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nice post
thanx
As expected, the Spurs and the Warriors put on quite the show tonight. In terms of pure entertainment this season, the game had to rank near the top. The Spurs repeatedly fought back from big deficits and showed a lot of heart throughout.
However, as a Spurs fan who has witnessed how this team needs to play to win a championship, this was an ugly game. If the Spurs weren’t playing poorly on defense, they were failing to execute plays on offense that they’ve executed countless times over the years. The Spurs basically just willed themselves into contention this game. Other than their effort, there weren’t many bright spots in this game.
You have to tip your hat to the Warriors as they too played hard in their 130-121 overtime victory. Their shooters, especially Stephen Jackson, hit some cold blooded three-pointers. Baron Davis also played an extremely impressive ballgame, finishing with 34 points, 14 assists and zero turnovers on 11-for-18 shooting from the field. Somewhere a Mav Fan woke up with a cold sweat.
-Tim Duncan gave another good effort. He finished with 32 points, 14 rebounds, three assists and one turnover. He also hit 14-of-16 free throws. He definitely competed and was a big reason the Spurs kept plugging away. All that being said, Duncan wasn’t as dominant as he could have been. He got lazy a bit on his post moves and didn’t dominate his defenders as much as he should, especially considering he saw a lot of one-on-one matchups. Defensively, he was consistently a step slow with his help defense. Finishing the game with no blocked shots was a telling stat, particularly against a smaller team that was driving into the paint all night. This was the type of game that Duncan could have dominated on the defensive end and he simply didn’t do that.
-Manu Ginobili’s second game back was mostly a success. Ginobili totaled 20 points, six rebounds, four assists and a blocked shot, while hitting 7-of-15 field goals and 3-of-6 three-pointers. It wasn’t all good for Ginobili though as he had five turnovers and a number of defensive miscues. He was gambling a bit too much on both ends of the court and his gambles weren’t paying off. However, considering that his hand is still heavily bandaged and his effort was very good, it’s tough to be too disappointed in his play.
-Tony Parker had some tough stretches but he kept fighting and put together a quality game. Parker had 31 points and eight assists, while shooting 12-for-20 from the field and 6-of-6 from the free throw line. Parker hit a clutch three-pointer at the end of regulation to send this game into overtime. He opened overtime with a layup and later had a nifty pass to Duncan for a layup. He matched up against Monta Ellis defensively and did a fairly decent job against him. It was far from a flawless outing for Parker but he played very well.
-Bruce Bowen had a rough game. Early on Parker rolled into his leg. Then later Bowen twisted his ankle when landing on a three-point attempt. As the game wore on, Bowen struggled defending Davis more and more. Eventually, Pop replaced Bowen with Ime Udoka for defensive purposes. Bowen being benched for his defense isn’t something you see more than a couple times per season. Hopefully Bowen was just having an off night and it wasn’t an injury that was slowing him down.
-Michael Finley bounced back with a solid performance. In 41 minutes of action, Finley scored 14 points on 5-of-11 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 shooting from beyond the three-point arc. Defensively, he might have been the most consistent Spur. He missed a few rotations but overall he was in the right spot more often than not.
-Robert Horry started once again and did next to nothing. He got fouled on a three-pointer and hit all three free throws. That ended up being the highlight of his night. In Horry’s 14 minutes, he had three turnovers and still seems way out of sync. Horry has a lot of time before the playoffs to straighten out his problems but right now he’s not helping the Spurs win games on most nights.
-Ime Udoka had one of his more active games as a member of the team. In 24 minutes, Udoka had 13 points and four rebounds, while shooting 5-for-9 from the field. Udoka was used as a defender against Davis and did a decent job against him. Clearly Davis was on fire but Udoka forced him into some tough shots. Offensively, Udoka still hasn’t figured out where to get his shots but he’s improving in that regard. Although Udoka wasn’t great, this rugged type of play is valued by Pop and could help Udoka earn more minutes as the season progresses.
-Fabricio Oberto awoke from his sleep to play 12 mostly solid minutes. He corralled six rebounds and two of the team’s four steals. His level of activity was much higher in this contest compared to recent performances. He didn’t attempt a field goal but was moving well on the offensive end of the court.
-Jacque Vaughn again was frustrating. For being a player who is so offensively inept, you’d think he’d be reluctant to shoot bad shots. That wasn’t the case in this game as Vaughn put up a couple of head scratchers. After a string of solid outings, this was a step back for Vaughn.
-Matt Bonner played only nine minutes in this game, the fewest minutes he’s played since Dec. 17. In those limited minutes, Bonner jacked up five mostly ill-advised shots. Part of Bonner’s value is his willingness to shoot the ball. However, in this game he went a bit overboard. It wasn’t a horrible game for Bonner but he needs to do a better job of picking his spots offensively.
