I know this was an early season game and it’s still November but I didn’t like how the Spurs played at all. An early season win is usually an early season win but this was a game the Spurs deserved to lose. They are lucky that the Seattle Supersonics are just a horrible team.
My problem was with the defense the Spurs played – or the lack thereof. Early in the game, the defense was downright horrible. The Sonics were given more open shots than the Spurs usually allow over the course of two weeks. The disappointing aspect of the poor defensively play was that the defense was soft. The Spurs were getting swallowed by screens or were going for steals instead of playing real defense. It was almost as if the Spurs felt bad early on for trying to defend against PJ Carlesimo's team, which is a rather weak excuse.
Yeah, I know it’s November and I know the Spurs won but I wasn’t happy at all with how they played.
As far as the Sonics are concerned, I wasn't impressed with them much either. Carlesimo has them playing almost zero defense. Instead, it’s like he ins uted a cheap rip off version of a Phoenix Suns-type philosophy. Wally Szczerbiak got going but that was mostly off of isolation moves. Kevin Durant might have had his best game as a pro, however he was far from impressive. He scored mostly due to bad Spurs defense and he just doesn’t look nearly as smooth as I expected him to look at the NBA level.
-Tim Duncan early on was one of the few Spurs who came out ready to play. He got his offense rolling early and kept it rolling for much of the game. Truth be told, however, that many of his baskets were the result of atrocious defense on the part of Seattle. To Duncan’s credit, he brought good energy and he had a couple stretches where he played decent defense. Duncan was one of the better Spurs tonight but it wasn’t really anything to write home about.
-First of all, it was nice to see Manu Ginobili bounce back from a tough shooting outing with a great shooting night. His stroke looked as good as it’s been all season, especially from beyond the arc. On the other hand, Ginobili’s defense was horrendous for most of the night. In the first half, he was consistently out of position and wasn’t fighting around picks. As the game progressed, he was on Durant at times and Durant ate him up. This was by far Ginobili’s worst defensive game of the season and was compounded by his lack of effort on the boards. Luckily, most of it was correctable and the Spurs rarely have to put him on a top flight scorer.
-Tony Parker had a decent game. His shooting percentage was down and that was mostly due to him not attacking the basket enough. Parker dribbled too much today and wasn’t as aggressive with his play as he’s been in recent games. His passing was pretty good as he finished with seven assists and two turnovers. However, he got in stretches where he wasn’t running the offense well at all. Defensively, the players he was assigned to guard didn’t do much of anything but that was more because of their lack of skill and opportunity than anything Parker did on that end of the court.
-Bruce Bowen’s defense in the first half was horrible. It was the worst defense I’ve seen him play since Adam Morrison lit him up last year. The bad part was a lot of it was laziness and not beating his opponent to positions on the court. The main player who was doing the damage against him was Szczerbiak, who Bowen allowed to repeatedly get good looks. You have to give some credit to Szczerbiak but Bowen’s defense was a huge part of the problem. Luckily, Bowen bounced back in the second half and played better. Not very good, but better.
-Michael Finely hit some nice shots from the outside. However, he too was a problem defensively. That said, Finley isn’t expected to be much of a defender and with everyone else playing bad defense, it probably made him look worse than he really was. Offensively, you can’t complain about him scoring 11 points in 19 minutes on 3-for-3 shooting from beyond the three-point line.
-Fabricio Oberto had a decent enough game. His rotations were slow at times but he led the team in rebounding with nine. He took advantage of the porous Sonics defense to get some easy baskets around the rim. Overall, Oberto has played well as of late and this wasn’t a step back from that.
-Brent Barry had another good outing. He continues to be a spark off the bench. Eight points, two rebounds and two assists in 16 minutes is about all you can ask out of Barry. His defense wasn’t anything special but he was one of the few who brought energy to that end of the court.
-You know the Spurs defense is playing poorly when Matt Bonner is played big minutes because of his defense. But you have to give credit to Bonner who had been playing so bad as of late that he found himself out of the rotation. Tonight his energy defensively and on the boards was needed and Pop rewarded him with 23 minutes. Offensively, Bonner was efficient shooting the ball and even chipped in with three assists.
