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No something has to be done and thats a pretty good idea, it would be really good if Barry would actually show up.
Mike D'Antoni made the first major adjustment in this series by going big by starting Kurt Thomas. It forced the Spurs to change much of their Game 1 strategy.
Now Pop and the Spurs have to respond. Here's an idea I've been kicking around -- although I'm not totally in love with it.
When the Suns put Thomas and Stoudemire on the court at the same time, perhaps the Spurs can counter with:
Parker
Ginobili
Barry
Finley
Duncan
Yes, it's the dreaded small ball lineup, but this time it actually makes sense. What the goal of it would be is to force Stoudemire to guard a perimeter player and force Nash to guard an offensive threat. If Stoudemire is out on the perimeter defending Finley or Barry, not only do I think they'll get open shots, but it'll give Duncan more room to operate down low.
The common concerns with small ball are rebounding and post defense, but I don't see that as being a huge problem. Thomas isn't a post player, so you can stick a small player on him. Not only that, Finley has a history of guarding Stoudemire surprisingly well.
The Suns aren't a very good rebounding team so as long as the Spurs crash the boards, I think both teams should be rebounding at about the same clip.
There are a couple flaws in this counter adjustment. First of all, it assumes that Barry will play like a capable offensive threat. If he's not going to produce offensively, the Suns will be able to hide Nash or maybe even Stoudemire on him. If Barry fails, the Spurs could sub in Bowen who had a pretty good offensive Game 2, but that wouldn't have quite the desired effect since Nash can guard Bowen.
Another flaw is it could lead to more fouls on Duncan. That could be solved by putting Duncan on Thomas and hoping that Finley can reasonably guard Stoudemire.
Overall, this would be a high-risk, high-reward counter adjustment. I'm not sure if I endorse it, but if it's working right, it'd force D'Antoni to make a lineup adjustment and force Nash and Stoudemire to play defense.
Would anyone like to see this adjustment or do you prefer the Spurs keep doing what they're doing in hopes that Game 2 was a fluke?
Questions.
No something has to be done and thats a pretty good idea, it would be really good if Barry would actually show up.
I would like to see this in medium doses. The players should be more familiar with small ball this time around than last year against Dallas on the fly. One thing I would like the Spurs to do is run and push the tempo. I feel a lot more comfortable with small ball this season ONLY because we've been tinkering with it all season long.
I agree with the rationale behind your suggestion. In practise though, it depends on whether Nash can defend Barry and Amare Finley. Also, if DA is gutsy enough he might bench Amare for a stretch and insert Diaw. And Diaw looks like he could abuse your suggested small lineup at will.
But if the Spurs force the Suns to pull Amare, that's reason enough to test out the lineup.
LJ, why not replace barry with Horry?
he gives us that extra defensive presence
would this not work with what you said?
In theory, Stoudemire would have a tougher time guarding Barry than Horry. If Barry is at his best, I don't think Stoudemire can guard him. On the other hand, Stoudemire can guard Horry.
But yeah, more of Horry would at least keep Stoudemire out of the paint defensively.
I was going to suggest Horry instead of Barry as well.
Why should a championship caliber team make adjustments to play a couple of guys who get a few lucky shots to fall here and there, and play high school ball?
I like your idea...
But it requires mainly one thing on the offensive end : Manu and Tony being aggressive.
I mean you have two good shooters to spread the floor, a low post presence (or THE guy for the highs s/r) but you gotta have these two guys to attack the rim to take advantage of this lineup... a thing we haven't seen so far in this series.
but if you have only one of the two doing it they'll put bell on him and that's it...
Concerning the other side of the court who could guard Amare/Thomas since we'll have only 1 big on the court? I read that you saidf finley could do the job on amare... well if he's one on one right now I seriously think he'd abuse fin...
But yeah i'd give the small ball a try... but not sure we wouldn't be ok if the big 3 shows up all in the same game... and on the court TOGETHER.
From the Spurs' perspective, I could see why you like this idea. A few drawbacks:
-Thomas, Marion, and Stoudemire would outrebound that lineup, and I don't think the Suns have lost a game this year when they outrebounded their opponent.
-Even if Stoudemire is taken out of the game, Diaw is excellent against a smaller defender. Finley, Ginobili, or Barry cannot guard him.
-Who would guard Kurt Thomas?
-It would leave with you a bench of: Horry, Bowen, Oberto, Elson. Not much offense coming from those four.
I'm more worried about this starting lineup:
Duncan-Finley-Ginobili-Bowen-Parker
That would force Amare to guard Finley, thus limiting his effectiveness on the glass. You'd still have Barry and Horry coming off the bench; assuming that one of those two hits their 3's, you'd still have some offense off the bench. Plus, if you take Bowen out of the starting lineup, you'd put a weaker defender on both Marion and Nash.
boy we are just counting them days down.. I know its because of the houston and jazz series, but it think we should have to wait this long for game 3.
