the first half had some of the sorriest basketball I've ever seenEspecially the non-shooting bench line up did it again. At least we were able to beat the Jazz, but beating any other NBA team will be extremely difficult with how these guys are playing. At least Zollins should make it to Shaqtin' with that airball.
utah is another bottom 5 team, but i'll take the positives and not mae too much of the negatives, there is a lot of room to improve on the shooting department, but all the rest is consistently at least acceptable, and talent is on our side.
That Castle/Wesley/Jeremy/Keldon/Collins lineup is absolutely killing us every game, but Pop is going to keep using it.
At least Mamu got actual minutes this time.
Our guys shaped up some in the second and took what was given to them, but that first half was absolutely dreadful. That was some of the worst basketball I’ve ever seen. The threes taken were embarrassing. There was no ball movement and no attempt to get the easy shot. They almost looked like they were sabotaging or something out there. This win didn’t instill a ton of confidence tbh.
You take wins and you use the momentum of that second half.
Why is pop playing these terrible spacing lineups?
Pop is too stubborn to admit his style of coaching is outdated....too stubborn to overhaul the roster...he wants to prove he can win with these guys just to stick it to everyone and show he is smarter than us....but that won't happen and he is sabotaging wembys career in the process...imagine if womb had an actual modern NBA coach and a roster surrounded by 3 point shooters...with the spacing he would have, and his passing ability, he would be unstoppable
he wants to prove he can win his way...which made sense in 2003
Fairly disheartening. Utah is in full tank mode already, so it was a scheduled win.
Chris Paul is amazing. So assured. Really is one of the best points we've ever seen.
What the is going on with Wembanyama? Why is it his thing to shoot five three pointers to start games? When are they going to address his awful shot selection and force defenses to actually make decisions and react to a real attack? Vic's bad IQ here almost guarantees we're playing from behind every game. Holy .
Branham is getting after people defensively and that's what I like. He's so improved in this quarter. Keep it up. Next steps is getting aggressive scoring. Not sure he has the mentality, would be nice.
Castle is still growing. Getting rookie calls that are irritating. Needs to learn his limitations, like, don't drive into the arms of Kessler. Too limited as a scorer at this point, when we need it, but a strong defender and good passer.
The rest, not worth talking about.
You could contribute better than that shiet.
The Jazz didn't cross-guard their bigs last night. That meant Victor could go up against Kessler and Sochan had to go up against Filipowski/ Williams. I think we saw more of what the Spurs want to happen with Victor (though Kessler is truly not an NBA player despite Ainge apparently wanted multiple firsts for him), but Sochan didn't have the space he had likely grown accustomed to having. He hasn't been great offensively this year, as I've talked about a bit recently. He hasn't been awful, but it's more like he's been completely average for the number of touches he's using. I like his confidence, but I don't know if the Spurs can stop the cross-guarding if Jeremy can't compliment his floor game with high-volume shooting with above-average efficiency.
As I mentioned in the game thread, I did see some actual progress with Victor as a screen-setter. Crouching to set screens is a good idea if the officials allow it, though getting the timing down to factor in the extra movement is going to be a work in progress. In general, Wemby played with more energy and against a team uninterested in actually trying to stop him. That said, it's not like just anyone else is going to put up those numbers in favorable cir stances. Victor is superlative, and we'll see if the Spurs can find ways to maintain the balance between his freelancing and his progress toward learning the real basics of his position.
It helped Victor that Paul had a good game. A two-man game doesn't work nearly as well when one player isn't a threat to score. Paul also becoming more assertive on offense is going to help limit the opportunities for Wemby to break off sets and probably ease Victor's concern about not being the initiator. It's going to be very interesting to see what Paul's "average" game is this year. It's probably not the double-double he got last night. But hopefully it's not the no-scoring games we saw to begin the year. Paul is averaging 11/4/8 in about 29 minutes. That feels sustainable, though we'll see how he holds up and if Jones and Castle push down those Paul minutes. Are those stats good enough? If Vassell can come back and maintain his floor game and play-making, it might be. If Paul has to be the lead initiator for the team, that feels subpar.
After starting off the year looking hot, Champ has done nothing to keep his rotation spot. While it's likely he's going to just be benched when Vassell comes back, he's not guaranteed to knock out Wesley, Branham AND Mamukelashvili for the 10th spot. I don't think Johnson's anywhere near a position to lose his spot, despite the calls on this site. Vassell should eat into his minutes, though, and might take his closing spot.
It’s progress. 100% we lose this game last year. Winning games where you play bad, even against crap teams, is a step forward.
As mentioned in the game thread, it was horrible to see a 3pt chucking game, 4 for 13 by Wemby. Still with Wemby’s height and ability to knockdown 3 pointers without a hand in his face, and if he could get close to Curry’s 40% 3pt shooting, Wemby will unstoppable and will open lanes for the likes of Sochan to drive to the basket. Wemby is an anomaly and so Pop might still letting him do things that we might not be accustomed to seeing from a big man. So I’m trying to see from that side. The 5X5 would be a pretty common thing the more he gets stronger. I don’t doubt it.
Champ needs to be hurling 10+ attempts. He’s a SG and that’s his primary duty. I appreciate the defense but if he’s not scoring enough, he’s not helping Wemby to get open.
