The Utah Jazz have the best home record in the NBA and the Spurs saw firsthand why that is the case. The Jazz, who led by two points at the end of two quarters, dominated the Spurs in the second half to win 90-64.
You have to give props to the Jazz for obliterating the Spurs in the third and fourth quarters. After surprising everyone and making the Western Conference Finals last season, they look like a team that will be tough to eliminate come playoff time. Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer are surrounded by an even better cast than they had last season. A team has to play close to perfect basketball to go into Utah and escape with a win.
Defensively, I thought the Spurs were solid for most of the night. In the first half specifically, the Spurs did a good job of closing out on shooters and not allowing many easy shots. Even though the defense let up a bit in the second half, allowing the Jazz to score only 90 points at home is a good showing. In their previous five home games, the Jazz were averaging more than 120 points per game.
Offense and rebounding are where the Spurs struggled. After shooting 50%+ in five straight games, the Spurs went extremely cold from the outside against Utah. They shot just 36.4% from the field and made just two three-pointers. The Spurs also gave up 11 offensive rebounds and compounded that problem by allowing the Jazz clean looks after securing the boards.
Overall, it was a bad loss. You don’t want to get blown out in a game that meant so much to the chase of the number one seed in the Western Conference. The second half was ugly, ugly basketball on the part of the Spurs. If I’m going to take any positive from the loss, it’s that the Spurs played well defensively for most of the night.
-Tim Duncan deserves a good amount of the blame for the loss. Granted the Jazz were hacking him. Granted the referees could have blown their whistles more often. However, Duncan had to play tougher than he did. He was looking for helps from the refs all night long. Superstar bigmen on the Spurs have been getting hacked in Utah for 20 years now. Not getting whistles in Utah shouldn’t be surprising. Duncan got frustrated and his play suffered. He finished with 15 points, ten rebounds and three blocks in 26 minutes, while hitting half of his 12 attempts from the floor. While his numbers were solid, I just wasn’t impressed by Duncan’s mental or physical toughness.
-The Spurs needed Manu Ginobili to have a big game to get a win and Ginobili didn’t deliver. That in itself is notable in a regular season in which Ginobili has delivered on almost a nightly basis. Against the Jazz, he just didn’t have it. He was hesitating on his jumper. The shots he did shoot were often flat. When he tried to create, Ginobili didn’t have much success. I thought he was good defensively to begin the game but eventually that aspect of his game began to suffer as well. Ginobili finished with eight points, three rebounds and two blocked shots, while shooting 2-for-10 from the field. Ginobili just needs to forget this night and move on.
-Tony Parker was decent enough against the Jazz. It wasn’t one of his better games but compared to most everyone else, he was one of the few bright spots. He was doing a good job attacking the Jazz and his penetration produced the only halfway consistent offense all night. Parker ended the game with 17 points, four assists, four rebounds and one turnover, while shooting 7-for-14 from the floor. Defensively Parker was good enough against both Williams and Ronnie Price. I thought there were some possessions where Parker needed to make quicker decisions but overall this loss wasn’t on him.
-Bruce Bowen had a mostly uneventful night. Bowen found himself matched up against Williams a lot of the night and did a good job against him. He mostly accomplished that by backing off of him and not allowing him to get to the rim. That worked tonight but in a playoff series, Williams would figure out how to adjust to that defense. On the night, Bowen had three points and five rebounds, while knocking down 1-for-4 shots. Bowen wasn’t playing particularly bad but he also wasn’t helping much.
-Michael Finley had a relapse on his way to recovery. Finley’s hot streak was quieted against the Jazz, as the starting shooting guard had only two points and one rebound in 19 minutes. He hit 1-of-4 shots from the field and had trouble getting open looks against the Jazz. Coming into this game, Finley had scored in double-figures in five straight games. Hopefully he’ll soon return to his blazing form and that streak won’t go down as an anomaly.
