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here's the actual story:
Dull Spurs could be in trouble
Charley Rosen / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 11 hours ago
Heading into Friday's action, discerning NBA watchers are only minimally impressed by San Antonio's second-best-in-the-West record of 41-12.
The truth is that the Spurs haven't been especially sharp for weeks.
They play brilliantly but only in spurts, and their renowned teamwork is likewise a sometimes thing. More often than not, San Antonio's success so far has been based on the individual efforts of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. The team is winning, but not playing Spurs basketball. Even Gregg Popovich is bothered by his team's lack of championship-caliber play.
So, what's going on in San Antonio? Are the various early-season injuries (most significantly to Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili) the culprits? There's been time enough for Michael Finley and Nick Van Exel to fit in with Pop's game plan, but are these two guys simply over the hill? Do the Spurs lack a killer instinct? Or is it just that the playoffs are still two months away and the defending champs are biding their time?
Perhaps Friday's 83-80 win in Memphis can provide some clues.
First Quarter
An unmitigated disaster.
Tony Parker was too short on a lob pass he tossed into Tim Duncan, who was fronted in the low post. Parker also forced a drive and committed a charge. (These accounted for two of his total of five turnovers.) Then he missed a rushed 20-footer. TP's off-kilter performance continued for the entire game — forcing dribble penetrations, making silly passes (once trying to zip the ball through a triple-team while he was airborne) and inappropriately buzzing around the ball on defense.
It seemed as though Parker reverted to the undisciplined antics that characterized his game when he first came into the league. No surprise, then, that Pop sat him for nearly half of the fourth quarter.
Ginobili wasn't much better at the outset. Missing easy shots (he finished 3-of-9 from the field), firing a 100 mph pass at a teammate who was barely five feet away. Except for a couple of outstanding defensive rotations, he was a total non-factor.
Bruce Bowen couldn't find the range — missing a pair of treys, an 18-footer and tossing up an airball from 15 feet (2-of-6 overall). He was also tagged with a tech when he bumped Mike Miller on the side of the baseline (a good call), which was protested too vigorously. Bowen, likewise, had his hands full trying to defend both Miller and Eddie Jones. Particularly when the Grizzlies' wingmen cut toward the middle off a baseline screen, then reversed their direction and re-used the screen to pop toward the ball.
Rasho Nesterovic made bad passes, played no defense and missed shots. But his beard was neatly trimmed.
Duncan played a so-so quarter — scoring on a screen/roll, hitting a right-hand flip after driving into the lane from the left box (and not being two-timed) and spinning around a double-team to draw a foul (and bury both free throws).
But the Spurs couldn't establish any kind of offensive flow. When their various cross-screens and staggered-screens failed to generate open looks, they always resorted to some kind of high S/R — with meager results.
Manu Ginobili had a helter-skelter first half. (Nikki Boertman / Associated Press)
Midway through the quarter, they went seven minutes without a field goal. This kind of dead stretch is exactly what used to plague the Spurs in their most recent non-championship seasons. For sure, Memphis did a grand job of clogging the middle and reducing the Spurs' offense to hit-or-miss (they were 4-of-20 in the opening period and finished at 35.8 percent for the game) perimeter shots, but San Antonio showed a surprising lack of intensity on both ends.
Whenever Memphis took the time and care to make an extra pass, they always wound up with open looks. Also, the Grizzlies hustled in transition much more than did the Spurs.
End of one: Memphis, 23-12.
Second Quarter
The momentum of the entire game turned on a bad call at the 10:51 mark: Ginobili was chasing Miller through a series of screens, the last of which was set by Pau Gasol. Instead of trying to maneuver himself over under the screen, Ginobili simply smashed right into Gasol like a halfback blocking a linebacker.
Miller nailed the resulting 3-ball, but Gasol was whistled for setting a moving screen. An atrocious call that soon brought another whistle, this one nailing a tech on an outraged Mike Fratello. From that point on, the Spurs sharpened their game and immediately cut their deficit to six points.
Parker continued his erratic, immature play. Duncan was routinely double-teamed, and his only basket in the quarter was a put-back.
Ginobili buried two home-run-balls, but he missed a layup and threw another faulty pass. Bowen was useless. Michael Finley had a dunk on a back-cut, and converted a fast-break layup but also missed five perimeter shots (3-of-12 for the game); and, like Bowen, he couldn't navigate his way through the Grizzlies' screens.
Nick Van Exel knocked down a 3-ball, but he played horrible defense and threw a pass to a ghost. (Nick the No-Longer-Quick never got off the bench in the second half.) Beno Udrih made several misguided decisions on defense and was chewed out by Pop during a timeout. Nazr Mohammed also failed to distinguish himself. But Brent Barry hit a floater, and then a trey — and, during his brief rotation, noticeably energized his team.
