SBNation.com User Blog: Aaronstampler

Western Conference Finals: Grit 'n' Grind Meets Drive 'n' Dish

Aaronstampler — Sun, 19 May 2013 10:48:38 -0000

Ugh.

It's getting to be that time. We're back in the conference finals. The season has officially reached the point where a loss in the playoffs won't be met with a "meh, it wasn't meant to be, they weren't that good" shrug and more like a "why oh why do you continue to forsake us you big stupid noodly jerk?" cry of anguish and despair.

If you're anything like me, now is when the crazy in you will really come to the fore, scaring --or just annoying-- your friends, family and loved ones. You'll be on edge and emotional, saying and doing stupid things in the heat of the moment, like perhaps getting blocked on Twitter from Zach Lowe for example. (He's even more thin-skinned than his boss, apparently.) Literally anything you hear or read that is remotely anti-Spurs will set you off. Compliments will seem like backhanded compliments. Nothing short of victory will make you happy, and even then all you'll get for the triumph is like three seconds of euphoria before reality kicks in that the Heat await in the ultimate heart-breaker death scenario.

Fun!

Why not a long-as-all-get-out preview before Game 1 to get you in the mood?

But first, some grades for the Warriors series!

Tim Duncan: B

35.7 mpg, 19.5 pts, 10.3 rebs, 1.8 asts, 1.3 blks, 0.5 stls, 1.8 TOs, .423/.853, -11

It was far from Duncan's best series to be sure, and he didn't always look very spry or healthy. His jumper was wonky and flat and he needs to shoot it a heckuva lot better against the Grizzlies. Even his board work left something to be desired. Where Timmy deserves credit though is for his defensive work after the first two games, the mobility and versatility he showed in hedging out high to disrupt the Warriors' screen-and-roll, and the way he seamlessly adjusted from playing in big lineups to small ones as the hub.

The Grizzlies series will be far more physical and Memphis will look to wear Duncan down, but in some ways he'll get a break in that he'll have to roam around a lot less around the court on defense and he'll get to stay at home in the paint. The long breaks between the games and the shorter travel should help him as well. Obviously, Tim's gonna have to be a monster for us to beat Memphis, but I think he's going to be supremely motivated to take them on after the disaster of 2011.

Tiago Splitter: C+

20.8 mpg, 6.4 pts, 4.0 rebs, 1.0 asts, 0.4 blks, 1.4 stls, 1.0 TOs, .632/.800, +6

Tiago's grade would've been worse if not for the fact that he was recovering from a sprained ankle during the series. He missed Game 1 and then gradually got better and better as the games wore on, to the point where he was one of our most important players in the closeout game. The softness with which Splitter went up with for his shot attempts, those lame floaters and such, is most disconcerting, as his relative lack of rebounding. To his credit, Splitter still shot a high percentage and his free throw stroke held up as well. His mobility was a key to the defense (especially the last couple of games) and he even managed to survive as the lone big down the stretch in Game 6.

Still, there's no question that Splitter will have to play with a lot more toughness against the Grizzlies. They will try to test him and shove him around and he's going to have to respond to their challenge. He can't be fresh meat like Bonner or the Spurs are toast. In many ways Tiago will be the key to the series. If he can play like the guy he was during the regular season, the Spurs will win. It's as simple as that.

Kawhi Leonard: A-

40.2 mpg, 14.7 pts, 9.5 rebs, 1.5 asts, 0.3 blks, 1.5 stls, 1.5 TOs, .557/.375./.538, +30

For my money Kawhi was the MVP of the Warriors series, and really it wasn't that close. His board work (on both ends) was huge, obviously, as was his incredibly efficient shooting (save for the wonky free throws, where Whi somehow shot worse from the charity stripe than the field), but where Leonard truly turned the series on its head was when he singlehandedly snuffed out Klay Thompson's flame after Game 2, holding his fellow sophomore to 10.3 points on 18-of-53 (34%) shooting. To put it another way, Thompson scored 34 points in Game 2, on eight three pointers, and then scored 41 points and made just five threes the rest of the way. And, in case you'd forgotten, it was Leonard who found Ginobili for the game-winning shot in Game 1.

Leonard won't have any prolific perimeter man to hound against the Grizzlies, and we'll have to see if that's a good thing or not. In the past, he's floated and kind of gotten lost in games like that, but I'm hopeful that against Memphis he'll have the freedom to roam around the court and freelance a bit, come up with some backdoor steals and blocks while helping out his bigs on the boards. If the match-ups aren't quite working out in the Spurs' favor, Pop can also switch things up and go small, giving Leonard a mismatch against Randolph out on the floor. Of all the Spurs, he figures to have the best looks from downtown, so hopefully he can keep up his shooting stroke. Any turnovers he can created will also be huge, because the Spurs will need all the easy points against the Grizz that they can get.

Danny Green: B+

35.7 mpg, 12.0 pts, 4.2 rebs, 1.7 asts, 1.0 blks, 1.5 stls, 0.8 TOs, .456/.444/.667, -30

Oh, the dangers of the plus/minus stat. Somehow, despite Green's dead-eye shooting from deep (Spurs have no chance in Game 1 without him) and his superlative work on Stephen Curry, he was a net minus for the series because the offense ground to a halt with him in there. Proof positive that he really is the evolutionary Bruce Bowen. The long-limbed Green forced just as many turnovers as Leonard and was every bit the key to our defensive success, but he wasn't quite as efficient from afield overall and had a couple of down games in that regard. Overall I wouldn't hold the scoring numbers against him, rather they were the product of some uncharacteristically poor shooting from Tim and Tony.

Unlike Leonard, it's likely that Green will have another tough defensive match-up against the Grizz, as he's the likely candidate to slow down Mike Conley, throw some size and physicality at him and give Parker a breather. When he's not on Conley it will be imperative for Green to dig in on the bigs and to also help out on the boards. On the other side of the ball Memphis will look to run him off the three point line, so Green will have to finish at the rim and hopefully not dribble or shoot layups like a spaz. Dunks would be good, those lame finger rolls not so much.

Tony Parker: B

39.0 mpg, 22.5 pts, 4.7 rebs, 6.2 asts, 0.2 blks, 0.7 stls, 2.5 TOs, .426/.455/.762, +2

Though Parker alternated good games with bad ones against the Warriors, he had at least one sustained hot streak in each, which proved vital in the Game 1 comeback and the Game 6 closeout. I'm sure we all thought we'd never see the day where Parker shot better from three in a series than from the field overall, but that might not be the worst thing in the world if he can keep it up (spoiler alert: he won't). It wasn't Parker's best series either, but he deserves high marks for not only playing through injury, but for being more game defensively than his counterpart, Curry. Parker wasn't always effective when backed down into the post by Harrison Barnes, but he fought him best as he could. He also abused Curry on offense whenever the Warriors were forced to go to that match-up. Parker's effort on the boards was another point in his favor.

The Grizzlies series will be interesting for Parker not only because he's still not fully healthy but also because Conley is sort of a personal Moby Dick for him. It will be difficult for Parker to finish at the rim, so his floaters will have to be dead on, but more important will be his mid-range jumper and his ability to drive and dish without turning it over. Memphis will be preying on him to be sloppy with the ball, so Parker will have to show some veteran wares here.

Manu Ginobili: C

29.7 mpg, 12.7 pts, 5.0 rebs, 6.3 asts, 0.3 blks, 1.7 stls, 2.5 TOs, .342/.275/.650, +46

Ginobili was positively brilliant in every aspect of his game save one: He couldn't shoot the ball to save his life. For some players, this wouldn't be the end of the world, but when your position literally has the word "shooting" right in it, that's kind of bad. Manu had the one huge three to win Game 1 and a nice hot streak in Game 4, but outside of that, it was pretty ghastly whenever he launched a ball at the general vicinity (and that's being kind) of the rim, even from the free throw line, which was very disturbing.

Still, the +46 tells a story of its own. This might well have been the best passing series of Ginobili's career, he wasn't burned too bad on defense and he even helped out on the boards. Unlike the first two rounds of the playoffs last season where the starters raced out to big leads and the bench did its best to cough them up, the story of the 2013 postseason for the Spurs has been the starters treading water and the bench pushing them over the top, meaning that for two straight seasons it's been a complete flip-flop of the regular season that directly preceded it. In other words: We know nothing, Jon Snows.

I'm gonna step out on a limb and predict that .342 from the field from Manu won't quite cut it against the Grizzlies, but hopefully he's due to snap out of his funk. The bigger stat for him is the assist/turnover ratio. If he can keep it at a 2:1 clip, the Spurs are in good shape. If he has more giveaways than assists, like he did in the Western Conference Finals last year, that'd be bad. Ginobili was the one Spur who played well against the Grizzlies in the playoffs two year ago -- with a broken arm no less -- but he doesn't seem like the same player anymore. Can he surprise us once more?

Boris Diaw: B+

17.8 mpg, 4.0 pts, 3.0 rebs, 2.0 asts, 0.2 blks, 0.7 stls, 1.2 TOs, .474./.500/1.000, +48

What's not to like about Boris' play aside from the fact that, as usual, his teammates and coaches had to beg him to shoot the damn ball? I suppose the rebounding numbers could've been better, but Diaw showed more chemistry playing with Duncan or Tiago than the two starters did playing together for the most part, and he even held up well as the hub in small ball lineups. All in all, it was a bit of a surprise that Diaw didn't play more, given his relative success.

Against the Grizzles he'll have to play tougher, for sure, and chip out on the boards, and he'll really have to start shooting more. Open shots against Memphis come few and far between, so when you get one, you better let fly. Defensively I'm not as worried about him for some reason. I think he's got more than enough foot speed to contend with their bigs, I'm more concerned about what he does once the shots are up in the air.

Cory Joseph: B

9.3 mpg, 3.5 pts, 0.8 rebs, 1.0 asts, 0.0 blks, 0.0 stls, 0.0 TOs, .529/.333/.333, +9

After a wobbly Game 1 in which he was torched by Curry (though Duncan contributed mightily by not being anywhere near on those high screens), Joseph got better and better as the series went on, saving his best two games for the final two. Perhaps most impressive was the fact that he didn't commit a single turnover in 56 minutes on the floor during the series, though to be fair he wasn't the primary ball handler hardly ever. He did knock down a pair of corner threes in the final two games, which was nice to see and had a couple other long jumpers as well. Teams are gonna keep leaving him open, so hopefully he can keep making them pay.

Joseph's role will probably stay the same against Memphis, playing in the 8-10 minute range to give Parker a breather. His ball pressure should wear down Conley a bit and every bit of that will help in the long run. Whatever he gives us on offense is a bonus.

Gary Neal: D

15.3 mpg, 4.7 pts, 2.5 rebs, 0.5 asts, 0.2 blks, 0.2 stls, 0.3 TOs, .345/.250/1.000, +24

More proof that +/- isn't the end all and be all, I give you exhibit B: Gary Neal. His shooting was poor, his shot selection was horrid and his defense was even worse. About the only positives for Neal is that he took relatively good care of the ball and that he boarded competently. Still, he didn't do much of anything to deserve 15 minutes a night in the next round and probably got leap-frogged by Joseph in the rotation. At this point I really want McGrady to get a shot, just because it'd be someone --anyone-- different.

Neal did have some big moments against the Grizzlies, of course, and he'll get chances early on in this series I suspect, but I'm just not a believer anymore and I don't see how anyone could be. You can just see somebody like Jerryd Bayless or even Keyon Dooling torching him.

Matt Bonner: D-

9.7 mpg, 2.0 pts, 1.2 rebs, 0.3 asts, 0.0 blks, 0.0 stls, 0.0 TOs, .455/.333/NA, -3

After receiving 35 minutes of playing time in the first two games of this series (remember, Splitter missed the first game), Bonner only got 23 minutes the rest of the way, thankfully. No, his shooting stroke didn't desert him once more, as it had in playoffs past, but virtually every other aspect of his game was back to his usual May levels. Softness on the glass, missed defensive assignments, dumb fouls, passing up shots, etc. Same old Bonner.

The less he plays in the Western Conference Finals, the better off we'll be. Yeah, he can hit a couple of open shots, but he takes so much off the table in every other aspect of the game, it's just not worth having him on the floor. The other teams go right at him with all the confidence of Achilles, and they either score, get foul calls on Bonner or just abuse him pitifully on the boards until they score. It's almost painful to watch.

*****************************************************

With that business out of the way, let's get down to the previews, in a helpful Q&A format, where you, the reader, plays a paranoid worry wart, and I, play the part of an experienced, wise sage who condescendingly pats you on your head and tells you how stupid you are to doubt the Spurs.

(note, this is by and large excerpted from a post TimVP had on SpursTalk, where he played the part of the pessimist and I shot his points down one by one and then added several of my own).

Q: I'm concerned that Duncan isn't playing that well. He had trouble against Bogut and Marc Gasol is just a better version than Bogut. TD has had a great season but it's asking a ton for him to shine against the Defensive Player of the Year.

A: How well Duncan plays on offense really has nothing to do with who he's facing, which I realize is rare. Still, with all the pick-and-rolls the Spurs run, regardless of whether they face the best defensive team in the league or the worst, everybody gives Duncan that same 15-17 foot open shot. It's simply a matter of whether he knocks them down or not. If he hits enough of them, then people jump out at him and then he just pump fakes and gets to the rim. He's scored consistently on Gasol in the past and had a couple of big games against the Grizzlies this season, averaging 20 and 13 on nearly 53% shooting.

Q: I'm worried that Parker is hurting. He had trouble scoring against a Warriors team with iffy defensive guards and limited bigs. What's going to happen against Conley -- arguably the best Parker defender in the league -- and a team with legit bigmen and other players with agile length? On paper, this looks like it'll be a disastrous series for TP unless he miraculously returns to health, no?

A: Neither Gasol nor Randolph are elite shot blockers. They have size, but Parker can still shoot his floater over them. Conley is good defensively, but Parker can still get to the hole and dish, even if he can't consistently finish. Like Duncan, for him it's all about whether he can hit that jumper. He'll get plenty of them.

Q: It sure looks like Ginobili is no longer at the stage of his career where he can carry a team. And besides, going up against Tony Allen would be a tall task no matter his age. I don't like that match-up.

A: Ginobili destroyed Allen two years ago playing with a broken arm. No, he's not the same player now, but, again, the initial defender doesn't matter all that much against Manu since he always relies on that screen anyway. With Manu it's about how well a defense plays as a team to cut off his penetration and how they play him on the pick-and-roll. I'm not saying he's going to have a big series vs. the Grizzlies or anything, but how well he plays will depend more on him (and his shot/decision making) and the Grizzlies bigs than Allen.

Q: Splitter played a bit better in Game 6, but he's still playing without physicality. He has trouble grabbing contested boards. He still has issues finishing in crowds. Those three faults play perfectly into the Grizzlies hands, right?

A: People haven't been very patient with Tiago even though he had a pretty bad sprained ankle. They wanted him to be 100% from the first game back. If you've been paying attention, he got better and better as the Warriors series went along and both his stats and the Warriors offensive stats reflected that. By the end, Pop relied on Tiago, not Tim down the stretch and we still won. No, Tiago is not physical, and he's not a great rebounder, but he's a very good defender as long as you don't pair him with Bonner. I think this series will be a great test for him, but it could be his coming out party.

Q: Leonard and Green just came off of a GREAT defensive series -- but Memphis does their damage on the inside. There really won't be anyone for those two to shut down. Thus, I think it'll be much more difficult for them to impact the series.

A: Not having to do as much on their guys will just allow them that much more opportunity to freelance and disrupt Memphis' offense. Leonard, in particular, could wreak a lot of havoc with his ridiculous wingspan. Leonard could be the key guy in the series because if Pop wants to switch things up to go small, there's nobody on the Grizz to handle him, really. If Green doesn't play well, then Pop could turn to Manu more and he'll have the freedom to play Ginobili since there's no perimeter guy to wear him out on defense. More Ginobili on offense is never a bad thing. The Spurs have the THREE best wings in this series. That's a ridiculous luxury and it'd be silly for anyone to dismiss that.

Q: Diaw, Bonner and Blair are all poor match-ups against a physical front-line, so shouldn't I be terrified?

A: Well, no, because two of them won't play, duh. This isn't 2011. We're not this soft, punk-ass team that has to rely on RJ, Bonner and a broken down, undersized Antonio McDyess. We've got a second legit big in Splitter and some girth at the very least (and pretty quick feet) in Diaw. Again, if the bigs falter, we can go small. You can call the 2013 Spurs a lot of things, but they're not soft.

Q: Neal's ballhandling and decision-making against that pressure defense? Yikes.

A: Pop has shown already Neal's leash will be very short. If he's not getting it done it'll either be a three-man rotation on the wings or possibly even McGrady, who's got size. We're not gonna depend on Neal to win or lose us games. Really, you're freaking out about the 9th and 10th men in the rotation.

Q: Does Joseph have the experience to play in what is going to be a glorified back alley dogfight?

A: Scrappiness is the biggest strength of his game. Frankly I'd be a lot more worried about playing him against an offensive juggernaut team we have to match hoop for hoop than a rugged defensive team. To paraphrase a former head coach of the 49ers, this is Joseph's kind of party.

Q: The Grizzlies are at the very least as good defensively as the Spurs. Most likely, they're better. San Antonio was superior offensively for the majority of this season -- but they've fallen off a cliff in the last couple months. That ball-movement that made this team special is mostly gone. They don't have much in terms of individual creators. The Grizzlies offense isn't awesome but their scoring, on paper at least, will be more reliable since it'll come on the inside. Add in the points they'll create by forcing turnovers and hitting the offensive glass -- and I can't make a strong case for the Spurs having a better offense or defense right now. Tell me where I'm wrong.

A: The Spurs starting five is the best defensive quintet in the league. It's kind of a secret because they only played 31 games together due to various injuries and only a 364 minute sample size, but their work together has been staggering. They allow 41% field goals, 32% from 3 and hardly ever foul. They're insane. In fact, when you focus on just the 8-man rotation and throw out Bonner and Neal, the Spurs are as good as any defense in the league and probably better.

As far as offense goes, it's kind of amusing to harp on lack of ball movement when the team had 57 assists the past two games. The Spurs have MUCH better three point shooting than the Grizzlies. Also, Memphis struggled to run away from a one-man Thunder team whose best passer was Kevin Durant. Both Parker and Ginobili are way better passers than him and Duncan is far more of a post threat than anyone the Thunder had. Memphis' offensive limitations will insure that no matter how well they play, they won't really run away from the Spurs and we'll always be in games against them. One good run (which the Spurs always have in them) and we'll be tied or ahead.

Q: We still really don't know how good the Spurs are at the moment, right? Should we take anything from sweeping the Lakers? Probably not. Is struggling with a Warriors team that was mediocre in the regular season a bad sign? Yeah, probably. Add in the poor way the Spurs ended the regular season -- and this team is still riddled with question marks. The Grizzlies, on the other hand, know exactly what they are and what they aren't. I want to believe -- but as I'm sitting here right now, I just can't do it by any logical means. I'm sorry.

A: You are making the mistake of judging them based on your most recent memories of the Spurs and the most recent play of the Grizzlies and are not taking into account a number of factors.

1. The Spurs, the big three in particular, were EXHAUSTED down the stretch of this series, because its schedule was obscene. Think about it, they played 6.3 games in 11 days, with four cross-country flights in between and a stupid Sunday afternoon tilt after a Friday night game. If Game 4 was played at night I have no doubt in my mind, none whatsoever, that the Spurs would've won it easily and taken the series in five, and everyone would've looked at them in a completely different light. The Grizzlies, on the other hand, had more rest within their series and less travel, with short flights between Memphis and OKC. In this series the Spurs will get more breaks between the games and again the travel won't be as much of an issue, so the Spurs will look fresher.

2. You're also discounting the opponents. We beat (dominated really) a good Warriors team in the last four games of that series, the same Dubs who beat a very good Denver squad. While I agree that the Warriors weren't much of a team for most of the regular season and that their coach Mark Jackson is mostly an overrated hype man, they dumb-lucked into their best team by having David Lee -- just an atrocious defender -- get injured vs. the Nuggets. If Lee had played big minutes vs. the Spurs our offense would've looked a lot better and really, in all likelihood we wouldn't have even faced the Warriors but rather the Nugs. The Grizz on the other hand, grinded out four wins against a one-man team. Durant is very good, but he was playing with a pretty shoddy supporting cast and those games still went down to the wire.

3. You're severely underestimating Pop. I rail on Pop sometimes too, but I at least give him enough credit that I strongly doubt he's going to just stand there and let Randolph and Gasol run roughshod over the Spurs inside, especially when that club doesn't have a legit perimeter threat. The doubles will be comin', boys and girls, oh they'll be a comin.' If the Grizzlies are going to beat us, it will have to be with the shooting of guys like Bayless, Pondexter, Allen and Prince. We're not going to just let them set up camp inside the paint. That's silly. Both these teams are so well-founded defensively that they're going to make each other go to plan C, D, or E for points. The further down the list it goes, the better off we are, because we have better depth in scoring than the Grizzlies do, better shooters and better passers. Good ball movement is the enemy of any top-tier defense and the Spurs don't lack for guys who are ready and willing to pass.

4. We'll have home court advantage. Not something I'd dismiss so easily. Yeah, the Thunder got us in Game 5 and the Warriors in Game 2, but it's still better to have it than not. At the least the Spurs are always good for one massive run behind their home crowd every game, and as I said before, with the Grizzlies unlikely to run away from us, one big run will be all it takes to catch up if we're behind.

5. Finally, we've got the ultimate motivator in revenge. The Grizzlies think they're the biggest and baddest team out there. We get to show them that the 2011 series was mostly a fluke. Ginobili had one arm and Leonard, Green and Splitter weren't significant contributors to the team back then.

Here's a number for you: 605.

You know what that is? That's how many minutes that Richard Jefferson (176), Antonio McDyess (145), Bonner (123!), Neal (111) and DeJuan Blair (50) played in the Grizzlies series two years ago. Think about it: Those five guys combined for a tick over 100 minutes per game, meaning that at any one time they comprised two-fifths of the lineups we had on the floor. Given that, the question shouldn't have been how we got upset in six by the Grizzlies but rather how we didn't get swept. (Conversely, Splitter and Green combined for 57 minutes that series.)

The team is radically different. Jefferson and McDyess are long gone and the three others won't combine for more than 25 minutes a game, at most, and that's probably a very liberal estimate. Again, I said it before, you can call these Spurs a lot of things, but they aren't soft. They're not going to be punked by some team that's "more physical." As we saw last season, if these Spurs lose, it will be to some club who flat out has more offensive talent and athleticism. That's not the Grizzlies.

Spurs in six.

Proof that the Spurs have the NBA's best defense

Aaronstampler — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:31:13 -0000

I realized last night why the national media largely ignores the Spurs. It's because it's better to not say anything and have people wonder if you're a fool than to open your mouth and have it confirmed. The pundits pay so little attention to the guys in the silver and black over the course of the regular season that inevitably their narratives are months -- even years -- behind reality.

From 2010-2012, the Spurs were an average at best defensive club, and downright porous on that end when Tim Duncan wasn't on the floor, yet they continued to rack up the regular season wins because they played at an up-tempo pace, with their perennially underrated Hall-of-Fame back court playing efficient, brilliant basketball and leading the way for what were really the best offensive clubs in franchise history. Yet, because nobody was really paying attention, the narrative about the Spurs was, "They must be grinding out wins with defense and Duncan."

In 2013, for several season, the Spurs offense has never soared to the heights of the 2012 version. Injuries contributed to that heavily, as a whole rotation 1 through 10 could never develop a rhythm and flow together. The years have caught up to Manu Ginobili and he's just not the same player he was a year ago. He's still capable of moments of greatness here and there, but they're fleeting and far between. Tiago Splitter was promoted, which strengthened an already formidable starting five, but considerably weakened the second unit. In fact, pretty much everyone on the second five had a down year. Boris Diaw wasn't as consistent as he was down the stretch last season. Stephen Jackson broke a finger early in the season, never recovered from that, and was eventually such a cancer that he had to be released. Gary Neal struggled all season with an injured calf and plantar fasciitis. The constant shuffling at backup point guard didn't help matters any either.

Here's the funny thing though: Despite the horrid bench, a rash of injuries that limited the team's four best players to 66 games or fewer, and an offense that went from other-worldly to merely "good," the Spurs kept piling up the wins (until April at least). Again, what little attention the team got for their feats was mostly misplaced, with the focus going to the offensive heroics of the ageless Duncan and the superlative Parker. What they failed to notice -- really what they've missed completely -- is that away from the public glare, Pop and the Spurs have quietly once again turned into a defensive juggernaut, and though they're not quite at the form of their championship seasons, they're as close to it as any team can be under these new rules that don't allow hand checking or much contact anywhere on the floor. And they've done it, mostly, with a positively dominant, stifling starting five.

I'm not really blaming or calling out anybody here. It's easy to ignore the Spurs starting five. I'm sure only the hardest of hard core fans can even name our five guys, with most folks assuming Ginobili is still a part of it, or Diaw, Bonner, Blair, whoever. Danny Green and Tiago Splitter haven't quite become household names just yet, and don't forget that during last season's Western Conference Finals, perhaps the first games where the casual fan paid attention to the Spurs in 2012, those guys were benched. Even Kawhi Leonard didn't become a starter until mid-season last year.

You want a real surprising stat though? Because of injuries our starting five was only healthy for 31 games during the season. 31. Think about that. Even crazier, they only played 364 minutes as a quintet all season, an average of 11.75 minutes in those 31 games (pretty much the first six of each half, you'd guess). After that came the constant Pop lineup shuffling, the insistence on keeping Duncan and Parker fresh, finding 24 minutes for Ginobili, etc.

For comparison's sake, the Thunder's starting five played 1,307 minutes together. Indiana's played 1,218. The Warriors had three separate five-man permutations log more minutes together than the Spurs starters. So, no, quantity wasn't a virtue for the San Antonio's starters. But man, quality sure was.

They were +132 in those 364 minutes, the fifth-best quintet in the league, despite the severe minute handicap. Their rate of +.363 per minute was obviously far higher than the top units OKC, Miami and Indiana threw out there (oddly enough, the Knicks somehow found a quintet that was a true anomaly, with Chandler-Melo-Smith-Kidd-Felton just destroying people in 269 minutes, mostly with three pointers).

It gets better though.

Poss			Opponent (Per 100 Possessions)
Rk	Lineup	Tm	Season	G	MP	Tm	Opp	Pace	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	eFG%	FT	FTA	FT%	PTS
1	T. Duncan \| D. Green \| K. Leonard \| T. Parker \| T. Splitter	SAS	2012-13	31	362.4	693	693	91.8	37.4	91.6	.408	5.6	17.2	.328	.439	8.8	13.6	.649	89.2
2	T. Allen \| M. Conley \| M. Gasol \| T. Prince \| Z. Randolph	MEM	2012-13	31	556.8	973	977	84.1	37.5	89.7	.418	5.5	19.9	.278	.449	12.0	15.9	.755	92.4
3	T. Allen \| M. Conley \| M. Gasol \| R. Gay \| Z. Randolph	MEM	2012-13	35	630.5	1156	1164	88.3	37.5	85.4	.440	6.4	18.0	.359	.477	13.7	18.6	.737	95.3
4	D. Harris \| A. Horford \| K. Korver \| J. Smith \| J. Teague	ATL	2012-13	29	351.2	696	692	94.9	39.3	90.9	.432	7.1	18.6	.380	.471	12.1	15.3	.792	97.8
5	P. George \| R. Hibbert \| G. Hill \| L. Stephenson \| D. West	IND	2012-13	64	1218.2	2278	2267	89.5	38.6	90.3	.427	6.0	16.6	.362	.461	16.1	20.5	.787	99.3
6	C. Boozer \| L. Deng \| R. Hamilton \| K. Hinrich \| J. Noah	CHI	2012-13	25	428.8	806	808	90.3	41.0	91.8	.446	5.2	15.6	.333	.474	12.6	16.3	.773	99.8
7	C. Bosh \| M. Chalmers \| U. Haslem \| L. James \| D. Wade	MIA	2012-13	47	687.3	1293	1291	90.2	39.7	88.0	.452	6.4	20.4	.314	.488	14.0	18.8	.745	99.9
8	K. Durant \| S. Ibaka \| K. Perkins \| T. Sefolosha \| R. Westbrook	OKC	2012-13	76	1306.5	2542	2528	93.1	39.2	93.4	.419	7.3	22.2	.330	.459	14.7	18.8	.779	100.3
9	M. Ellis \| E. Ilyasova \| B. Jennings \| L. Mbah a Moute \| L. Sanders	MIL	2012-13	31	388.8	764	770	94.7	39.9	93.2	.428	6.4	16.5	.386	.462	14.4	17.8	.810	100.5
10	K. Faried \| D. Gallinari \| A. Iguodala \| K. Koufos \| T. Lawson	DEN	2012-13	62	795.6	1541	1549	93.2	40.0	89.7	.446	8.3	19.9	.419	.492	14.9	19.6	.760	103.3
11	B. Knight \| J. Maxiell \| G. Monroe \| T. Prince \| K. Singler	DET	2012-13	40	605.8	1124	1118	88.8	41.3	93.5	.442	8.6	22.4	.384	.488	12.1	16.2	.746	103.3
12	L. Allen \| J. Holiday \| J. Richardson \| E. Turner \| T. Young	PHI	2012-13	27	382.2	718	725	90.6	41.5	87.7	.473	6.6	20.4	.324	.511	13.8	18.8	.735	103.4
13	K. Durant \| S. Ibaka \| K. Martin \| K. Perkins \| R. Westbrook	OKC	2012-13	70	357.5	712	709	95.4	37.8	88.4	.427	7.2	23.4	.307	.468	21.7	25.8	.842	104.5
14	G. Dragic \| J. Dudley \| M. Gortat \| L. Scola \| P. Tucker	PHO	2012-13	38	440.8	851	847	92.4	43.2	91.3	.473	6.3	16.9	.371	.508	11.9	16.4	.727	104.6

As you can see, not only is the Spurs starting five more stifling than their more celebrated counterparts at Memphis and Indiana, but really it's not even close. Over three points less per 100 possessions over the second-best lineup is obscene, folks. And it's a number that I can't believe isn't getting more attention. The Spurs starters allowed less than 41% shooting during the season, and while their 3-point defense wasn't quite as ridiculous as the 28% Memphis' crew allowed, 33% is nothing to sneeze at. And our starters fouled less than theirs.