-While there were a lot of poor performances from the Spurs on Friday night, Fabricio Oberto might have been the worst of the bunch. Offensively, he was fumbling away passes, missing chip shots at the rim and making poor decisions. Defensively, Oberto was a non-factor who was responsible for a lot of the team’s rebounding trouble. When your starting center goes without a defensive rebound in 23 minutes of action, there’s going to be a problem on the boards. For whatever reason, Oberto has just been horrible in games at Utah in the regular season in the last two years. In 89 minutes at Utah, Oberto has a total of two defensive rebounds against the Jazz – an absolutely horrible showing. It’s especially confusing because he was dominant at times last year against the Jazz in the playoffs.
-Kurt Thomas started the second half in place of the ineffective Oberto and played pretty well. He finished with six points, three rebounds, one steal and one block in 25 minutes of action. Thomas was willing to lay the lumber against the Jazz and was easily the most physical player on the Spurs. If the Spurs end up playing the Jazz at some point in the playoffs, Thomas will be useful.
-Ime Udoka played decent basketball. He didn’t do much on either end but also didn’t make many mistakes. He played solid defense for much of the evening on his way to two points and three rebounds in 20 minutes. He was one of the many Spurs who couldn’t find any space to produce offensively.
-Jacque Vaughn missed all four of his shots from the court but otherwise was decent enough. He gave good effort defensively and wasn’t forcing anything offensively. His three turnovers were costly though and overall his play has started to come back down to earth after playing a couple of great weeks.
-Matt Bonner, Damon Stoudamire and Bobby Jones were each able to play extended garbage minutes. Bonner, amazingly enough, wasn’t able to get up a shot attempt in his 11 minutes. That’s unheard of for Bonner, who loves chucking in garbage time. All the points the Spurs scored in the fourth quarter were scored by Stoudamire. That sounds impressive – until you realize that the Spurs had nine points in the fourth quarter. Jones showed next to nothing in his extended playing time. He looked terrified to shoot and his defense was nothing special.
-I didn’t have a huge problem with how Pop coached the game. He was a bit slow to react to Utah’s run in the fourth quarter and then was fast to raise the white flag when the Spurs got down. I agreed with Pop giving up when he did because there was a better chance of a player getting hurt than the Spurs suddenly finding their shooting touch.
I thought Pop's strategies defensively were good. Offensively, the Spurs just weren't producing. Better ball movement and player movement would have helped offensively, but it really came down to not making shots. Pop can't really get on the team about missing shots, although I'm sure he'll get on the team for not showing enough physicality against a rough and rugged Utah squad.
Jerry Sloan, on the other hand, showed again how he coaches like he’s oblivious to the score. No matter the score, Sloan will keep his guys out on the floor. It doesn’t matter if the Jazz are up 20 or down 20, the starters play until the final few minutes. That was again the case tonight when the Jazz kept their starters out there when the Spurs had long given up.
The bottomline is the Spurs lost a big game that will likely cost them any chance they had at the number one seed. Now, the Spurs need to fend off the Lakers for the second seed. Next up on the schedule is the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday. The Spurs are going to have to come with a much better effort to win that road game against a team still giving good effort.
Believe.
I had wondered what was up with Sloan when kept his starters in way too long and they ran up the score. Charles Barkley would have suggested to take one of their stars out when they go to the rim but that's not Spurs basketball. Nonetheless, it seemed "un-classy" on the part of the Jazz, but if that's what he always does then so be it.
That loss was hard to watch...
The only way one wins at Utah is if either of the Crawfords is calling the game.
Everyone else is too intimidated by the crowd.
To make matters worse, the Gasol trade.... nevermind.
Hey timvp... with all due respect... i love each one of your comments and i mostly agree with all of them... but i think Jacque Vaughn was worse than what you relate here...
Un-classy = Utah Jazz. Always.
And I agree about Tim's play. I love him and obviously he's most of the reason we have 4 trophies, but if there's anything that can make me as mad as fire during a Spurs game, it's watching him whine to the refs and not getting back into the play. As someone who has a son about his age, I have this mother-urge to go out there and slap him upside the head when he does that.
A good write-up, as usual. This was really a case of Utah just showing up big as usual at home. And I have news for all the noobs: SA was never going to to run the table on the season. Spurs always throw some stinker games in, and this wasn't even that bad (only down 2 at the half).