-I didn’t agree with much of Pop’s defensive game plan. First of all, putting Bowen on Davis all game doesn’t make sense to me. Davis is a quick and physical player that isn’t affected much by Bowen’s defense. When he drives the ball, he can just bull Bowen out of the way. I can see the strategy if you switch Bowen onto Davis for a stretch at the end of the game to give him another look, but if you use bigger defenders such as Bowen and Udoka on Davis all game Davis will figure out how to exploit that matchup. This strategy especially doesn’t make sense because Parker usually defends Davis well.
I also didn’t like how Pop put Ginobili on Jackson. Ginobili by his nature is a wandering defender who is always looking to make a play off the ball. You put him on Jackson and you are basically guaranteeing that Jackson will get some open looks. Pop should know first hand that you don’t give Jackson open looks, especially late in the game. Putting Finley on Jackson made much more sense because Finley rarely ever roams on defense.
Small ball, especially defensively, was mostly a failure in this game. You create a speed mismatch by putting a bigger player on Davis and then you don’t have the size on the court to counter Davis’ penetration? That doesn’t add up.
All in all, I thought the effort was there by the team. It wasn’t like the Warriors outworked the Spurs. The defense just wasn’t solid for the Spurs, be it due to poor coaching or poor decision-making by the players. Offensively, the cohesiveness for the Big Three is also surprisingly lacking. Duncan, Ginobili and Parker simply aren’t connecting as well as they usually do. Luckily, there’s plenty of time to sort this all out and get the team back to playing on all cylinders.
Next up is another interesting game against the Detroit Pistons on Thursday.
Last edited by timvp; 01-08-2008 at 03:51 AM.
nice post
thanx
I'm glad you pointed out Duncan's 0 blocks. He should easily be able to average 4 blocks a game against this Warriors team
Now we know the reason why Barry is important to the team.
Nailed it as usual. Great game to watch, not much fun for Spurs fans who want to see their team playing with cohesion at both ends again.
I guess Tim was hampered by that knee, because he had no lift and was slow to rotate on D which is unlike him.
I'm very sorry but Fab won't start for all season/playoffs or play decent minutes.
It is more like the other way around.
Pop wants guys playing near the three point line all game as Robert/Matt and it doesn't matter if Fabricio is up to his level or not.
However smalls did work. 23-10 is not bad even if we are running the risk of exceeding the healty minutes for Tim in regular season.
i don't like the idea of surrounding duncan with 4 essentially perimeter players. 3 is more than enough. timmy needs help on the glass.
Has Pop ever put Bowen on Davis the entire game when playing the Warriors? I seem to always recall Parker going against him. And Finley on Jackson would have made sense as well. Outside of Bowen, Finley has surprisingly been the Spurs most consistent defender it seems.
take a look at the big picture. no need to empty bowen's tank so early in the season. its also good practice for parker that will serve the team well if ever the spurs meet the warriors in the playoffs.
I may be way out of line in saying this but I will. Do Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson have a set of rocks on them or what? I love those players.. I really do.. BD is a freaking BEAST!
Went pretty much as I figured. Whoever hits the most 3s wins.
And JV. If you ever want to dig urself into a deeper hole, or give up ur lead, send Vaughn in at point. Not saying it's his fault, but it happens too consistently not to have some bearing on how the Spurs play with him at point. Odd thing is, they don't have that same problem when he is on the floor with Tony. Spurs have got to find a better backup point guard.
But all in all, given 4 games in 5 days and the 2nd of a 2nd B2B, I wasn't all that disappointed in the Spurs game. They seemed to have a lot more energy to run up and down with GS than I thought they would. Now they can come home and rest a couple of days and get their legs back under them.
Thought Tony should have been on Davis. But maybe Pop doesn't want to show all his cards in case we meet them in the playoffs.
Also thought Udoka had a decent showing. Hope he keeps coming along.
Not too worried about the Spurs. Now if they are losing these games in May, I'll start to worry about them.
Really looking forward to the Rodeo Road Trip. See if they can gel together like they usually do in that period.
The biggest thing I'll take from this game (along with the fact that it was entertaining) was that we showed heart and didn't give up.
Pop is willing to take a few risks with our chemistry by starting Horry. Its obvious to me that the only reason Horry is starting is to give him more minutes with our starting 5. This won't last too much longer.
The Spurs know that this is a very long season and I don't think they are overly concerned by dropping a road game to a Warriors team that took terrible shots AND made them. That style will may win you 1 playoff series but will get you hammered in the long run. Ask Dallas and Utah.
Our defense wasn't that bad, the Warriors just seemed to get more breaks than we did. Bowen wasn't on the floor and he would have made a difference. Pop got to see what Udoka could do and he responded pretty well. I would have liked to see him take that 3 instead of pump faking and going for the 2 late in the game. Also, you don't let Baron Davis dribble at the top of the 3 pt line more than 4 or 5 times. Chances are, he's sizing up his shot. You know he's going to shoot it.