(The most interesting aspect of this above chart is that the Grizzlies had the second and third best starting lineups defensively, with the much-maligned Rudy Gay a part of the latter. Gay is known as primarily an offensive player, but really he wasn't hurting the Grizzlies on defense at all. It was on offense where he was killing them, with his horribly inefficient shooting. Once he got shipped out to Toronto, his ration of shots went to Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph and Mike Conley, and voila, the Grizzles got better. If you want further proof of Gay's defensive talents, check out what happens when we expand the lineup field from a 350 minute minimum to 250. It's a relatively small sample size, but still intriguing.)

I don't think it's much of an accident that the Spurs, Grizzlies, Heat and Pacers have dominated the league's team defense stats and that they're going to be the final four teams left standing. If you've been paying attention, this postseason, particularly the at-times-hard-to-watch second round, has been a referendum on defensive basketball, with the shooting numbers of teams as a whole in general and star players in particular (Melo, Durant, etc.) plummeting to NCAA levels of mediocrity.

It's quite possible that, barring overtime, we won't see any team reach triple digits during the final two rounds of the playoffs. The defenses are just too good; they communicate too well, and once they get a couple of "feel out" games under their belts to figure out what their opponents like to do, they just snuff out all that easy stuff and make you go to Plan C, D, E on offense. And that usually gets ugly. Really, I think that's what gives the Spurs the faint hope of contending for the LOB. Their fourth and fifth options are more attractive than Memphis' or Indiana's, and quite possibly Miami's as well -- assuming that Norris Cole will cool down eventually.

Why are the Spurs starting five so good? Simply put, I think together they're better than the sum of their parts, and I suppose Pop has to get a lot of credit for that. Individually, they all have weaknesses.

Parker's effort on that end comes and goes, though he usually gets geeked up facing any star, and motivation shouldn't be a problem for him from here on out.

Similarly, Leonard too tends to float at times if his man isn't a star, and I could see how that could present a problem against the perimeter-challenged Grizzlies, but I can envision Pop telling him, "I don't care how crappy your man is, you've got to be engaged and make things happen on defense, because we might not crack 80 points against these guys in the half court."

Green gets lost on screens at times, but he's been much better at that of late, with Stephen Curry giving him plenty of practice at it.

Splitter is the cliche "much quicker than he looks" (because he's white, you see), but he's not the most rugged guy out there and finishing off the defensive possession with a rebound is a challenge for him. Still, he's a guy whose defensive value isn't always understood by casual fans because he doesn't produce the defensive "stats." He's not blocking shots and Duncan's the one scooping up the boards, so Splitter's work, the way he hedges on pick-and-rolls and alters shots down low, doesn't really show up in the box score.

Duncan has days where his knee feels good and days where it doesn't, and it affects his mobility and ability to get out and challenge shots.

Individually these guys range from above average defenders to very good, but because there isn't a weak link among them, they're an elite unit. On other teams, Green might be in trouble having to be the top perimeter defender, but as a secondary defender (checking guards rather than forwards), he looks much better. Similarly, Splitter would be so-so as the top defensive big on other teams (notice his uninspiring work with Bonner against the Warriors). However as the Robin to Duncan's Batman, he's superb. Parker would be a train wreck in his own end playing for half the coaches in the league. Pop demands 94 feet of greatness out of him though.

These playoffs are progressing into kind of a Pop daydream, with defense as the dominating theme, not just for his team, but league wide. I think the further we go, the more he'll shift on the side of conservatism with his lineups, always going with defense over dynamism, hoping to string stops together, not let games slip away, and generate easy buckets through turnovers. Look at how little Neal played and how much Joseph played in Game 5. That was a sign.

The good news is that the Spurs defensive prowess isn't limited to the starting five. There might be a few backup swing men in the league who are as good defensively as Ginobili, but none of them are in his league from a play-making or shot-making standpoint on the other end. Diaw plays smart positional defense and like Splitter he's good as long as he doesn't have to be the main guy. Joseph is tenacious and unafraid.

Where it gets intriguing is beyond those eight guys. I think points will be at such a premium in the conference finals that no defensive weak links will be allowed to participate, except in cases of injury, blowouts or foul trouble. Playing a guy like Matt Bonner or Gary Neal for a couple minutes here and there might seem harmless, but these teams we're going to face are so talented, so smart and so well-coached, that having even one pigeon on the floor is enough to set off a chain reaction where the entire defense gets compromised and looks rather ordinary.

I don't believe I'm saying this, but don't be surprised if Tracy McGrady gets a trial run by Pop (an audition if you will) in Game 6 against the Warriors in Neal's place just to see how he fares. Ironically given McGrady's prolific career as a scorer, it's his size and defense that Pop will value, not his rusty jumper. (Remember, we brought in Glenn Robinson for Game 1 of the 2005 Finals and he changed the momentum of that game with three blocked shots). Having McGrady on the floor to fill not only Neal's eight minutes but also maybe Bonner's four and will enable Pop to play small-ball longer, which is perfectly effective against the Warriors. Having one guy who could remove both of those guys from the rotation and give us 12 solid defensive minutes would be quite a godsend. And if we do need a fourth big, Baynes seems to make more sense than Bonner at this point. The Red Mamba is just too soft.

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I hope Game 5 ended the silly notion that Stephen Curry is the best point guard in this series. Maybe someday, definitely not now. Parker is just the more complete player. He's got more clubs in his bag, more weapons in his arsenal and more tricks up his sleeve. He's got the experience to know how to compensate for various bumps and bruises and to accommodate and adjust his game around them. Curry hasn't gained that experience yet and doesn't have as many ways to score the ball as Parker does. Much has been made of Curry's shooting prowess, and he's obviously a gifted marksman from deep, but from 20 feet and in Parker shoots it just as well, and the closer you get to the rim, the more pronounced Parker's edge becomes. He's a much better finisher, he attacks the rim way more often and gets to the line a hell of a lot more.

I lost a little bit of respect for Curry because I think he mentally and physically quit in the second half. I don't know how much his ankle was bothering him, but he played embarrassingly bad on defense. He was basically Pete Maravich out there, just taking possessions off, not focusing at all, just trying to rest on defense to save his energy for offense. It looked like he was spending his time on defense thinking about what he'd do next time he had the ball, instead of concentrating on his man.

Curry's never been a great defender in the best of times (and never will be with his size limitations), but he was atrocious on Tuesday. His man scored 30 points on him with 11-of-16 shooting, 4-of-6 from downtown and 4-of-4 free throws.

The breakdown as follows: Green 4-of-7, 2-of-4 from 3, 2-of-2 FTs, 12 points; Parker 3-of-4, 2-of-2 FTs, 8 points; Leonard 2-of-2, 1-of-1 from 3, 5 points; Ginobili 1-of-1, 1-of-1 from 3, 3 points; Joseph 1-of-2, 2 points.

Conversely, Parker's man was 7-of-14, 1-of-3 from 3, for 15 points.

(Curry 2-of-6, 0-of-2 from 3, 4 points; Jack 3-of-5, 1-of-1 from 3, 7 points; Barnes 2-of-2, 4 points; Thompson 0-of-1, 0 points.)

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I was at a bar next to this obnoxious Warriors fan who kept making dumb comments and wasn't at all knowledgeable about the Spurs. He saw the starting lineup and asked if Ginobili was injured and kept clapping after every Warriors basket. Eventually I got annoyed enough that I pointed out with glee that Curry was the worst player on the floor and that he's killing them on defense.

"He's a hell of a scorer," the guy said.

"Defense is half the game," I said.

"The crappy half," he replied. And that's probably why he's a Warriors fan. It's a fan-base that hasn't realized they won't ever truly contend as long as David Lee is on their team. Holy cow, is he atrocious. He'd have to average 35 a game to make up for his shortcomings on the other end. (The Spurs were 4-of-4 against him on the night, in limited minutes, with the likes of Diaw and Bonner lighting him up.)

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Chris Webber suggested that Manu will be getting called in by the league for flopping on a play where Andrew Bogut horse-collared him on a rebound and he couldn't believe that the referees were suckered into calling that a flagrant foul.

Just one problem... they didn't call it a flagrant foul. The Spurs were already in the penalty and they were two regular free throws. Idiot.

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Speaking of Bogut, it's shocking how much his offensive game has regressed. I know the big guy has dealt with a couple of serious injuries the past few seasons, but we're talking about a former No. 1 overall pick here. Sure, he was never going to be a Duncan or a Shaq, but he wasn't Joe Smith or Michael Olowokandi either. Bogut at his peak had some solid post moves, a decent enough short jumper and averaged 15.9 points per game at his peak. Now he hardly ever attempts any shots that aren't dunks or follow lay-ins and he's deathly afraid of putting the ball on the floor. His offensive game is more limited than Splitter's. It's just sad to see.

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Yes, I checked because I was morbidly curious-- Richard Jefferson did score more than seven points for the Spurs in a playoff game. Several times, in fact. He averaged a whopping 9.7 points in the 2010 postseason and 6.5 in 2011. I just can't seem to remember any of them.

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After I railed on Bonner's softness for the fourth time in the span of a minute at the bar, Manoli said, "Yeah, that's not a good thing to have on the team you root for, but imagine how comfortable he'd be on your bed."

I think he meant as a pillow, but I didn't ask.

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The annoying Warriors fan kept referring to Bonner as "The Red Mamba," so Manoli and I decided we need more mambas. Parker was French Mamba. Diaw was Fat Mamba. Manu was Floppy Mamba. And Jefferson was Alternate Lifestyle Mamba.

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I mean, seriously, what is this? Blocking Joseph from wiping off his feet? What a troll. Go away.

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Now that the Thunder have officially been eliminated, I guess Pop was right and I'm an idiot. There was no sense pushing the guys for home court advantage. There were too many injuries and even if there weren't, I don't think the Spurs could've won 66 games to catch the Heat. Just about everything would've had to go perfect, winning every 50/50 game all year, to do that.

Who knew Russell Westbrook wasn't an indestructable alien? Maybe if we were the one-seed instead of the Thunder, Patrick Beverley would've taken out Tony's knee instead and that would've been unpleasant. I apologize Pop.

Now win nine more games and really make me look stupid.

Game Preview: Golden State Warriors @ San Antonio Spurs - Game 5

Aaronstampler — Tue, 14 May 2013 05:18:57 -0000

Golden State Warriors @ San Antonio Spurs

AT&T Center, San Antonio, TX
May 14, 2013, 8:30 PM Spurs Time
TV: TNT - RADIO: 1200 AM WOAI

So, Game Four sucked.

It's been like 30 hours since it ended and I know you're thinking the same thing I am: Why haven't they started Game 5 yet? What a bunch of slackers. Anyway, I didn't watch the last one live since I was working a double on Mother's Day, but your fearless leader asked me to write the preview for Game Five. I quoted him my freelancing price, there was a prolonged negotiation and somehow I'm writing this and I owe him 20 bucks. I have no idea how that happened.

Anyway, I am going to begin with my thoughts about Sunday's atrocity. You can match the below pithy observations to the official play-by-play, if you like.

First Quarter:

Spurs start out with some beautiful possessions, the ball is whipping around the perimeter, and they're getting whatever they want on offense, with open shot after open shot. Then Diaw checks in for Splitter and it all gets completely ruined. Literally every time he touches the ball, it leads to awfulness.

7:48 Leonard gets called for "palming" right when he had Curry on his back for the mismatch and was about to bury him into the post. Just a ridiculous call considering that LeBron and Durant do this 50 times a game.

6:18 The second the Spurs sub in Manu for Green, the Warriors sent Curry to the bench. Mark Jackson wants no part of any match-up where Curry has to guard somebody besides Green, Neal or Joseph. I totally think Pop should start Manu for Green in game 5 in both halves just to see what the Warriors do. I think we can hurt them there.

4:38 Barnes absolutely LAUNCHES Parker into the basket support, as clear an over-the-back on a rebound as you can possibly imagine and all three refs miss it. Manu does get fouled shortly after on the other end and bricks both free throws though, so it's cool. Oh and don't worry, those freebie misses were in no way an indicator of what was to come.

3:31 Parker nudges Bonner on the bench, asks rhetorically, "Can you believe how much Jarrett Jack dribbles?"

2nd Quarter:

11:23 Gary Neal's inner monologue, Part I: "Manu has scored our last 11 points. He is red-hot, in the way where if Stephen Curry was doing this right now, ESPN would just make the referees stop the game so that Bill Simmons could tape an impromptu podcast about it. So yeah, I should totally jack up this 20-footer from the baseline with 15 seconds to go on the shot clock."

10:30 Andris Biedrins wasn't feeling well this afternoon, so here is his understudy, a gigantic tomato.

4:43 Manu's ankle-breaker of Barnes late in the game has been oft-discussed, but for my money the behind-the-back move he put on Thompson here, with another behind-the-back pass to Duncan right afterward, was sicker,and it led to Duncan free throws (it would've been a dunk if a surprised Duncan caught it cleanly).

4:01 RJ gets absolutely ruined by Duncan. That gave me pleasure.

4:16-0:21 A bunch of ghastly Ginobili heat checks even though the rim made explicitly clear that he was no longer hot. Not the best way to go into the half, but nevertheless nobody who watched the opening 24 minutes would imagine the Spurs lost that game. Ridiculous. The Warriors looked beyond terrible in every respect but offensive rebounding.

Halftime:

Bill Simmons: "I will not apologize for rooting for the Warriors. I haven't been able to come up with an interesting narrative for the Spurs in 15 years. I'm actually quite overrated as a sportswriter."

Magic Johnson: "The Warriors' problem is they don't have a Tim Duncan, someone who can score in the low post. They need to find someone like that in the off-season."

(Yes, Earvin, all they're missing is somebody like Tim Duncan, who they should find over the summer, preferably to play on a minimum contract. Get right on that, Warriors.)

(P.S. Only one of those two was an actual verbatim quote during the halftime show.)

Third Quarter:

9:11 I've picked up on a subtle change of tone from play-by-play man Mike Tirico in how he calls exciting plays by the Warriors and exciting plays by the Spurs. When the Spurs do something, he describes it like his boss has just said, "Um, Mike, we need talk about this sexual harassment suit."

As opposed to his demeanor after a good Warriors score, which was as if his boss had told him, "Mike, we're keeping you on despite that sexual harassment suit."

4:47 Duncan misses like his 37th consecutive open jumper. Wasn't he money on those all season? So frustrating.

4:01 Curry hits this ridiculous 14-foot floater with one hand and then smells his hand to acknowledge where he just pulled those two points from.

3:54 Ugh, another "live wired" segment with Mark Jackson. Why do they ever bother with these? I feel like every coach in the history of basketball says the same common sense things, more or less. I know some coaches are better than others, but it's not like Vinny Del Negro is telling his guys in the huddle,

"Alright guys, now you're all playing way too hard, I need y'all to relax a bit. Quit hustling so much! On offense we need to take the first available shot, preferably a long contested two, okay?. Do NOT look for your teammates. Just shoot it like you might never get to touch a basketball again your whole life. Then, on defense just take whoever, all right? Do NOT communicate, okay? I don't want the other team to know what we're thinking out there. And for the love of God, if you do happen to make a stop, whatever you do, and Blake this is VERY IMPORTANT, do not box out, okay?"

2:19 Gary Neal's inner monologue, Part II: "This is my basketball, Cory. Mine. Mineminemineokaywaityours, aw crap.

1:44 HEY YOU BLIND JACKASSES WE'RE FOULING BOGUT HERE. Y'all seem to notice every other nudge and bump we're not trying to do on purpose and now that Neal's gotten further with Bogut than I got with any girl until I was 18, none of you notice?

1:17 Tirico: "Somebody please help me get rid of this stupid rule. It uglies up the game of basketball."

YEAH SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING, THE SPURS' INTENTIONAL FOULING IS RUINING THIS OTHERWISE BEAUTIFUL DISPLAY OF ATHLETIC MAJESTY OF THIS 59-58 GAME GOING INTO THE FOURTH QUARTER.

Fourth Quarter:

12:00 The always-vivacious Heather Cox interviews Mark Jackson.

Heather Cox: "Mark, Mike Tirico wanted me to ask you what it's like to be the best coach in the history of basketball and to coach the best players in the history of basketball in front of the best fans in the history of basketball?"

Mark Jackson: "Well, I wouldn't say I'm the best coach, Heather. Not yet, anyway. But as for the other things, it's pretty neat. God has blessed me. God, god, god. I love God. Anytime Stephen Curry sinks a three-pointer, that is the work of God pouring through him and anytime he misses a shot, it's because the devil is a stupid jerk Spurs fan."

Heather Cox: "Follow up question Mark, Tirico wrote his phone number on this piece of paper and wanted me to give it to you. Can you call him after the game?"

10:23 The Spurs have scored on three straight possessions. You know, this David Lee just doesn't seem to be very good on defense. WHY HAS NO ONE ELSE ON PLANET EARTH NOTICED THIS?

10:08 Gary Neal inner monologue Part III: "Hmm, Harrison Barnes seems to have a wide open lane to the basket. I bet if he dunks it's going to get the crowd all hyped. That would be bad. However, if I foul him really hard the refs might call a flagrant foul on me and that'd give them two free throws and the ball. That would also be bad. What should I do I'm in a moral dilemma (commits touch foul for and-1) aw geez."

8:38 Another live wired with Mark Jackson...

"You guys are this close [holds thumb and finger an inch apart] to winning a championship guys. It's the little things."

Yes, because if you can sucker Gary Neal into and-1s, that's totally same thing as beating the Heat four times. We're so close, guys!

6:22 Hubie calls Ginobili, "Manano." WTF?

5:46 Huge three there, Manano.

3:27 Not so sure about that Gary Neal: Lock-down defender strategy there, Pop.

5:46-0:00 Assorted crap possessions where there the ball never gets reversed, there's hardly any ball movement or man movement and Duncan runs one fruitless 4-down after another because it's 2003 I guess.

I didn't watch overtime. I'm saving it for tomorrow at breakfast. NO SPOILERZ PLEASE!

My Game 5 analysis/preview is this. The Spurs are the better team. They know it and the Warriors know it. Their defense has been better every game. They're basically throttling the Warriors now and Golden State's "offense" is just a series of isolations to Barnes or Jack, with the random curl around a couple of picks for Thompson or a high screen for Curry. I pretty much call out their sets on TV as they're happening by this point.

That the series is tied 2-2 is due entirely to the fact that our guys are shooting like they're blindfolded. They're getting better shots than the Warriors for the most part, though it'd be an exaggeration to say the ball movement has been great for long stretches. It comes and it goes, inexplicably, though I suspect Bogut has a lot to do with it when it goes.

It is bothersome how much Neal is playing but I'm not sure what can be done about it, outside of giving McGrady a shot, and that's not happening. Diaw's inconsistency is also bothersome, as is Splitter's softness and Leonard's tentativeness. If he just realized he's a much better player than Barnes this series would be over already.

Anyway, I think it's gonna be over in six, regardless of who wins Game 5, so it'd be nice if we won Game 5 and also Game 6.


Lineups Starters PG: Tony Parker SG: Danny Green SF: Kawhi Leonard PF: Tim Duncan C: Tiago Splitter Key Bench Players Manu Ginobili Boris Diaw Matt Bonner Head Coach Gregg Popovich			Lineups Starters PG: Stephen Curry SG: Klay Thompson SF: Harrison Barnes PF: Festus Ezeli C: Andrew Bogut Key Bench Players Jarrett Jack Carl Landry Draymond Green Head Coach Mark Jackson

Warriors perspective can be found here: Golden State Of Mind

Game prediction: Spurs by 8, as I enjoy leftover brisket on Mother's Day. That's right, it's Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day to all those moms out there.

As always Tony must dominate Fisher, and NBA league pass is recommended for those who are willing to pony up the cash. Almost every Spurs game will be broadcast there, which is especially helpful for those of us who aren't in the San Antonio area. Please don't post links to illegal game feeds in the game thread. Links to illegal feeds are not permitted on SBNation, but you can probably find them out there on the internets if you're resourceful and desperate.

Get your San Antonio Spurs tickets here!

Tony Parker Passes on the Croissant, Eats Stephen Curry's Soul For Breakfast Instead

Aaronstampler — Sat, 11 May 2013 16:47:06 -0000

My favorite play of Friday night's game occurred midway through the second quarter, and while it didn't seem so special or important in the grand scheme of things -- just a standard two-point mid-range jumper in the play-by-play sheet -- it effectively told the story of the Spurs' 102-92 triumph over the spunky Warriors at Oracle Arena, where San Antonio took a 2-1 lead in their second-round series.

Tony Parker, once again relegated to the role of the other point guard in a playoff match-up as he's been countless times in his Hall-of-Fame career, having previously taken a backseat to contemporaries such as Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Deron Williams, Chauncey Billups and Jason Kidd, was already well on his way to a big night in Game 3, having sunk a number of open J's as well as a circus no-look layup while stumbling to the ground to complete an and-1.

Here he was though, dribbling without any apparent urgency on the left side of the floor, guarded closely by the man -- Klay Thompson -- who pundits across the country credited for "shutting him down" (Parker totaled 48 points on 43 shots in the first two games). Thompson's combination of size, length, defensive acumen and youthful energy was supposedly too much for the Spurs' graybeard 30-year-old floor-leader to deal with.

So there was Parker, carefree as you please, dribbling just past the three-point arc with Thompson two feet in front of him, in a classic defensive stance. Then, a crossover dribble, quicker than a blink. Like a magic trick Parker was suddenly six feet to the left of the space he'd been an instant before and Thompson completely disappeared from the television screen, with about as much chance to recover on the play as the popcorn vendor. Of course, Parker's jumper hit nothing but net.

It's old hat by now for so-called experts to pick apart Parker's game, to focus on the things that he supposedly can't do. He doesn't put up the gaudy assist totals of Paul or Nash. He's not a marksman from downtown like Curry or Kidd. He's not as scrappy defensively as Rondo and he can't rock the rim like a Westbrook or a Derrick Rose (well, like they used to, anyway).

Put a bigger guy on Parker, the theory goes, rough him up a little, take away his penetration and his trademark teardrop, and you pretty much shut him down. People completely dismiss his mid-range jumper, despite the stats baring out that for the past several years he's been as accurate with it as any shooter in the league. For critics who watch maybe a handful of Spurs games all year (if that many), he'll always be the guy from 2003-04 who couldn't hit the side of a barn against the Lakers.

It's easy to ignore Parker's jump shot, his un-sexy, measly, only-worth-two-points flick of the wrist (with his tongue flayed out to the left like a beagle's through the window of a moving car), but in a way it's a microcosm of the Spurs team as it's been perceived through these last waning years of the Duncan Era. The Spurs rack up 55-60 wins every season like clockwork, despite an ever-crowded injury list and severe minutes restrictions placed upon their stars, and people assume they do it with smoke and mirrors, a by-product of flops, Duncan bankers, and scores of easy wins against the dregs of the league. It just doesn't dawn on people that it'd be impossible for Parker to have averaged darn near 20 points a game year in and year out just solely on a diet of teardrops and lay-ups.

No, in fact, Parker has canned a lot of jumpers in his career, more than any lay-person could dare imagine, and I'm betting he sinks a few more before he's done. He's also shooting 47 percent in the series -- and 60 percent from downtown in a small sample -- compared to Curry's 42 percent (and 38 percent from deep). Throw in Thompson's 46 percent (albeit 61 percent from three) and I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm calling Mark Jackson's bluff.

Also, Tony Parker is very good at basketball.

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Not to put too fine a point on it, but Game 3 was the most important road win for the Spurs in seven years, since they captured Game 6 at Dallas 91-86 (in what was the best road playoff performance of Manu's career) to come back from a 3-1 series deficit and send it back to San Antonio for Game 7. I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "Yep, there's no sweeter feeling as a fan than this, it's all downhill from here," after that game, so I didn't watch the rest of the playoffs. I'm just assuming everything went fine, yes?

**************************************************

This is as good a time as any to clear up a potential misunderstanding. When I wrote the other day that the Spurs have only a 35 percent chance to win the series, I didn't mean that I think the Warriors are the other team. The statement actually had very little to do with the Warriors. Rather it was about the Spurs, and how poorly they've responded to playoff adversity (especially on the road) since 2008. I think these two paragraphs sum my feelings up pretty well.

It's not that I think the Warriors are a better team than the Spurs. Not at all. A 106 minute sample size does not compare to an 82-game regular season. But the Warriors have a rabid, hellacious fan base and their arena will be a very tough place to capture a game now that these young sharks are smelling our blood. It's one thing to go into a tough building with a 2-0 series lead. The fans are still excited, but it's somewhat muted, since they know the best scenario is a 2-2 split after four games and that their squad still has to capture a road game. However, in a 1-1 series the fans know their guys have the home court advantage and a chance to really put a 3-1 stranglehold on the series.

I imagine anyone who's watched these two games has been quite impressed by this Warriors team so far, but I'm telling you, these Warriors aren't nearly as good as the squad we're gonna have to beat at least once in the "Roaracle." They're going to have much more energy up there, they'll play with even more intensity and emotion, and they'll be that much more resilient in chasing after loose balls and crashing the glass. Our only hope is that all that extra adrenaline will lead to some wonky shooting and perhaps a few fouls.

Anytime the Spurs have given the opposition the series momentum going into their building the past few years, it hasn't gone well for them, and the Warriors have a well-deserved reputation for being very tough to beat at home. As it turned out, the Dubs did come out a bit too pumped, they shot poorly, the Spurs played their best quarter of the series in the opening 12 minutes of Game 3 and held on from there. I thought all along that if our guys were going to recapture home court, that Game 3 was going to be their best shot at it, with the short turn around to Game 4 making that one too tough for them physically and the chance for the Warriors to potentially close out a series in Game 6 making that game virtually impossible.

So I was wrong. Pleasantly wrong. But not that wrong.

****************************************************

Speaking of being wrong, we've come to the part of the program where I gripe about Bill Simmons: Spurs hater. I hope by now you've come to the realization that he is openly rooting against us. (Watch, it's gonna happen next round against Memphis too.)

The media bias against the Spurs going into Game 3 was kind of ridiculous. ESPN had a fancy graphic pointing out how broken their defense was because they allowed "113.5 points in two games to the Warriors." Uh, Game 1 went to double overtime, dummies. Sure, a 106-106 scoreline after 48 minutes in the opening game is nothing to be proud of, but it wasn't obscenely bad. And they gave up a so-so 100 in the Game 2 loss. It's just a misleading stat, and one that doesn't explain that a Tim Duncan was moving around like a flu-ridden zombie in game 1 and playing at 50 percent at best.

Notice you didn't see "what's wrong with the Warriors defense?" graphics. C'mon guys, the Spurs were scoring 110 points through the first two games. That's awful defense, right?

Here was Simmons' sidebar in his latest column, explaining his prediction...

Look at San Antonio right now — it doesn't know what to do with Parker defensively now that G-State is riding these small-ball lineups. (Thank you, David Lee's hip flexor!) Parker can't cover Curry or Thompson, obviously. You can't hide him on Draymond Green (who'd take him to the hole) or Harrison Barnes (who can shoot over him). So unless Jarrett Jack is playing, how can you semi-hide Parker defensively? You can't. And that's before we get into San Antonio's other issues: wasting too much of Duncan's energy having him chase Curry off high-screen switches, figuring out what to do with Tiago Splitter (too slow for these small-ball games), and not having the offensive personnel to stop Curry from being a "hider" (copyright: Zach Lowe) on defense. You might see San Antonio play Parker, Ginobili, Kawhi Leonard and T-Mac at the same time just to make Curry guard someone. That's right, T-Mac!!!!!! I think we're getting a Golden State–Memphis conference finals. I really do.

All well and good, except for the part where he missed that the Warriors really haven't had much success posting up Parker with Barnes (at least not any more so than when Parker's guarded Jack or Curry). Neither Barnes nor Draymond Green have a polished enough of a post game to take advantage of it, and they haven't gone to that well much at all.

Also, this "analysis" seriously discounts how easily Splitter and Diaw score against the Warriors when they play small. Splitter was +8 in 4:09 against such lineups in Game 3. Diaw was +2 in 1:06 when paired with Duncan against a small lineup in Game 1 and -6 in 5:54 in Game 2, while Splitter was -1 in 1:19 (and never got in with Duncan). In game 3, Diaw was +4 in 10:42 when paired with Duncan or Splitter against the smalls. Overall, that works out to +7 for them in about 23 minutes of court time. Basically, criticizing the Spurs "big" lineup against the Warriors smalls is criticizing Matt Bonner. In any permutation of the main three bigs, they've been doing fine and are likely to keep doing so.

**************************************

Simmons keeps talking about the Warriors not giving Parker anyone to guard when they play without Jack on the floor, but one lineup I'd be curious to see the Spurs use more is one with Parker, Ginobili and Leonard, along with two bigs, so that a hobbled Curry can get a taste of his own medicine and not have Green, Neal or Joseph to hide on.

Wouldn't you know, the Spurs were +2 in 1:06 in that spot in Game 1, -1 in 2:56 in Game 2 and +2 in 4:38 in Game 3, just +3 in 8:40 over three games overall, a tiny sample size, but I like the trend of the Spurs looking to exploit that match-up more and more as the games go by. I know that Danny Green has done a fantastic job of guarding Curry, but I'm willing to bet that we can hurt them more by forcing him to guard Parker or Ginobili than he can hurt us with Parker on him (or forcing Parker on the small forward there).

*******************************************

I don't understand the GSW strategy tonight. Smallball was the biggest advantage they had and they've basically given it up. So confused.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) May 11, 2013

O RLY?

Game 1

SA small vs GS big 0:57, 4-1 SA (+3)

SA small vs GS small 30:53, 68-63 SA (+5)

SA big vs GS small 18:23, 45-42 GS (-3)

SA big vs GS big 7:47,18-15 GS (-3)

SA smalls against any lineup 31:50, 72-64 (+8)

SA bigs against any lineup 26:10, 47-53 (-6)

Of note: The Spurs made their comeback from 16 down late with their small-ball lineup, Splitter was injured and didn't play in this game and Duncan was very limited.

Game 2

SA big vs GS small 18:29, GS 48-31 (-17)

SA small vs GS small 19:42, 36-35 SA (+1)

SA big vs GS big 4:25, 14-11 SA (+3)

SA small vs GS big 5:23, 10-6 SA (+4)

SA smalls against any lineup 25:05, 46-41 (+5)

SA bigs against any lineup 22:55, 45-59 (-14)

Of note: 9 of that -14 was with Bonner in there. The Spurs lost 100-91. Do the math.

Game 3

SA big vs GS big: 23:58, 48-52 (-4)

SA big vs GS small: 11:40, 25-21 (+4)

SA small vs GS small:12:22, 29-19 (+10)

SA bigs against any lineup 35:38, 73-73

SA smalls against any lineup 12:22, 29-19

Of note: The Spurs played it straight up for 35:38 of the first 37:38 of the game before finishing with their small lineup.