Of note:
Timmy got frustrated by the non-calls, which is one of his Achilles heels. He needs to stop that.
Okur lit it up big time. Wasn't Tim usually covering him?
Oberto was just plain awful.
Parker is looking really good, especially the outside shot. Manu showed his fabled streakiness: the same guy who can drop 48 on you can also look like a lost little boy some nights. Deal with it, because he gives you way more good than bad. Seriously, who would you trade him for? Right now, today?
I picked the Spurs to win because I'm loyal and was taken in by their recent successes. However, I was sitting at mid-court in Salt Lake City last year in that playoff game of the championship series when the Spurs got blown out. It is easily the most threatening of places to play. It is so threatening that the refs also fear making calls against the home team. They fear they won't get out alive.
Couple that with all their shots falling in and the Spurs feeling the intimidation of the fans and you've got what we got.
This stuff happens. We'll be alright.
OMG Spurs own the Jazz......its a totally different atmosphere in a playoff series.....Duncan,Parker,Ginobili get more minutes, Pop comes out with all his schemes, People choke under pressure...and Okur will not show up.....
whats good about this though, if the Jazz stay at 4 and the Suns at 5, one of these suckas are going out.....SWEEETT!!
I don't get why Pop played so many small ball against Utah :/
With their frontcourt you gonna get killed on the boards playing small ball.
And the line-up to start the 4th was just ridiculous
My nut point
Last edited by thousandth; 07-06-2015 at 06:41 AM.
oh no, we suck again!
Agreed, Vaughn was awful. But it was hidden since the majority of the Spurs played just as bad. Vaughn was overdribbling, forcing the issue, not running the Spurs offense well. I wasn't impressed with him at all. Then again, he's the best option we have.Hey timvp... with all due respect... i love each one of your comments and i mostly agree with all of them... but i think Jacque Vaughn was worse than what you relate here...
I also thought Pop called it in way too early. It almost seemed like he was resigned with the fact the Spurs were going to lose this game after like 2 minutes into the 3rd quarter.He barely played Duncan at all.
Jazz showed the rest of the league the perfect recipe to get under the Spurs skin and defend them;
Take away their 3 point shooting, play physical with Duncan (since the refs are letting them get away with it this season), crash the offensive boards (as the Spurs are not a great offensive rebounding team), and you can beat them.
Spurs have been way to reliant on their 3 point shooting this season, especially. Their offense becomes way to stagnant without it.
I was out of town and so ( fortunately, it would seem) missed this game.
Here's hoping this was the Spurs last stinker of the year.
Oh and major Props to Utah. They are a great team. And on top of that, it's really refreshing to see another "old school" team still left in the NBA. Watching Utah reminds me of why I started loving the NBA. The physical play, the belief that you foul a player hard and make him earn his 2 points every time he gets in the paint, the keeping your starters in there even if your up 20 or down 20...all staples that Jerry Sloan has been using throughout his 20 years. It's nice that he hasn't changed his strategy despite the NBA and Stern's constant efforts to turn this league into a soft, whiny, run and gun style league.
Second chance points-- all you need to know
I have to disagree with you on this LJ. The lineup Pop started the fourth quarter with wa s a strategic failure. We were still in striking distance (11 points) at that point, but that lineup at the start of the fourth was more fitting of garbage time than a game still in doubt.I didn’t have a huge problem with how Pop coached the game. He was a bit slow to react to Utah’s run in the fourth quarter and then was fast to raise the white flag when the Spurs got down.
Thanks, timvp, for putting the loss in perspective.
While all Spurs fans hate any losses, especially to the Jazz, this was probably a game that many thought the Spurs would lose. Unfortunately, it was a drubbing and our guys didn't respond in the second half.
I agree that Pop did what he needed to do in pulling the starters. No sense in wasting energy and risking injury in such a lopsided game.
Hopefully, this will be what the Spurs need to get themselves motivated to make their final push to the playoffs.
