up the court and it took him into the second half for him to realize the team needed to push the pace. White struggled to get the team into their sets, had unforced turnovers and didn’t help as much as he could scoring-wise.
Grade: C+
Summary: White didn’t do enough.
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Marco Belinelli
I can’t fault Marco Belinelli’s effort. He was one of the few players on the team that remembered today was a game day. Belinelli attempted to create offense and had a respectable amount of success. He was reasonably sharp passing-wise and his movement was as whirling as ever. Defensively, Belinelli tried hard and was okay in halfcourt situations. However, his transition defense was horrendous.
Grade: B
Summary: Belinelli efforted.
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Davis Bertans
Davis Bertans was a step out of rhythm. Multiple times, he had a chance to change the momentum of the game and just couldn’t do it, whether it was finishing a fast break in transition, pulling down a rebound, getting a stop or finding room to knock down a three-pointer. Bertans needed more patience and precision on offense. Defensively, he didn’t have a whole lot of success. Harris had no trouble scoring on him and Bertans’ help-defense was rarely on time.
Grade: C
Summary: Bertans never found stable footing.
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Patty Mills
I struggle to find many positives for Patty Mills on this night. Offensively, he was more often rumbling, bumbling and stumbling rather than providing tangible energy, pace or spacing. Mills’ passing and playmaking came crashing back to earth against the Clippers. Surprisingly, after attempting 21 three-pointers in his last three outings, Mills failed to attempt a single long ball in 19 minutes. Defensively, Mills was more of a liability than usual. The Clippers were aggressive and Mills wasn’t equipped with the necessary tenacity to counteract it.
Grade: D+
Summary: Mills failed to give the Spurs a lift.
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Jakob Poeltl
Jakob Poeltl wasn’t exactly bad but his confidence level was on a roller coaster ride. One moment he was dishing slick passes or making strong moves to the basket, the next moment he was committing a dumb foul or getting pushed around in the paint. His confidence wasn’t exactly aided by his 0-for-4 shooting at the charity stripe. Overall, I don’t think Poeltl deserves much blame for the loss but he I’d rate both his offense and defense as sub par.
Grade: C-
Summary: Poeltl wasn’t of much help.
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Pop
Forbes should have played fewer minutes due to his poor all-around play. I would say the same about DeRozan but Pop already trimmed his minutes – I’m not sure how much more he could have cut. Bertans playing more minutes could have helped, then again neither he nor Gay were having success staying with their power forwards as it was. Sliding up a position probably would have made matters worse. All in all, Pop simply didn’t have enough players playing well. Tonight, the rotation was basically an exercise in rearranging deck chairs.
Grade: C
Summary: Pop couldn’t find a solution for the woes.
Looking ahead: That was definitely a leap backwards. All that Spurs fans can hope for now is the disappointment doesn’t linger and cause a downward spiral.
Next up is another two-game road trip. First game in Philadelphia and the second game in New Orleans. The good news is that there are two days of rest before each game.
Swallow hard. Get back on the horse. And come out ready to play against the Sixers.
Oh well Spurs didnt look like they had energy to play. Hope they turn it around after the All Star break
the new Orleans will play the 3rd game in 4 days with san antonio, maybe this is good news and have some fun since we have 2 days to relax. also probably will not play better and the best player of the new orlean the Davis.
]now for the current games, I have to say I am very sad that we have lost the 2 plays in our home.
this dérozan really can not see him, it's disappointment…
I hope pop help DeRozan and play better next games...
DeFrozen is definitely a G- in the making, if he’s not scoring he just sulks around the court, doesn’t even try to make others better around him, which is no surprise as Raptors readily jettisoned him as soon as Kawhi was available.
Why the is Forbes in the starting lineup and playing big minutes ? He is a bench player at best and his streaky shooting is made worse by his horrific defence. He is much worse than Bellinelli.
Taking these two little s out would have won us the game possibly.
Ship's starting to sink imo. Team hasn't looked right in the past three weeks. They're around .500 in that stretch but it's clear they aren't playing with the same crispness they had been the month previous. There are a few obvious things to point at in Gasol's return, offense becoming even more LMA-centric as opposed to DeRozan-led, and the hangover from the Nephew game. However, the most alarming to me has been the league seemingly figuring out and exploiting the Spurs' defensive game plan. Didn't think teams would actively notice it until the playoffs or close to them, but here we are.
I really think if Pop is serious about competing for the playoffs and a punchers chance to go far, they have to make a trade. Whether it's just dumping Gasol or getting a defensive difference-maker on the wing something needs to happen. It's all moot if DeRozan is imploding mentally but they have a few more games to figure out what the issue is.
Pathetic effort at home against the depleted opponent. That was ugly.
We probably win this anyway without DeMar though. What’s up with this guy?!
I get why Pop plays DeMar, he’s supposed to be an All-Star. But why is he playing Forbes these heavy minutes?! Forbes is playing bad for like 5-7 games in a row now. If his 3s aren’t falling he’s completely useless. His defense is outright atrocious. I’d go for more minutes for Belli and Mills. Mills at least can give some energy or pass a little.
One of the most disappointing losses of the season.