Totals:

SA small vs GS big 14-7 (+7) in 6:20

SA small vs GS small 133-117 (+16) in 62:57

SA big vs GS big 77-81 (-4) in 36:10

SA big vs GS small 98-114 (-16) in 48:32

SA smalls against any lineup: 147-124 (+23) in 69:17

SA bigs against any lineup: 175-195 (-20) in 84:42

GS smalls vs any lineup: 231-231 (even) in 111:29

GS bigs vs any lineup: 88-91 (-3) in 42:30

The Spurs smalls have not been outscored, in any situation, in any of the three games, and are +23 in 69:17 on the court. The Warriors' smalls haven't had that kind of of success. We're mainly a big team, and have played that way all year, and while we can survive against the Warriors playing big against their smalls, it has to be with Duncan, Splitter and Diaw. Throwing Bonner in there throws a wrench into the operation and makes things too easy for them. He probably shouldn't play in this series.

********************************************

Before Game 3, I wrote that if the Spurs were fortunate enough to win, that Pop would probably punt Game 4 because of the quick turnaround so that the Big Three could rest up for the critical Game 5. However, with Curry so banged up, now I'm not so sure. I expect our guys to be on regular season-level minute restrictions, so about 30-32 for Parker and Duncan and 24-26 for Ginobili, but if the Spurs are ahead or close at halftime, I really think Pop will push it in the third quarter for the chance to put our collective foot on their throats.

In fact, I'd love to start with that Duncan-Splitter-Leonard-Ginobili-Parker lineup in each half, just to surprise them and find out quickly how Curry's feeling. Obviously Parker's health is a big story too, but all of a sudden I'm feeling way more confident about Sunday's game than I was 48 hours ago.

I'm fickle that way.

Stampler gets haircut, Spurs immediately lose at home to Warriors for first time in 30 games

Aaronstampler — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:28:29 -0000

Okay, first off, a quick and dirty analysis of Game 1, which you'd no doubt read in some form or fashion from better analysts than I a hundred times over. But here are my notes, for the record. After that, I'll offer some bullet point thoughts for Game 3 and beyond...

First quarter: 28-23 Warriors

The Spurs played big, with either Duncan-Bonner or Duncan-Diaw, for the whole period, while the Warriors stayed small with Draymond Green as their PF the whole period, working with either Bogut or Ezili at center. For the last 5 seconds, they went micro with no bigs, for an offensive possession, with Thompson getting an excellent look at a floater but coming up short.

The height difference between the lineups allowed the Spurs to dominate the offensive boards, with Leonard, Duncan and Bonner (!) all cleaning up there, but snatching seven of them was possible, in part, due to the team’s WRETCHED shooting. 35% from the field, 0% from three, two assists, two turnovers.

The ball movement was terrible. The offensive was stagnant. The big three were all guilty of playing one-on-one, with Duncan the only one looking decent. Ginobili had no legs at all and almost all of his attempts were short. Leonard attacked his matchups against shorter people aggressively, but his shots were all wayward. There were very few forays into the paint despite the height advantage, and none of them were successful.

Defense was okay (43%) for the most part, though the W’s made 4-of-8 from downtown. Parker and Neal both got roasted. On one sequence Leonard gave up three straight good looks to Thompson. Parker was backed down in the post a couple of times and was okay. 28 points sounds like a lot, but there were a couple of fluky shots in there. The real problem, defensively, is that the W’s put up so many shots because they didn’t commit a single turnover. Spurs allowed way too much room for easy passes and dribble drives. Warriors had pretty good spacing throughout.

Second quarter: 34-20 Warriors

Warriors started very small, with Landry as their only big, but after Spurs scored two consecutive inside baskets, they got away from that and paired Ezili with Landry, for a 4:16 stretch of dueling backup bigs.

The Spurs were pitiful defensively in this scenario. Splitter, coming off a relatively long lay-off, was way too soft inside and got outworked for a number of easy Warriors buckets by Landry and Ezili. Thompson knocked down a couple of threes in transition and one more off a clueless Neal, who also exhibited some ghastly shot selection on offense.

However, where the night really went to hell is when the starters checked in for both sides at the 6:33 mark, with the Warriors making a 10-3 run, capitalizing off some wide open misses from 3 from Danny Green. It was, sadly, our best ball movement of the period, but for naught. The Warriors, meanwhile, backed Parker down in the post, took advantage of the double and worked the ball around for a wide open Thompson three from the corner.

Once the Spurs went small vs. small at the 3:10 mark, with Duncan and Bogut as the only bigs, the Warriors finished off the half with an 8-2 run.

The Spurs ended the half with four assists and five turnovers. They were 0-of-7 from deep, while Thompson was 5-of-6 in the period and the Dubs were 9-of-16 as a team in the half, with the starting guards accounting for all nine makes. That’s a 27-0 advantage from downtown.

Third Quarter: 29-21 Spurs

By all rights this was the period the Spurs should’ve sliced a huge chunk off the Warriors’ lead, since they held the Dubs to just 36 percent shooting and just 1-of-5 from three. However, they only shot 44 percent themselves and converted on just 3-of-7 bombs (bringing them to 3-of-14 for the game).

Interestingly enough, this bout of defense happened with the Spurs, perhaps in desperation mode, going small the whole quarter, with either Duncan or Splitter as the lone hub. Ironically, there was a brief stretch where the Warriors were actually “big” (albeit with the Ezili-Landry combo) vs. the Spurs smalls, with Landry checking Leonard and actually winning their individual match-up. Overall the Warriors did have some spacing issues with the two of them playing together though, and couldn’t take advantage of Duncan the way they did Splitter in the second period.

Curry and Thompson were a combined 3-of-12 in the period, with one of the makes being Thompson’s crushing three at the buzzer. Duncan was considerably more aggressive and quicker hedging out on them on the screen-and-roll than he had been in the first half, and the pair also had a couple of unsuccessful forays toward the rim that they were displeased did not turn into free throw attempts.

It sounds obvious to say, but this is the kind of aggression with which the Spurs will have to defend going forward. Do not give these guys room, and if you do make mistakes, make mistakes of aggression versus ones of passiveness.

Offensively while it wasn’t perfect, there was at least some urgency in the play and some quicker passes, but Neal’s reckless shot selection, as well as some bricks from Duncan inside, gummied up the works. If they just made a couple more threes and a couple more free throws and that Thompson three at the end rimmed out, it would’ve been anyone’s game going into the fourth.

Fourth Quarter: 19-17 Spurs

More of the same. On the heels of that Thompson three to end the third, another bad omen came in the start of the final period, where the Spurs failed to capitalize on a couple of possessions where Landry was the only “big,” in there.

Beyond that though, the Spurs just couldn’t string enough shots together, not nearly enough really, and every time they got within 6-8 points, the Warriors would answer, whether it was their only non-Curry/Thompson three of the game from Draymond Green, or a couple of tough fade-aways from Jack or that ridiculous scoop shot on the drive from Curry. Always something.

In the end, you have to blame the offense (or lack thereof). The Warriors scored 38 points in the second half, meaning that the Spurs would’ve needed just 57 to catch them, a perfectly reasonable number for this team, especially with all their shooters on the floor. A part of it could’ve just been bad luck, a part could’ve been that just didn’t have their legs after the double-overtime marathon a couple nights before and a part could’ve been the team’s relative unfamiliarity playing all those small ball lineups after playing “big” virtually the whole regular season.

****************************************************

Alright, straight away there's something we've all got to realize and accept: We are now the underdogs in this series. Overwhelming underdogs? It depends on your definition. I'd put our odds of pulling it out around 35%. At the very least, this Game 2 loss has forced us into a situation where the best case scenario is winning a grueling, mentally taxing, nerve-wracking Game 7.

It's not that I think the Warriors are a better team than the Spurs. Not at all. A 106 minute sample size does not compare to an 82-game regular season. But the Warriors have a rabid, hellacious fan base and their arena will be a very tough place to capture a game now that these young sharks are smelling our blood. It's one thing to go into a tough building with a 2-0 series lead. The fans are still excited, but it's somewhat muted, since they know the best scenario is a 2-2 split after four games and that their squad still has to capture a road game. However, in a 1-1 series the fans know their guys have the home court advantage and a chance to really put a 3-1 stranglehold on the series.

I imagine anyone who's watched these two games has been quite impressed by this Warriors team so far, but I'm telling you, these Warriors aren't nearly as good as the squad we're gonna have to beat at least once in the "Roaracle." They're going to have much more energy up there, they'll play with even more intensity and emotion, and they'll be that much more resilient in chasing after loose balls and crashing the glass. Our only hope is that all that extra adrenaline will lead to some wonky shooting and perhaps a few fouls.

Speaking of fouls though, my real concern in that regard is that now, with Russell Westbrook out for the Thunder and grind-it-out, small-market Grizzles as the only other alternative, the Warriors will be the default choice for the bandwagoners and casual fans out there, and thus they'll be the ones to receive the refereeing bump from Emperor Stern. The zebras get influenced and intimidated enough in normal regular season games out there, but now, in this situation where just about everyone is pulling for the sweet-shooting Cinderella Warriors, with their college-like offense (all guards chucking, all the time), the whistles are going to be that much more in their favor.

We saw some hints of it in Game 2. Ginobili could not buy a trip to the line, despite getting constantly hit on his drives to the basket. They called one critical fourth quarter charge on him on what should've been an and-1 against a moving Andrew Bogut. Similarly, Parker and Duncan were abused down low, with scant few calls. I have a very bad feeling that the refereeing will only tilt further and further against the Spurs as this series goes on, similar to last year's Western Conference Finals. The Spurs are gonna have to be not one point better but 15 points better. They'll have to beat the Warriors and the referee bump.

Another obstacle is the schedule. Can Stern make it any more obvious that he doesn't want the Spurs to make it out of this round? While Knicks-Pacers and Thunder-Grizzlies get three says off between Games 2 and 3, our guys have to play every other day the whole series unless it goes the full seven, where they'll have a two-day break. It gets particularly ridiculous between Games 3 and 4, where they'll barely get 36 hours of rest between the two games, thanks to a 12:30 p.m. local time tip-off slated for Mother's Day. If the Spurs can somehow pull off an upset and win Game 3, look for Pop to punt Game 4 early, happy to rest his big guns and let the W's win a blowout out home to turn the series into a best-of-three. If the Spurs don't win Game 3 though... ugh.

***************************

With all those intangible negatives out of the way, however, you'll be pleased to find that there are on the court positives. As mentioned above, the Spurs did hold the Warriors to just 38 points in the second half of Game 2, playing almost exclusively small. They didn't do anything revolutionary on defense, the perimeter guys just got up on their man and the bigs hedged hard on all screen-and-rolls. The five guys played together and communicated better, quicker to cut off penetration to the basket. When they did leave shooters open, they were careful to let it be Draymond Green for the most part, or maybe Barnes, but not Thompson or Curry so much.

Splitter was soft inside protecting the rim and rebounding, but he did show pretty good mobility in his hedging. I'm hopeful that Pop will scrap the idea of starting Bonner alongside Duncan and go back to the regular starting lineup, in the hopes that the team can get off to better starts by banging inside. As I feared before the series started, there really isn't much use for Bonner in this series. There's just no good match-up for him unless the Warriors play with two bigs for a prolonged stretch and Landry's the guy who has to be out there guarding him out to the three point line. Unless that scenario comes to pass, I'd prefer to just stick with Duncan and Splitter (maybe some Diaw mixed in), with strict small-ball lineups -- Leonard as the four -- as the alternative when either of the two bigs needs to rest.

The Spurs have no excuse -- NONE -- to lose at home to the Warriors with their full lineup when they allow just 100 points. In Game 1 Green and Leonard had 40 points between them. In Game 2, they totaled 21, which just won't get it done. They have to combine for 30, minimum, for the Spurs to win these games. Also, none of the big three have really played well -- Duncan's Game 2 came closest -- in either of the first two games. Despite that, we've got a series split. If we can just get our five main guys to just play average games for them offensively, that depth of scoring should be too much for the Warriors to overcome.

Because here's the thing: As well as Curry and Thompson fill it up -- and they certainly are explosive -- the Warriors just have too many guys who are too limited in their offensive arsenal. That team needs their starting guards to shoot almost every time out because they don't have other options. Their bigs, whether it's Bogut, Landry or Ezili, have hardly any range. Draymond Green is a streaky shooter. Barnes is not someone who's going to shoot an efficient percentage. David Lee is not a factor. It's just a simple matter of the Spurs playing as hard as they did in the second half and as smart and skillfully on offense as they've shown they can the past two seasons. We're not asking for a miracle here, we're asking for them to be the Spurs.

In that vein, isn't it about damn time for this team to show us something? Do you realize the Spurs haven't had a postseason series where they dropped at least one game but not four since the first round in 2009 against the Mavericks? Since that first round, anybody who's beaten them once has just kept on beating them, finding that magical formula, smashing the delicate confidence of the Spurs' role players, and out-maneuvering Pop on the chess board, as somehow "the best coach in the NBA" couldn't find a way to make the adjustments to pull his teams out of tailspins.

Championship Spurs teams of the past were made of steel. They weren't better than their opposition, they were harder. Meaner. Colder. They relished road games, attacked the paint relentlessly with their big three and nailed clutch threes like clockwork. They excelled in every facet of the game but shooting free throws, whereas this edition can't do anything but that, it seems (and not even that in Game 2). If these Spurs want their fans to regain their faith, they have to put forth a dominant effort from the opening tip tonight, establishing ownership of the paint on both sides, matching the Warriors' energy, enthusiasm and marksmanship while playing a hell of a lot smarter, and restoring order to the proceedings. They have to dominate the game to such an extent that everyone at Oracle will be left thinking, "Well, we'll get 'em in Game 4" by the middle of third quarter. Forget the second half comebacks. Those aren't happening against the Warriors on the road. If the Spurs want to win at Oakland, they gotta jump on them from the jump. Can they do it? Sure. Will they? I doubt it. Prove me wrong.

****************************

I watched the game intently, and I have to say I think too much has been made of Parker being taken to the woodshed down low by Barnes and Green. I thought he held up pretty well against those guys, did a good job of fronting them and didn't give up too many baskets at all. There were a couple of times where the Spurs were forced to double and were hurt by the string of passes that ensued, but overall, it wasn't anymore of an efficient method of attack for the W's than anything else they did. I'm more concerned with Parker's work on offense against Thompson.

*************************************

One area where Pop erred -- CLEARLY -- was not managing Ginobili's minutes better in the Lakers series. Manu -- honest to a fault -- mentioned how exhausted he was playing 36 minutes in Game 1 vs. the Warriors, and anyone with a brain should've realized that he wasn't going to have much in the tank for Game 2. As we saw, he had no legs in any of his shots and everything hit the front rim.

I know the Lakers games were blowouts and that Ginobili was coming off the hamstring injury, but Pop still should've gradually upped his minutes from 20 to 23 to 26 to 28 over the four games. Instead, Ginobili had to ramp up from 19-20-20-19 to a week break to 36. Real smart. Hopefully Manu will find a way to give the team a really good 28-30 minutes in Game 3, because he's going to do nothing in Game 4.

************************************

With Stephen Jackson not on the team and Tracy McGrady not a realistic option, Gary Neal is playing, by necessity 20 minutes a night in this series. While it was nice to see that he wasn't abused on defense in Game 2 -- he gave up a few but wasn't torched-- if his shot selection doesn't improve we're gonna be in major trouble. Neal didn't even bother looking to pass whenever he touched the ball on Wednesday and some of his attempts were just gross. Why he's such a ball-hog these days I have no idea but it's not helping the team at all. I think I'd rather try McGrady, honestly. At least he'd be selective with his shots and looking to move the ball.

***********************************

From the "This Man Gets Paid To Analyze Basketball Games" department: Kenny Smith advocated that Pop should give DeJuan Blair some playing time, reasoning that Blair could not only do a solid job of guarding Landry inside, but that "he's got the mobility to guard guys like Green or Barnes out to three point line."

He also said Blair is "6'7" or 6'8".

While we're fantasizing here, Blair also has a sweet crossover dribble and is money on elbow threes. He rides unicorns to ballgames and poops in plaid.

**********************************************

I'm not asking for TNT to hire Sean Elliott, I'm really not. But can we get one color man who doesn't openly root against the Spurs during broadcasts? Just one time? Make it a bit less obvious fellas. It's ridiculous how "loyal" Chris Webber is to the Warriors considering how he completely screwed that franchise over after one year and it took them like a decade to recover from his jackassery.

*******************************************

Your guest color guys for Game 3: Tim Hardaway, Chris Mullin, Steve Nash and Mark Cuban. Oh, and it's going to be an ESPN broadcast. Just fantastic. Just shoot me now.

*********************************************

Is Pop really gonna get out-coached by a guy who was down to his last timeout with 8:00 to go in Game 2? Really?

Richard Jefferson bricks two free throws, Spurs win Game 1 vs. Warriors

Aaronstampler — Tue, 07 May 2013 19:55:05 -0000

One of the main reasons I love watching sports on television, besides the unscripted, unpredictable madness of it all of course, is that they reveal so much about people. And by people I mean us, the ones watching, not the players. I've never really bought the hokum about "sports revealing character" and all that because a guy could perform the most incredible, "heroic" feats on the field of play and still be a completely terrible human being otherwise. I don't need to go through the examples, you can probably think of a hundred in your head.

Sure, there are guys who are Hall of Famers and those who are scrubs, ones who are clutch and some who choke or are afraid to even be in that moment and play hot potato with the ball, but I think for the most part it's been proven that there's no correlation between things like that and how an athlete is off the field.

The audience though is different. No matter how much of a fan you are, no matter how attached to the competition and how much your juices are flowing, there is still that removal of actually not being involved in it. You care. You really, really, really care, sometimes more than the athletes themselves and in ways that are completely unhealthy for you, but unless you're being fitted for a straight jacket you understand that the "we" and "us" talk is just that, talk, and at the end of the day you're not a part of the team and you won't be invited to meet Obama if things go well in the playoffs.

Because of that separation, because we're not actually physically invested, risking life and limb and potential embarrassment in front of millions of people for pulling a Buckner or whatever, I think the way we take in these games as they're happening, our highs and lows, the things we say and think and express, both in the moment and in the minutes and hours shortly after, are significant and revealing, if you ever think to pay attention to them.

I'll break the people who watch sports at a bar into three separate categories.

Group A: Extremely casual fan/non-fan invited as a guest/person who was dragged there.

Fair generalization or not, most often in this group are women, but the tags certainly apply to lots of fellas too. Hell, it'd apply to me if it was like, golf or boxing or something. They know their friend/date/significant other is really invested in this game. It's been explained to them, ad nauseam, how important THIS GAME is.

Do they make an effort to get into it by asking pertinent questions? Do they cheer when you cheer? Do they pretend to be enjoying themselves? Do they act sad/ angry when you're sad/angry? Do they let it go when you say something stupid and not get upset about it or embarrassed about being with you?

Or... do they not watch at all and spend the whole time on their phone, ask how long until it's over, make fun of you for caring about some stupid game, snap at you for yelling at the TV and ask you to take them home or do some task in the middle of the fourth quarter?

If they're in the first paragraph, this person has great potential to be somebody you can have a long relationship with as a friend or more. Even if they don't like your sport or your team, they're a cool person and they care about you, and that's big.

If they're in the second paragraph, it's time to ask yourself some tough questions. How did you get involved with this person? Are you sure it was the right decision? Can you really stand years and years of this selfish behavior?

Group B: Casual fan with rooting interest opposite your own/complete stranger at another table

Do they keep it cool and respectful and cheer appropriately without trying to pretend they know everything that's going on and the strengths and weaknesses of every player and every team? Do they offer to be the one who goes to the bar for another round since they're less invested than you are? Do they keep the mood light and positive regardless of score so that no resentments can hatch? Is their trash-talk lighthearted and playful?

Or... are they loud, obnoxious Neanderthals who loudly berate the refs for calling fouls on rules they don't understand, who gleefully trash talk every star on your team like the bad game they happen to be having is completely representative of their career, who talk crap about you for cheering for such a sorry team as opposed to their awesome team (regardless of the actual franchise histories or team-vs-team histories involved) and who make it clear that having you, a die-hard fan of the opposite team there to witness this debacle in front of them is making the experience of watching it that much sweeter for them?

Again, the top paragraph represents someone who is worth spending time with further. Who cares if they're not as obsessed with your sport as much as you are or that they root for a different team? It probably means they have a more broad range of interests or maybe they grew up somewhere else. The point is, this is someone who is pleasant to be around, no matter what the circumstance.

If they're in that second paragraph though, man I don't know about that guy. No, I'm sure he's fun sometimes, but can you risk bringing him around to anyone you know? It doesn't even matter if you root for the same team if he's gonna scream things like "get the (fill-in-the-blank) out of your eyes, ref" in front of women and children, you know? I'm gonna step out on a limb and say this fella enjoys himself a drink.

Group C: Diehard fan/blog nerd

Us, basically, and this is more internal, with elements of Group B mixed in.

What are the things we're saying, feeling, thinking? Do we turn on the team or "our guys" and if so, how quickly? Do we rail them with this non-stop barrage of profanity or do we encourage them and cheer them on to do better? How often do we shift between the "you're dead to me" one second to "I always loved that guy!" the next second, with our internal/external monologues? Do we stay calm and classy in the face of trash talk and taunts or throw it back at them? Are we phonies who act quiet and sullen when things are going bad and obnoxious and arrogant when they're good?

Also, and this part I think is particularly revealing, after the Spurs have a game like this, do you sit back and think about all the negatives or just focus on the positives?

For example, and I'm guessing by now enough people "know" me enough to know the answers to most of these questions as they pertain to me.

I'm a group C, obviously, but I'm not someone who likes to yell or argue or make a spectacle of myself in public unless I'm specifically challenged. I ignore like 95% of trash talk about the Spurs and maybe 80% of it directed at Ginobili. I will, sometimes, yell at the TV about the refs, but at least I know the rules and I don't get graphic about the things I yell and question the ref's lifestyle choices for example. I'm too far down the road with most of the Spurs to change my opinions of them from game to game. The ones I like I'll ride with to the end and the ones I don't trust will have to do something truly epic over a playoff stretch for me to change my mind about them. I'm quiet and sullen regardless of win or loss because I'm quiet and sullen.

And, duh, OF COURSE I'm focusing more on the negatives after this game. I'M A MISERABLE PERSON WHO WILL LIKELY DIE ALONE. DON'T BE LIKE ME.

Anyway, the next time you're at a crowded sports bar watching a big game, ideally one that doesn't really involve your team or maybe in a sport you're not particularly into, go with a friend who really is, say very little, and just spend the three, four hours really focusing in on them and the people around them. I promise, it'll be fascinating, and you'll probably look at your friend in a totally different way.

So, if you read all that, thanks and I apologize. Here's a bit about the game.

The number of positives, when you take a step back to think about them, is truly absurd.

1. Through three quarters the Warriors were shooting in the 60 percent neighborhood, the Spurs were shooting roughly 40 percent, and still the gap was only 8-12 points instead of a blowout. That means as well as the Dubs can possibly play and as poorly as the Spurs can possibly play, the games will be there to be won at the end.

2. Duncan looked like hell and played worse, he didn't have the energy to step out on any of Curry's high screens on Parker and Joseph or even the ability to contest Curry's blow-by's on Leonard. He was personally responsible for at least a third of Curry's points and on the other end of the court he missed a number of bunnies. Barring injury, there is no way Duncan will play this poorly the rest of the series. And the Spurs won Game 1.

3. Manu shot 5-of-20, and contrary to his history of getting more cautious and selective with his attempts when he's having an off-night, he kept chucking and chucking, in full-on J.R. Smith mode, with each shot a more low-percentage one than the last. It'd be one thing if he missed a bunch of wide open threes or lay-ups, but he settled for so many GHASTLY attempts that it made you wonder if he was playing with a head injury. And the Spurs won Game 1, in really the perfect, redemptive fashion for Ginobili. Forget that he's my favorite player or yours. For him, and for the team going forward, it was important that they won the game and that he sank the winner, so he won't be beating himself up for the next week, so that he's not paralyzed by doubt or lacking confidence. If he bricked that shot, the media and the blogosphere would've savaged him today, he'd have been the goat and the team rallying late in regulation from 16 points down would've been a mere footnote. This way, he can go into Game 2 with his head held high.

(via JimCarrey1992)

4. In that same vein, Manu had, without a doubt, the biggest bonehead play of his career (and he's had some doozies), attempting a 30-foot three up three with 44 seconds to go and 11 seconds on the shot clock. To me, that was much worse than the foul on Dirk in Game 7 of the Mavs series in 2006, because at least that was an effort play on defense. Here though, with the ball in his hands, if he just ran that clock down to the end, the Warriors would have been forced to attempt a three just to tie the game and give the Spurs another shoot-at-the-buzzer-or-go-to-another-overtime chance, or they'd be playing the shoot-a-quick-two-and-foul game. Manu's shot there was basically a turnover at half court and a lay-up conceded. Just inexplicably and totally indefensible on any level, from the biggest Manu homer on the planet. And the Spurs won Game 1.

5. After a pretty rough first three quarters (especially on the defensive end), Tony Parker came through late when it mattered, with 8 points and an assist in the Spurs 18-2 run to finish regulation and another 8 points and an assist in the two overtimes. Also, he was so thoroughly rotisserie roasted by Stephen Curry in this game that it's impossible for Pop to even think about going back to that match-up. I think. And the Spurs won Game 1.

6. Not only did Kawhi Leonard have an all-around good game, boardin', scorin', makin' his only three, but his length bothered Curry so much that the star guard didn't even contemplate trying to shoot against Leonard. He either drove or dished it every time, and most of the time the match-up discouraged Dubs coach Mark Jackson so much that he went with Jarrett Jack on isos. Nobody is going to shut down Curry, but having that Leonard option in our back pocket is a nice feeling.

7. I think it's time to put to bed the notion that Danny Green is a choker. He nailed six threes against the Warriors, including one that send the game to overtime, and he also played pretty good defense on Curry in the first quarter. I don't know why Pop went away from that match-up, really. Green or Leonard need to be on Curry at all times.

8. Boris Diaw not only returned from a month-long absence with a back injury, but he actually came up huge late in the game, with two free throws late in the fourth quarter and a couple of clutch jumpers in overtime. We survived with him as our lone big and the dude even snatched a couple of boards. He also did a good job of checking Curry on switches and was a lot better at stepping out and hedging on him on the pick-and-roll than Duncan was. The Spurs don't win that game without Diaw.

9. The Red Rocket's defense was pretty putrid and Harrison Barnes and Jarrett Jack had their way with him, but damn if he didn't sink two more jumpers, one of which in a spot where he actually had to pump fake and take a lateral step before relaunching. Ideally, he's not a guy you give 19 minutes of playoff burn, but he can be a useful spot player for 8-10.

10. Gary Neal started brightly before quickly regressing to his normal retinue of poor shot selection and absent-minded defense, but I was impressed by his all-out, dogged hustle to chase down Richard Jefferson for that foul. Did he have time to process "Ooh, that's R.J., I bet he'll totally gag these free throws if I can catch him," or did it happen too fast and leave no time for Neal to compute any thought beyond "chase down blue guy". Would Neal have made the same effort if it was Curry on the breakaway? Hopefully we never have to find out. I just thought his desire on the game-turning sequence was worthy of mention.

11. Tiago Splitter didn't play and the Spurs won Game 1. I'm choosing to believe that he'll make a difference on some of those pick-and-rolls.

12. The series already had its STEPHEN CURRY GAME, and the Spurs won it. He's not going for 44 and 11 again. (Right?) (RIGHT?)

And now, the bad...

1. I don't think the Spurs will be running away from the Warriors anytime soon, as long as the Dubs play their small-ball lineup with Curry, Thompson, Jack and Barnes. There's just too much talent, too much raw-shooting ability, on the floor and they're all smart and unselfish enough to make the right pass most of the time to get good looks. If Thompson doesn't foul out of that game, the Spurs were toast.

2. And the main reason they were toast is because there is nobody for Parker to guard on this team. In one brutal third quarter sequence, after Curry had canned a series of jumpers on Tony, Pop switched him onto Thompson who promptly buried two short turnaround J's on Parker and then, after he was switched on Barnes, Parker immediately surrendered a driving dunk to the rookie. The Warriors were pretty much going at him regardless of who he was guarding, which is a major reason why so much of their offense late in that game was Iso-ball to Jack. The results looked good on paper, but for the most part Jack got good looks. As long as Parker is on the floor, the Warriors will have a consistent offense.

3. There is no relief in sight. Cory Joseph had a nice series against the Lakers, but Curry and the W's are a different animal. Joseph is willing and unafraid and can pressure the ball, but he's too short to bother Curry, who shot 6-of-7 against him, in the slightest. Some of that isn't Joseph's fault -- Duncan was miles and miles away on those high screen rolls -- but I think Pop might want to seriously consider giving De Colo a shot here, because of his size. I think Cory is a player and has a future in the league, but this isn't the series for him.

4. This was not a game that made you feel good about the Spurs mental or physical toughness, getting out-rebounded and out-scored in the paint by 10 points apiece by a midget team.

5. Just because Splitter may be healthy enough to play, I'm not assuming that Pop will play him. I'm also not assuming that we've seen the last of the Curry-Parker match-up. You never know with Pop.

6. There is tremendous pressure on the Spurs to be perfect at home, because I know first hand how tough it is to win at Oracle, especially in the postseason.

7. I didn't hear it until watching the replay, but man the Twitter army wasn't kidding about that screeching lady next to the broadcast crew. I heard her shrill wail, seemingly getting louder and louder from the beginning of the first overtime through the end of the game. It was as if TNT said, "Wait, you think your night is saved because we don't have Reggie Miller on the game? Well listen to this."

It'd be a great social experiment to do this 30 times a night in a speed-dating session, first with an unattractive person, then with a model, and track the results. (via loki69er)

8. I don't think Jackson is a particularly good coach. All the God stuff in his interviews kind of turns me off and I've noticed that during time outs he has an assistant actually handling the X's and O's while he's the one who handles the big-picture/motivational/inspirational mumbo-jumbo. But even Jackson is smart enough that I suspect we've seen the last of Jefferson in this series, barring a 25-point differential and less than two minutes on the clock or some pretty extreme injury/foul trouble scenarios. It's safe to say that Kent Bazemore will be ahead of him in the rotation.

9. Among the lamer bits of trash talk I heard last night was "What the hell is a Spur, anyway?" And you have to admit, it is kind of a stupid nickname.

