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Thanks for the wrap up.
It was good to get the win, through the first half I wasn't completely sure they would pull it out.
The best thing about this game against the Timberwolves is the Spurs got another W for their win column. And really, that’s about all you can take out of this game. The Spurs didn’t play too much better – they just played against the worst team in the NBA.
Regarding the T’Wolves, Al Jefferson once again impressed. He has a very polished low post game and should develop into a top flight scorer down low. The team has a couple of decent other prospects but right now that team is just playing for lottery balls.
The Spurs, on the other hand, were actually trying to win but didn’t do a good job of that for much of the game. Their offense had no rhythm and was sloppy. Their defense was porous and largely ineffective. The T’Wolves shot 48.6% from the floor and had a lot of good looks rim out. Really, the Spurs won because they got 23 more trips to the free throw line and they recorded an uncharacteristically high amount of steals (15).
This game certainly wasn’t a game that will get the Spurs back into their rhythm. For that, we still have to wait.
-Tim Duncan had a decent night. He didn’t do anything too amazing but some aspects of his games were improved. He had three blocked shots in his 31 minutes of action, which were the same amount of blocked shots he had in 154 minutes over his last four games. His 15 points and nine rebounds weren’t too special, but at least he was an efficient 7-for-12 from the field. After hitting 22-of-25 free throws over the last two games, he was 1-for-6 tonight. Overall, it was basically the type of ho-hum yet effective game Duncan can play in his sleep.
-Manu Ginobili seemed more comfortable shooting the ball than anytime since he returned from his finger injury. Ginobili hit 6-of-10 shots from the floor, including 3-of-5 from three-point range. In total, five of his six baskets were on jumpers. Ginobili’s all-around game was good as he finished with five rebounds, five steals and three assists to go along with his 22 points. He was, on the other hand, a bit loose with the ball (four turnovers) and his defense was more gimmicky than solid. This was a step in the right direction for Ginobili in terms of getting back to how he was playing earlier in the season, but there’s still room for improvement.
-Tony Parker’s stats look acceptable but it was another patchy outing for the Spurs’ point guard. He finished with 21 points and 8 assists, while shooting 7-for-14 from the floor. However, Parker had six turnovers and didn’t pull down a rebound in his 29 minutes of play. Parker’s energy was only satisfactory and he’s having trouble jumpstarting this mostly snoozing squad. In Parker’s favor, he did lead the team in plus/minus with a +21 and he was compe ive on the defensive end.
-Bruce Bowen wasn’t of much use in this game as the T’Wolves don’t have a dominant perimeter scorer. In the 20 minutes he did play, Bowen didn’t do much of anything. He scored one point, handed out one assist and missed his only two attempts.
-After a rough stretch of games, Michael Finley played much better. He settled back into his role and wasn’t forcing the issue as much. In 20 minutes, Finley had 11 points on 4-for-8 shooting and hit 3-of-5 from downtown. This was the first game since Ginobili returned that Finley looked comfortable on the offensive end of the court for the Spurs.
-Fabricio Oberto had his second straight very solid performance. In a starting role, Oberto totaled six points, seven rebounds, two steals and an assist, while hitting all three of his shots from the floor. Most notable, however, were his three blocked shots in 20 minutes played. Oberto was much more active than usual in terms of jumping and trying to block shots. Perhaps it was by design since the Spurs are currently second to last in the NBA in blocked shots – ahead of only the lowly New York Knicks. Coming into this game, Oberto hadn’t blocked a shot in his last six games. In fact, his last three blocks came over a span of 13 games and 268 minutes.
-The best player on the court for the Spurs tonight was Jacque Vaughn, hands down. His energy was beyond compare. He had a handful of jaw dropping hustle plays throughout the game. Without Vaughn, the Spurs might have sleepwalked their way to a loss. Vaughn finished with a season-high eight assists, a season-high three steals and zero turnovers. Perhaps just as important, Vaughn wasn’t looking for his own offense. He went scoreless while missing his only two shot attempts, but really that’s when Vaughn is at his best. A Vaughn who goes onto the court to play defense, hustle and distribute the ball is a very valuable Vaughn.
-Ime Udoka has done a good job of recovering from the rough shooting stretch he had a couple weeks ago. He gave the Spurs 19 solid minutes in which he hit half of his four three-point attempts and scored nine points. Since shooting 3-for-18 over a three game stretch, Udoka is now 12-for-22 since that time. Defensively, Udoka is learning the system at a fast rate and was very effective tonight.
