After Beno’s Revenge in Sacramento on Monday, it was good to get a win against the Washington Wizards at home. The Wizards were without Gilbert Arenas AKA Agent Zero but they played the Spurs tough. I was impressed by their team play and their defense wasn’t as horrible as usual. (In fact, Agent Zero [that number, coincidentally, also quantifies how much Arenas cares about setting up his teammates] usually plays horrible at San Antonio, so I was a bit sad he was out.)
The Spurs came into the game looking to improve their defense. To begin the game, the defense was worse than ever. The Wizards were shooting north of 63% at one point in the second quarter. Luckily, the Spurs defense started to show up and the Wizards ended up shooting 46.7% from the field. While that number isn’t much to write home about, it’s a step in the right direction.
-Tim Duncan had a Tim-Duncan-in-November type outing. He put in minimal effort still finished with decent numbers. 16 points and seven rebounds on 8-for-13 shooting are numbers he can put up in his sleep -- and he did just that tonight. Duncan turned up his intensity here and there but only when needed and only for a few minutes at a time. No need to sound the alarm but Duncan is averaging career-lows in rebounds and blocked shots. As a Spurs fan, you just have to trust that he’ll be able to turn it on when needed.
-Offensively, it was another very nice outing from Ginobili. Scoring 19 points in 27 minutes to go with three assists and one turnover is really good production, I don’t care who you are. Defensively, I think Ginobili’s energy and production has slipped since earlier in the season. Earlier, he was just a beast on the defensive end of the court. Lately, he’s been much more of a spectator. A decent way to figure out how active Ginobili is being defensively is to add together his rebounds, steals and blocks. Over the last five games, his combined number is only 3.8. Over the first 11 games of the season, that number was at 8.4. Not coincidentally, that also matches up exactly to when the Spurs’ defense on a whole started slipping. I trust that Ginobili will pick it up on that end of the court soon enough.
-Tony Parker had a good performance, for the most part. His numbers look really good (29 points, 11 assists, eight rebounds on 12-of-18 shooting from the field) and were pretty much indicative of how he played. However, he could have played better. At the half he only had nine points and wasn’t being aggressive enough offensively in my eyes. Parker is best when he relentless attacks the basket as he did in the second half. In the first half and even a bit in the second half, he dribbled too much without attacking. If he stays in attack mode all game (he doesn’t necessarily even have to score a lot or get a lot of assists) it puts an ungodly amount of pressure on the opposing defense and opens up shots and lanes for everyone else. He did that pretty well tonight but I think he could get even more consistent at doing so.
-Bruce Bowen did a good job on whoever he was matched up with. Caron Butler entered the game playing better than anyone in the NBA not named LeBron James as of late and Butler had a pretty quiet night. There were some possessions here and there where Bowen’s defense wasn’t up to his standards but on a whole you can’t be too disappointed.
-Michael Finley’s on-again, off-again shooting was back on-again. He hit 3-of-5 from beyond the three-point arc, to go along with three rebounds and two assists. Finley’s defense was better than it usually, especially his weak-side rotations.
-Fabricio Oberto had another very good showing. Oberto has been really good in the last couple weeks and was rewarded with a season-high 34 minutes of action. During that time, Oberto had five points, seven rebounds and four assists. An amazing stat about Oberto is he leads the league in fewest turnovers per minute. Oberto has three turnovers all season, including no turnovers in his last seven games and only one turnover is his last 13 games. Those are amazing numbers considering how many offensive fouls on illegal screens he racked up last year and how often he’s throwing interior passes to Duncan in tight quarters.
-Francisco Elson got extended playing time against the Wizards and responded with one of his better showings in a long time. He finished with ten points, seven rebounds and two assists in 24 minutes of play. Elson was a good match for some of the long yet strong players the Wizards put up front. The key now for Elson is to prove this isn’t just his customary once a month good game. Can he build on this going forward and not disappear for the next four weeks? We’ll see.
-Brent Barry had earned praise of late with his solid all-around play. In this game, Barry’s offense was still decent enough but his defense was pathetic. I haven’t seen him play this bad of a defensive game in a long time. He was consistently getting beaten off the dribble and he was getting lost on nearly every possession. Barry isn’t going to earn any bonus minutes from Pop by playing this poorly on the defensive end.
-Is it me or does the clock move slower when Jacque Vaughn is on the court? He played only 13 minutes but it felt more like 30 minutes. I thought he was forcing it a bit offensively, especially around the basket. If Vaughn never attempts another layup, I’ll die a happy Spurs fan. He did have three assists and two rebounds so it wasn’t all bad.
-Ime Udoka, Darius Washington and Matt Bonner all got the final one minute and twenty three seconds of garbage time. The most notable player of the three to be playing garbage time was Bonner. Bonner had actually be playing decent as of late but apparently Pop didn’t like the match up of Bonner versus the athletes the Wizards can put at the power forward position.
-I can’t really complain about anything Pop did. I like how Pop let Oberto play extended minutes and it worked out well as Oberto finished with a team high in plus/minus at +23. I also liked it that Pop got on the team about their defense even when the lead was comfortable. Pop called timeout a couple times to bench players for their defense, or lack thereof (*cough* Barry *cough*). Bottom line is it was a good win against a capable opponent, but just like every November, there is a lot of work to do.