Thank you for the grades. I’m thankful we aren’t the Saints and will get to play another game . Ditto on KC, but at least they lost because they got beat like us tonight. Whenever I’m hopeful we’ve turned a corner a game like this happens. At least DDR is owning his horrible play. Maybe hypnosis wil work and he can pretend he’s playig the Raptors every night.
I wouldn’t call it strategic move from DeMar offense to LA offense. I’d say it’s just DeMar mightily sucks all of a sudden ((
As for DeMar he’s playing like something’s wrong with either his vision or his thinking process... like a strong headache
I get why Pop is playing DDR, you need a system, can't just improvise rotations each game, second unit is playing well, etc. I get all of that.
But his at ude is so poor that it can't be a physical thing. And that is the problem: is he having a depression bout? If yes, then time off, suck it up and play like a man payed 26mil a year.
I loved his at ude at the beginning of the season even when losing big, now I am starting to think he was the reason we were losing big...
Grades are mostly spot on although i think you underrating LA's impact on defending Tobias on the pnr.
Bench Bryn as a starter. Demar was playing his best at SG and fatigue is a factor. He conserved more energy playing against smaller bodies.. Maximize Davis at sf whos shooting unconscious atm. Im seeing the white version of Kevin Durant on the spurs not playing enough.
These grades are pretty much spot on. Thanks for spending time on them timvp although the way they played last night it probably wasn't worth your time.
ppl haven't been able to figure out his issue in years
I agree... Start Davis at SF... been saying this for years
no excuse for this loss. Imho we looked just as if we were not mentally ready to fight...while the clippers came out of the gate strongly and were concentrate for all game long, despite some obvious flaw and misunderstandings...
DDR game simply looks not strong enough to compete phisically when the defense aggression is enhanced...that's a bad sign for his game as much as the compe ion goes stronger, aka play offs time. Only hope is that his body needs some resting time...considering his one on one offensive mid range game, that's his supposed strong point, needs a lot of energy and a perfect phisical shape.
and please somebody tell Engelland to spend some with Poeltl...in the past the guy had a decent mid range shot...now his free throws are going all too short or too long to the point that his contribution to the game is becoming negative for this reason only...
That good 20 game stretch might have just set this franchise back 10 years. It was expected for PATFO though. They don't care about what's good for the franchise. Can't let Pop end up in the lottery when he walks away. Just be good enough to get swept in the first round.
sorry but as of now Pop is the franchise...despite his luck with drafting players no way that we won what we won without him, and the winning mentality he build in 20 years is difficult to be replaced with a tanking mentality...and probably rightfully so. Till last month I was on then tanking bandwagon, but as of now it just don't make sense. I thought the decision about tanking or not would have been made by this period of the year...and our record (and calendar) says we have a more than decent chance to make the play offs. So, no reason to tank. That said, I'm frankly worried by DDR game...as much as I like the person I don't like his game (and frankly I think is a negative kind of game for play offs time)...so i would not be against trading him for the right package.
I disagree 100%. We win with Duncan and Parker. Period.
I'm done trying to predict this team. I felt so confident when we cut the lead to 3 points at the beginning of the 3rd quarter.
I got busy doing something else but i felt so sure the spurs were going to pull this out and probably have a nice 8 pt lead going into the 4th.
NOPE! i was like what the heck happened when i check back on the score.
Anyways, i predicted both the sixers and pelicans games as losses. I would be happy if we can at least win 1 of them.
timvp - this is my favorite Grades post of the season so far tbh
DDR carries himself like his dog just died.
You know you played like dog when you get an F from Timvp.
That's way too long of a period to try to use to draw conclusions. Since December 31, they are 7-4, a 52-win pace. They have wins over Toronto, Boston and OKC in that time. In the 12 games before that (going back to the start of their previous turnaround on 12/7), they were 9-3, with quality wins over the Lakers, Sixers and Nuggets. It's better to make the cut-off two weeks, where they are 4-4 and have two disappointing losses to counteract their quality home win and two quality road win.
The reality is that the Spurs going to an Aldridge-led offense has produced a 16-7 stretch, and it wasn't a hampering thing until DeMar fell off following the Raptors game. It's like all of his focus left him once he got that out of the way, or maybe like seeing Toronto without him brought him back to that creepy dark place he was in right after the trade. Normally, I'd want Pop to sit DeRozan, but who knows how that would affect him, and the long game needs him as a player.
I don't think there's reason to worry too much about the team's future outside of DeRozan. Team's haven't "figured the Spurs out". It wasn't schematic hocus pocus that caused the defensive rise in the first place. It was chemistry and effort from the players that did the most work, and that's sort of borked right now with DeRozan spiraling and the team having to figure out how Pau factors into the team going forward. This was the first game in a long time where they had Gasol, Gay and DeRozan all available. , Pau came back at the beginning of this 4-4 stretch, with the team being 2-2 both when Gasol starts and when he comes off the bench. There isn't a real sense of where the team is supposed to go with that either. They need time and practice. They'll get both with only one game between now and Saturday
We wouldnt have the winning culture if we didnt tank for timmy
We dont HAVE to play gasol...why does he deserve that privelige?
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