I'm calling it now: The Suns are a fluke team.
who the that is a casual fan would watch a NBA game on a saturday night at 8 pm eastern!?!?!?boy we are just counting them days down.. I know its because of the houston and jazz series, but it think we should have to wait this long for game 3.
The game should've been on thursday and then game 4 on sunday
abc is ridiculous
I wasn't proposing a new starting lineup. Just a lineup to throw at the Suns to see how they'd react.
The Spurs' small ball lineup can rebound against non physical teams. And again, anything the Spurs do to force Diaw in and Stoudemire out is a plus.
Ah, I gotcha. I imagine that if the Spurs' small-ball lineup turned out to be effective, D'Antoni would take Thomas out. Then, any combination of Amare, Marion, Jones, Diaw, Barbosa, Bell, and Nash would work. Taking Thomas out of the game would hurt the Suns more than it would help.
However, I just don't think the Spurs can be as effective as the Suns at playing small-ball.
Duncan-Parker-Ginobili-Bowen-Finley is the needed started lineup.
You guys make basketball so difficult.
Oh no, Kurt Thomas might block Vinny Del Negro, so we have to go to our small ball defensive tackle lineup with Chuck Person coming off the bench in the 5th quarter, but then we have to make some defensive adjustments down the stretch. small ball!
I hope Elson starts. Why does Pop put so much faith in the guy?
Here's a question thats been tossed around in this forum.
Is it time to put Manu Ginobili back in the starting line-up??
I figured that since beside Barbosa, the suns really dont have much of a bench and before I go into a debate with one of these damn sun trolls, in the playoff, teams usually shorten their rotation so the suns wont be looking to rely on their back-ups anyway.
That being said, why not match the suns big guns with all the spurs big guns?
Personally, I think it's about time to put Ginobili back in the starting line-up.
Reason why is because he's been in a slump lately and I think starting him may get him going and I truely believe he will be the deciding factor in this series.
Good take L.J.
You've been right so far in the playoffs bro.
I've been trying to figure that out since September.
Going small against the suns is not a good idea. The only reason small ball is effective for teams is because of them having superior athletes. The spurs don't have that so they gotta play big. Stoudemire has no problem guarding the perimeter by the way unless it is a really good perimeter player. It also hurts the spurs depth as they get no boost from the bench.
It's absolutely time to put Manu back in the starting line-up, but not at Finley's expense. I think Pop has to seriously trim Bowen's minutes in this series. The best way to wear down Nash is to make him guard somebody and putting Bowen on the court doesn't accomplish that. Bowen hasn't shown he can guard Nash at all and any guard on our team can shut down Marion as long as we get back in transition.
Put Manu and Finley on the floor and relentlessly attack Nash, whoever he's guarding. Literally go at him every ing play. Barbosa too. I'm tired of trying to score with Parker against Marion, Manu against Bell and Duncan against Thomas. Those are their three best defenders. Let's attack their weak links. Let's make them help and double team and scramble all over the place. The Warriors and the Jazz were aggressively going to the paint today, and GS didn't even care about Kirilenko. We have to have that same mentality.
From a strategy standpoint, playing Fin and Manu together forces the Suns to play Marion and Bell together. But they still want to play Barbosa to play his 30+ minutes too. So Marion+Bell+Barbosa+Nash means no more big ball for the Suns. We should try to limit Marion playing SF for them as much as possible.
Nash would guard Finley. Finley is not that good at creating off the dribble. I don't think he is good enough to exploit that matchup. The only thing I agree with is starting Ginobili.
Another drawback to the Spurs' small-ball lineup. The smaller you go, the more effective Nash, Barbosa, and Stoudemire all become. Nash can pretty much penetrate at will, and with Bowen on the bench, his job will only be made that much easier. No one on that lineup but Duncan can guard Amare, which puts Duncan in danger of foul trouble, and it forces a small forward to guard Thomas/Diaw.
The Suns are 8-0 this season with their current lineup, but according to 82games.com, the Suns are most effective with these two lineups:
Nash-Barbosa-Bell-Marion-Stoudemire
Nash-Bell-Diaw-Marion-Stoudemire
If the Spurs go small, I imagine D'Antoni will be happy to oblige. The Spurs need to focus on winning the rebounding war by a considerable margin, which they won't do if they trot out small lineups often.
I'm not crazy about the Idea of the Spurs going small against the Suns. One of the big keys to beating Phoenix is out-rebounding Phoenix and controlling the game pace, and that's tougher for the Spurs small line-up because they're not great rebounders.
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