Ah well, good game and the long preseason continues.
When the Big 3 all score 20 points or more and the Spurs still lose.........something is wrong.
and you only have to look as far as the FG % that the Warriors shot. 52%! are you kidding me. 52% against the Spurs, thats ridiculous.
The Warriors are a nightmare team because they have never met a shot that they did not like, especially Davis and Jackson. So if they are on, they are tough to beat no matter what you do.
This is a different team than the early part of last year. The last 2 months of last season the Warriors started to put it all together and it culmianted with a win over Dallas in the Playoffs. Now if Jackson can stay on the court (ie. suspensions) and Davis stays healthy, this team has a chance to make some noise.
People laughed at Dallas last year for losing to them in the Playoffs because they were an 8 seed. But most of those people did not take into account that the team at the end of the season, when Jackson was added, was a different than the team that played the first 50 games of the season. When Jackson and Davis are on the court together the Warriors win about 65-70% of the time. That's pretty good.
The Mavs have handled them this year by 5 and by 22 but I still don't want to play them in the playoffs.
Can you imagine a playoff series between the Warriors and the Suns?!?! First one to 150 wins!
Obviously, Pop's overall mantra has always been to ensure the players are healthy, rested and playing their best ball heading into the playoffs. That's worked wonderfully. At the same time, if Pop actually is resisting the urge to exploit more favorable matchups because he doesn't want to "show all his cards" until the playoffs, he shouuld be fired. OK, not literally, but you get the idea. His job is to put the players in the best position to win ballgames. There are no secrets in the NBA. Everybody knows what teams and players can and cannot do.
As for last night, he should have taken Bowen off Davis much, much earlier in that game. The Parker-on-Davis matchup is usually a better one - until Davis takes him into the post.
Also, I agree with the assertion that Ginobili on Jackson doesn't make sense because of Manu's tendency to roam. A great point. Finley or even Bowen would have made better sense. Of course, Jackson is such a beast, he'd likely light up whoever guards him. The issue though is he should NEVER, EVER have a wide open 3.
Last edited by SenorSpur; 01-08-2008 at 10:18 AM.
I'm glad I stayed up to watch the game and mad at the same time. Glad because it was very entertaining and mad because the Spurs lost. I was disappointed in a lot of the calls the a non-calls the officials made and did not make. Oh well. The Spurs did good considering it was their fourth game in five days and second of a back to back.
I think the Spurs did a good job playing through the calls/non calls. Im sure there were some the other way as well. All in all great effort, even when down by 12 they still showed that they could fight back. Great game hopefully we can regroup for the Pistons.
If you find one, I'd bet they'd love to know about him.Spurs have got to find a better backup point guard
As long as the Spurs fight hard, I'm not disappointed with a loss.
There's really no short cut to success without going through & overcoming the difficult situations.
Brilliant point about Manu.
I love his roaming Defense, he does a lot when he can come off his player and roam around doing his disruptive thing. But, you never put him on a scorer if you want him to do that. Jackson was so wide open, so many times...he coulda put it away in regulation if he just hit one more of those wide open shots.
Finley would have been the natural matchup with Jackson. And I never thought I'd say it...but, Finley is becoming a damned good defender. Amazing to me, and a testament to him.
And I don't understand how any spurs fans found this game entertaining. This was not Spurs ball at all. This was Warriors ball. Ugly, relying on broken plays and the resulting chaos to score. This is the kind of "entertainment" the NBA front office loves, and Spurs fans should ridicule. If you like Warriors and Suns type of play, I guess you'd love this type of game.
I like Spurs type of play.
"Somewhere a Mavs fan woke up in a cold sweat"
Classic, nail on the head.
Great recap. Thanks.
I mentioned in another thread how impressed I was with Finley's defense on Jackson. Never thought I could say that but he did a good job of not allowing Jackson to even get a shot and played him pretty close. Even the few times Jackson tried to post him up he was forced to pass back out. I don't understand why Pop went with Ginobli.
I also thought Udoka did an admirable job on Davis. By the time he started guarding him he was already on fire but forcing him to take tough shots is about all you can ask when he's in the zone.
I thought backup pg was the biggest concern but it appears center isn't far behind if not equal to it. We're getting nothing out of Elson (DNP's), Oberto has really struggled, and Horry still isn't in form. No need to panic but something might have to be done there.
LMAO @ timvp doing his best Charlie Rosen impression.
A "nifty" pass?
Get a life.
Get an appreciation for irony.
Here's a game thought: Baron Davis is a much better point guard than Tony Parker.
I always find it funny that some people expect for the Spurs to have great players 2 deep at every position. Talk about unrealistic expectations. Vaughn is the usually steady and consistent, if not at all spectacular, backup to an allstar caliber PG. He comes cheap, and at the backup PG position that is exactly what the Spurs want. They need that cap room for other positions.
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