10. Curry having a Game 1 like that could have negative big-picture consequences. The more people who watch that, despite the outcome of the game, the more hop on the Warriors bandwagon to see if he can do it again. With the Lakers out and the Thunder severely compromised, the Warriors are the darlings of the Western conference at the moment. They've got a great home court atmosphere. You can bet the refs will be intimidated there. If you told me I could pick one game for him to go off and have the Spurs still win, I'd pick Game 4, in a scenario where the Spurs go up 3-1. Now that would deflate everybody. A Game 1 though just energizes folks and gives them hope. I'm terrified of this team.

Random musings...

1. Seriously, was even one Spurs fan among you the least bit surprised that Jefferson missed both?

2. R.J. was a -13 in 3 minutes. Think about that. If he played the full 48, the Spurs would've won 208-0.

3. It'd be awfully tough for you or me to be a -13 in some random NBA game in three minutes of court time. Not impossible, but pretty hard.

4. Not all Warriors were red hot in that game, it just seemed like it. Jack was 5-of-15. And they really cooled down as a team from the fourth quarter on. Curry, Thompson and Barnes all finished a tick above 50 percent each, which is really good, obviously, but not supernova.

5. Believe it or not (and I don't know if this a good or bad stat), but the Spurs out-shot the W's from downtown and were way better from the charity stripe.

6. Jack got A LOT of flak for losing Manu on the final play, but I actually thought losing Green on the three at the end of regulation was a more egregious error on his part. As Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith pointed out on Inside the NBA, the Ginobili play was a lot trickier in that not only were three people involved on each side in a double screen -- great play-call from Pop there to create maximum confusion -- but what really threw the play out of whack is that both Manu and Boris set, in Barkley parlance, "TUR-BULL" screens on the play, not really getting a piece of their men at all. Clearly the Warriors were instructed to switch everything, which Jack did, but Barnes stayed with his original guy (Tony) because he found no resistance whatsoever on the attempted screen. The miscommunication on the play is totally understandable and if I was a Warriors fan, it'd be like 328th on the list of things I was upset with about that loss. Ironically, Bazemore, the rookie, was the only guy who did absolutely the right thing on the play.

7. There were, naturally, a lot of comparisons made between this game and the Spurs double OT thriller against the Suns in Game 1 of their first round series in 2008, and while a similar series result would be nice, the two games weren't all that similar. Although the passage of time sure makes it seem like the Suns were up big just like the Warriors were in this game, the truth is that their largest lead was 43-27, with 4:45 to go in the second quarter and that the Spurs whittled it to eight by half and were down just four to eight points for most of the second half and actually took a brief two-point lead with 2:21 to go in regulation.

Both games featured, however, a game-tying three in regulation from the Spurs starting shooting guard and had Manu make the game-winning bucket, and his shooting line wasn't that hot in that one either.

8. I still don't like the gray uniforms, but they're growing on me.

9. Watching the second round of the playoffs, it's impossible to not notice how furiously everyone is competing. All these teams are trying their asses off and everyone wants it so bad. The NBA has a well-deserved reputation for players and teams taking scores of games off and the quality of competition on a lot of regular season nights being borderline embarrassing, but man, when there's only eight teams left, there really aren't any better options for your viewing pleasure, even if you're a neutral. Hell, especially if you're a neutral. It's hard to watch the injury-plagued Bulls play and not be inspired, in a "What am I doing with my life?" sense.

It's like the NCAA tournament, only in a best-of-seven format instead of just one game, and filled with a bunch of incredible athletes who are really good at basketball.

10. I spent all night crunching the numbers and I've checked them and re-checked them. If the Spurs and Bulls just win all their home games the rest of the way, we're gonna have another title y'all.

Spurs vs Warriors series preview (and '91 series REview)

Aaronstampler — Sun, 05 May 2013 09:06:07 -0000

After what seems like a month, the interminable first round is finally over, and since the idea of a championship trophy split eight ways is wholly unsatisfactory, league rules stipulate that we play more of these playoff "series" in an agreed upon best-of-seven format that "eliminates" more and more teams until only one is, in Spurs parlance, "left standing."

Now it's totally understandable if you'd forgotten that our Spurs are indeed one of the eight teams alive to compete for the shiny gold ball sitting on a golden ice cream cone, since they knocked off Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol and like the cast of "The Voice" back in February or whenever it was. I barely remember any of the games at this point, but I swear Matt Bonner played well in them, which doesn't seem at all possible so maybe I just dreamed it.

What I do know, dear reader, is that this is the first time the Spurs will be facing the Warriors in the playoffs since 1991, back when I was a precocious 13-year-old in the seventh grade. As most of you know, I've lived pretty much my whole life in the Bay Area, yet because I've got some kind of brain damage that prevents me from forming positive relationships of any kind with the people around me, I made the decision as a child --subconsciously I suppose-- to root for the Philadelphia Eagles (Randall Cunningham) in football, the Spurs (David Robinson) in basketball and the Kings (Wayne Gretzky) in hockey. I root for one local club, the baseball Giants, and my two favorite all-time Giants are Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent, universally acknowledged as humongous jerks.

Kelley L Cox-US PRESSWIRE

Back in '91, the Spurs were a two-seed, much as they are now, and huge favorites against the seventh-seeded Warriors who had finished 44-38 on the season; 26th (out of 27 teams) in points allowed per game and 23rd in defensive rating. Larry Brown's Spurs meanwhile, led by second-year superduperstar David Robinson but also fellas like Sean Elliott, Terry Cummings, Rod Strickland and Willie Anderson, led the league in defensive rating.

Nevertheless, some kid at school named Mike bet me $50 even money that the Warriors would win the series, a bet I eagerly accepted before he could change his mind. Sure, the first round was a best-of-five back then and anything could happen in a short series, but this seemed like a no-brainer. The Warriors had no size whatsoever to deal with Robinson and Cummings. We'd dominate in the paint and that would be that.

The early 90's Spurs bore very little, if any, resemblance to the squad we know and love today. The league as a whole was very different, and nobody really utilized the three-ball that much or understood what a weapon it could be. Teams also pretty much played by All-Star rules, in that they only cared about defense if it was close in the fourth quarter. It was pretty much a non-stop lay-up line out there.

The Spurs won Game 1 130-121, shooting 55% and converting 50(!)-of-91 field goal attempts, precisely zero of them coming from downtown. I'm not sure, but it's quite possible the team had 40 dunks in the game. Robinson scored 30, on 9-of-10 shooting and 12-of-15 from the line, the Strickland-Anderson backcourt combined for a ridiculous 68 points on 30-of-45 shooting and the Spurs capitalized on a 69-42 edge in the middle two quarters to survive a final period in which the Warriors scored -- and this is not a typo -- 49 points.

From there, things went sour. The Warriors, led by Chris Mullin, Tim Hardaway and Mitch Richmond (aka "Run TMC") kept shooting at a ridiculous pace and the Spurs just couldn't keep up. Warriors coach Don Nelson, the modern day small-ball guru, out-foxed Brown by spreading the floor with four guards and killing the older Cummings both in transition and in the half-court since he wasn't used to guarding so far away from the basket. The Spurs couldn't take advantage as much on offense with Cummings or Robinson because the Warriors would just double down low and dare the Spurs to beat them with jumpers.

The X-factor in the series was a fella by the name of Sarunas Marciulionis, a Lithuanian who was a poor man's Manu before Manu. He led a bench that outscored the Spurs 37-16 in Game 2, and that was the difference, as Robinson once again was brilliant, scoring 28 points on 9-of-13 from the field and 10-of-10 at the line and Cummings chipped in with 26, but Strickland and Elliott did nothing.

In Oakland in Game 3, the series was effectively decided, with the Warriors pulling out a narrow 109-106 win. They shot 57% (44-of-77) and made 5-of-9 threes. The Spurs made 1-of-11. San Antonio's size advantage allowed them to take and make way more free throws, but it just couldn't make up for the difference of the Dubs being able to shoot way better than the Spurs. They also had more depth, with Marciulionis personally outscoring the Spurs bench 21-15.

Game 4 was kind of a rout, 110-97 Warriors, and just like that the Spurs' season was over. Elliott and Strickland found some redemption, but this time it was Anderson's turn to wear the goat horns, as his 4-of-16 night killed them. The Warriors again won the bench battle, 32-16, and made five threes to the Spurs none. For the series the Spurs shot 3-of-26 from downtown.

You have to understand, it was just a different game back then. Elliott led the team with 20 three pointers made for the whole season. By comparison, Danny Green made 34 of them during the Rodeo Road Trip alone this season. Anderson, the team's "shooting" guard, converted a cool 20 percent of his three point tries (7-of-35) during the year. I'm pretty sure you're not going to be able to find employment as a shooting guard in the Ukraine much less the NBA in 2013 if you're hitting threes at a 1-out-of-5 clip.

Just by playing small ball and being able to stretch the court and putting superior shooters out there, the Warriors were able to blow past the Spurs despite the young Admiral averaging 25.7 points (on 68% shooting), 13.5 rebounds and nearly four blocks in the four games.

It wasn't much fun watching those games at home by myself, knowing I couldn't really go anywhere because everybody would be screaming and cheering against my team. Having to pay out the fifty bucks (big money for a 13-year-old) -- also not fun.

Fast forward 22 years and look where we are. Lo and behold, the Warriors are hardly any different from that spunky bunch of midgets shooting the lights out, complete with a "T" in Klay Thompson, a "C" in Stephen Curry and an.. uh, a "B", I guess, in Harrison Barnes. Jarrett Jack is their Marciulionis now, the bench gun who actually plays the majority of games and can kill you shooting it, passing it or driving to the cup. The comparisons pretty much stop there because Andrew Bogut (who looks like Samwell Tarly stretched out in a funhouse mirror) is way bigger and way better than Tom Tolbert ever was.

If only Bogut would take the black.

How the Warriors will approach the Spurs will largely depend on two factors: A) how much David Lee plays for Golden State and B) how effective Bogut is in defending Tim Duncan. I'm guessing Pop would be thrilled if Lee could suit up for significant minutes because, as good as he is on one end of the court, he is an absolutely atrocious defender, especially versus the pick-and-roll. Our roller, whether it's Tiago Splitter or Duncan would thrive against him, or the guard would just have uncontested 18-footers all game. The bigger the Warriors play, the more it is to the Spurs' advantage, I believe; just because their bigs are more complete in both facets of the game and because they have more depth there with Diaw and --dare I say it?-- Bonner. Heck, even DeJuan Blair and Aron Baynes are far superior to their counterparts on the back end of the Warriors' depth chart.

My guess though, is that for the majority of the games, Dubs coach Mark Jackson will indeed go small, with rookie Barnes, their nominal starting small forward, as the stretch four and Jack shoehorned into the lineup as the point, with Curry sliding over to the two and Thompson to the three, with another rookie, 6-7 Draymond Green, buying them some minutes of rest here and there even though he's not much of a shooter.

To counteract this lineup Pop will have several options.

One, he can stay big, and hope to take advantage with Splitter or Diaw working over Barnes down low though. I have my doubts whether either will be assertive and healthy enough to do that effectively. The bigger problem is the other end of the floor. It's one thing for Splitter to be able to hang with ancient Derek Fisher in the half court, but I'm not at all convinced he can check Barnes (and neither can Diaw, Bonner or Blair, for that matter).

Or Pop can counteract small with small, but what does that mean, exactly? Green and Ginobili haven't played together all postseason and Manu doesn't have the stamina to be able to play in a run-and-gun game for 30-plus minutes. Since you need to find perhaps as many as 120 minutes out of your 2-3-4 in a smallball game, and assuming Kawhi Leonard is good for 40 of those and Green and Ginobili another 60 between them, where are the other 20 going to come from? Are you really comfortable giving Gary Neal 20 minutes on defense against these guys? That sounds like a trainwreck waiting to happen.

If not Neal though, then it means we're looking at either Cory Joseph playing alongside Parker (guess who the Warriors will double off of for open shots then) or a rusty Tracy McGrady, which actually sounds like an intriguing option to me. If we can somehow get 10 decent minutes out of McGrady a game, it'd be a godsend. He's the one guy on the roster who can buy Leonard some rest at a stretch four and still have enough size and mobility to check Barnes or Green.

The good news is I don't think Jackson can get away with playing small for more than 30 or 35 minutes against the Spurs. First of all, Bogut can't go forever and even if he could, nobody plays against Duncan that long without eventually getting called for some fouls. And there's no way that either Landry or Lee can handle Tim one-on-one, so even if Jackson wants to stagger his subs for when Duncan checks out, there's bound to be some overlap. Also, Bogut isn't totally healthy. He's had to take some painkilling shots just to get through the Nuggets series, and they didn't even have a real post threat.

Another positive is that small-ball doesn't necessarily have to be to the Warriors' advantage. I don't really see them slowing down the Spurs offense in that alignment either. Pretty much the Warriors' best case scenario is an open corner three from Green or Leonard on every possession. Otherwise it'll just be an endless array of Parker and Ginobili forays to the basket or Duncan finishing off screen-and-rolls and pick-and-pops. The Warriors will scramble and switch like crazy, but patient teams will always get open looks against them and there's just a galaxy of difference between our outside shooting and Denver's.

I'm not worried about the offense, really. I'm more curious how the defense will hold up. I'm in favor of letting Curry get his, not sending any help and sticking to the other guys like glue, but that's pretty much my answer for everything because --hello-- I'm not actually a basketball coach. All I ask in this series is that Neal never ever ever ever be stuck guarding Curry under any circumstance and for Pop to really think twice before going to that Parker-Joseph backcourt, which just seems like an offensive sinkhole waiting to happen.

I have to think we have the coaching edge, the big man edge, the experience edge and just an overall talent edge in general. Call me crazy, but I still think we have the two best players in the series, even with Curry's emergence as a star. If Ginobili can come close to matching Jack's production, it should be a quick series.

Spurs in five, with me watching the games in my apartment to avoid the din.

____________________________________________________________

Other playoff thoughts...

In case you ever feel the urge to defend Bill Simmons' basketball acumen, I give you this, from a 2007 column about the NCAA tournament:

The other winner: Corey Brewer, who emerged this month as the most intriguing draft prospect other than Kevin Durant. My buddy House and I spent a few minutes on the phone Monday night trying to find the right comparison for a 6-foot-8, 190-pound guard who's unlike anyone in the NBA right now -- ultimately, we settled on a 6-foot-8 Ricky Davis, only if you surgically implanted Manu Ginobili's brain in Ricky's head. Why Manu? Because of his open-court play and penchant for sneaking away from his man to cause turnovers. Because of the way he rises to the occasion in bigger games. Because of the deadly 3-point shooting. And especially, because of the unconventional angles that Brewer takes when he's driving to the basket.

If you want to get technical about it, he's the player we always wanted Todd Day to be. And since he's a better athlete and defender than Manu, and since he's a winner and all, the question remains ... why isn't Corey Brewer being considered for a top-five spot in this draft? Is there a chance he could make a Ben Gordon-type leap as we get closer and closer to end of June, and the lottery teams realize, "Wait, why are we killing ourselves trying to figure out who's better between Noah, Horford and Hibbert ... why don't we just take Corey Brewer?"

Yeah, when I think of "open-court play" "deadly 3-point shooting" and "winner," I think of Corey Brewer, the same Brewer who's a .416 career shooter (.298 from three), barely has a positive assist-to-turnover ratio (1.6 to 1.3), a career PER of 11.9, and somehow has worse career numbers in the playoffs, during which he's failed to get out of the first round in three tries. Brewer shot 31% against the Warriors this series and 25% from downtown, submitting a 7.1 PER and likely cost himself millions of dollars as a free agent. He's just like Manu, but you know, more athletic and way better defensively.

Much like the '90-91 Spurs, the Nuggets were done in, ultimately, by being unable to shoot from the outside consistently. The loss of Danilo Gallinari to a torn ACL late in the season doomed their season. He led them with 135 made threes and shot a respectable 37% from downtown. With him out, Wilson Chandler had to take on too much of a role, shoot more from outside than he should, and the domino effect caused their offense to self-destruct. What also hurt them was that between Kenneth Faried, Kosta Koufos and JaVale McGee, none of them can score outside of five feet. As we've seen from the Spurs, Thunder and Heat, it's a lot easier to have an effective half court offense when a big man can stick a 15-footer. The Nuggets tried to game that system all year with a stretch four, but one injury waylaid that. It's just not meant to be for George Karl, and I'm not about to feel sorry for him, since I still remember all-too-well how much the "Thuggets" hammered Ginobili in 2005.

____________________________________________________________

I really hope Daryl Morey doesn't do the predictable, stupid thing by snatching up Howard in a sign-and-trade with the Lakers for Omer Asik and who knows what else. Asik averaged a double-double in his first season as a starter for the Rockets and was even better in the playoffs, compiling a 16.9 PER and leading the Rockets with a +17 in their series with the Thunder while far outplaying Serge Ibaka and (LOL) Kendrick Perkins.

Asik is two years younger than Howard, durable (started all 82 games this season), and fits in nicely with their young core of James Harden and Chandler Parsons, who was also a breakout star in these playoffs. The Rockets have a great foundation. Morey should use the cap space to find a power forward and fortify the bench. They're set at center and the last thing they need is a petulant whiny baby in Howard who's more interested in farting in the locker room than winning games.

Hopefully the Lakers' stupidity (and Howard's own greed) will save Morey from himself.

Oh, and for the love of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, jettison Royce White from the organization already. Just admit it was a bad pick and move on. The dope, who didn't play for them all season, had the gall to troll Kevin Durant's twitter account after Houston's Game 5 win. It's like he wanted the Rockets to lose the series. What an imbecile.

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Farewell to the most unlikable team in the NBA.

I should say up front that I've met DeAndre Jordan and he was charming, gracious and extremely easy to like as a guy. However, if half of what T.J. Simers of The Los Angeles Times (and Simmons) alleges about him here is true, then it's a shame that his considerable physical talent is going to waste. It sure does seem like both Jordan and Blake Griffin are more interested in making highlights than winning; though to be fair to Jordan, I see his point in wanting to be in games down the stretch. You can only get better at something by practicing, right? And Vinny Del Negro refused to allow him that opportunity during the regular season.

On the other hand, Jordan's pitiful free throw shooting kind of makes him unplayable in tight spots.

Griffin, for his part, has shown some progress as an outside shooter and back-to-the-basket post scorer, and he does take a lot of hits. However, he also flops a ton too, which no doubt annoys defenders to no end, so guys probably figure that if they're going to get whistled anyway, they might as well get their money's worth. It might be a chicken-and-the-egg thing there. His defense, however, still blows.

I can see how playing with a guy like Paul would grate on both of these guys, since he never passes anybody the ball down the stretch and he's not the one banging bodies down low for 35 minutes a night, but at the same time Paul is the only guy on the team willing to do whatever it takes to win and doesn't mind scrapping on defense. Why I can't ever respect Paul, besides the incessant (and often terribly executed) flopping is that he's a dirty punk.

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I would've gone eight-for-eight in my first round predictions if it wasn't for a pathetic, gutless Game 7 effort from the Brooklyn Nets, who couldn't win at home against a M*A*S*H unit Bulls team. Joakim Noah was fantastic and kudos to Marco Bellinelli as well for finally showing some cojones and developing into a half-decent player after years of softness and mediocrity that drove so many former coaches crazy.

It's tempting and cliche to say that the Nets lost the series in Game 4, where they blew a 14 point lead late, with Nate Robinson channeling Sleepy Floyd, but the fact of the matter is they still had a Game 7, at home, and were the far healthier team. There is no excuse in that situation for not closing it out, none, and it's just another mark against the already checkered resumes of both Deron Williams and Joe Johnson (and P.J. Carlesimo, while we're at it). It just blows my mind how little depth so many of these playoff teams have.

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Heat vs Bulls

It's just as well that the Bulls won, because at least they're mentally tough enough to give the Heat a series. Don't forget, this is the club that broke their 27-game winning streak on Mar. 27. Brook Lopez' size might have caused Miami some difficulty, but that team is so mentally soft that it would've been a sweep regardless. The Bulls will at least fight.

It's a shame Derrick Rose still can't find it in himself to play, but this article suggests to me that he's got too much pride to go out there at anything less than 100 percent. Basically, it sounds like if he can't dominate he doesn't want to play, and we're talking about a guy who got his rear end handed to him by the Heat two years ago when he was healthy and they were mostly dysfunctional. It just sounds like he doesn't want to get embarrassed, but he's still leaving his teammates hanging out to dry in my book. He's tarnished in my eyes, and if that makes me a jerk, well I'm a jerk.

As weird as it sounds, Kirk Hinrich's injury is the killer blow for the Bulls here. He's no star, but very underrated defensively and he's someone who would've hounded Dwyane Wade into some bad shots. Now though, his calf is in such poor shape that even if he does play, he won't be worth anything. I'm guessing Luol Deng will eventually suit up again (though Game 1 might be a stretch), and you know Noah and Boozer will be game, but against the best team in the league that's not enough. It's not even close to enough.

The only chance the Bulls have at all is if Wade is a lot more injured than he's letting on and the percentages catch up to LeBron James in a major way, but really that's a pipe dream.

Heat in five, but they'll have to work for it.

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Pacers vs Knicks

This looks to be quite the rock fight, with Roy Hibbert and Tyson Chandler among the elite defenders in the league. If George Hill can match Raymond Felton's production, that's a big edge to Indy. With Danny Granger out for the Pacers it doesn't look like there's anyone on their roster who can slow down Carmelo Anthony. Paul George is too slight, David West is too slow and Lance Stephenson is too short. However, I'm not sure if the Knicks can get away with playing their favored small ball against the Pacers because Anthony can't handle West on the other end.

I think the Knicks got over a big mental hurdle in getting past the Celtics, even though those Celtics were a shell of their former selves. I think Felton is a safer bet to score consistently than Hill, and that he has some insurance behind him in Pablo Prigioni whereas Hill has none. I think Iman Shumpert can at least make George work for his points, whereas Anthony will get more breathing room against Indy. Finally, I think the Knicks have more of a bench with J.R. Smith, Kenyon Martin, Jason Kidd and (dare I suggest) Amar'e Stoudemire, though it's possible all those guys will hurt them as much as help.

I've got the Knicks in seven brutal games.

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Thunder vs Grizzlies

Finally we come to the OKC against Memphis, who is a scary team right now. This Zach Randolph looks very much like the 2011 version, Marc Gasol is at the height of his powers and Mike Conley has never been better. Their offense hummed along fine the last few games of the Clippers series, with even Tony Allen finding his scoring touch and guys like Jerryd Bayless and Quincy Pondexter resembling a fair approximation of a bench.

While their macro offensive potential is up for debate, what cannot be argued is that these guys are a mentally tough collection of S.O.B.s, the West's answer to the Bulls but without any health concerns, and they're going to be a tough out for anybody, whether it's the Thunder, the Spurs or the Heat.

With the way Asik had his way with Ibaka and Perkins, it's hard to be too optimistic that that dynamic duo will fare any better against Z-Bo and Fat Gasol. Ibaka was being guarded by a much-shorter James Harden (who's been a total matador on defense all season) and couldn't take advantage of that match-up at all, while Perkins combined in the final three games of the series to clock in for 27:10, shoot 1-of-4, commit eight fouls, five turnovers and register a sweet -39. His playoff PER is 0.5 at the moment.

Oh, and he also did this. Way to pick on a guy your own size, fella. Kendrick Perkins is clown shoes.

Durant will get his, but the match-ups everywhere else are so overwhelmingly in Memphis' favor that I think this will get ugly and quickly. We might all owe Russell Westbrook an apology.

On second thought, nah.

Grizzlies in five.

Tim Duncan, Dwight Howard, Shaq and "The Last Great Center"

Aaronstampler — Thu, 02 May 2013 13:44:01 -0000

Dwight Howard: The Most Confounding Player of Our Time

First off, let me be perfectly clear: I'd love nothing more than for the Lakers to re-sign Howard for a bajillion dollars. The guy is not a franchise player. Nobody will ever win squat with him as their main guy. His offensive game is too limited, he's too immature, too whiny, petulant, disingenuous to the extreme and without a speck of accountability. Nothing is ever his fault, no foul call against him is ever warranted, every layup he concedes or turnover he commits is because someone else failed him.

I want Howard to be a Laker forever the way I want Jerry Jones to run the Cowboys and Tony Romo to be their quarterback forever. It's like a security blanket knowing "No matter what else happens, I don't have to worry about these guys."

Howard's a guy who can't shoot, can't make a free throw and can be suckered all too easily into losing his cool with the refs. He's a dope who still hasn't figured out after eight years that it's not the brightest idea to block shots into the stands when a simple tap can start a fast break instead, and he goaltends way too many as well. We get it, nimrod, you're tall and can jump. You won the genetic lottery. Whee.

Watching Howard's limited, one-dimensional game made me realize something: Tim Duncan is the Last Great Center. The guy who can do it all at both ends, serving as both a defensive/rebounding/shot-blocking hub on one side and a guy who can score with power and finesse from inside and out on the other. He can put points up facing the basket and from the post while at the same time being able to pass out of double teams expertly and hit his free throws like a forward.

It's why, even at 37, Duncan still dominates. Sure, the diet and training regimen and "medical advancements" all help, but more than anything it's his combination of athleticism (which maybe a dozen other bigs in the game have), offensive technique (only Brook Lopez and maybe Marc Gasol, to a lesser extent) and veteran wisdom. Who else his size can score in as many ways as Duncan does?

I remember in my teens we had The Admiral, but also Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing. Heck we had guys like Brad Daugherty, Rik Smits, Dikembe Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning. They'd all be "The Best Center In The League" right now. Duncan came on, an elite player from day one, but he was tagged as "Power Forward" because he was drafted to the same team as David Robinson.

But a couple of years before Duncan came Shaq, and his overwhelming one-dimensional physical brutality changed everything. He was so big, so strong and such a marketing boon for the league that all of a sudden he completely redefined what it meant to be a superstar center. All of a sudden all the finesse and skill was taken out of the position. Either you were a 280-pound behemoth who could only muscle people out of the way and dunk, or you were a 220-pound string bean who better learn how to shoot from the elbow extended because you are now a "power forward." The back-to-the-basket post game went the way of the dodo, thanks to brontosaurus-brained Shaq, the most overrated, most fortunate superstar in NBA history.

It amused me Sunday night when the "Inside the NBA" crew were giving their postmortem on the '12-13 Lakers and Shaq took the opportunity to criticize Howard's offensive game, which to me was like watching Magic Johnson criticize Reggie Miller's broadcasting. Shaq, in arrogant denial as always, seemed oblivious to the fact that he got called for just as many offensive fouls in his playing days as Howard gets whistled for (and the refs ignored that 75-pound swinging left elbow at people's heads quite a bit) and that he, too, was pretty much a coin flip at the line.

The difference between the two men is that A) Shaq had three inches and 40-pounds of brute force on Howard, B) he played with Kobe in his prime, back when Bryant could guard people, C) he had a better supporting cast with the Lakers than Howard ever had with Orlando or the current Lakers and D) he had a better coach. Even with all those advantages, Shaq only won one legit title, and was the beneficiary of some lucky breaks for three others.

What O'Neal had during his Lakers heydays was perfect timing, with their three-peat coming in that window before Ginobili and Parker broke out for the Spurs and the East was a complete sham. Even then, only the 2001 Lakers were true champions. Both in 2000 and 2002 they needed referee help to beat also-ran Portland and Sacramento teams that had no go-to alpha dog to win games down the stretch, much like the current Nuggets. Shaq also won a ring with the '06 Heat, who were again on the favorable side of the refs. And by the time that series wound down, he was a spectator down the stretch, 'Zo Mourning's backup. Check the plus/minus numbers on that one some time, it's hilarious.

You'll forgive me if I'm not down the false narrative of Shaq "as the most dominant big man ever." It's not even close. Not only do I think Duncan, historically is a much better player, but I think Olajuwon and Robinson are too. Heck, I think Ewing even has an argument. Shaq was too one-dimensional to be truly great and shared many of Howard's detrimental personality traits, from loafing in the regular season to not working hard enough (or caring enough) about free throws, to being a phony and a coach killer. I was appalled Tuesday night, watching him chuckle at this clip they showed on "Inside the NBA" over and over. The idiot still doesn't seem to understand how close he came to pulling a Kermit Washington (fast forward to 2:00 mark). Even worse, Miller wasn't even facing him! If Shaq didn't miss that punch, the way we view him historically would've been radically different and he surely would've faced a long suspension and maybe even legal trouble. I also was never a fan of jackassery like this, and don't understand why it's celebrated.

No. Duncan is the last of the graceful giants, the guys between 6-10 and 7-1 and 230-250 pounds who could run and jump and move like forwards but still had the fortitude and constitution and just enough meat on their bones to take the pounding in the post. Now everyone's either too muscle-bound and bulky and uncoordinated to do anything but dunk (looking at you, DeAndre Jordan) or too damn skinny a la Chris Bosh or Kevin Durant. Heck, Kevin Garnett came closer to playing center than those guys.

Enjoy Tim Duncan my friends. He's the last of his kind, even if he insists on being called a power forward.

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What's David Stern Up To With These Zebras?

I admit, I was totally shocked at the officiating in the Lakers-Spurs series. Not only were the whistles not going against us at a laughable rate, but instead the refs seemed to be pro-Spurs, if anything. I mean, lets be honest. We were hammering the hell out of Howard. Really there were a bunch of no-calls the last two games where I thought the Spurs got away with one.

Maybe Stern is just playing the long con, realizing that the Lakers had no chance at an upset without Bryant and that if his refs were magnanimous with the Spurs now that we won't have as much cause for beef in the later rounds when they turn on us, or maybe the injury to Russell Westbrook changed everything. If Durant and the Thunder are gone and the Clips follow suit, who out West is more marketable than the Spurs? Surely we've got more household names than the Grizzlies, Nuggets or Warriors. And we're the team most likely to give the Heat a series. Maybe Stern sees that. Or maybe I'm just a crazy idiot.

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Jason Collins: Friend of Dorothy

When I emerged from my sleep-induced stupor to the story of Collins coming out, I have to say I was a bit ambivalent about it. I can't help it, I'm a cynical, pragmatic, miserable bastard.

Obviously I'm thrilled for Collins. I'm glad that he had the bravery to reveal his true self and I was ecstatic about the overwhelming show of support from the NBA and the athletic community at large. Tony and Manu were among the many tweeters (though Tony's was fishy) and Pop had a classic "what's the big deal" attitude about it during the media scrum on Tuesday.

I also like that it was a "tough guy" like Collins who came out. Someone who's tall, African-American and has made a living giving hard fouls as opposed to someone like, well, Beno Udrih or even He Who Shall Not Be Named. I think things like that will help shatter stereotypes we have as a country.

That being said, I do wish it had been a better player. Not a star necessarily, but a solid starter in the league, somebody like, I don't know, Udonis Haslem or Rudy Gay (there's got to be people with that surname who are, in fact, homosexual, right?), somebody like that.