-Even Jacque Vaughn appeared a step slow defensively. Not that Vaughn is a very good defender but he usually gives good effort. That effort wasn’t overly apparent tonight. On the offensive end of the court, Vaughn was 0-for-1 from the field with three assists – the type of line you like to see out of Vaughn.
-I’m not sure exactly what is wrong with Francisco Elson. Either his eye is bothering him, he’s sick or his head is elsewhere but he gave a pretty pathetic effort in his limited time on the court. Hopefully there is a reason for it because Elson has now taken a dramatic fall from how well he was playing earlier in the season.
-Ime Udoka got an early look after Pop decided to bench Bowen in the first half due to Bowen’s lackluster defense. Udoka responded by allowing Szczerbiak to hit yet another shot. Hopefully one of these times Pop puts Udoka out there early in a game Udoka does something to earn minutes. As of now, Udoka hasn’t earned anything more than his spot on the bench.
-I don’t know whether to blame Pop or praise Pop. The Spurs playing too soft and nice against Carlesimo’s Sonics might be traced back to Pop who some contend struggles with putting personal relationships on the back burner and concentrating on winning games. Some point to that as reason why the Spurs lost to the Mavericks in 2006 (Avery Johnson) and almost lost to the Pistons in 2005 (Larry Brown). On the good side, Pop’s adjustment to send a double-team trap at Durant basically won the game. Durant wasn’t able to try to use his advantage over whoever was guarding him and instead was forced to do something he does painfully bad – pass the ball. Pop also benched players for poor defense and gave extended minutes to Bonner after Bonner brought some toughness to the lineup, so Pop handled that part of the game nicely. Bottomline though is the Spurs should never play this pathetically defensively, even in a game that barely counts and is against an old friend.
I'm not sure how much PJ can do when his roster is counting on so many poor defenders to be key cogs in the team's rotations.
I'm sorry Texas fans, I don't care who voted who first team all defense last year, KD was a bad defender in college and he's a bad defender in the pros.
Mike Brown's CavaliersThe Spurs playing too soft and nice against Carlesimo’s Sonics might be traced back to Pop who some contend struggles with putting personal relationships on the back burner and concentrating on winning games. Some point to that as reason why the Spurs lost to the Mavericks in 2006 (Avery Johnson) and almost lost to the Pistons in 2005 (Larry Brown).
oops....
Starting a thread within a thread. Please get well soon Robert. Too much Bonner. He's hurting more than he's helping. Its pathetic how defenses exploit him every night and he fouls almost every time someone comes inside to him in the paint. Anyone but Bonner. I hope that sticks. Pastey better never see the light of day on minutes in the home stretch and if he does he better stay outside the 3 pt line. Curse management for extending this guy.
Timvp, what is harder to do? Grades or Game Thoguhts?
Yeah the 12 points 6 rebounds hustle he brought tonight is not needed whatso ever.Starting a thread within a thread. Please get well soon Robert. Too much Bonner. He's hurting more than he's helping. Its pathetic how defenses exploit him every night and he fouls almost every time someone comes inside to him in the paint. Anyone but Bonner. I hope that sticks. Pastey better never see the light of day on minutes in the home stretch and if he does he better stay outside the 3 pt line. Curse management for extending this guy
Genius
The only guy I've seen Pop go stupid against for what were probably personal reasons was AJ...the Pistons were the defending champions and were built to match up with the Spurs, not to mention the fact that Brown's teams are notoriously resilient in the post season.
I didn't watch this game, but I have read about 30 articles talking about how beloved PJ was by players on the team...perhaps they had more to do with it than Pop himself.
Quite simply, he's a defensive liability. Can't say the entire team wasnt this particular game, but it makes me cringe when tim is playing perfectly good defense on Chris Wilcox and Bonner comes over the back on a foul. It happens every F'n time with this guy. Every team exploits Bonner with match ups. Who's scared of him? Be a Bonner apologist all you want.Yeah the 12 points 6 rebounds hustle he brought tonight is not needed whatso ever.
Genius
Kevin Garnett.
I blame the schedule. When you play so many teams back-to-back that are all offense/no defense teams, eventually your stars get too comfortable playing at the fast pace and concentrate less on defense. And every team we play is worse than the last, so every game we get less concerned with defense, just thinking it's okay, we'll shoot our way to a victory.
This is why Pop feels more comfortable when we're scoring in the low 90s than the mid 100s.