-Francisco Elson is apparently back into the rotation and played 19 minutes tonight – the most minutes he has played since the day after Christmas. He wasn’t great against the T’Wolves but he was relatively decent, finishing with six points and four rebounds. On the negative end of the spectrum, Elson hit only 2-of-6 shots from the floor and made a couple of mistakes on the both ends of the court. That said, he wasn’t as bad as he’s been for much of the season.
-If you look at Matt Bonner’s statline, the first thing you see are his five turnovers. To be fair, I don’t think he was as careless as that number indicates. Besides his turnovers, Bonner had a very good outing. In 17 minutes, Bonner finished with nine points, six rebounds and a blocked shot, while draining 3-of-5 shots from the field and 2-of-3 shots from three-point land. When the Spurs were struggling in the second quarter, Bonner hit a pair of threes to spark the Spurs.
-Jeremy Richardson got eight minutes of playing time, with more than half of those minutes coming in the first half while the game was still up for grabs. While it’s unfair to judge him based on such a small sample size, I wasn’t too impressed with what I saw. Since he’s on a ten-day contract, he only has a short amount of time to make an impact. In his eight minutes, it didn’t appear as if he was laying it all out on the line. He seemed to struggle with physical play and his defense obviously needs a lot to work. He did knock down a straight away three-pointer, but I thought his release point was quite low for an NBA player. Hopefully he gets another attempts to show what he can do but as of now, Richardson didn’t give the Spurs much a reason to keep him around for the long haul.
-If you’ve read this far, congratulations, you have just stumbled upon a juicy tidbit. Robert Horry only played six minutes but the story is what happened when he left the game. Pop called a timeout soon after the second quarter began after a botched offensive play and a turnover. Pop in the timeout simply told four players from off the bench to enter the game and then walked away. Horry obviously wasn’t pleased with getting pulled and there was a minor Horry versus Pop squabble. The squabble ended with Horry saying (if my lip-reading skills are accurate) "that’s not right, man, that’s not right". It wasn’t anything major but on a team that prides itself on chemistry, it was at least noteworthy. It was also noteworthy that Horry never went back into the game. However, I’m not sure how much you can read into that since Horry’s playing time has been erratic as of late.
-As the Spurs have struggled, Pop has mostly tried to let the team figure it out on their own. He’s not calling timeouts to stop the bleeding and he’s not getting overly animated on the sideline. In fact, Pop probably doesn’t really care that the Spurs are struggling. He’s from the Larry Brown School as far as he’s most comfortable when things are going wrong because he knows there are things the team can work on in practice. Pop becomes most uncomfortable when the Spurs are dominating in the regular season.
After this game, Pop had more reason to gush about the play of Vaughn. Praising Vaughn is Pop’s subtle way of telling the rest of the team that they need to pick up their energy level. In a way, this was a perfect January game for Pop since the Spurs struggled yet won the game and his prized bench hustle player shone brightest.
The bottomline is this game was basically a yawner. The Spurs broke their two game losing streak by beating a horrible team that wasn’t trying to win. Whoop de doo.
Last edited by timvp; 01-13-2008 at 01:48 AM.
Thanks for the wrap up.
It was good to get the win, through the first half I wasn't completely sure they would pull it out.
That play where Vaughn chased down the ball in the corner and did a Curly Neal might have been the best play by a Spur all year.
Of course, they didn't score off of it.
Pop was quite animated with Matt Bonner in the third quarter I think it was.
Got his ass chewed out, HARD!!!
sounded more like the suns or warriors were playing instead of the spurs.Their offense had no rhythm and was sloppy. Their defense was porous and largely ineffective. The T’Wolves shot 48.6% from the floor and had a lot of good looks rim out. Really, the Spurs won because they got 23 more trips to the free throw line and they recorded an uncharacteristically high amount of steals (15).
And during that timeout, it was Finley talking in the huddle.They already were struggling with the downtrodden Timberwolves when, on the Spurs' first possession of the second quarter, Minnesota's Marko Jaric stripped Tony Parker at midcourt and shot a layup to give his team a 26-24 lead.
Popovich signaled for an immediate timeout and, 23 seconds into the frame, subbed for everyone but Ginobili.