I am also curious about the timing, with Collins' age and contract status (free agent). He's been a back end of the roster guy for some time now and it was no given that he'd be on a team next year. I understand why he felt 2013 was the time to make the announcement and not sooner, but I do wish he was 27 in 2013 and not 34. I'd hate to think that he made the announcement for some publicity in the hopes that some market savvy team (i.e. the Mavericks) would sign him on.

Sure, there's the risk that just as many teams might shy away from Collins because of his announcement, fearing negative backlash from their fanbase or because behind the scenes their coach or their star player is against it or whatever. But at this point, if you're in Collins' position and your agent thinks nobody wanted you as of April 28, then what do you have to lose by telling the world you're gay on April 29?

Again, that's my cynical side talking. I just fear, that regardless of his motivation for coming out, he will be exploited by the media beyond his imagination, just like Tim Tebow. Say he signs with Dallas next year. SportsCenter will show a 45 second highlight of him sitting and clapping on the bench, maybe fouling somebody or pulling down a board in his three minutes of action, while the anchor on the voice-over says, "Dirk Nowitzki, not shown, had 28 and 9 as the Mavericks beat the Kings 100-92."

Shows like First Take will debate whether he's playing too much because he's gay or not enough because he's gay and he'll get way too much attention for a third-string center and I can see how something like that would be the dreaded "distraction in the locker room."

The notion of a gay player being unwelcome in the locker room because he'll come on to his teammates or check them out in the shower is beyond idiotic, but I do fear that the media will cause more harm than good in this situation and ruin everything. I'm looking forward to how the Collins story will play out and shaking my head about it at the same time.

It would be kinda neat to see him on the Spurs next year. We could use more media attention. Ironically, Pop, probably the most liberal coach in the league, would probably never let it happen just for that reason.

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These Gray Uniforms They're Always Wearing Now

I hate 'em. Absolutely can't stand them. Hatehatehatehatehate. They're stupid and ugly. They're the James Harden's beard of uniforms. We look like a rec league team with them. I get it, you want to sell some merch and teams have third jerseys nowadays, but why are the Spurs wearing them so damn much? Can we play one freaking home came in the whites? Just one, to mix it up?

Tell me I'm not the only one who feels this way. I'm going crazy here.

Spurs' first round report card

Aaronstampler — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:13:39 -0000

Well, that whole Los Angeles thing was rather easy, huh?

It's crazy how fast things change. A mere 18 days ago the thought of facing the Lakers in the playoffs seemed rather terrifying. Kobe Bryant was playing like he was 25 (at least on offense) and LA had finally found some semblance of rhythm between Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol, while the Spurs were sputtering to the regular season finish line on fumes.

Manu Ginobili was still on the injured list with his 47th hamstring ailment of the year and Tony Parker looked like a limping shell of himself as he worked to find his form again. In the words one Gregg Popovich, the team was as "discombobulated" going into the postseason as any during the Tim Duncan era.

Then, Bryant tore his Achilles against the Warriors and the light switch flipped for the Spurs. Ginobili, who was surprisingly sharp despite his long layoff, spearheaded a bench effort that was the difference in two convincing home wins -- which was wholly ironic considering that the reserves were a relative albatross for the team all season. Lakers guards Steve Nash, Steve Blake and Jodie Meeks all got hurt in short order, Ron Artest followed suit in Game 3 and the two games in Los Angeles had a preseason feel at times. Comprehensive was the list of whodats forced into action for the Lakers during the first round of the playoffs.

Not only did the Spurs sweep the series easily, but both Parker and Ginobili looked darn close to 100 percent by the time guys like Patrick Mills, Nando De Colo and Tracy McGrady (oh yeah, that happened, the Spurs somehow have Tracy McGrady now) were wasting possessions Sunday afternoon before the final buzzer mercifully sounded at a near-empty Staples Center.

Perhaps the most stunning development of all was that longtime playoff chokers like Matt Bonner and DeJuan Blair each played the best postseason series of their careers. Even Danny Green showed signs of life before game four had ended. And all this is beside the fact that none other than Cory Joseph (who was anywhere between fourth and seventh on the point guard depth chart for most of the year, depending on how you fudge the books) came out of nowhere to play an incredibly solid series for the team.

Really the only down note when looking back on the quartet of games against the lads in yellow, is that Tiago Splitter, who wasn't having a particularly good run of it anyway, twisted an ankle late in Game 3 and his availability for the second round (at least at full strength) will be in question. However, his sprained ankle isn't considered serious, and Boris Diaw is set to return to the fold from back surgery as well. It's really hard to remember the Spurs, collectively, looking this poised and ready to do damage in the postseason.

So let's quickly look at the guys, one by one...

Tim Duncan: B+

17.5 pts, 7.5 rebs, 1.5 asts, 1.0 blks, 1.5 stls, .517./.833, +33, 32.5 mpg, 21.97 PER

Not very sharp at all in any game except for the third, during which he was unconscious. His work on the boards and meager block totals won't impress anybody, but he had to spend a lot of time away from the rim, guarding Pau on the high post. All things considered, he held up pretty well given all the pounding he took against two All-Star caliber bigs. I rounded up to a B+ just for this...

Duncan should have an easier time of it playing more of his customary role as a help defender/rebounder in the next series without a serious post thread to defend, and he'll probably get to stretch his legs more and run up and down the court as well. It's good that he'll get somewhat of a physical break and won't have to go right from this series to, say, the Grizzlies two days later.

Also, on the "Duncan is a robot with no personality" front, I rather enjoyed a sequence caught by the cameras during the first half of Game 3, where going into time out after a Parker reverse lay-in, Duncan tapped his point guard on the head and said, "Yeah, torch those mothereffers."

Tiago Splitter: C-

5.0 pts, 4.0 rebs, 2.3 asts, 0.67 blks, 0.67 stls, .357./.833, -1, 23.7 mpg, 8.96 PER

Only played into the third quarter of Game 3 before turning his ankle, and Pop announced on Tuesday morning that he's in doubt for the opener of the second round, which is now scheduled for May 6. Splitter's post defense against Howard wasn't spectacular by any means, but he wasn't getting abused either, and it's a comfort of sorts that he won't face a tougher match-up, physically, the rest of the way. What was concerning is that Splitter's touch around the basket has seemed to completely abandon him (really it has all month) and his toughness in that regard continues to rise and wane.

It's up for debate just how much of Splitter we'll see in the second round given his health and the likeliness of the Warriors being the next foe to vanquish. Sure, we made ample use of him against the Thunder playing small because he had the agility to cover Derek Fisher, but I don't think he'd be able to hang on the perimeter against a Harrison Barnes. He might just get the 12 or so minutes that Duncan sits, or maybe even less if Pop uses Boris there as the hub.

It will be very interesting to see just how Pop uses Diaw, Bonner and even Blair in this series, but no matter what he does, I'm sure I'll find something to complain about.

Kawhi Leonard: B

12.3 pts, 7.3 rebs, 1.3 asts, 1.5 stls, 0.75 blks, .553/.286/1.000, +45, 33.5 mpg, 18.80 PER

I was a bit surprised he didn't get more shots up in the series — especially once Artest was rendered useless — but Leonard was content to blend into the scenery in the half court while Parker and Duncan went to work. I thought at times his focus flagged just because there wasn't much for him to do on defense. His three-ball was also wonky.

What I liked about Leonard's game was his willingness to help out on the boards, where the Lakers probably thought they'd make hay on second chances. He also looked to push the ball hard on the break, even though that didn't necessarily work out for him.

While Leonard's matchups against Denver would be complicated (Wilson Chandler? Andre Iguodala?), against the Warriors he'll likely be dueling with Barnes, and it will be critical for him to come out on top there. I just don't see Barnes, who's a bit slight, as someone who should be able to guard Leonard. Given the open court nature of that potential series, there's no reason Leonard should average less than 16 points a game, and I'd be a bit concerned if he doesn't top that number. There will be a TON of threes launched in this one, and both he and Green have to shoot at a respectable clip.

Danny Green: C-

7.0 pts, 4.0 rebs, 2.0 asts, 0.75 stls, .50 blks, .414/.333/NA, +12, 23.3 mpg, 13.10 PER

It says something that Green was so woeful in the first two games that he had to work himself up to a C- with solid efforts in LA. However, it's to his credit that he didn't get down on himself and kept coming, which wasn't the case last year.

Green's prolific shooting during the regular season certainly had the Lakers' attention on defense and they seemed unwilling to yield him many open looks, especially from the corners, and chose instead to let guys like Bonner have looks from the wings or Duncan from the high post. I don't think the Warriors will be nearly as diligent against him, but we'll see.

What's interesting to me is that I don't recall seeing Green and Ginobili play together at all during the Lakers series. It was pretty much a straight substitution every time. But in a small-ball series against the Warriors, that likely won't be the case. So I wonder about the chemistry there. It sure looks to me like it'll be a three-man shuffle at the wing spots, with those two and Gary Neal absorbing the 96 minutes. Almost by necessity we're looking for 35+ minutes out of Green there, so he can't suck.

Tony Parker: A-

22.3 pts, 6.5 asts, 3.3 rebs, 1.25 stls, 0.25 blks, .493/.200/.818, +48, 31.8 mpg, 28.91 PER

Perhaps the best news coming out of the first round was the rapid (no pun intended) progress Parker made from a gimptastic Game 1 to Game 4, where he was back to his spinning, slashing self, attacking and finishing acrobatically around the rim and demonstrating once more his savant-like ability to make layups from all manner of angles and body contortions. By the time he finished dismantling the Lakers fourth- and fifth-stringers, he had, from a PER standpoint, one of the best series of his career. He seemed particularly spurred on by a hard bump Howard laid to him on a loose ball, during which Howard blatantly chose to put his full weight on Parker as they tangled on the floor. After that, Parker went off.

The wee Frenchman's jumper is looking better as well and I'm sure he's excited about facing the Warriors. Unlike the Nuggets, Golden State lacks a bona fide shot-blocker (Bogut is good, not great), and that matchup against Stephen Curry in the second round looks fantastic on paper. Bonus points to Parker, when asked Tuesday if he'll be watching Warriors-Nuggets Game 5, he said, "Yes, I watch all the games, I'm a student of the game and you can learn something from all of them."

What about Hawks-Pacers, he was asked. "Except that one," Parker replied.

Right there with you, Tony.

Manu Ginobili: B+

11.3 pts, 4.8 asts, 3.0 rebs, 1.75 stls, .50 blks, .467/.500/.714, +57, 19.5 mpg, 28.47 PER

The only reason it's not a higher grade is because Manu played so few minutes in the series and only put up 17 shots, total, in the last three games. The driving dunk he had in Game 4 was encouraging to see (you'll note that it came shortly after Howard's hard elbow to Joseph's head), but still I have some reservations just because Manu's playing time never trickled over the 20 minute mark. I know the last two games were blowouts, but it would've been nice to see it trickle up into the 22, 23 range, just to see a subtle bump there.

Ginobili will have a week to practice and build his stamina, but practices aren't games, and I just don't know if we can win in the next round, especially in a small ball series, without him playing 28-30 minutes. Can he spike from 20 to 28 in such a short time and be productive? It sounds unlikely. I totally understand's Pop caution, but I'm just saying I'd have gone 20-22-24-26 in the four games for his playing time in that past series, regardless of score. Have him run up and down the floor in garbage time, even if he's not involved in the plays. Better that then to give garbage time minutes to De Colo or Mills.

The Warriors would be a great match-up for him. I can see him doing a lot of damage in the lane there, but at the same time, Klay Thompson won't be a picnic on the other end either. Should be fun. A lot more so than Andre Igoudala and Corey Brewer, anyway.

Matt Bonner: A-

7.8 pts, 3.8 rebs, 0.3 asts, 0.75 blks, 1.00 stls, .556/.750/.714, +61, 25.5 mpg, 16.01 PER

Eight points and four boards a night in 25 minutes doesn't sound too impressive, but considering that,A) it's Bonner, B) it's the playoffs, and C) that he was facing the lengthy Lakers, this was a tour de force performance from the Red Mamba, who, ironically, was a lot more effective against Howard than he was defending the smaller Pau Gasol. He succeeded in annoying and frustrating Dwight, regardless of whether he was fronting him or on his back. Bonner's marksmanship was great, but I'm just happy that the guy competed more than anything else.

It's hard to figure what kind of role he'll have in the next round. Maybe he'll be Leonard's backup and play just 12 minutes a night, subbing in whenever Barnes checks out, or maybe the Warriors will surprise by using Landry a lot and Bonner will play more. Not sure I like that match-up at all, but Landry is hardly accustomed to guarding people that far out. Obviously Bonner's strong play has earned him a rotation spot, but the leash won't be long. He's another guy, I imagine, who wouldn't be upset about the Nugs being eliminated.

Gary Neal: C-

7.8 pts, 2.3 rebs, 1.0 asts, 0.50 stls, 0.00 blks, .355/.250/1.000, +32, 19.3 mpg, 10.45 PER

The shooting numbers are horrific, but I thought Neal's shot selection and defense both improved as the series went on, and I wasn't too dissatisfied with his play in the games at L.A. I think getting to play just shooting guard is a relief for him, even though it necessitates that we play awfully small, in a three-guard lineup with Ginobili.

I do worry, however, about him against the Warriors. There's really nobody there I feel he's comfortable guarding. Neal doesn't do a good job of navigating screens and he keeps getting sucked into the paint and letting guys shoot open threes. He got away with it -- somewhat -- against a bricklaying Lakers squad, but it won't do against the Dubs. Even worse, it's not like we can magically drop him from the rotation, because everything points to him having to play, unless Pop decides to go back to De Colo out of nowhere or really throws us for a loop with McGrady. Basically, Neal has to surprise us as much next round as Bonner did in round one.

Cory Joseph: A

4.5 pts, 3.0 asts, 2.8 rebs, 0.75 stls, 0.50 blks, .529/.000/NA, +23, 14.3 mpg, 18.72 PER

Speaking of surprising us, I had a sneaking suspicion about Joseph, so I dug around on some game logs to confirm it. And true enough, unless you want to count Manu, Joseph had the best playoff series for a Spurs backup point since Speedy Claxton in the '02-03 Finals. Seriously, look it up if you don't believe me. The JV, puddin' soft Beno Udrih, Nick Van Excrement, none of them came close to Joseph's performance over a whole series. CJ was more than "solid" in Spurs parlance, he was a downright asset, and I'm excited to see what he can do going forward.

Two things really impressed me about Joseph's game more than anything: His toughness and his court vision. He shook off that elbow Howard threw at him and wasn't fazed or intimidated at all. It's like he didn't even register it. And the way he spun into the lane at full speed late in that game and dished to Blair for an assist was very sweet. Don't be surprised if you see Pop play some with Parker and Joseph in the same backcourt against Golden State.

DeJuan Blair: A-

6.5 pts, 3.3 rebs, 1.0 asts, .25 blks, .50 stls, .706/.500, +42, 11.3 mpg, 30.10 PER

Yet another reserve who had an outstanding time of it was Blair, who killed Howard's spirit one floater at a time. Blair's accuracy from the field was a sight to behold and the big lug found plenty of ways to score, which was all the more impressive because he really wasn't jumping all that well. I'm no medical expert, but it continues to confound me how his leaping ability comes and (mostly) goes.

Blair's defense was hit-or-miss, but considering the guys he had to guard and his height disadvantage, I thought he was OK there, and the plus/minus speaks for itself. Also, it's kind of impossible to ignore the chemistry he has with Manu. Blair's a guy I can actually see playing some versus the Warriors in certain spots. Really, it's tough to completely discount anyone on the roster except for Mills at this point.

But, you never know with Pop, right?

Positives and negatives through two playoff games for the Spurs

Aaronstampler — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:02:21 -0000

Now that's more like it. It's hard to put a finger on it exactly, as the made threes, assists, offensive rebounds, fast break points and points in the paint all look pretty similar for the Spurs between Game 1 and Game 2, but just by my layman's eye test the offense just looked more like the one we've become accustomed to.

Was the difference Tony Parker's second half explosion? Not really, he only made one more field goal than Game 1. Really, it was mostly the front court. Splitter had four easy field goals in this one compared to a bagel in the first game, Duncan got a couple more jumpers to go in and Leonard was the real difference maker, with five more field goals, which came in all manner of ways.

Basically, the half court offense just looked smoother and was more efficient with their shot attempts, regardless of whether it was off a pass or in isolation. When guys got offensive rebounds, they didn't waste those second chances.

The defense wasn't quite as good, however, but that was to be expected. The Lakers exploited their size advantage inside and doubled up their offensive rebound total from six to 12, they hit five more threes, sinking 8-of-22 this time, which is average, and they lowered their turnovers from 18 to 13. Basically the Spurs played just an average defensive game in this one, perhaps a bit below average, considering that Kobe was out and the rest of LA's backcourt was all gimpy.

Still, I'm not too upset by this, because, as with any situation, you have to consider the context. The injuries the Lakers had to their guards forced Mike D'Antoni to shift their attack to their bigs, which are not only their biggest strength anyway, but the Spurs' main weakness, especially in light of how thin (literally) they are up front without Boris Diaw. By necessity Pop is having to rely on Matt Bonner to play 25-30 minutes a night against the most skilled pair of bigs in the league, so yeah, you'd expect the rest of the defense to be stretched somewhat in doubling and helping him out.

I know this sounds a bit nutty, considering what an asshat Dwight Howard is, but I think the Spurs would probably have an easier time blowing out the Lakers if it was he, and not Kobe that was out. Can you IMAGINE how poor they'd be defensively? The kind of shots they'd settle for? The transition defense? It makes me drool a bit just thinking about it.

So anyway, here's some positives and negatives as we go into Game 3...

Positives:

1. Say, has anyone noticed how well Manu Ginobili has played so far?

He's fourth in PER so far this postseason, at a mere 39.21, and the three fellas ahead of him have all played even fewer minutes (though not much fewer). He's also +38, in 38 minutes. He has systematically destroyed the Lakers in the last two minutes of each quarter with his backbreaking marksmanship from deep and savvy play-making. His numbers in game 2, where he put up 13-5-7-1-1 in 19 minutes are LeBron-like stats, if LeBron only played 19 minutes and was way more sex-ay.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but nobody, not even me, the biggest Manu homer on the planet, saw this coming, given how he's played since returning from his left hamstring injury he initially suffered on Jan. 13 against the T-Pups. It's not that I didn't think he had the ability to do it, but that he didn't have the time to find his rhythm. Obviously he's not gonna keep up this ridiculous PER pace, nobody can, but if he maintains something close to it, while boosting his minutes to the 25-28 range, then yeah, this team's ceiling goes way higher.

2. Matt Bonner doesn't suck.

Whoa! Here's my theory: Right before the playoffs Pop had Aron Baynes put the Red Mamba in a sleeper hold so that Bonner passed out. He then set all the calenders in the facility to January. Nobody is allowed to tell him it's the postseason.

Will Bonner eventually figure it out, given that the Spurs will keep playing somewhere between four and seven games against the same teams, over and over? Well, he is smarter than the average athlete, so yeah, probably by late May it'll click in for him, but then Diaw will be back by then, anyway.

Yeah, Bonner is making his threes, which is big, but the more impressive aspect of that to me is that he's shooting them without hesitation. He's not passing up shots. He's making quick decisions.

And the shooting/scoring hasn't even been the best part of his game. The toughness he's shown in scrapping with Howard, the awareness he's had in back-tapping offensive boards and collecting wild caroms off DeJuan Blair's face -- Pop's a brilliant play-caller -- it's the kind of stuff, "the small things that don't show up in the box score" that we've seen Bonner do successfully in regular seasons for years, before frustratingly, maddeningly, hiding in a corner in the fetal position in the playoffs.

If Bonner can play like a legitimate NBA player for even 10 minutes, it gives the team a real four-man rotation of bigs in the playoffs once Diaw returns, which eases the load for Duncan going forward and lessens the need for small-ball, probably a good thing given Cap'n Jack's banishment.

3. Tony Parker looking vaguely more Tony Parkerish.

After three halves of basketball that made you want to weep into a pillow, Parker was able to rev up, if not to fifth gear then at least third, against the Lakers in the third quarter on Wednesday. Perhaps he had finally said to himself, "Enough is enough, I'm being punked by Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle."

He still isn't getting enough lift on his tear drop, but it's looking better and more importantly Parker is rediscovering his fearlessness and bullishness in driving to the basket. He's the one guy we have who can constantly suck in the defense and get to the line, so it's critical that he gets as close to his peak as he can.

Does he really have an injury that it's impossible to recover from without an off-season of rest, or is it the kind of thing that will, in Parker's words, "slowly and surely" get better from day to day? We have to hope it's the latter. If this is Parker's version of Ginobili's 2008 playoffs, we're sunk. Hopefully the Spurs finish off the sweep against LA while the Grizzles and Clips go seven, so that he gets some rest.

4. Kawhi Leonard breaks out.

Leonard had a decent enough game in the series opener, in a tough physical match-up with Ron Artest, and while he didn't light it up on the scoreboard, he skied for boards, was solid on defense and helped make a couple of game-turning plays.

On Wednesday, however, Leonard showcased a bit more of his all-around scoring talents, working with Parker on a monstrous alley-oop, getting another slam in transition off a wondrous full-court pass from Manu (that had the kind of weight and spin one would normally associate with Xavi or Zinedine Zidane), a couple more hoops off offensive boards, one on a nice back cut where Ginobili found him, and a couple more on free throw jumpers off the curl.

Ironically, the one thing missing from Leonard's game right now is the three pointer, as he shot just 32% from downtown after the All-Star break and has been cold through two playoff games as well. For much of his rookie season the corner three was the mightiest (only?) arrow in Leonard's quiver, but now his aim is off.

The Spurs will need him to find that accuracy, while sustaining the aggressiveness and rhythm of the rest of his game too, for the Spurs to have any chance in the latter rounds. Leonard has to be a 16-8 type of player, while playing excellent defense and shooting at a high efficiency. Basically, he has to play like an All-Star, regardless of whether he's ready or not.

5. Russell Westbrook suffers a boo-boo.

Look... I didn't wish for this. Westbrook might be my least favorite player in the whole league and he's a grade-A punk, but I don't like seeing anyone hurt. Anybody that does is not someone I care to know. But at the same time I'd be lying if I said I'm upset by it.

I'm not about to feel sorry for the Thunder or the Lakers or anyone else, really. Nobody feels sorry for the Spurs, ever, no matter what injuries Tim, Manu or Tony suffer, so why should we have any sympathy for anyone else? Besides, karma owes us one after Game 6 last year. I'm never forgetting that game.

It's not even a given that the Thunder are done now. Nobody knows how long Westbrook will be out or how OKC will play without him. He's the ultimate boom-or-bust player, a guy who gives them an unguardable weapon in transition and a match-up nightmare, but also one that takes scores of bad shots and hampers a lot of their half court offense.

We've always been curious what a non-Westbrook Thunder would look like, what that would mean for Kevin Durant's game, but those hypothetical scenarios were with James Harden still aboard. This is a whole other animal.

I'm taking my lead from the Spurs coaches and players and not trumpeting anything or making any kind of declaration with this news. For all we know Westbrook is still an alien and he'll recover in 24 hours after surgery and be back running faster, jumping higher and playing angrier than ever. Or maybe Derek Fisher will play 30 minutes a night against us and shoot 89 percent.

I guess what I'm trying to say is...

well, you know.

The negatives...

1. Danny Green bravely voyages to the deepest, darkest, undiscovered depths of suck.

Holy hell has he been a gasoline fire.

It's one thing to miss threes, but Green has been off-kilter in his shot selection on offense and gotten roasted on defense, giving up and-1s to Steves Nash and Blake, who have two healthy legs between them. I don't know what's going on in the dude's personal life, but he just doesn't seem to be into it, mentally. Anyone notice how at the end of Game 2, when he pulled down a rebound with 10 seconds to go and was just dribbling in place in his own end looking at the ref blankly? The zebra reminded him, "Uh, fella, you're gonna have to get past half court or I'm gonna blow the whistle," and Green was like, "Durr, why?"

Green started out brightly in the last playoffs but was a sinkhole by the end against the Thunder, and it's fair to wonder if he's been unnerved by the return of Ginobili, since he's the guy whose minutes most get affected by Manu. Credit the Lakers for making it a priority to not give Green many open looks -- he's one of the best catch-and-shoot guys in the league -- but Green is not at his best when he tries to force offense and has no excuse, regardless, to be so out of it on the other end of the floor.

There's no Stephen Jackson around this time, so it will be almost impossible for Green to play his way out of the rotation, but it sure would be nice if he pulled his head out of his butt between now and round 2, where he will be sorely needed.

2. Manu is not anywhere near 100 percent, yet.

Forget the stats and the blathering of idiots who don't really watch him play. We know Manu. When he's feeling right he can attack the basket and finish, perhaps even with a flourish. The guy we've seen, who's shot 6-of-9 from downtown in a ridiculously small sample size, is nice, but unless he can wreak havoc for 25-30 minutes, be a threat to score from anywhere on the floor and attack the rim with reckless abandon, he's not really Manu.

The hot start shooting the ball is a tease and not sustainable. He's not gonna suddenly be Stephen Curry. Like Tony, he needs this series to be over quickly in the worst way.

3. What's happened to the starters?

If you recall, in last season's playoffs the starters -- with Diaw instead of Splitter -- were downright dominant while the bench was god awful. It's been much the same in the regular season, with Splitter supplanting Diaw. The Spurs starters are right there on a per-minute basis with Miami and Indiana for the league's best quintet.

However, against the Lakers it's been the four man bench of Ginobili, Bonner, Gary Neal (whuck?) and Cory Joseph (huh?) that have largely made the difference against an LA team that has zero depth with all their injuries. To put it another way, Ginobili is +38 in 38 minutes, meaning that during the 58 minutes he's been on the bench, this injured, broken shell of a Lakers team has outscored the Spurs, on the road, by 15 points. Some of that is Danny Green's doing, but not all of it.

This kind of play going forward simply won't do. Duncan, Parker and Splitter all have to improve, to various degrees, as well.

We've mentioned Parker's problems already, but Duncan, to my eye, isn't running as smoothly as he was a month ago -- his gait looks a little limpy to me -- and not jumping as well either. His rebounding numbers are troublesome. Has he run out of gas at the worst time? We'll see.

Splitter, meanwhile, is playing soft, flopping too much and conforming to stereotype, embarrassingly. He's got to be harder, on both ends, with or without the ball. We can't be doing this Freaky Friday stuff with him and Bonner.

Is it so much to ask that the top ten guys on the team all get completely healthy and play at their individual peak performance, in perfect concert and harmony, for a two month stretch? If possible, I'd also like LeBron James to abruptly retire to pursue his true calling of being a cashier at a Pottery Barn in Scottsdale, AZ.

4. It's only two games, at home, against an injured seven seed.

They've proven nothing. Repeat, nothing. Don't you dare start dreaming, that's only gonna make it hurt worse when they inevitably break your heart. Be happy with the four rings, pounders.

5. You know how this is gonna end.

LeBron will suffer some freak injury, the Spurs will go 16-0 throughout the playoffs, and then we'll be treated to months of asterisk talk and "what was more impressive, the Spurs 16-0 playoff run or the Heat's 27-game regular season winning streak" debate. It will be enough for you to look into a mirror and ask yourself, "My god, what have I been doing with my life? Why am I wasting it on this mindless drivel?"

And you'll hate sports and yourself and question every decision you ever made and grow to resent your jobs and friends and families and loved ones and oh god it's all so bad. Why, LeBron, why?

________________________________________________

Your 3 stars... (with apologies to Leonard)

3. Tony Parker

2. Manu Ginobili

1. Matt Bonner (pretty much the only Spur who was good in both halves).

________________________________________________

Your Game 2 MVPs...

Miami-Milwaukee: Ersan Ilyasova. Too bad for him neither Monta Ellis nor Brandon Jennings showed up in a game where LeBron was kinda meh.

New York-Boston: Raymond Felton. By default, the best point guard left in the East. Ugh.

Indiana-Atlanta: George Hill. Gotta punish Paul George a bit for getting to do his work against Kyle Korver.

Brooklyn-Chicago: Kirk Hinrich. Shut down Deron Williams one-on-one, in a match-up the Nets have to dominate to have a chance.

Oklahoma City-Houston: Patrick Beverley. What? He had good numbers, look it up. Hey, stop it, that's not nice. My mother is a respectable lady.

Denver-Golden State: Harrison Barnes. Maybe the best game he's ever played. Kinda stuffed the stat sheet, for him.

LA Clippers-Memphis: Mike Conley. I don't care that Paul hit the game-winner. Conley was the better player that game. Also, I hate Chris Paul.

Spurs Snap Four Game Playoffs Losing Streak, Defeat Lakers in Game 1

Aaronstampler — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:38:38 -0000

@KobeBryant #GinobetterthanVino

First, let me start with the bad news, as is my custom.

No, you weren't imagining things, our offense really was that putrid against the Lakers.

See, when I was watching the game live at Buffalo Wild Wings, distracted at different points by Manoli, our unmotivated waitress and the Giants game on the other TV, I simply thought the problem was that our guys, Duncan in particular, missed a bunch of wide open shots and that the refs made a dozen or so questionable non-calls. Really, I thought the Spurs had like a 2:1 margin on the Lakers on good open looks.

However, upon a subsequent viewing in the, uh, cozy confines of my bachelor room that I'm renting, I was chagrined to discover that in fact there was hardly any difference at all between the two teams on that score, that the ball movement was generally subpar by both squads, and that open looks in the game were few and far between.

Here, I charted it for you:

Nash 2/5 (0/1 from 3)

Artest (1/2 from 3)

Gasol 3/7

Howard 1/1

Meeks (0/1 from 3)

Morris (0/1 from 3)

Blake 2/3 (1/2 from 3)

Jamison 0/2 (0/1 from 3)

First Half 5/13 (1/4 open from 3, 0/1 contested)

Game 9/22 (2/8 open from 3, 1/7 contested)

Duncan 0/6

Green (2/4 from 3)

Parker 3/5

Ginobili 2/3 (2/2 from 3)

Joseph 1/1

Leonard (1/3 from 3)

Bonner (1/2 from 3)

Neal 0/1 (3)

Half 5/9 (3/3 open from 3, 0/7 contested)

Game 10/25 (6/12 open from 3,1/10 contested)

I don't know, but only 25 open jumpers seems awfully low to me, and for clarification's sake I'm not even just counting shots purely off the catch. I also counted pull up jumpers off the dribble as long as the players had their legs underneath them and created sufficient room for themselves without being encumbered at all by a nearby defender.

So yes, the 40% shooting on these open shots was a bit below average, but not by much. Individually everybody was pretty much where you'd expect. I mean, what are we talking about here? If Duncan goes 3/6 instead of 0/6 we've got six extra points and finish with 97 instead of 91. Big whoop.

