OK, so I'm up here in exile, and this was one of the few opportunities I've had to watch the 2007 Spurs play, rather than just obsessively following the games on the internet. Here's my thoughts:
1. This was an Important Win for the Spurs. Seriously. They shot the ball badly, and not because the Lakers played great defense (though they were pretty good) because Manu was missing shots he usually makes, Parker was missing his teardrop, Barry was missing 3's. Yet they stuck with their defense and found a way to grind out the win. Which is what Pop has been preaching to them all season.
2. The backup PG situation is DIRE. We all know this, but seriously. I was so ready to throttle Beno Udrih watching him jack up bad 3's and make bad decisions Jacque Vaughn was better defensively but didn't seem to know what to do with the ball. We need to either bring in a new PG or start using Barry or Manu as our backup PG.
3. The Lakers made a lot of tough shots. A lot of people are clamouring for Bowen's head because of some of the monster games guys he's guarding are having, so I was watching to see if he seemed like he's missed a step. He hasn't. He was making Kobe make tough plays and take tough shots, and did a solid job on Odom too, a guy who probably outweighs him by 50 pounds. What he did do is never going to be visible in a stat line - he made Kobe get out of sync with his teammates, and the other Spurs kept up their defense. I saw a lot of lucky shots fall for the Lakers today, and a lot of easy shots rattle out for the Spurs, and they still managed to eke out the win.
All in all, a good game, but an ugly game. Exactly the kind of Spurs ball I want to see as we approach the second half of the season. I hope the rodeo road trip will see this team play more of this ball, and see this team come together. I'm hopeful.
Phil knows the Spurs very well. I think the way he schemes against the Spurs has a lot to do with it. TP and Manu had few lanes to the basket from what I saw. Bynum's length and the fact he doesn't go for TD's pump fakes made TD shoot some tough shots.
Pop can't do worse that what he is doing now. Choosing Beno as the backup and subbing him for the second half when he sucks in the first hal make no sense : it only hurt Beno's confidence that is very fragile and Vaughn sucks too because he needs to play more if he wants to be confident with Spurs' system.
He needs to choose between :
- Trusting Beno and not benching him after an horrible first half.
- Not trusting Beno. Vaughn should be the full time backup PG in this case and I think he will do a decent job like he ahs done in the past with numerous teams.
i hope he will make his choice before the end of February.
PS : Before people jump at me, it wasn't a post to defend Beno. He is too inconsistent to be defended.
eventually pop has to pull the plug on the beno experiment. it is a complete failure.
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