I don't know how much better it's going to get against Sacramento tomorrow. The guys need to play a tough meat and potatoes kinda team like Detroit or Utah.
Duncan and Bonner both hacked Wilcox on the arm.Quite simply, he's a defensive liability. Can't say the entire team wasnt this particular game, but it makes me cringe when tim is playing perfectly good defense on Chris Wilcox and Bonner comes over the back on a foul. It happens every F'n time with this guy. Every team exploits Bonner with match ups. Who's scared of him? Be a Bonner apologist all you want.
Go ahead and be a blind Bonner hater.
I blame the schedule. When you play so many teams back-to-back that are all offense/no defense teams, eventually your stars get too comfortable playing at the fast pace and concentrate less on defense. And every team we play is worse than the last, so every game we get less concerned with defense, just thinking it's okay, we'll shoot our way to a victory.
This is why Pop feels more comfortable when we're scoring in the low 90s than the mid 100s.
I don't know how much better it's going to get against Sacramento tomorrow. The guys need to play a tough meat and potatoes kinda team like Detroit or Utah.
It doesn't get better.
Sacramento tommarow, wednesday vs the Wizards.
Tomorrow will be another tough game, because of Pop's soft spot for Beno.
Im hoping for many and thousands of backcourt presses.
Gauranteed to ruin him for the rest of the season.
That isn't what I saw. But I won't battle blog you over it. Agree to disagree!
On that play towards the end...WTF was he going to do...leave the guy open on the perimeter? He had to switch because the other defender got away from the guy with the ball.
Bonner has good games and yet after every "good game" people say "He finally had a good game." Makes no ing sense.
HE'S NEVER GOING TO BE HORRY. PERIOD. But knock down your 3's, hustle on rebounding/defense, and it's all good.
With Beno gone, everyone wants to jump on the next player they can find to fill the spot imo.
Last edited by Walter Craparita; 11-26-2007 at 01:45 AM.
Also, the Spurs are so deep that they can get by 85% of the other teams without playing good defense.
We are in trouble if they keep winning but not improving on defense. Luckily, with a 4 time NBA champ team that obviously won't happen.
I noticed Tony was shooting his jumper getting way up, straight up, under control, pulling his legs up for a little more hang time (which he has started to do on his layups), and releasing right at top dead center. He usually has been shooting by weak girly-jumping and shooting forward rather than jumping straight up and shooting up.
His jumper just looked so different and much better tonight.
Of course you didn't see it that way, cause you have a hatred for Bonner.That isn't what I saw. But I won't battle blog you over it. Agree to disagree!
I thought it was a nice win for the Spurs. This is during this incredibly busy stretch with game after game and b2b after b2b, so I don't expect the defense to be there in playoff or finals form for some of these games. The Spurs were able to take a night off, have some fun, fill it up, play defense when they needed to to get and maintain a 7 to 12 pt lead, and get a road win. Give the Sonics credit. The Spurs didn't go balls out defensively against them but the Sonics moved the ball fairly well at times and knocked down looks at a high clip - some contested fairly well and some not. They played one of their best games of the season and they played hard, the difference was the Spurs have the offense going at a level to dispose of this level of team with only playing defense in spots. They have to get that defense ramped up come March/April, but I have no doubt that they will do that. The question is whether their offense will be this sharp and shooting this good at that time too, because that will make them nearly unbeatable in a 7 game series no matter who they play.
I think the original intention was to let the SuperSonics win. Poor PJ!
Thanks Timvp. Nice thoughts, i agree that the defense was horrible.
I also dont understand why Elson cant catch a ball.
I hope he gets better, because we need his athletism.
Nice work timvp.
And good post, BeerIsGood, I agree.
However, I saw the second half, and something I noticed was that we don't seem to know how to get inside on a zone. Thankfully we have a great 3pt shooting team, so zone busting playing outside isn't very difficult, but on a night when the 3s aren't falling I worry about us vs a zone. Tonight TP overdribbled against the zone and there weren't enough cutters. You have to throw 2-3 dummy cutters through a zone to get them out of shape and create a space down low, but we didn't do that at all.
Anyway, things aren't too bad when you can beat a lesser team like this and still say there's a mile of improvement yet to come (which there is on D, certainly).
Good times.
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