My point is that a "shooting slump" is not a convenient or applicable excuse here. There really is something wrong with the offense. Parker still looks slow and wobbly. The ball just isn't whipping around the perimeter as well as we'd like. There weren't nearly as many fast break points as you'd expect, given the Lakers 18 turnovers. Finally there weren't many layups or easy points in the paint, though the size of the Lakers might be a credible excuse in that regard.

Obviously a ton of credit has to go to the Lakers because clearly I was wrong and they did indeed play quite well defensively against the Spurs in Game 1. For that matter, so did the Spurs against LA, especially the way they scrambled to take away open looks from deep.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't think the Spurs offense will suddenly explode for any 110 or 115 point outings anytime soon. There is no simple adjustment or tweak that can fix them and turn them into the offensive juggernaut they were down the stretch in 2012. Unless Parker miraculously finds a way to return to his peak form and Manu can return to a guy who can get to the rim and finish, the Spurs will have to grind out wins and lean heavily on their defense because nothing is going to come easily for this crew and I don't see many 35 point quarters or 65 point halves in our near future.

____________________________________________________

With that bit of business out of the way, lets get on with the positives, of which there were plenty.

Manu, of course, looked about as good as we could've possibly dreamed in his 19 minutes on the floor, considering his long injury layoff. He had enough legs to shoot the three ball (maybe the adrenaline of the playoffs kicked in there), he skied for a couple of boards, generally played a pretty smart floor game without taking too many risks and was unquestionably the MVP of the game. Hopefully he'll be able to gradually increase his stamina to the 30 minute mark as we go along in these playoffs and regain his rhythm, timing and confidence enough to drive to the rim and do something once he gets there.

It's one thing to do well against Steve Blake or whoever, but Ginobili will be facing much longer and quicker opponents in round two [ASAKOW (Assuming San Antonio Keeps On Winning) - jrw], so he needs to get as close as he can to 100 percent tootsweet. The good news is the better he shoots it from downtown, the more people will crowd him and it'll be that much easier for him to pump fake and drive.

Man, was it good to have him back.

____________________________________________________

Matt Bonner played without question the best playoff game of his life. While it's definitely premature to remove the scarlet "C" (for choker) on his lapel, it was an encouraging start if nothing else. Dude even grabbed five boards. With Diaw sidelined Bonner has a golden opportunity to rewrite the narrative of his career, and if he does anything at all against the Lakers, this series won't last long.

My favorite Bonner moment though came with 7:16 to go in the game. Somebody was getting set to shoot free throws and Rocket was checking out for Timmy to sub back in. As he waddled his way toward the bench, he purposefully widened his arc so that he could slap five with Pop, who was busy shouting instructions and wasn't even paying attention to him.

Somebody find that scene and make a GIF of it, it's so Bonner. [Josh, can you make this happen? - jrw]

____________________________________________________

Pick a stat, any stat, as your key one of the game. There are so many to choose from and I'm not smart enough to figure out which is more significant than the rest.

Turnovers? 18 to 9, to the good.

Offensive boards? 8 to 6, to the good.

Three pointers made? 7 to 3, to the good.

Free throw attempts? Remarkably, 25 to 24, to the good.

Yeah, you're right, it's probably the free throw attempts. I can't imagine the Lakers beating the Spurs in a game where that stat isn't one-sided in their favor.

_____________________________________________________

A nod to Cory Joseph, whose name Pop drew from the Backup Point Guard Hat. He gave us 11 quality minutes, didn't have any turnovers (though shooting an 11-foot floater nine feet comes close) competed hard at both ends and wasn't afraid out there. For a while there I thought Joseph was going to foul out in like four minutes, but he stabilized pretty quickly and let Manu do his thing.

_____________________________________________________

I'm ambivalent about Tiago Splitter. On one hand he was Charmin-soft on offense, which was disconcerting to put it mildly, and he didn't get anything going on the pick-and-roll. On the other hand, he played with a decent amount of physicality on defense and didn't get bullied around by Dwight Howard or Pau Gasol.

Obviously we're gonna need more -- a lot more -- from Splitter, but he wasn't as bad as his numbers suggest and the Lakers are a tough match-up, so I can understand the strategy of sacrificing some of his offensive game to be able to use that energy in his own end.

If anyone deserves to wear the dunce cap today, it was Gary Neal.

_____________________________________________________

That's two hat references I made in this post. I wonder if it was subconscious because I wore a cap for the first time in forever today. My hair is ridiculous at the moment.

_____________________________________________________

I predicted Spurs in 5, and I'll stick to it, but it wouldn't be surprising at all to see a sweep. The Lakers are just so limited in what they can do offensively. It's almost a carbon copy of the 2-7 series out east, where the KG-Pierce Celtics are circling the drain. Rondo was everything for Boston, and Kobe, for all his hero ball and defensive lapses, masked the fact that the Lakers were often taking the court with guys at small forward and point guard who are replacement level at best and making do with the worst bench in the league. They are just so pitifully slow on the perimeter and Mitch Kupchak should be fired for the roster he's built, for the coach he hired to manage them and for not amnestying Ron Artest long ago.

______________________________________________________

Your 3 Stars:

3. Tim Duncan

2. Matt Bonner

1. Manu Ginobili

______________________________________________________

Your Game 1 MVPs, on a weekend where it looks for all the world that chalk will prevail, with only Clips-Grizzles offering us any hope of a slight upset...

Heat-Bucks: LeBron James (27-10-8, 9-of-11 FG, pretty much a lock for this honor in every Heat win).

Knicks-Celtics: Kenyon Martin (10 pts, 9 rebs, best game I've seen from him in forever. More eerie parallels with Spurs-Lakers series in that each two seed's maligned backup PF played a great game 1).

Pacers-Hawks: Paul George (23-11-12 in a game I didn't watch).

Nets-Bulls: Deron Williams (22 pts, 7 asts, 9-of-15 FG, threw down a vicious reverse dunk, so maybe there's hope for Parker).

Thunder-Rockets: Russell Westbrook (19-8-10, completely destroyed Jeremy Lin on both ends).

Nuggets-Warriors: Andre Miller (28 pts, 11-of-15 FG, 18 pts in 4th, including game-winning layup.)

Clippers-Grizzlies: Chris Paul (23 pts, 7 asts, with apologies to Eric Bledsoe who had a strong case.)

Stampler's prediction for Spurs vs Lakers: Bad Things

Aaronstampler — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 17:11:54 -0000

Save us, Timmy, you're our only hope.

Fun fact about me: My life has never been worse, whether we're talking personally, emotionally, professionally, socially, physically or financially. I literally have terrible thoughts every day and think about ending it all the time, and the only reason I don't is because it will make like five people who don't deserve to feel that way very sad and maybe because I fear some reprisal in hell or whatever. Nothing ever brings me happiness, I hardly ever smile or laugh at anything anymore and I can't escape the black cloud that's forever enveloping me. My life is filled with pain and negative thoughts, 24/7, and existence seems altogether pointless. I should probably see a therapist or something, but I can't imagine how my damaged brain can be "fixed" by anyone's words. I've come to accept that some people are just not meant to be happy and exist just as a cautionary tale for others, and such is my fate.

So, on that cheery note, what better time for the playoffs to begin for our Spurs, in a postseason where I haven't been this pessimistic since 2009, when Manu was out with a stress fracture in his ankle. The really sick news? It's only going to get worse after this season, because it's not like Timmy and Tony are getting any younger. Strap yourselves in, gang, I'm about to make it morbid in here.

Look, lets face reality: It's just not in the cards for us, for a variety of reasons. We got the four 'chips, we should be eternally grateful for them (the NBA is not exactly a league of parity, with the Lakers and Celtics accounting for more than half the total titles won just between them) and we need to accept that we're not going to be adding to that total anytime soon, if ever.

Maybe if we had perfect health, home court advantage and some semblance of a bench we could stand a chance, but we're oh-for-three on that score.

In 2011 the team lost belief on the final day of the regular season, when Manu broke his arm, but truthfully they were sputtering and leaking oil well before then. You can only hide He Who Shall Not be Named for so long.

Last season our hopes sank when James Harden hit that killer three near the end of Game 5. Ginobili had a brilliant three quarters to keep the team in it, but Parker picked a bad game to have a bad game, the role players were mostly M.I.A., and we just couldn't get any stops down the stretch.

This year I lost all semblance of hope on March 31, when the Spurs dropped a game to the Heat at home, even though Miami was resting LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. Sure, Ginobili was out for the Spurs, but that's hardly a justification. Also, I'm well aware that a terrible, unspeakably awful foul call on Kawhi Leonard turned that game around late, but it was the Spurs' fault for having the score be close enough where one bad call could influence it. Besides, that whistle was further proof that David Stern simply won't allow us to contend. Bad for the ratings. The TV execs who pay for those ad dollars have spoken and the fix is in. I'm convinced of it. I'm never going to get over Game 6 last year. Never, ever. I'm rambling.

(For the record, Bill Simmons on his latest podcast went to great lengths to declare that he fully expects the Lakers series to be 5-on-8, a complete and transparent refereeing travesty that the whole country will be cool with because really, who cares if the Spurs get screwed? They're the Spurs.)

Anyway, let's go into the reasons -- besides the officiating -- that the Spurs are screwed, one by one.

1. Injuries

During the meat of the season The Wee Rapping Frenchman was playing like the third best player on the planet. As usual, Parker's timing was awful and he's picked the end of the season to wane. He's never truly recovered from the ankle sprain he picked up against the Kings and now there's some awful shin problem that's robbed him of his explosiveness, acceleration and lateral agility, on both ends of the floor. Also, his jumper has abandoned him.

Basically, he's become Deron Williams from the first half of the season, only shorter. So that's fun. Obviously without Parker at his absolute best the Spurs have no chance, and I hardly need to go over Parker's long and tortured playoff history against the Lakers. Oh, and if he gets by them, there will likely be JaVale McGee, Andre Iguodola, Andre Miller and Corey Brewer waiting for him in round two. Super.

Then there's Manu, who, at this point is basically just a nose, a bald spot, a charming wit and a sexy accent. Obviously I love the guy, and there is literally nothing he can do on a basketball court that will ever change that, but at this point even I've given up any semblance of faith that he has anything left. He just can't stay healthy, he doesn't have the stamina or strength to shoot threes straight consistently for a full game, he can't finish at the rim anymore (and the refs have stopped giving him any benefit of the doubt at all on those drives) and there's just no explosiveness or lift anymore.

Ginobili basically admitted during an interview that he has no faith in himself whatsoever to be able to score anymore and that he's hoping to contribute strictly as a passer. In other words, he's Pablo Prigioni/Nando De Colo. Awesome, I'm psyched.

Leonard will not only play, but is expected to log 40-plus minutes a game and be the team's top perimeter stopper. Yet anytime you watch the games you see him flex his knee and subtly grimace in pain during stoppages in play. So you'll forgive me if I'm not brimming with confidence that Kevin Durant will be seeing him in his nightmares during the summer.

Then there's Boris Diaw, who will be out this series recovering from minor back surgery, and the fact that we even have to discuss the impact of Diaw's absence, when the guy has to practically be zapped by a cattle prod to shoot the ball and has collected like twelve rebounds all season, makes me want to barf.

2. The bench, or lack thereof

Not sure if you've noticed, but the Spurs bench has been secretly terrible this season. Once Ginobili lost it (he's had like one good month all season) and Splitter was moved to the starting lineup for good, it became a fait accompli for the second unit to be the anchor that drags us down to mediocrity.

Basically, by moving Splitter to the starting lineup (a move I fully endorsed by the way), Pop made the radical decision to start his five best athletes. Not necessarily his five best basketball players, mind you, because I'd still rank Ginobili higher than Green on most nights, but his five best athletes.

I'm not sure any other team in the NBA starts their five best athletes. Miami? I dunno. Doesn't feel like most do. The problem is further exasperated by the fact that not only is Pop starting his five best athletes, but he literally only has five.

Diaw is a slug. Matt Bonner makes Diaw look like a decathlete. He might be the worst athlete in the league and he plays every game like his sole goal is to not make an opponent angry at him, like a guy politely handing his wallet to a would-be mugger. "Here's a rebound sir, please don't hurt me." DeJuan Blair is painfully undersized, can only jump over a phone book every tenth game, and after four seasons his basketball I.Q. remains far behind his actual I.Q., and we're talking about a fellow who, despite having no ACL's in his knees, thought it'd be a swell idea to purchase over $50,000 in jewelry with his rookie contract as a second-round pick.

Gary Neal is short and stubby and can't stay in front of anybody and simply refuses to stick with shooters by the three point line, as if he'll be of any help in the paint. He continues to draw at least one idiotic "and-1" foul a game, where the negligent contact he makes with a driving opponent doesn't encumber the guy's ability to finish in the slightest. Stephen Jackson aged in dog years and couldn't move anymore.

The best two athletes on the bench are De Colo and a 35-year-old, broken down Ginobili. Think about that. Hell, maybe it's Aron Baynes. I want to cry.

The fatal flaw in Pop and R.C. Buford's roster construction was in going to war (if you pardon the terrible analogy) with the least athletic bench in the NBA, and quite possibly the smallest as well. If anything a proper NBA bench should be more athletic than the starters, filled with youngsters with zip and energy and hustle, dudes who can make up for their lack of experience or basketball skill with quickness, size, desire and raw physical tools.

Basically, you need guys who can run and jump a little bit when basketball skills and smarts fail you, when the jumpers refuse to fall, when the passes aren't as crisp or the balls don't bounce your way. You can't teach size or strength or speed or leaping ability. For whatever reason, Pop and R.C. don't think it's a priority to have athletes on the bench. Maybe they could get away with that line of thinking in Duncan and Ginobili's prime, but those days are gone.

Anyway, if everyone was healthy and Pop had the luxury of playing a seven-man rotation, a la Mike "Pringles" D'Antoni, maybe the team would have a chance. Alas, the principles are all either old, hurt or both, so guys like Neal, Bonner and Blair will have to be shuffled onto the floor, whereupon they'll be immediately exploited without mercy. We just can't hide any of them. We can't.

So Ginobili, in the winter of his career, will be left once more trying to make the perfect play, literally the only play available to him, through an impossibly tangled jungle of arms and legs and limbs stretching forever, hoping against hope to deliver the ball cleanly through clogged traffic so that maybe, just maybe, Neal or Bonner can bury a jumper or Blair can finish a simple layup. Good lord.

3. We threw away home court

Last year's Spurs were far healthier, had all the momentum in the world, home court throughout the playoffs once Derrick Rose got hurt and the Bulls were done, and they still couldn't get it done. They simply couldn't get a stop when they needed one on the road, couldn't get a call at OKC in any of the games there, and Danny Green and Tiago Splitter both shriveled up under the bright lights.

So why should we expect a rosier outcome this time, without home court against the Thunder and (gasp) the Heat? Is it at all realistic to expect these guys to pull out a road game against a great team when everyone's beat up and limping around, the zebras are giving them zero breaks, and the free world is rooting for them to just go away? I can't remember the last road game they've won. For all I know it was at Sacramento, in a game I attended. (Just checked, not far off, it was actually February 27, at Phoenix.)

The Spurs finished the season two games behind the Thunder and lost so many 50/50 games down the stretch. Blew a 12-point fourth quarter lead at Golden State. Lost at home to the freakin' Suns after they tied it on a three at the buzzer (and yes, Manu missed what would've been the game-icing free throw). Lost buzzer beaters at Houston and at Memphis. The unforgivable loss to Miami without their stars. Losing to Denver after getting out to a 14-0 lead. Losing to the Lakers without Kobe.

Just three of those games go differently and at least they'd have home court throughout the western playoffs. At least that. But hey, at least they're healthy, right Pop? Ha.

You'll excuse me if I'm in "I'll believe it when I see it" mode.

4. No chemistry, mojo, momentum

Talk about a bunch of dead men walking. Thanks to the various injuries the full lineup hasn't played together since late March and they've been a bunch of zombies in April. The defense has gone to hell, the offense has no flow or rhythm, the ball movement is crud, Leonard and Green have gone into slumps from deep at the worst time, Splitter looks soft and gassed and disinterested in protecting the paint or going up strong on offense and the aforementioned bench is a sinkhole.

The decision to cast out Stephen Jackson practically on the eve of the playoffs has cast a pall over everything. Maybe it was a long time coming and necessary, but with the roster being what it is from a health standpoint, I just don't understand what you stand to gain by releasing Jackson. Why not just DNP him and have him out there in a suit, available in an emergency? Are we really supposed to expect Tracy McGrady, a guy who doesn't know the plays or the sets or anything, to fill in? He's not gonna play, period. We know this.

No matter how much a stink Jackson made about playing time, I can't imagine the big three would've been affected by his mutterings. They probably tuned him out long ago. To hear Jackson tell it, things came to a head with Pop when he refused to accept that Player X was better than him. Now, if X is Leonard, then yeah, Jack was being an idiot and I can kind of understand Pop's decision.

However, if X was Neal or Bonner, then Pop was stubborn and bullheaded and wrong and I'd still rather take my chances with Jackson. I wonder if that mystery will ever be solved.

5. Pop

I've ranted and raved about Pop ad nauseam. By now you know where I stand with him. He certainly has his strengths, and even me, idiot that I am, will readily concede they far outnumber his weaknesses. That doesn't change the fact that the weaknesses are there, that they are real, and it annoys me to no end that Pop has stubbornly refused to acknowledge or fix them.

Making an enemy of an egotistical commissioner is not smart, especially when your team gets zero ratings. Refusing to ever concede anything to the business and marketing aspects of the league is not smart, especially when you're a small-market team with mostly unmarketable (read: foreign) stars and those business and marketing interests help pay your handsome salary and those of your players. Refusing to ever point out the league's inconsistencies in officiating is not smart, because as Phil Jackson has proved time and again, there's nothing lost with planting a seed in public about crappy refs. Look, we know the Spurs, like most every other team, send tapes to the league about bad calls and rulings against them that they think are unfair. If you're airing those grievances in the first place, you might as well make them public. You've already crossed the line. What's the harm in letting your fans know that you give a damn about this stuff?

Also, as I stated above, as ahead of the curve as Pop is about the X's and O's, I think the game has passed him by as far as his bench philosophy. He should've found some athletes to fortify the bench, regardless of whether it was dudes from the D-league, or scrounging in Europe or whatever. There's more to the game than being able to hit open threes, and those shots don't come all that often against committed defenses in May and June.

_______________________________________________________________________

Now, after all that, if you've made it through 2,700 words of doom & gloom negativity without wanting to hang yourself, let me counter with some positives, just to mess with you.

1. Duncan hasn't looked this good since 2006.

The dunks he threw down late against the Lakers the other week, the post moves he was making against Howard, the way he was running the floor in late March against the Nuggets and Clips? It's enough to make one weep tears of joy.

I don't care what he's taking or what medical procedure he had in which country or what deal he agreed to with whichever prince of darkness. All I know is that, as I type this sentence, Duncan can make a legit claim to being one of the three or four best players on the entire planet, even on the dawn of his 37th birthday. If there's any justice in the world he'll be named First-Team All-NBA for his remarkable season but of course there isn't.

Anyway, having Duncan playing at this level is the only -- I repeat ONLY -- reason where even .0001% of hope flickers throughout this franchise for a miracle run. And even that probably rides on LeBron suffering a freak injury, but still.

If Duncan and Parker can somehow find their peak form simultaneously, if Manu can play like he did in January, if Leonard can continue his ascent, if Green can rediscover his stroke and if Splitter can play like a man when it matters... if, if, if, if.

Duncan deserves some help, guys. Come on, don't waste this.

2. The West is there to be had

I simply refuse to believe the Thunder aren't mortally compromised by the Harden trade. Don't tell me they can lose their third (possibly second) best player and still win the conference without a struggle. The thought simply boggles the mind. Especially when you consider that the Heat are at a whole other level above them.

The Nuggets looked formidable for a time, but now Danilo Gallinari is out, Ty Lawson is gimpy, and they're using guys like Evan Fournier and Anthony Randolph in their rotation, when those guys spent most of the season as spectators.

As we saw Saturday against the Warriors, the Nuggets' crunch-time scorer is Andre Miller. Are you telling me the Spurs are really gonna let Andre Miller get between them and a trip to the Western Conference Finals? Really?

The Grizzlies have zero perimeter scoring. Just pack the paint against them and they're toast. The Clippers have a shoddy coach who the players don't respect, some wonky internal chemistry issues and when all else fails you can put DeAndre Jordan at the line.

I just don't see any great teams here, and yes, that certainly includes the Spurs. Call me a homer, but I think at their apex the Spurs can reach a level of basketball nirvana (Neo-ball) that none of these other teams can reach. The problem is that the Thunder pretty much live in their "B-game" mode and thrive quite well in it, while the Spurs injury, athletic and age limitations have them in their "C-game" more often than not, where they're vulnerable to anybody. Sure, the potential exists for them to hit their stride for a solid month and outlast all these pretenders to the throne, but everything has to break exactly right.

3. Even Miami can be beat

The 27-game winning streak looks glitzy, but look closer. Look at the scores of the games. Look at the scores at certain intervals. The Heat trailed a skeleton crew from the Cavs by 20-something points. Ditto with the Celtics. They trailed big against New York and faced decent deficits and near-losses to Orlando, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Sacramento. When they finally lost, it was to a Bulls team without Rose and Joakim Noah.

Yes, they won 27 in a row, but they didn't win many of them convincingly. Despite the brilliance of James, and to a lesser extent Wade, they're still a club that has issues with rebounding and interior defense and they lack a low-post scorer.

I've followed the NBA for nearly 30 years. Regardless of who comes out of the West, the Heat will be overwhelming favorites, but I've seen bigger disparities. The '86 Celtics vs. the Rockets, for example. The '96 Bulls vs. the Sonics. The '99 Spurs vs. the Patrick Ewing-less Knicks. The '02 Lakers vs. the Nets (and the Lakers weren't even the best team that year, the Kings were.)

All of those series were bigger mismatches than this Finals will be. The Heat are a great team, but I still don't think they're an all-time juggernaut. The numbers just don't bear it out, nor does their roster. It's a two-man team, and a bunch of spare parts. I think they're catching the rest of the league in a down year, is all.

Obviously it's morbid and gross to root for injuries, and I won't do it here, but I'm just saying, stranger things have happened.

4. The Lakers are a great match-up for the Spurs

Officiating aside, I'm pretty ecstatic that the Spurs drew LA instead of a funky Warriors with their crazy home court advantage and hot shooting from the perimeter or the Rockets with Harden and Omer Asik to complicate things.

If there's one team where our bench can get away with being crap, it's the Lakers since their bench is even bigger, smellier crap. If there's one team where a hobbled Parker can look somewhat fleet of foot, it's the Lakers, who employ Steves Nash & Blake. If there's one team where our lack of athleticism won't be exposed, it's the Lakers, who are even somehow slower and older.

Also, I don't know if you heard, but Kobe Bryant isn't playing, Mike D'Antoni is their coach and they also have a big galoot who doesn't shoot free throws so well.

At the risk of jinxing it (honestly, what do I care at this point?) if the Spurs don't beat the Lakers in this series we might as well quit being Spurs fans forever and move on to another hobby. Spurs in five.

5. I'm done with this crazy long, 90% negative column, so you can stop feeling terrible. You're welcome

"Wait," you're saying. "I thought this was supposed to be a Spurs-Lakers preview. You hardly mentioned the Lakers at all."

Deal with it. This is a Spurs blog. If you want Lakers insights go tune into ESPN. It doesn't matter when you click on, it's literally all they talk about.

My fervent hope is that somehow, someway, Manu regains his form enough to make some positive impact on this series, just so Kobe can tweet something juvenile and self-serving along the lines of "That wouldn't have happened against the Mamba."

In fact, we need to start a #ginoisbetterthanvino movement on Twitter and send it to the Kobester in spades if and when that happens.

Playoffs Preview: Is James Harden worth embracing? (and other pressing questions)

Aaronstampler — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:48:57 -0000

No.

Hey there, long time, right?

Here's my playoff preview. Today I'll deal with the seven other series that (yawn) the league insists on playing as scheduled when really the only one that matters is Lakers-Spurs. Tomorrow, I'll tackle Spurs vs Lakers, or at least JRW's edited version where he takes out all of the swears.

Eastern Conference

1. Miami vs. 8. Milwaukee

Brandon Jennings predicted that the Bucks would shock the world and pull off the upset, winning the series in six games because of course he did. At first you might dismiss his statement as the hubris and chutzpah that goes hand in hand with being young, rich and relatively famous. However, the basketball historians among you may remember that just last year the eighth-seeded 76ers beat the top-seeded Bulls after Derrick Rose tore his ACL late in a Game 1 Bulls blowout. And the year before that there was also an eighth-seed that toppled a one, but I don't remember the particulars of that one too well. Also, in 2007 the "We Believe" Warriors upset the top-ranked Mavericks, which may or may not have opened the door for the final Spurs championship of the Tim Duncan era.

So, it is theoretically possible, gang. All we need for Jennings' prediction to come true is for LeBron James and/or Dwyane Wade to screw up the timing of their pregame handshake just a bit before the tip-off of Game 3 and for this to tragically (yet hilariously) turn into this.

Injuries aside, it's tough to have too much hope in the Bucks. Jennings and backcourt mate Monta Ellis are both low-efficiency chuckers who've yet to show any interest or aptitude for limiting the damage in their own end. Ellis was moved from the Warriors once they saw what they had in Stephen Curry, and it was baffling to me why the Bucks were eager to embrace him... midget backcourts don't work.

The Bucks have some capable and athletic bigs in Samuel Dalembert, John Henson and shot-blocking sensation Larry Sanders, but with Wade and James likely to get a running start past the matador midgets, all the bigs will get for their defensive efforts are foul calls and LOLGIFs.

On the wings there's Ersan Ilyasova, who made a spirited late-season charge to defend his "Best Turkish baller" title but still lost out to Omer Asik (Mehmet Okur held the title in the mid '00s, ceded to Hedo Turkoglu in 2008, and Enes Kanter is the odds-on favorite to win it next year).

Also, we have Mike Dunleavy Jr. (yup, he's still in the league), Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and J.J. Reddick, whose postseason history is positively Bonneresque. So... yeah.

I'm picking a sweep because in the end I'm just a sucker for a good Harlem Shake video. Kudos to Boris Diaw's Lego efforts, but it's just not the same. How I wish it was our dreary boring ol' Spurs who beat Miami to the punch here. What would the NBA's reaction been to that? Would ESPN have even noticed? I think we can all agree that Patty Mills would've been in the "Birdman" role, yes? Alas.

Heat in four.

2. New York vs. 7. Boston

To me, this is wholly similar to the Spurs-Lakers series, not just because it's a two-seven match-up, but more importantly because the Celtics are missing their best player in Rajon Rondo. Regardless of whatever hot streak or cold spell envelops either of these clubs -- and for what it's worth the Knicks ended the season in the former state and the Celtics the latter) I simply cannot fathom Boston winning without Rondo's considerable talents.

Kevin Garnett is dealing with a balky foot and his career is just about done. Without Rondo's playmaking the Celtics are left to rely on the inconsistent Jeff Green and the herky-jerky off-balance fadeaway unpleasantness that is Paul Pierce. Jason Terry's season has been one bestowed by the basketball gods to make the rest of us point and laugh. Avery Bradley, without a real point guard to work off of, has been miscast as someone who has to take and make tough shots. The whole thing is kind of a mess, and you get the sense that this group would've just as soon faced the Pacers in a series everyone would've ignored and they could've just gone gently off into the good night.

But no, they drew the Knicks, and then all the real world craziness in Boston intervened, so now these geezers have no choice but to play hard, to make the Knicks work a helluva lot harder to get past them than they would prefer to. Now, they're in a spot where Carmelo and Co. will actually have to focus and play smart to win the series. Do you really trust Anthony and J.R. Smith to be able to do that in a situation where their opponents will actually be viewed as the lovable underdogs? I sure don't.

To me the series comes down to Raymond Felton. He has to show up, has to get into the lane despite Bradley's dogged efforts to contain him, and has to be able to finish at the rim and set up his shooters. If he's a dud and the Knicks are forced to rely exclusively on the Iso efforts of Anthony and Smith, or even worse, on the rotted out corpse of Jason Kidd, then the Celtics will indeed ride the emotion to pull off a string of ugly 84-81 upsets.

I see it as a tight series, the only worthwhile one in the East, really, but one in which the Knicks will ultimately pull out in Game 7 when, finally, their own fans get into it and make themselves accounted for.

Knicks in seven.

3. Indiana vs. 6. Atlanta

Shut up. Shutupshutupshutup.

If you so much as ask your DVR for information on when games in this series will be played or what channel they'll be on, your satellite provider will send a beefy, agitated man to beat the crap out of you.

I like and root for George Hill. I sympathize with David West, since both he and I share a mutual affliction in that we are cursed with a permanent "angry face" -- even though there are times, albeit seldom, where we're not, in fact, angry. Paul George can throw down the occasional flashy dunk when the mood suits him. I enjoy Roy Hibbert's work on Park and Recreation.

Now, lets never speak of this abomination again.

Pacers in five.

4. Brooklyn vs. 5. Chicago

Okay, this isn't exactly a politically correct opinion, and forgive me for sounding like a Neanderthal here, but I know the thought has crossed all of your minds a time or thrice, so let me be the jerk who puts it out there in the open for all of you to pretend to be shocked and offended...

Either Derrick Rose's knee surgery was terribly botched and we just don't have all the medical details OR... well... the guy's a huge wuss.

Look, I'm sorry, but somebody had to say it, right? It's been a freaking year. A whole calender year. We're in 2013, where medical technology has advanced quite a bit. It's difficult for me, after watching Adrian Peterson run roughshod over the NFL eight months after his knee injury, to accept that Rose, a fellow who's younger than Peterson, plays in a less physical sport and has a less-extensive injury history, can't come back from his surgery after four months more recovery time than Peterson had.

After a certain point, the recovery stops being physical and is entirely about the brain. Obviously it'd be foolish for me or any of us to expect Rose to quickly regain his MVP form at any point this season, but I still can't believe that he never went out there and tried, whether he was at 90 percent, 80 percent, whatever. He owed it to his teammates and the fans to take the court and see what he can do.

More than anything, I think what bothers me, as a former journalist, is the lack of information. If I'm being a misinformed jerk, then tell me why I am. Tell me what exactly went wrong with the surgery. Tell me what setbacks there have been in the rehab process and why. Give me an answer besides "this guy is mentally traumatized and doesn't know how to snap out of it."