I expect Sochan to get this kind of game without truly a go-to move to get points. With Champ not scoring for Vassell, he is doing trying to do too much and sometimes it becomes ugly. I just can’t wait for Vassell to see the team works in full force.
Nice to see Wemby bounce back, even against a trash team.
He seems to have taken a solid jump this year in rebounding skills and timing. Defensive timing is back in line as well, and happy to see he’s going for weak side blocks ala Ibaka.
If we’re going to be any better this year we need that CP3. Also if he wants to get traded to a contender in Feb.
Castle had a bad game, but felt like he figured out late game he’s gotta go for those off ball cuts a lot more.
I didnt have my stopwatch, but it felt like Pop was playing Wemby and Sochan together a lot less last night, letting Sochan go for the main instigator in second unit. Will be interesting to keep an eye on.
Shoutout to Mamu for ballin out
I didn't see a lot of progress last night. Last year, Utah would have played to win, played Markannen, and not stuck Sexton on the bench. This game took Paul and... that's almost it.
I did really like the defensive unit there for a while - Castle, Sochan, Wemby, was tough for them to handle.
If you want the coaches to urge Wemby to play the traditional post, closer to the basket, you won't like Pop's statement after last night's Utah game:
"He's more of a perimeter player than he is a post player, and we want him to be able to do everything. Isolate, shoot, do the whole deal. We just can't do it all at once. It just depends on the situation and what's going on." - Coach Popovich
If Wemby's a perimeter player much of the time, it's going to hard for him to anchor a championship-level team.
If he's not consistently down low, it will be harder for him to be the focus of the offense, to make his teammates better, to use his unicorn abilities, his length, at point blank range.
If he's just another three point shooter, he's doing the defense a favor, they can relax and wait for rebounds -- Wemby won't be there to rebound and put back. No one can block his shot so the defender can preserve his energy and dare him, gentleman's agreement.
An inside-out offense is a more consistent offense. Wemby on the perimeter will require the Spurs to acquire more offensive stars to create their own shots. It will be more ad hoc with players unsure what to do or, even worse, standing around. It will largely neutralize Wemby's value (except as a defensive force).
The ball dies when Wemby dominates it outside. The offense stops and loses structure. Nothing consistent or duplicable happens to riff off of as the game moves forward. It's like the first unstructured posession over and over, basically anarchy.
When Pop said last year that he wanted to watch Wemby and "see what they had" rather than force a structure on him, I thought that was a great idea. I didn't realize that it might be the whole plan this year and perhaps, even worse, going forward.
Maybe Wemby will never be able to get down low and be the center of the offense, but at least they should try before the status quo becomes the default norm.
Wembanyama plays on offense like a small forward. I've said that time and again. He wants his shots in a lot of places where Kevin Durant wants his shots. In a certain sense, that's totally fine. Having a 7'6" small forward who plays more like a roaming center on defense is great. But he's not Durant as a shooter.
Again, I don't mind him putting up a few threes in the early minutes or throughout the first quarter. But you really must get the defense moving and having to make decisions. You need to activate your offense better than Wemby probing shots like he's Stephen Curry. A lot of them miss, the other team gets the boards, they start putting up points, and we're down twelve or fifteen.
The team needs to get into a rhythm as a unit, need to force the opposition to think on both sides of the floor, need to establish a basis of easier points and threats at multiple points on the floor. Maybe that changes with Vassell, but right now Wembanyama flinging five threes before doing anything else ain't cutting it. Teams would love for him to do this, and really good teams will never give that early lead back.
Wemby is just starting to get his rhythm and legs back from the longest season of his life. I can see the argument for him shooting 5 3's in the 1st qtr. If he makes 2 of them, the whole court opens up for the other 4 players.
It won't work every night, but, nothing really does. In a couple of weeks, I think Wemby and the team will have a clearer iden y.
His passing last night and the 2-man game with CP3 was Globetrotteresque against the hapless Jazz.
I've taken a step back from the ledge of the OKC game.
Absolutely horrible game against a team that looked like it had zero interest in being compe ive
I'll take it as an L probably would have killed their psyche but, jesus christ, I don't think anything they did against Utah is transferable against any competent NBA team tbh.
Scratch that, Mamu getting actual meaningful mins should be transferable. He should be eating into the Keldon mins but i won't complain if he plays at the expense of Wesley or Zollins obviously. He's one of the few players on the roster with any semblance of BBIQ tbh.
The first half was, again, a show. Yet we made a big run and held the lead. There's plenty of positives to take from this.
As for Wemby's shot selection, it's on Wemby to decide how he wants to play. Pop can coach him, but forcing him to be this inside-out big is not at all what Wemby himself wants to do. That's the facts - deal with 'em.
I continue and will continue to believe the best spot for him to grow into is the Dirk/DRob high post/top of the key position.
Last year, Utah probably wins this one by double digits
100%. We had zero ability to dig out of double digit deficits, even against bad teams. This probably should have been a 30 point win, but we dug out of the hole, and dug Utah their own hole.
DPOY performance from Wemby. and i never thought, for one second, that KJ was going to be an adequate fill-in for Devin.
Abysmal first half, great second half.
Pop needs to stop playing these Wesley/Castle/Collins lineups, it is absolutely putrid on offense. It's like the inverse of the Forbes/Belinelli/Mills lineups we hated so much
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