During the timeout, Robert Horry, one of the four players yanked, stood at the end of the bench, his perplexity evident. Popovich walked down from his seat and the two had a discussion that lasted for about 30 seconds, after which Horry did not return to the game.
Asked afterward if there was a reason for Horry's benching, Popovich was succinct.
"Yes," he said. "I chose to play other players."
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/b...r.2a84f54.html
@pop"Yes," he said. "I chose to play other players."
...
Whoop de doo.
Actually, this is worrisome to me because I've been thinking that maybe the team's chemistry is a bit off. Does it seem like they are jawing at each other on the court a little more than they have in other years? I'm just watching on TV so I only see what the cameras show, but last night I saw a couple of instances of on-court unrest. (And they didn't involve people yelling at Elson, because that is normal.)It wasn’t anything major but on a team that prides itself on chemistry, it was at least noteworthy.
I've noticed that "Bruce didn't play well," and/or "didn't do much of anything" is becoming a trend these days. Has Bruce lost a step this season?
My respect for Vaughn has grown leaps and bounds this year. He has obviously worked very very hard to fit in well with the spurs and will not let overall lazy team play phase him. Watching this season makes it very obvious why Pop has such high regard for Vaughn.
I'm curious about this. Because in the past, you might argue that Pop is just trying to motivate his team or using psychology on his players. But, at this point, it looks like genuine frustration on Pop's part. We're talking about 75 year old Robert Horry and a team core group of players that won three NBA les. Is there any real concern that Horry might really be done?
Every year.
As long as he comes alive in the Playoffs, the concern gets put to bed.
So far he's proven the concern to be premature.
this is wall against the wost team in the NBA, so there should be an * next to everyones stats
I'm glad Bonner got his ass chewed out; just means Pop cares.. He is a good player that needs to improve a lot for the playoffs but he has a great role on this team and he has done a good job so far.
Thanks for explaining the Robert/ Pop situation. I was curious about that.
Horry didn't do much of anything in last year's playoff run either if I remember correctly. And he wasn't much effect the year before in 06 either. More than his clutch shots, Horry usually brings a high level of basketball IQ that works well alongside Duncan.
Problem is this season especially, Horry looks like he's not even trying. And his once brilliant Basketball IQ is looking on par with that of Nazr Mohamed. Which is probably why Pop got pissed with him the other night.
http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2044053
That's what Pop said in early November :
I wonder if it's still what Pop planed to do."Last year we played him more than people realized," Popovich said. "We wanted him to be in shape. We made a conscious effort to play him on a more consistent basis throughout the year. We held him out of back-to-back situations as best we could, but we tried to be consistent with him throughout the year so he'd have a base.
"This year it looks like it could be a little different. Maybe we'll be just hoping for the best at the latter part of the season to get him in shape."
Denver back breaker!!
I wrote something similar in the game thread a couple of games ago and totally agree. I think we might be watching the end of Horry's career, and I don't expect him to be a part of the playoff rotation unless he suddenly rediscovers his bball IQ and a step of quickness between now and the playoffs. May happen, but don't count on him to be big in the playoffs as he has been his entire career.
As for the game in general, I thought there were glimpses of the pre-injury offensive chemistry during the second half, 1-2 minute stretches where they moved the ball and looked really good.
The D was mostly horrible, although they did play an effective stretch of zone which really messed up Minne's rhythm. That only works against teams who miss their open jumpers though, so no great revelation.
Wow, that's a pretty ignorant take. Did anyone stop to consider the idea that maybe Horry is done physically? We haven't seen a vintage Robert Horry since the Detroit series a couple of years ago.
I'm starting to think this is another one of those years where the reliance upon veteran role players (along with some younger guys who have not proven to be clutch - i.e., Bonner) will do the Spurs in when it comes to the playoffs.
Unfortunately I think Horry just can't bring it anymore and we're all seeing it happen before our eyes, and the Spurs staff is starting to realize it as well.
Horry still has it, but only enough for playoff 4th quarters.
Robert was never a highly physical, athletic, fast player, in the last 4 or 5 years, and maybe not before.
I think his biggest failing now is mental/at ude, not physical, coupled with little playing time.
I'm sure he wants the repeat that will give him his 7th ring and 4th repeat, which I think is the main reason he's playing this year.
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