Rose's unwillingness to get into specifics, and the lengths to which the Bulls organization has coddled him and withheld information, has just turned me off to the extreme. When will teams learn that coddling a superstar in the modern age doesn't work? If anything, that weakness, that willingness to bend to the star's whim about anything, is what turns them off. Look at LeBron with Cleveland. They gave him whatever he wanted and he still bolted. Rose won't be a free agent until 2017, but I don't expect him to sign another contract with the Bulls and I won't be surprised a bit if he demands a trade before then.

Combine that with the latest plantar fasciitis flare-up on Joakim Noah's foot and it's hard to have any good feelings with the Bulls, despite the best efforts of Jimmy Butler, Nate Robinson and Kirk Hinrich.

Meanwhile, the Nets' own star point guard, Deron Williams, played the first half of the season very much like how we'd have expected a fellow coming off knee surgery to. He was fat, slow, had no lift or acceleration, and looked like a shell of himself. As the calender turned to 2013 though he gradually found himself, got a bit leaner, and started to regain his leap and his quickness. He was dunking and finishing at the rim again and had more legs in his jumper, which helped his accuracy from downtown (cough Manu cough).

Brook Lopez' steady development into a big who can hurt you in all areas of the court regardless of whether he's facing up or has his back to the basket and Joe Johnson's wholly uninspiring consistency has given the Nets a true three-pronged attack in the piss-poor Miami mold and even though they're getting next to nothing from their forwards, the Nets remain a viable contender in the East, as much as anyone could be when they don't have LeBron on their team, anyway.

It's really a shame that the Nets and Knicks won't be able to meet in the second round. Now that would've been a fun series. Still, I'm pulling for the Nets here, because Lopez' size would give them a puncher's chance against the Heat, in a Buster Douglas kind of way.

Nets in five.

Western Conference

1. Oklahoma City vs. 8 Houston

I'm much too pessimistic and pragmatic to ever hope that the Rockets will upset the Thunder. That's craziness. No, what I want from this series is this: Make the Thunder form some bad habits.

I want the Rockets defense to be so porous, so easily penetrated, that it never occurs to Russell Westbrook or Kevin Durant to look to move the ball. I want there to be baskets galore, at both ends, to the tune of 128-121 final scores. I want games where the outcome is never in doubt, regardless of the furious pace of the scoreboard changing, and for the contests to take on the air of rookie-sophomore game frivolity, a "I'll let you score, you let me score" free-flowing carelessness that entertains the nitwits and makes coaches wretch in the private confines of the film room.

I want the games to come so easily to the Thunder that they get lazy on defense and greedy on offense. I want them to lose their hunger and their edge. I want their role players bored and disinterested and their stars overconfident and unfocused. I want the tenor and tone of the series to so drastically alter the Thunder's mojo that before they know it they'll be staring at a 3-1 deficit in round two against Memphis.

That's not too much to ask for, right? Imagine Westbrook and Durant trading blows in front of an exasperated Scott Brooks after Westbrook's latest wayward jumper with 14 seconds left on the shot clock. Makes you happy, doesn't it?

Sure, we can all root for Asik, for Chandler Parsons and for Jeremy Lin, but let me be crystal clear about this, peeps: I refuse to root for James Harden under any circumstances. No. The enemy of my enemy will not be my friend. He is a stupid person with a stupid beard and his beard looks stupid.

Thunder in five.

3. Denver vs. 6. Golden State

For whatever reason George Karl looks like he'll forever be one of these snakebit star-crossed guys where it's never going to happen for him. Like Jerry Sloan, and, to a lesser extent, Don Nelson, he's going to finish his career having won a bajillion games but never the final one that matters.

Now, it'd be silly, even under the best circumstances, to think that the Nugs could upset, in order, the Spurs, Thunder and Heat to win the title, but damn if they wouldn't have put up a worthy challenge had they all their parts in order. One through nine, this team was scary.

Let me put it this way... the Spurs have lost a bunch of games since I last wrote here, probably like 15 or so of them, but in all the games I've watched them play, no opponent impressed me as much as the Nuggets did on March 27, in a game the Spurs squeaked out a 100-99 win, no less. (In the interest of full disclosure, I skipped most of the Spurs losses on the DVR, so I guess I have no point, but still).

I can't ever remember any team getting so many lay-ups and dunks in one game against the Spurs. Between JaVale McGee, Kenneth Faried, Andre Iguodala and Wilson Chandler they had so many guys who could go to the rim with force and a perfect trigger man in Andre Miller who throws the most pinpoint lob passes east of Chris Paul.

As Spurs fans, we're well used to being at an athletic disadvantage against nearly every opponent but the Nuggets take it to a whole other level. I'm not sure I've ever seen a squad who, team wide, are so adept at getting to the basket and throwing it down very hard from very high. These guys are freaks. Thank FSM they can't shoot a lick.

Anyway, like I mentioned and as you're well aware, the Nuggets aren't at full strength. Danilo Gallinari tore his ACL and he's out and Ty Lawson is limping around and not himself either. Denver is just wobbly enough to leave themselves vulnerable to a plucky underdog filled with piss and vinegar...

And this is where the Warriors come in. Nobody in the league is hotter than Curry, and the mentality of the Nuggets will be to try to outscore him rather than guard him. Klay Thompson can catch fire in short bursts. David Lee is good for 25 on each end of the floor. Jarrett Jack is a dangerous sixth man who frees up Curry to do what he does best.

The Warriors have a terrific home court advantage in the playoffs and they'll defend their turf with every bit of passion and determination that the Nuggets play with in the thin air of the Nugget Dome or whatever they call their building.

I'm picking the upset for two reasons: One, somebody has to pull off one in the first round, so why not this one, where the favored team has a guy with a season-ending ailment? Two, the Nuggets don't have a true go-to scorer when things get hairy. They don't have any alpha dogs (not even any beta dogs, really) to rely on, and Karl's teams have a history of getting tight down the stretch. Outside of Miller, who on this team has a reputation of playing remotely poised when it matters?

Do you trust Iguodala or McGee or Corey Brewer? Really? Good luck to you sir. I'm going with the team that has the true star player to win the series and that player is Curry and he's on the Dubs.

Warriors in six.

4. Los Angeles Clippers vs. 5. Memphis

And finally we come to the series I'm most looking forward to, outside of Spurs-Lakers, of course. These teams hate each other. The coaches dislike each other. The star forwards despise one another. There is recent, contentious history.

On one side you have a club that is all style, zero substance; a lobbing, dunking, show-boating circus show whose offense consists of "give the ball to Paul and let him figure it out" and whose defense is Flopalooza '13.

On the other side is a squad that is all substance, zero style, a ground-bound, grinding, defense first, second and third outfit that eschews perimeter pyrotechnics and relies on their twin bigs to produce just enough ugly baskets to come out on top.

Really, LOTS of teams hate the Clips, the Grizzles just have the most reasons to.

You know the particulars by now. Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, Jamal Crawford, DeAndre Jordan, Caron Butler, Matt Barnes, Eric Bledsoe for the Clips vs. Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph, Mike Conley, Tony Allen, Tayshaun Prince and Jerryd Bayless for the Grizzles. They're gonna beat the crap out of each other for six games and after it's finished the winners will hate the Thunder even more than they did before, for the simple fact that while they survived a heavyweight bout over two weeks, nobody on OKC will have so much as gotten touched against the gee-whiz happy-to-be-here Rockets. It's gonna be awesome.

Here's a prediction you can take to the bank: In the first half of Game 1 in their second round series against the Thunder, somebody on the Grizzlies will lay a flagrant foul on Westbrook or (more likely) Durant, just to let them finally know they're in the playoffs.

Grizzlies in six.

Manu and the Spurs are still good and other brilliant observations

Aaronstampler — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 16:29:11 -0000

[Editor's Note: This post was completed before Friday nights' game against the Portland TrailBlazers. -jrw]

I know what you're thinking... "Two Stampler posts, within a couple weeks of each other? What in the what? He's gonna ask us for money again, isn't he? Yeah, he's gonna ask us for money."

Well good news, ladies and germs. I'm just bored and thought I'd share some leftover thoughts from the last post. And no, I'm not gonna ask for money. (Though I'd be happy to send along an address to anyone who's feeling charitable *cough*)

So here are some dinky predictions for the next month, the regular season, and possibly even the playoffs. Take them all with a grain of salt while at the same time making sure to never forget that I am an effing wizard.

1. Barring injury to Tim or Manu, the Spurs will continue to be just fine, thank you, without Tony Parker, even though he's the third best player on the planet.

My life is filled with annoyances. My job is annoying. My financial situation is annoying. My food addiction is annoying. That the girl I'm head over heels for happens to be gay is beyond annoying. And yes, being a Spurs fan is super duper annoying in the extreme.

I hate rooting for this injury-prone bunch of geezers. It's like rooting for an NFL team, where you're always one hit to the star QB from the season being rendered meaningless, but we have three star QBs to worry about.

Actually, it's like every Spurs game is played on a court littered with landmines. We can't seem to go two consecutive games with everyone on the roster staying in one functional piece.

They're all extra-terrestrial gumby-men, whose skins just seem to resemble human muscle by coincidence.

The Thunder and the Heat meanwhile, continue to be led by aliens who never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever get hurt. Apparently LeBron and Wade and Durant and Westbrook do not possess ankles or knees or backs or elbows or shoulders. They don't have bones or muscles or ligaments. They're all extra-terrestrial gumby-men, whose skins just seem to resemble human muscle by coincidence. Their alien powers also enable them to hypnotize the referees into giving them every goddamn call in the fourth quarters of close games.

Not that I'm bitter or insane or anything.

Anywho, I realize that it sounds counter-intuitive to think that the Spurs won't drop a beat without their MVP, but I have several, mostly logical, reasons for feeling the way I do.

First off, a healthy Duncan has been every bit as integral to this team's success as Parker was this year (perhaps even more so?) and the Spurs still kept winning when he was out.

Secondly, Parker's youth and energy relative to the other two stars on the team were important for keeping them competitive -- and then some -- on those SEGABABAs and the tightly-packed schedule these past few months, but now all that is behind us and March offers almost nothing but home games and plenty of rest in between them. Fatigue should not be an issue here.

Finally, Manu freakin' Ginobili has a well-established track record of stepping up his game when Parker is out injured. He'd probably refer to it as feeling "more responsible" for the team's success, but for whatever reason the urgency brings out the best in his game in the short term, even if it's well established by now that he can't sustain it for more than a month or two.

Yes, it's true that Manu's never been asked to do this at 35 before, and he's more fragile than ever, but he's smarter than ever too and he knows what he can do with all the toys around him. When he's on his game, as he was against the Pistons the other night, he makes it look pitifully easy and he can simply destroy a team in five minutes. That Detroit game was as long a sustained stretch of "Neo-ball" that the boys have shown in quite some time.

Anyway, I'm not really worried about the Spurs at all on offense. They still have guys who can shoot. They still have, in Tim and Manu, two elite-level offensive players who are finding their rhythm after long layoffs. They have an established system that gets guys good looks, regardless of who's out there, as evidenced by that awesome win at Chicago a month ago and the close loss at Miami early in the year.

You want irony? How about this, from a guy who's spent a decade lambasting Parker's defense: The Spurs will miss Tony a heckuva lot more on defense than offense.

Click for a larger version of this chart from basketballreference.com

As you can see, Parker's been one of the team's most reliable defenders all season (even though he played a chunk of games without Duncan), while his backups have been the worst. They're all limited to some degree. Neal is too slow, not athletic enough, and has the worst instincts of the bunch. He's also hampered by injury. Mills pressures the ball well, but he's too slight to really bother anyone in the half court and he makes lots of mental errors in his own end as well. De Colo has good size and is more athletic than he looks (because we're all virulent racists, you see), but he doesn't have the experience of facing all these guys and as a rookie he gets no respect from the refs. Joseph has the best defensive chops of the bunch and is pretty quick, but his aggressiveness costs him fouls and like De Colo the refs won't give him any breaks.

Parker doesn't bring the defensive intensity night in and night out, but when he's engaged against a fellow star point guard like Chris Paul, Rajon Rondo, Deron Williams, Kyrie Irving, etc. he gets his antennae up and does his best work to make life hard for those guys. Really, I don't know who plays Russell Westbrook better than Tony, to be honest.

I'm not worried at all about the Spurs being able to score against OKC on Monday, but I do fear that we're in store from a big night from Westbrook.

(I also realize this whole section would've looked a lot more prescient if I published it when I first wrote it, before the Detroit game, than after two straight beatdowns of the Pistons and "Los Bulls."

2. The demise of Manu Ginobili has been greatly exaggerated.

He's behind only fellow South American Tiago Splitter in net rating, well ahead of Duncan and Parker, and for whatever reason he's gone from being one of the team's worst defenders, in terms of points-per-100 possessions last season to third-best after Kawhi and Tiago. (Though to be fair, the offensive rating has dipped quite a bit from an NBA-best 120.7 last season to a middling-on-the-Spurs 110.0 this year.

Look, here's something you have to understand, and I say this as the biggest Manu homer on the planet: Last season was a bit of a fluke. There's no way he was going to shoot 61% from twos again, regardless of whether he's 35 or 25. The 41% from downtown was also too ambitious.

When Ginobili came out of the gates slowly in November, his numbers looked particularly awful because of the direct contrast to his ridiculous 11-12 campaign. Nobody seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt that A) he's traditionally been a slow starter and B) he was dealing with a back injury, something that never plagued him before, which seems rather remarkable considering his rather lengthy list of ailments over the years.

Once the calender turned to December, Manu was back to his usual efficient NBA stat nerd superstar self, at least for two months, before a hamstring injury felled him right at the peak of his powers, when he was driving to the hoop at will against the T-Pups.

Recovering from that one hampered his February, but now he's back to the status quo and the responsibility of having to replace a chunk of Parker's production has kicked him up another notch. Overall, our guy is still 18th in PER, he leads all two-guards in assist rate, he's behind only Wilson Chandler and Tony Allen in rebound rate and his scoring-per-40 minutes is still at his '04-05 level, when he first broke out.

Per 40 minutes, Manu is still a 21-7-8 guy, on 45% shooting. Not many guys in the league can say that. The problem, of course, is that he's not a 40 minute guy but rather a 24 minute guy. In fact, the stats show that if he ever plays more than 30 minutes in a game, his shooting percentages dive off a cliff.

it's hard for me to imagine this team winning a title if Manu is only capable of giving them 24 solid minutes a night in the playoffs.

Can he build up his stamina to reverse that trend? Is it even possible at his age? Pop has been treating him like a Faberge Egg (with good reason) but it's hard for me to imagine this team winning a title if Manu is only capable of giving them 24 solid minutes a night in the playoffs. He has to ratchet it up to 28-30, somehow, someway. I suggest PEDs and lots of them.

3. No, Pop will not have the rotation nailed down by the end of this six game homestand, and he wouldn't have even if Tony hadn't gotten hurt.

You have to be a dope to not understand the gap between Neal and De Colo

You gullible, pitiful fool, thinking that Get Off My Lawn will ever acquiesce to your reasonable wishes. Pop doesn't do things that other coaches do. He doesn't believe in your "logic" and "conventional wisdom" and "established rotations" and "player roles."

You want him to make up his mind one way or the other on the backup point guard? You want him to choose between DeJuan Blair (meh), Matt Bonner (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO), or Aron Baynes (ha) as the fourth big?

Well mis amigos, you shall remain wanting.

Here, roughly, is how I believe Pop ranks the players in order of trust:

1. Tim Duncan

2. Tony Parker

3. Manu Ginobili

4. Kawhi Leonard

Now picture a cliff between 4 and 5...

5. Boris Diaw

6. Tiago Splitter

7. Danny Green

8. Stephen Jackson

Now picture the Grand Canyon between 8 and 9...

9. Gary Neal

Now picture the distance from you to the moon between 9 and 10...

10. Matt Bonner

11. DeJuan Blair

12. Patty Mills

13. Cory Joseph

14. Nando De Colo

15. Aron Baynes

Now 1-4 he's gonna roll with regardless. All those bros are gonna get major minutes in the playoffs barring the "I" word. 5-8 he's gonna play too, even though he'll flip out on any of these gentlemen for offenses ranging from softness to missed defensive rotations to passivity to the accumulation of technical fouls (hey, what can I say, Splitter is an OG with a temper). Pop knows he has to rely on 5-8, so he's gonna grit his teeth and make the best of it with them.

Neal is the wild card. Pop knows you need at least a nine man rotation in the playoffs, if only to give the ninth guy spot minutes, and Neal is the first among equals here for his experience in the system, his shot-making and his fearlessness. Unfortunately, he is also a defensive albatross, so if he's not making up for that with offense, he'll be benched eventually. Right? RIGHT?

Their leashes are all shorter than Pop's with a male sideline reporter.

10-15 you can throw into a hat. They'll never play as much as they (or you) would like and they will never be dismissed completely because Pop doesn't work like that. It will depend on foul trouble, who's hot, who's cold, etc., but none of these guys will ever be trusted for more than a half, a quarter, maybe even a minute or two. Their leashes are all shorter than Pop's with a male sideline reporter.

In fact, the next time Bonner has a stint where he bricks a couple of wide open threes and then gives up like eight offensive rebounds to the point guard on the other end, ESPN should just hand him a microphone at the end of the quarter to ask Pop, "So, coach, what didn't you like about that quarter?"

Go ahead and tell me you wouldn't pay to see that.

4. No, you shouldn't be upset that the Spurs didn't trade for J.J. Redick.

It was a popular rumor, especially at the trade deadline, after it came out that Redick and his wife bought a home in Austin, that Redick would come over, but I for one am happy it didn't work out.

they have enough on hand to win it all if they stay healthy and get every conceivable break. Very unlikely of course, but possible on paper.

I know it's a tiny sample size, and I sound like some idiotic dinosaur writing this in 2013, but his playoff numbers are positively Bonner-esque. 1-of-15 from downtown two years ago and 4-of-19 last year. Bleh, no thanks. Believe it or not, I'd rather have Neal. As awful he is, he is kinda clutch and he's just not afraid, which counts for something.

I'm sure there were ways the Spurs could've improved themselves incrementally, but Redick wasn't it. I really think, objectively speaking, that they have enough on hand to win it all if they stay healthy and get every conceivable break. Very unlikely of course, but possible on paper.

5. The Spurs will avoid a b.s. first round matchup with the Lakers because The Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't THAT evil.

Admit it, you've thought about it. It's crept its way into your subconsciousness. The Lakers, with a fresh, healthy Pau Gasol, getting hot in April and sneaking into the playoffs, against a Spurs team that took it easy in April, with their collective feet off the pedal to rest everyone.

All the ESPN idiots picking the "red hot" Lakers against the "slumping" Spurs, theorizing that LA's size will be too much for SA's Tiiiiiiiiiaaaaaago Splitter and that nobody on the Spurs can defend Kobe. You're rightly petrified that the Lakers will get every single call because of course they will.

the Spurs never draw a "sexy" match-up that pulls in the eyeballs in round 1. It doesn't happen.

If you say you haven't thought about this scenario, you're a filthy liar.

Well, my prediction is it's not gonna happen. It's just too cruel and too perfect. Besides, the Spurs never draw a "sexy" match-up that pulls in the eyeballs in round 1. It doesn't happen. They'll just get Utah again (hello NBA TV) or Houston for a bunch of 120-112 wins.

If the Spurs hold on to that one seed (I admit to being incredibly skeptical of this after OKC edged the Knicks and the Spurs blew that Suns game) then the Lakers will finish seventh. If the Spurs finish second, then the Lakers will finish eighth. That's what my crystal ball sees. There's no science to it, just a gut feeling.

And I don't think the Lakers will tank a la the Grizzlies two years ago to get the Spurs rather than the Thunder because the race will be too tight for them to do it. Hell, they play the Rockets on the final game of the season in what might be a "loser goes home" scenario.

If the Spurs do wind up playing the Lakers in round 1, then I'll give you your money back for this column, and write another one that will never see the light of day because JRW won't publish it on account of the 4,852 swears.

Is Tony Parker seriously the third best player on the planet?

Aaronstampler — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 18:42:54 -0000

Greetings, ladies and germs. I haven't written at any length or substance about the Spurs in forever, due to a myriad of reasons that wouldn't interest any of you. In fact, there's probably a chunk of 10 games or so I haven't even watched this season and am still meaning to catch up on on League Pass (ironically, Manu's best stretch of the season).

So much has happened in Spurs-land, I feel like there's 50 different things to discuss. I'm gonna write forever and realize afterward I forgot like half of what I wanted to get to, but I'm gonna try to hit on as many things briefly as I can.

1. Tony Parker, 30, is still getting better.

How is this happening?

The wee rapping Frenchman, now at the age where many predicted a few years ago that he'd be washed up by, is defying every bit of anecdotal and conventional wisdom regarding a smallish player whose main asset is speed. I mean, look at his year-by-year PER: The bell curve is almost exactly what you'd predict, in that he peaked in the '08-09 season, when he was 26.

You can blame the next season on injuries, but he bounced back in '10-11 with a 20.44 PER season and you figured, "Yeah, that's about right, Parker is a borderline All-Star at 28, and he'll get steadily worse until he's done at 33."

Then the guy went out and, for lack of a better phrase, learned how to pass.

His assist rate per 40 minutes jumped from 8.1 to 9.6. His assist percentage made a similar leap from 26.8 percent to 28.4. Those are not insignificant bumps, people.

Parker's always been good at driving and kicking it out to the corners. He's always had that in his repertoire. But now he's developed all of Manu's pick-and-roll tricks (with a better handle to boot), the hook passes, the court vision to find the bigs, etc.

From a "pure point guard" standpoint the only thing that Parker can't do that a guy like Chris Paul can is accurately throw alley-oops, and fortunately for him, he's on a team where practically nobody is young enough (Tim, Manu, Jack), athletic enough (Neal, Bonner, Blair, DeColo) or coordinated enough (Green, Tiago, maybe Leonard?) for that to matter.

Then there's his scoring, which also, somehow, has reached new heights. Obviously Parker has lost a step, but not the two or three he was supposed to by now. He's made up for the diminished athleticism with increased smarts and -- this is what people miss -- increased strength. Watch him on drives to the rim, Parker just absorbs contact and still is able to finish, with people bouncing off of him similar to the ways they bounce off a Russell Westbrook or an Eric Bledsoe. Parker's ability to make lay-ups from all manner of angles and body contortions remains preternatural.

For me, Parker's ultimate statement was that game at Dallas on Jan. 25 when he got his eyelid cut early in the game from an Elton Brand hack. Parker, justifiably, was incredulous at the refs for the no-call, particularly in light of his off-season incident with the nightclub where he almost lost his career. When he returned to the game, he was pissed off and he sneered, glared and barked at the refs the rest of the night, refusing to let it go. He took out his fury on the Mavs and systematically destroyed them (again without Timmy or Manu) on the road, despite playing just 30 minutes. Don't let the 113-107 score fool you, Dallas made a superficial comeback at the end when it was already decided. The game was a rout. Parker, the supposedly soft Frenchman, singlehandedly ruined the Mavs.

Those are just my subjective observations though. Objectively, here's what we do know: Parker's leading the NBA in "drives" at 10.8 per game, more than Westbrook, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, anybody. His superlative combination of hesitation moves, feints, head-fakes, spins, crossovers, etc. lets him get to the rim time and again, and the Spurs score at a very healthy clip when he does.

Throw in Parker's .400 clip from deep (at a non-insignificant one attempt per game rate) and a career-best .824 percentage from the line (more on that later) and we're basically looking at a player without a weakness, at least offensively. Parker's work in fourth quarter/clutch situations has also been particularly impressive.

Parker's play has garnered him "third-best point guard" status among most of the pundits (Simmons, ridiculously, has him fourth), behind Paul and Westbrook, but honestly I think right now I'd put him at the very top, and this is coming from someone who probably had him sixth coming into the season, behind Rajon Rondo, Derrick Rose and Deron Williams.

Paul is too gimpy and injury-prone for me and doesn't have Parker's scoring arsenal. When he goes to the paint he basically just looks to draw fouls more than anything else. Westbrook, meanwhile, is someone who's far too overrated in my opinion. He's shooting below 43%, connecting on barely a third of his three-balls despite chucking four of them a game, and averaging a whopping 3.5 turnovers per contest. He just has too many 5-of-17, 5 TO nights for me to give him an edge over Parker.

Also, Westbrook has a scoring machine in Kevin Durant to take the pressure off of him. Defenses are constantly worried about KD. They focus their attention on stopping him at all times. At any time Westbrook can elect to simply dump the ball off to Durant 30 feet from the basket and trust him to get up a quality scoring chance in an Iso.

The Spurs, by contrast, hardly ever run 4-down for Timmy anymore and rely on Parker to create nearly every basket when he's on the court, even if it's of the "hockey assist" variety. He's the focus of opposing defensive game plans, not Duncan.

Throw in the fact that Parker routinely gets the better of both guys in head-to-head match-ups and how he's thoroughly dominated and helped the Spurs win all these games without Tim or Manu, and I don't know how anyone can not make the case for Parker being the best in the biz right now. It's like that Mavs game was a microcosm of his whole season: Parker is mad at the world for what nearly happened to his eye (even though it wasn't done to him on purpose) and he's taking it out on EVERYBODY. I'm not sure anybody in the league wants to win more than he does right now. It's been a pleasure to watch his development and I'm just enjoying the ride.

2. The odds are severely stacked against the Spurs to win the title, but there is a way.

There are about fifty things that have to happen in perfect harmony for the Spurs to win the 2013 championship. Here, in order, are the most relevant ones...

A. The top eight guys have to stay healthy throughout the playoff run.

B. Parker and Duncan have to play like top-10 players, Ginobili has to play like a top-20 player and Splitter and Leonard have to play like top-35 players, while Green and Diaw have to play close to their peaks as well.

C. No stupid trades (more on this later).

D. Homecourt advantage over Miami and Oklahoma City. Obviously I think this is more important than Pop does, and probably most of you, but I don't trust this group to must-win a road game in those cities. The home/road splits for the Thunder and Heat are ridiculous.

E. Fair officiating, particularly on the road against the glamour teams. I really don't feel like belaboring this point again.

F. LeBron taking it down a notch, because at his current level, nobody stands a chance. (In fact, the East is so horrid and watered-down right now, with Rose being out for the Bulls, who can even give the Heat a series? Maybe the Pacers take a game or two. Maybe the Knicks take a couple. The East has serious "fo-fo-fo" potential, even with Miami's crappy rebounding.)

G. No, really, the healthy thing is a big deal.

H. Westbrook has to play like an ass.

I. Duncan and Splitter have to continue hitting their freebies at their current clip (more on this later).

J. Pop can't jerk Splitter's minutes around this time.

K. The Thunder must miss the occasional 20-footer, just for kicks.

Simmons made the case recently that the Spurs are like his New England Patriots, great regular season teams and past champions who just can't take it up a notch in the playoffs because they're already playing their "A" game in the regular season when everyone else is at a "B" or "C" level most nights.

However, what Simbo misses is that most people still had faith in the Patriots at least advancing to the Super Bowl, if not winning it. They were 8-point favorites in the AFC Championship Game against Baltimore, and would've certainly been favorites in the Super Bowl had they made it that far.

A better comparison for the Spurs would be the Atlanta Falcons, if they somehow miraculously hold their No. 1 seed, in that they'd be the least-respected No. 1 seed in NBA history. Seriously would ANYONE pick them to beat OKC this postseason? Most pundits will probably pick them to get upset by the Clips or something in the second round, just to be hip.

Also, like the Falcons, nobody WANTS to see the Spurs in the Finals, which may or may not (I fear the former) count for something. The Spurs can finish the regular season 68-14 and I guarantee you that just about everybody at ESPN, now that John Hollinger doesn't work there, will pick OKC to make the Finals. That's just reality.

Again, the reasoning is that the Spurs are already at their peak in the regular season (absurd of course since they've played so many games without Tim, Manu, Leonard, etc.) while the Thunder (and/or Heat) can reach another level, particularly within a series of games where they can learn and adapt.

Eventually, the argument goes, the coaching won't matter, the role players will shrink under the spotlight and the superior talent will win out. Maybe it's true, even though I think luck (the aforementioned unconscious Thunder shooting percentage on their long twos) and dubious officiating had as much to do with the Spurs' demise as OKC's talent. There is a way the Spurs could counteract the talent advantage of the Thunder and Heat and it's by playing what I call Neo-Ball.

It all makes sense when you think of Durant, Westbrook and Ibaka as sentinels.

"What is Neo-Ball," you ask?

Simple. It's seeing the game slowed down to super slo-mo, as a team. It's cutting, screening, moving, passing as five individuals with one shared mind. It's knowing what the opponent will do before they do it and exploiting that with the perfect counter. It's about creating easy scoring chance after easy scoring chance, again and again and again, racking up the points (and the assists) in the process.

25 assists and 100 points? Nice. 30 assists and 110 points? Better. 35 assists and 120 points? Neo-Ball.

The only way we're gonna beat the Thunder and the Heat, especially if it's 5-on-8, is by having far superior ball movement and man movement, and even then, our guys are gonna have to knock down all of their open shots. If it sounds hard, it's because it will be hard, but the irony of Neo-Ball is that when you reach that state of nirvana as a team (and the Spurs tease us with it here and there), the game looks so, so easy. It's like the opponent isn't even there.

Can the Spurs hit their peak at just the right time, for four straight weeks, just when they need to most? I'm sure everything Pop is plotting is pointing to that objective.

3. No stupid trades please.

You heard the Al Jefferson rumors. Just appalling. A post-up guy who slows down the offense and is Carlos Boozer-level bad against the pick-and-roll (I'd like to thank Boozer and Nate Robinson for that win against Chicago, by the way. Awesome job, fellas.) in exchange for Tiago Splitter (who just happens to play the pick-and-roll better than any big-man in the league) and Cap'n Jack.

Lets start with Jackson for a second. I know he's been mostly awful this season, due in part to a broken finger that refuses to heal. He's fat. He's slow. To the naked eye he looks done, but his player-pairs and five-man unit numbers are all quite encouraging, so it's not like the Spurs are suffering with him on the floor.

Look, I completely understand (okay, that's a lie, I only kinda-sorta understand) the cap implications of Jackson's contract and why it'd make sense to deal him. But to me this is the Spurs' last legit shot at a title in the Duncan era (we said the same thing last year) so why not do whatever it takes to go for it?

Besides, I remember last year how Jackson almost singlehandedly changed the team's mentality. Maybe it was more getting rid of He Who Shall Not Be Named than adding Jackson specifically, but the whole attitude of the team changed overnight. Jackson gave them toughness, resolve, a junkyard dog mentality. He made them meaner, tougher.