I agree that Duncan let the refs (or the lack of calls) get to him. Unfortunately, he has a tendancy of letting that get into his head. I hate that he lets it affect him that much. But, even though he was struggling to get himself past that, the rest of the guys really did not pick up the slack. Parker had some success, but the rest of the team didn't respond.
I know we don't have to have the # 1 seed to win it all. And we all know that having the #1 seed doesn't guarantee a le. It will be important though to go into the playoffs on a win streak. Let's hope we will close out the season on one.
BELIEVE!
Duncan did had some legit beef against the refs though. They were letting the Jazz get away with A LOT of physical play. But props to the Jazz for sticking with the game plan and playing the way the refs were letting them play.
You can't fault the refs though, because they were calling it even both ways. Spurs were allowed to play as physical as they wanted against the Jazz on the other end as well.
Duncan may have had beef against the refs, but he shouldn't have. There were no eggrarious calls going either way and it was just as physical for the Jazz as it was the Spurs.
As a Jazz fan I was laughing out loud at Duncan's little temper tantrums. I've never seen a full grown man act like such a little girl over a ball getting poked out of bounds or an obviously clean block. Duncan needs to get over it; His and the rest of the teams' pompous, incessant whining is one of the primary reasons America hates the Spurs.
Also, call the Utah Jazz crowd un-classy all you like, but as for the players and coach- get a clue. We don't talk during games and we have a set rotation for our players. Oh... and we also don't and moan like spoiled little girls every single time a ref's call goes against us.
Last edited by balli; 04-05-2008 at 10:00 AM.
Oberto was far beyond just "ineffective" to me.
Granted, this is only one or two plays, but with us up about 24-18 with the ball looking to create a bigger lead, Manu faked a shot and zipped a beauty pass to Fabs under the rim. As usual, Fabs was all spooked with the Utah bigs arounds, went up nervously and bricked the layup. Next trip or two down he is too freaked to shoot at all and instead dumps it off to (Thomas i think), when Fabs should have just gone up again for the auto layup.
To me two small but huge game precedents were set.
1. It got Utah right back into a quick tie, changed the atmosphere 180 degrees.
2. Manu might have been on his way to one of those off shooting but great floor games with mega assists, rebounds, etc. I think this pass gets completed and the mental edge is set.
Granted, it was only two plays....
I gotta say, Pop's subs ution strategies in the second half is what cost us any chance at winning this game.
He had Parker playing hardcore minutes with ginobili, all without Duncan in the third....by the time Duncan came back in, we had Vaughn and Finley surrounding him I believe. That was a huge mistake. We never once had all our best players on the floor in the second half for a good stretch.
Fab sucked in that game. He missed about 5 or 6 gimme layups and put-backs and could grab a damn rebound.
If we play the Jazz in the playoffs, KT will become VERY important.
The frustration got the better of Duncan tonight. I remember during a timeout they showed Pop talking to Duncan on the bench about where he was keeping the ball. He was keeping it down low where it allowed the Jazz to swipe at it.
I'm sure Pop will make the adjustments needed to counter the double teams they were throwing at Duncan. Also need to get guys like Finley and Udoka moving without the ball to free up some shots for them when they do double Duncan.
my Thought:
WE GOT SLAPPED AND NEVER RESPONDED. WE PLAYED LIKE LITTLE ES AND NOT LIKE THE DEFENDING CHAMPIONS
Jazz fan? Your team says Atlanta Hawks, so stfu and get outta here, jackass.Duncan may have had beef against the refs, but he shouldn't have. There were no eggrarious calls going either way and it was just as physical for the Jazz as it was the Spurs.
As a Jazz fan I was laughing out loud at Duncan's little temper tantrums. I've never seen a full grown man act like such a little girl over a ball getting poked out of bounds or an obviously clean block. Duncan needs to get over it; His and the rest of the teams' pompous, incessant whining is one of the primary reasons America hates the Spurs.
Also, call the Utah Jazz crowd un-classy all you like, but as for the players and coach- get a clue. We don't talk during games and we have a set rotation for our players. Oh... and we also don't and moan like spoiled little girls every single time a ref's call goes against us.
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