On one sequence, San Antonio showed a 1-2-2 zone that forced Memphis into a shot-clock violation. And if their offense remained out of synch, the Spurs' defense picked up the pace — forcing numerous turnovers and taking full advantage of most of them.
Halftime: Memphis, 38-33.
Third Quarter
Here's when San Antonio began to take over the game.
Parker continued to be scatter-brained. Bowen and Ginobili only contributed a 3-ball each. Barry, Mohammed and Finley were scoreless. And TD's offense was limited to a single layup. Indeed, in mid-quarter, the Spurs misfired on 11 consecutive shots. Their best offensive weapons were offensive rebounds (15 for the game against the Grizzlies' six).
Their offense did revive somewhat when Pop went to a small lineup — Ginobili, Barry, Finley, Udrih and Fabricio Oberto. This particular crew manifested excellent ball movement, and, with four of them able to dribble-penetrate, forced the Grizzlies' defense to scramble.
Even so, it was the Spurs' defense that took command of the game. Whatever lineup Pop put on the floor, San Antonio's defensive rotations were superb. Anticipating cuts, drives, spins. Forcing the Grizzlies to drive baseline, then squeezing with a big and shifting everyone else into passing lanes. For the entire game, the Spurs totaled only 10 poor rotations and (discounting the rare double-team) 24 excellent ones. Sometimes Memphis failed to score in the former and did score in the latter. But the two dozen model-rotations did produce five steals, three blocked shots, two turnovers and two charging fouls (both of these drawn by Ginobili). This was the recipe that enabled the Spurs to overcome a stubborn Memphis defense and eventually prevail.
After three: Spurs, 57-49.
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Fourth Quarter
More of the same.
The Spurs were all over the offensive glass, and their quick-helping defense sapped the home team's energy; and Memphis began committing unforced turnovers. (The combination of San Antonio's offensive rebounds and Grizzlies' turnovers enabled the visitors to total 81 shots to the home team's 56.)
On offense, both Bowen and Finley hit longballs. Duncan made several nifty moves (against single-coverage by Gasol) in the low post. Parker re-entered the game midway through the quarter and immediately made another foolish in-the-air pass before finally bagging a pull-up jumper from the foul line. Even Oberto turned an offensive rebound into a basket and also scored on a cut-and-catch.
Even though TD missed five free throws at the end of the game, the Spurs led 78-70 with less than a minute remaining; the game seemed to be in the bag. But then, instead of putting Memphis to sleep, the Spurs lapsed into a deep sleep.
Lazy defense and careless passing against Memphis' rather loose traps, resulted in 3-pointers by Miller and Shane Battier. When Memphis was forced to foul ASAP, Ginobili made only three of four. With the Spurs leading 81-79, rookie Hakim Warrick zipped to the hoop, was fouled in the act by Duncan and, with 2.5 seconds left, was awarded two free throws. But the rookie missed the second, and the game was done and won by the defending champs.
So, what generalizations can we arrive at on the basis of this particular ball game?
Van Exel is ready for the glue factory, and Finley is on the verge.
Parker still has trouble maintaining the proper focus.
Perhaps the edge of Bowen's sharp defense is begging to be blunted.
Barry needs more burn.
Udrih makes too many mistakes.
Oberto's shooting range is three feet, Mohammed's is five feet, and neither they nor Nesterovic can guard bigs who possess even a modi of mobility.
Ginobili seems reluctant to drive headlong into the paint.
Any team that fails to two-time Duncan whenever he touches the ball in the vicinity of the lane is foolish.
Also, the Spurs' half-court offense has become highly predictable. Dump the ball into TD. Or run some cross-screens for Duncan, Finley or Ginobili. Or give Ginobili or Parker a high-screen, station any tandem of Bowen-Finley-Barry-Ginobili-Parker along the baselines, and look to execute a drive-and-dish.
It certainly does appear that the Spurs are playing just hard enough to win. And that they believe they can turn on the switch whenever a ball game is on the line. So far, so good, although Popovich certainly isn't thrilled by their up-and-down performances. But, hey, that's what happens to defending champs, and that's why so few of them repeat.
The Spurs, however, are advised to get their stuff together in a hurry. Because, should Dallas win the top seed and gain the home-court advantage in the Western Conference Playoffs, the hungry Mavs just might be sharp enough to dull the Spurs and ride off into the sunset with at least the Western Conference le.
Charley Rosen is FOXSports.com's NBA analyst and author of 13 books about hoops, the current one being "The pivotal season — How the 1971-72 L.A. Lakers changed the NBA."
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I knew somebody would say something about that. Too funny.