More than anything, I want to keep Cap'n Jack around because I think he has serious Robert Horry potential for the playoffs, and yes, I mean that in more than just a clutch shot-making sense. I think Jackson can be the guy to rile up Westbrook into doing something stupid and getting off his game. Maybe he can give Durant enough of a hard foul to discourage him from barreling into the lane and settling for contested jumpers (as if that's any better of an alternative with him, but still).

I just think the Spurs are tougher physically and mentally with Jack around, and he's nice insurance to have in case Green spazzes out or Leonard picks up some cheap fouls. Plus, if we have to play small, he can be a backup power forward for us too. Anybody but Matt Bonner, for the love of The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The other trade rumor involves Josh Smith, who is no doubt a good player but also one that takes a lot of inefficient un-Spurs-like shots, does a lot of stupid selfish crap and is reportedly a bad apple. Unlike Jackson, he has no history of good citizenship with the Spurs to counterbalance bad behavior elsewhere.

While Smith is enough of a talent that I would part with Jackson for him, I would not, in any shape or form, get rid of Tiago or Leonard.

For my money, Tiago has been the fourth-most valuable Spur this year, and you could even argue he's third, considering the number of games that Manu's missed. As I mentioned above I know his contract situation is tricky in that he's a free agent and some team (Portland?) will likely throw a lot of money at him this year. Though he's mentioned that he'd greatly prefer to stay with the Spurs, he's no dummy and he'll probably take the highest offer, especially if the Spurs' brass doesn't come close to matching.

Sure, Manu and Jack are both free agents, so in theory the cap room will be there to match, but can Pop and R.C. Buford in good conscience give Splitter a contract that calls for eight figures a year? I'm guessing not.

Still, I don't care. They HAVE TO go for it all this year. Trading Splitter is tantamount to giving up their title hopes, and even if you get a guy like Josh Smith or Jefferson back, they won't make the team any better if you have to lose Tiago to get them. Remember, the guy is secretly a defensive stud, and even if he's soft going to the basket at times and not the world's greatest rebounder, his numbers, especially when paired with Duncan, are incredibly encouraging.

As for trading Leonard, I don't think I even have to explain the idiocy of that. Clearly the only people who bring him up are outsiders who don't regularly watch the Spurs. Pop would sooner trade Manu than Leonard, and I'm dead serious about that.

4. Why are the Spurs better?

A couple of little things that I can figure, which don't seem like much, but are adding up into wins.

First of all, I think starting Splitter has really helped, especially defensively, where Pop has stated ad nauseam the team has to improve if it's to compete for a title. Last season the Spurs starting unit (especially with DeJuan Blair in it) basically hoped to hold serve until the bench crew led by Ginobili and Splitter came in to run the opponent off the floor.

This season the five-man starting unit of Duncan-Splitter-Leonard-Green-Parker has decimated opposing teams, and that's important, considering that, as we learned painfully, benches don't matter all that much against squads that have aliens that don't ever get tired on them.

Splitter is only playing five more minutes per game more than last season, but he's playing many of those minutes with Duncan, which Pop plainly refused to do last season, to the team's detriment. Now, we know definitely that not only can these two fellows co-exist, but they can absolutely thrive beside one another.

Not to put too fine a point on it, because it's a limited stat, but Tiago's PER is 31st in the league. Serge Ibaka, OKC's third-best player, is 46th. Miami's got Chris Bosh at 20th, one slot behind Manu, but their fourth-best guy, Ray Allen, isn't in the top 100.

While I blame Pop for not playing Tiago more last year, I suppose I must give him credit for making Splitter tougher. He hasn't missed any games this season and that little episode in Chicago, where he hurt his ankle but came right back into the game, was telling. A couple years ago Splitter would've taken himself out of the game for that and taken a week off. Now he just grins and plays through the dings. Splitter's also been better at coming up with contested boards at both ends, even though his overall rebound rate has dipped (I attribute that to playing with Duncan).

Overall the Spurs are fourth in offensive efficiency, despite all the time Manu and Tim have missed, and third in defensive efficiency (OKC is seventh, Miami 11th). They get defensive boards better than any contender besides New York and again, that's with Duncan missing a bunch of games, so yeah, I'm pretty encouraged by the defense.

If they tighten up their playoff rotation to just nine guys, the only sub-par defender would be Gary Neal, and even he's not that all that bad if he's just guarding an opposing backup point for spot minutes.

The other main thing that has caught my eye is the free throw shooting, fourth in the league at the moment, at .792. Now freebies have long been anathema to the Spurs and there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that free throw shooting is one of the least-important stats on championship clubs (past Spurs teams and the Shaq Lakers/Heat are the two obvious examples), but still, all in all, they are, by definition, "free" points and I'd rather my team make 'em than miss 'em.

Splitter's struggles at the line were a big reason why Pop couldn't play him much against the Thunder, but this season he's shooting them at a healthy 75% clip. Duncan is at a career-best 82%, as is Parker. Green and Leonard both knock them down at a similar rate and Manu is Manu. Not only are these guys the best free throw shooters on the team, but they're also the ones who get to the line most often. When you have a team full of guys who are dependable at the stripe, it's just comforting, even if it's more psychological than tangible.

5. Looking at the schedules

Like I mentioned before, I think getting the number one overall seed is critical to the Spurs success. Maybe I'm just haunted by the ghost of the Thunder. I know they're not as good without James Harden. I mean how can they be? Maybe they'd be nearly unbeatable with him and there'd be no point in even playing this season. But they sure haven't looked very impressive without him of late, with a 7-5 record in their last 12 games, despite impeccable health and a meh schedule.

Still, I can't get past the thought of them getting every call, I mean EVERY call, at home. The memory of Westbrook slamming Leonard's head to the paint and not getting called for a foul lingers, as do the two offensive fouls they called on Manu in the fourth quarter. All the trips Durant got to the line for guys simply breathing on him. It makes me nauseous.

The schedule is on the Spurs side. Two games up on the loss column on OKC and Miami with just 28 to go, and only five back-to-backs for the Spurs left, with three of those being the easier home game/road game variety, rather than the more difficult road/road combo.

I'll be scouting the fellas in person at Sacramento (my first and probably last game @ Arco) and at Golden State next week. The Warriors game strikes me as a scheduled loss and I'm well aware that none of the big three might suit up for that one, but I'm hopeful the fellas get one of two at least in that @LAC @GS B2B and pull off a 7-2 rodeo road trip (I'd have been thrilled with 6-3 and full health for everyone going in but now I'm getting greedy).

March features a slew of match-ups against good teams, but also an almost exclusively home sked. Lets give them losses @Min, @Hou and one random home game. April is a lot trickier. I can see four losses, maybe even six if Pop decides to rest everyone in the final week. Lets say five to be safe. That gives them a final record of 61-21.

Do the Thunder and Heat both have eight losses left in them? Maybe for the Thunder, if they lose literally every tough road game they have left. Otherwise, they'll have to drop an unexpected home game here or there.

Miami is going to be even harder. They may never lose again the way LeBron is playing. They just DESTROYED the Thunder on the road. What we have going in our favor is they have a whopping 32 games left after the break, including nine back-to-backs and 17 road games, but almost all of them are against the pitiful Eastern conference. Maybe they'll give James some rest to get him ready for the playoffs? Here's hoping. Honestly, I can see Miami finishing like 57-25 and I can see them finishing 65-17. Hopefully they're peaking early and can't sustain their current level.

6. Manu is pissed

Have you seen this video? Tell me this isn't the most upset Manu has ever allowed himself to be publicly at Pop. He's barely controlling himself.

Pop mentioned that he had a plan for Ginobili to play only 10-12 minutes against the Cavs, but I'm not all that sure he or any of the other coaches actually bothered to inform Ginobili of it. If you watched the game, you saw some assistant (possibly the trainer?) whisper something in Manu's ear right before the start of the third quarter and then Ginobili walked over to the locker room for a few minutes and then came back to the bench, where Bonner asked him something.

My guess is Manu was told he won't be playing in the second half so he took off his jersey top (what do I need this for?) and put on some other shirt. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with Pop's decision to baby him, per se. Hamstrings are very tricky, nagging things, and they take forever to heal properly. We already saw Ginobili have one setback with it. But at the same time, Pop's going to eventually have to ratchet up Ginobili's minutes in the regular season to the 28-32 minutes range, even if he decides to sit him in SEGABABAS. It's foolish to expect Manu to be able to play 30+ minutes in the playoffs if you don't build up his stamina to do that.

We all saw Ginobili tire noticeably in the fourth quarters of that Thunder series and I believe it was because he wasn't used to playing the minutes asked of him since he was being given a steady diet of >20 minute outings down the stretch. I'm quietly hoping against hope that Pop plays the hell out of him during the home games in March and that nothing goes wrong.

7. I hate Matt Bonner.

Okay, hate is too strong of a word, and of course I'll be pulling for the guy in the three-point contest, but holy hell is Bonner awful. There's no better illustration of just how useless and terrible he is as a player than that Chicago game, where we took all the stars away and just let him be one of five guys.

He couldn't do anything. Couldn't get a shot off. Couldn't grab a single rebound. Luol Deng was beating him to offensive rebounds off missed free throws. Bonner might be the single softest player in the league. Pop can't bury him enough on the bench in the playoffs for my liking. If I had my druthers Bonner would spend May and June in some dorky suit. Enough, I'm done with him. I give up. I'd rather have Baynes in the rotation, and that guy is an illegal screen waiting to happen.

The Spurs: Through ten percent of the season

Aaronstampler — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 03:33:18 -0000

So, our Spurs, huh? I think we can all agree it was something of a minor miracle we got out of that road trip at 3-1 considering how poorly we played. I'm not sure I can think of a four-game stretch of Spurs basketball that was so awf- HAHAHA JUST KIDDING.

Really though, it just goes to you show you the random nature of sports. As every stat-head will tell you, you play games on the knife's edge, and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Who's to say that the Lakers game last night wasn't the basketball gods putting one on our ledger for payback for losing a couple close games to OKC in May? Or for that matter Tony's game-winner against that very club a couple weeks back?

As stupid as it sounds, the best way to guarantee success is to win by a bunch of points. We're not doing nearly enough things well at this point, despite the 7-1 record, to win games easily. We look more like a 5-3 team that got lucky than a real 7-1 team, so sadly I can't forecast a 74-8 record, I'm afraid.

The good news is, based on what we've seen, I feel there are more reasons to be optimistic than not.

Lets start with the positives...

1) Matt Bonner is no longer in the rotation.

Yes, this may seem like a flip-flop; guilty as charged. But after the last playoffs, I'd had it. So, I'm waving the white flag on the Red Rocket. I'm done. The SpursTalk fellas have won this one. The Spurs cannot win a title with Bonner in the playoff rotation, I'm convinced. And moreover, I think Pop is convinced as well.

Remember this?

Well, from everything I'm reading and seeing, that "I want some nasty" line is basically this season's mantra.

Let's face reality, the Spurs are never going to be the league's TV darlings, no matter how many points they score or purty Manu-passes they make. They can give good quotes, throw down the occasional furious dunk and make all kinds of plays that will make the basketball nerbs out there sit up and take notice, but ultimately we're always going to be seen as Team Snoozeville.

I'm fine with that, and you know Pop is fine with that.

But if you're gonna be unpopular anyway, you might as well be disliked the way the Bad Boy Pistons were disliked and kick some serious ass along the way. Give 'em a reason to not like you.

The Spurs teams that won titles, not just division titles or offensive efficiency titles or best regular season titles, but actual championships, they did it with defense. And they grinded and got dirty and made life absolute hell on people in the half court.

It's time these Spurs got back to earning their reputation as the team nobody wanted to play instead of being a soft, accommodating bunch of skilled shooters and passers, a la the Webber era Kings or Nash era Suns.

They need to get nasty.

Well Matt Bonner is the antithesis of nasty.

He's a pleasant fellow and a nice shooter, and statistically not all that bad of a post defender, to be honest. But he's also, relatively speaking, a wuss.

Now lets be clear: I'm sure Matt Bonner can kick my butt in a fight in like three seconds. He'd absolutely murder me. But in the context of other NBA players, especially in a playoff setting, Matt Bonner looks like a bloody, juicy steak thrown into a river of piranhas.

Tim Duncan may be the best player in the history of the Spurs, Tony Parker their best scorer and Manu Ginobili their most charismatic, but I've become convinced over the years that when other fans/analysts view the Spurs, they look at the team as a bunch of flopping Matt Bonners with annoying accents. He is the leading symptom of a team-wide disease: this perception of unathletic, soft, nice guy, long-range shooters as what we are.

Matt Bonner is a cancerous tumor that has to be forcibly removed for our own good. He was not a part of our rotation for the 2007 champions, and it was not a coincidence. He's meek, he's soft, he's afraid, and he's not going to magically snap out of it and become who we want him to be one day.

If you think I'm being too harsh and unfair to Bonner, I'm not. He's got nobody to blame for his troubles but himself. This is a guy who, before he was a Spur, famously got into a tussle with KG. There's no video, unfortunately, because David Stern's minions have erased it from existence, but it happened, we all know it.

I'm convinced that was the guy that intrigued the Spurs, the one who could shoot threes on one end of the floor and scrap with Kevin Garnett on the other. That Matt Bonner was doing whatever he could to stay in the league. This one has gotten all too comfortable with his place in the league and refuses to bang in there.

Bonner routinely gets pushed and tossed around literally by other players and figuratively by the refs. He just takes it, repeatedly, without fighting back. I'm sick and tired of it. Throw the occasional elbow. Give somebody a hard foul. Do SOMETHING to show you care and that you have pride.

Pop got tired of waiting, so no more Bonner. It's the right call.

2. Tim Duncan continues to kick all kinds of ass.

26.6 PER so far, which if he somehow maintains all year (spoiler alert: He won't) would be his best season since the last title, '06-07.

He's scoring very efficiently, driving hard and well to the basket and the banker looks smooth, but for me what stands out is the blocked shots. 2.6 per game so far, his highest figure in years. He's so agile around the basket right now it's hard to believe.

I've kind of hinted at this before, but you have to at least consider the possibility that he's on some PEDs, right? I mean, what other possible explanation (besides The Flying Spaghetti Monster being a huge Tim Duncan fan) is there for this? 36-year-old seven-footers simply aren't supposed to be able to move like this.

Personally, I'm fine with it, if it's true. There's no specific NBA rules against it, so go nuts. I'm not gonna tell another grown man what to do with his body, and there is basically nothing Duncan can do at this point that would tarnish his legacy even one percent in my eyes, so yeah go nuts, Tim.

And if you're 100 percent clean, then I apologize for the insinuation and you truly are some kind of wizard. Like a Manu Ginobili, but physically able to play basketball and stuff. (Sad face.)

3. Danny Leonard and Kawhi Green.

Sometimes it's hard to distinguish them, isn't it?

Not physically of course. I'm not blind.

But I think these guys are similar in that they're both young, they both rely fairly heavily on the three for their offense, and they're both players who, if I can remember correctly, haven't put a complete game together all season.

I'm not insulting them, however, because they haven't had a truly blah game between them either.

It's uncanny. When Green plays well offensively, he's a disaster on the other end, and vice versa. Same with Kawhi. Actually, it's like they'll keep trading every odd game. One will shoot well and the the other will cover for him with defense, and then it'll be the other guy's turn to shoot well and play lousy defense.

It's encouraging from the standpoint that both have the ability to A) score efficiently and B) check guys on defense. It's hard to find guys who can do both and on the cheap and here we have two. Most importantly for both: They're not afraid.

I've given up on Bonner, but not Green. I think his playoff slump was just unfortunate. He's still a huge part of this team going forward and clearly one of our most important players.

Eventually, Duncan will tail off. It will be up to Green and Leonard (and Splitter) to step up their games when it happens, because Parker will not be able to do it by himself and right now we have no idea what, if anything, we can count on from Manu.

4. The depth is serving us well.

One night it's Gary Neal (who looks much-improved defensively, by the way, and is becoming a more complete player year-by-year). The next it's Patty Mills. Boris Diaw steps up one game and Tiago Splitter some other one. No one needs to play well for the Spurs to win games but everyone is capable of playing well, which is huge.

Even guys like DeJuan Blair and Nando de Colo can provide spurts of energy when called upon.

Mainly though, I think the league's (and Miami's in particular since they're the team that matters) small-ball devolution plays into the Spurs' hands pretty well. They don't really need to force a fourth "big" in Bonner or Blair into the equation and can thrive with Leonard or Jackson as a small-ball four and Green at the three.

There are so few quality centers out there that Duncan, at 36, is still dominating. I repeat: DOMINATING. There's no other word to describe his play. He is markedly influencing games at both ends.

And because there are so few quality bigs in general, fellows such as Diaw and Splitter can get by against just about everyone as long as they're not playing too many minutes and don't get trapped in the wrong match-ups.

It may be a 14-man roster, but really it already looks like there's a set nine-man rotation for the playoffs, and I like it. The other guys will be mixed and matched to get though the long regular season, but for the most part I think the roles are already defined.

Splitter and Neal can both go down in flames, theoretically, to throw a wrench in the works, and obviously Manu's health is the great unknown, but it sure seems like there's a plan already in place for better or worse, even if it's one that will likely end in heartbreak once more for various reasons.

5. Everyone else in the West stinks.

Well, no, not really.

But for our purposes "everyone" basically means the Lakers and Thunder, and it's sure difficult to regard either as much of a bogeyman right now, isn't it?

Yes, they were close wins, games the Spurs were trailing by three points with under a minute to go in each case, but also games they pulled out despite playing at a C- level and less than full strength.

The Thunder game was a segababa without Ginobili, while the Lakers game was on the road, the fourth of a four-game road-trip (LA-Sac-Por-LA? Thanks, Mr. Schedule-maker), with Gino at 50 percent, maybe, and with Parker and others recovering from illness.

Both the Lakers and Spurs will get healthier and stronger, but at their best the Spurs are the better team, I think. Once the Lakers fortify their bench and the league intervenes with their zebras in May, it will likely be a different story, but for now, the Spurs are superior.

At least with the Lakers you can see the horribleness coming. I'm not sure what light there is at the end of the tunnel for the Thunder. I can't imagine them being a legit contender right now, no matter how good Durant is.

Really, teams like the Clippers and Grizzlies, maybe even the Nuggets, are more legitimate in my eyes than OKC.

I'll be watching the next couple games with the Clips and the Nugs closely and am hopeful Ginobili will be closer to his regular self so we can have some kind of accurate gauge.

Maybe he'll miss just the Knicks game? ::crosses fingers::

The negatives:

Well, there's just one real negative, and it's Emanuel David Ginobili, he of the eternally broken... something.

This time it's his back, and those can be tricky things, especially for mid-30s fellows such as us. Right now Ginobili looks like a shell of himself. His jumper is broken. He can't score in any fashion except for the euro-step left, and he's loathe to attempt too many of those. He's a turnover machine. The passes aren't crisp, the decision-making is terrible, the movements are slow, sluggish and tentative and the dribble is basically unwatchable.

It's killing me to watch him like this and I'd almost rather he not play than be this limited.

I don't understand how Duncan, at 36, can be so agile and healthy while Manu, at 35, can be a guy who should be in a full-body cast. I'll never understand all the complex mysteries of the human body.

Also on the list of things I'll never understand: Everything.

Please get well soon, Manu. I can only pretend to be happy for Gary Neal for so long.

On Tim Duncan and the Spurs' Insurmountable Western Conference Lead

Aaronstampler — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 19:08:42 -0000

Anyway, like most of you, I've taken in these two opening Spurs games and I thought I'd share some observations. No promises or commitments how often I'll do this, so take that with a grain of salt.

1. Tim Duncan is not normal.

As fans who've watched basketball and other, lesser, sports for a long time, we've long been accustomed to the sad sight of our favorite athletes and our hated ones alike growing older, slower, and wider over the years. It happens to everybody, and we always make excuses for it, because it happens to us non-athletes too.

"Oh, everyone's metabolism changes as we get older," or "It's harder to stay in shape after 30."

Here's a story, I don't remember if I've shared it before. Back in 1996, the first time I attended SDSU, I went see a Giants-Padres game at old Jack Murphy Stadium (where the San Diego Chargers still play to this day, though they call it Qualcomm Stadium now I think).

Being Giants fans, a friend and I decided it'd be a great idea to heckle Tony Gwynn, who was, at that stage of his career, basically the same shape as the objects he was trying to hit with his bat.

Gwynn grounded out to third or something and I yelled, "Hey Tony, you'd have made it to first on time if there was a donut waiting for you."

A group of Padres fans turned around, mouths agape, like I just made a joke about violating his daughter or something. These same people routinely spent eight innings twiddling their thumbs and then cheering like maniacs at "Hells Bells" when Trevor Hoffman would come in to get a save and were never, ever shocked that the "Guess the attendance" multiple choice question always had the highest number as the answer.

Padres fans are the worst.

Where was I? Oh right. Roly-poly Gwynn defended his rotundness to critics by saying, "This is just how my body is, I can't do anything about it" and citing his stats and everyone went about their business.

But it's not just baseball players where this sort of thing gets overlooked. It happens in basketball (Shaq, Shawn Kemp, Lamar Odom, Antoine Walker, Aryvdas Sabonis are just five examples off the top of my head) and football, where Donovan McNabb looked like a beached whale by the end, and lots of linemen on both sides of the ball get fat and sloppy.

If an athlete is still kicking around after 35, they're allowed to get as big as they want and nobody gives them any flak for it. We actually make excuses for them, pretending they've put on muscle, not fat.

Frankly I've never bought in to this line of thinking. It's one thing for regular people to put on weight as they age. We have jobs and families and kids and less time to exercise.

Athletes though, are paid outrageous sums of money to basically exercise competitively in public. They have ABSOLUTELY ZERO excuse to ever not be in optimal shape. A fat athlete would be the equivalent of a writer just turning in Dr. Seuss books as columns.

"Manu's winding layup left defenders bamboozled. They were gobsmacked, dumbfounded and gazdoozled."

Okay, so that's pretty much what I do. Bad example. Still, you look at Tim Duncan now, at 36 years old, and it seems like every year the guy gets skinnier, not fatter. He is doing everything humanly possible (and yes, there are uncomfortable implications there that we can't ignore) to not go gently, quietly off into that good night.

Why? Because Tim Duncan is an effing professional athlete, that's why, when so many of his peers have no idea what that title, that responsibility, truly means.

After more than holding his own with uber-athletic rookie Anthony Davis on opening night, Duncan came back 24 hours later against the hated Thunder and was the best player on the floor, if not for the whole game then at least the first half.

He swatted away dunk attempts by Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka (the latter of which was completely ignored by broadcasters Kevin Harlan and Reggie Miller even though it was way more impressive than the Durant one) and threw down a vicious dunk on Ibaka on the other end that no 36-year-old should be able to do.

It's always funny whenever I hear some media dope, whether it's on TV, a column or a podcast, dismiss Duncan as some guy who does it all just with veteran savvy and "The Big Fundamental" and all that nonsense. He is still a phenomenal athlete, even with a bad knee, far more agile and coordinated than all but three or four centers in the league.

In fact, right now, which center would you rather have for the 2012-2013 season than Duncan?

Bynum is injured. Howard is barely able to jump off the floor. Duncan is healthier than both, passes it better than Bynum and shoots it better than Howard. Even at 36, he's the best big man in the league and a legit top-seven NBA player.

I'm never going to take watching Tim Duncan for granted and I hope none of you do either.

2. The Spurs had no business winning last night.

That's pretty much what Russell Westbrook contributed to the game, right there. He was, with all apologies to Tony and Tim, the single biggest reason the Spurs won.

Forget the final atrocious stat line, in which Westbrook finished 6-of-21 for 18 points, with five assists and six turnovers. Just look at all he did in the final 48 seconds of the game to choke it away.

First, he missed a point blank layup with 47 seconds to go. Yes, Tony was tugging at his jersey just a bit, but not enough to really affect the shot for a big, strong dude like Russell. He makes that and it's a five point lead and game over.

Then he fouls Parker in a situation where he really didn't have to. Let him go by for a layup attempt and at worst OKC still has the ball and a one point lead with about 35 seconds left.

On the ensuing possession Russ loses Parker, is late to recover, and boom, a corner three to tie it up at 84.

Now it's Thunder ball, 28 seconds to go, and at worst they should get a good shot attempt and give the Spurs very little time to tie or win.

What winds up happening is Westbrook wastes most of the possession, makes a soft pass to Durant -- with Kawhi Leonard, the NBA's steals leader lurking -- with three whole seconds left on the shot clock. Even without Leonard's inevitable steal, Durant would've been in a tough position to create much of a quality attempt (though they're all quality when he's shooting them I suppose).

The final possession, five seconds to go. I tweeted that it would be an off-balance fadeaway 20-footer for Parker. I was way off, as it was more of a 21-footer, with his feet well under him.

Westbrook lost Parker so badly on the play that he would've needed a GPS to find him. It was embarrassing, careless defense, there's no other way to put it. He singlehandedly lost the game for his team.

Obviously you can't make too much of the second game of the season, but they all count the same in the standings, and who knows, maybe this will be the one that will wind up being the difference in a tiebreaker. The Thunder proved that they don't need home court to beat the Spurs in the playoffs -- just the refs on their side -- but if a rematch comes to pass, I'd much rather have it fall under the same scenario than with those buggers having home court.

3. Standings blip aside, that was a meaningless game.

What an awful game that was, especially in the second half. Just an absolute rock fight. Sure, you could take an optimistic point of view that the Spurs played great defense, but honestly I think both teams just missed a lot of open shots.

It seemed jarring to watch, considering these were the two most efficient offenses in the league last season, but for all intents and purposes that was a preseason game, one that, especially from the Thunder perspective, had no bearing in reality.

Besides officiating the two biggest reasons the Spurs lost to OKC last season were A) Pop's confidence in the role players eroded so quickly that we were pretty much down to a seven-man rotation by the end and B) Our supposed biggest advantage, depth, could never assert itself against the Thunder's weak bench because their best players never actually stopped playing.

Westbrook and Durant always played 42-plus minutes and KD in particular played all 48 in the deciding game because he's an alien. It's one thing to harangue our bench if they played worse than their second-team counterparts, quite another to get on them for not getting the job done against opposing starters.

Well here, in their season opener, Durant played 41 minutes and Westbrook 37, and there was a five minute chunk during the game where neither was on the floor. The Spurs were only +4 in those five minutes, but it was without Ginobili, so it probably would've been more like + infinity if he was in there. Nevertheless, five minute windows like that won't exist against the Thunder in the playoffs. If they need to win, Durant will play. We know that now.

That being said, I'd love to play these guys in the playoffs. That baffling Harden trade doomed them. Just killed them. As Spurs fans, we're well familiar with the Kevin Martin experience. He's a good shooter, but nowhere near the player that Harden is. He can't pass it as well, can't get to the rim as well, can't draw fouls as well and can't guard nearly as well. In fact, I'd say defense is the biggest disparity between the two and it's not like Harden was an All-NBA defender. Martin is just that horrific.

In a playoff meeting, the Thunder will pretty much have to pick their poison between Tony and Manu, sticking Sefolosha on one or the other. Whoever the Swiss Miss doesn't take, will get to feast on Martin or Westbrook. I'm giddy.

4. The Spurs should be improved defensively this season.

You know the biggest reason the defense suffered in past seasons? I've got a radical theory on it, so bear with me.

The team was giving crappy defensive players big minutes.

Crazy, right?

But yeah, you play guys like DeJuan Blair, Roger Mason Jr., Richard Jefferson and Gary Neal (at point guard) big minutes and you better have an extremely efficient offense on the other end or you're sunk.

It was so comically bad at times that we thought of a broken down Antonio McDyess, Keith Bogans and George Hillas our good defenders. Hell, even Bonner is viewed as a plus defender, as long as he's not paired with Blair.

We saw the vast improvement late last season with the acquisitions of Stephen Jackson and Boris Diaw, and we'll have full seasons of those two this time around.

Diaw doesn't look like much of an athlete, but he's the most agile post defender to start alongside Duncan in years. Jackson is a physical guy on the wing who doesn't shy away from a challenge the way RJ did routinely. He can handle his business in the paint and is excellent at ball denial (see his work on Durant down the stretch).

Neal can be relatively hidden if you have him guard opposing shooting guards, but I don't know how realistic that concept will be with Manu coming back, and I doubt he'll be taken out of the rotation, even though I think that would be the best solution defensively, with Mills taking his minutes and really pressuring the ball.

I mean, there is a streamlined nine-man rotation we can put on the floor (three bigs) where everyone is an average or better defender. To play it, Pop would have to trust Tiago more and Neal less, but it is available. Will we ever go to it? Doubtful.

5. Pop still hates Tiago Splitter.

Don't pretend otherwise, not for a second. Pop thinks he's soft, physically and mentally, and he's trying everything he can to bury the Brazilian like a dog would a bone.

The only reason Splitter played last year was out of necessity. Remember, we had a truncated season where, if I remember correctly, we had some six-games-in-seven-nights stretches and a couple of day-night doubleheaders.

We didn't have Diaw most of the year nor Jackson. We had four "bigs" counting Blair and Bonner (LOL). Jefferson wasn't much of a viable small-ball option at the four (unless he's playing for the Lynx or the Liberty) and Duncan needed to keep his minutes down in many games or to sit some out entirely.

Splitter had to play, and as luck would have it he played so well that even Pop noticed, begrudgingly, tossing out compliments like "He has no talent whatsoever, but he sure is a good pro like Oberto."

Now though, Pop's got options. He's got two guys he can play small with in Jackson and Leonard, and a big he can leave on the floor with Duncan who's neither Blair nor Splitter. You might as well have a Robert Mondavi delivery van break down on Pop's driveway, he's so happy.

I'm hopeful the pending return of Manu will slap Pop into reality but really I wouldn't be surprised if they just trade Splitter at some point. You just know they're going to call up McDyess out of retirement and make us all barf.

6. The Red Rocket is in vintage playoff form.

Seriously dude, what the hell is that? Don't you have any pride at all? At this point I'd prefer Mitch from Modern Family as the team's token redhead. Just retire already if you're afraid to do anything.

7. I'm so glad we've signed Nando de Colo and Cory Joseph.

Kids are getting valuable minutes up here with the big club aren't they? I'm sure it will serve them well. Who needs bigs when you have 13 guards? I feel like Pop trusts maybe five guys on the roster, and I'm probably being generous.

De Colo is one thing. He's got some skills, Manu is old and injury prone and Neal is undersized and on the last year of his deal.

Joseph though, is a signing I don't get. You've got Mills and Neal ahead of him, De Colo and Ginobili can both run point in a pinch and Parker gets the lion's share of the minutes. Do you really need another point guard?

I'd rather have kept Curry, and I think Curry blows.

8. So much for the Leonard hype.

We were told in the off-season that he'd be handling the ball more, that we'd be running pick-and-rolls with him and that he'd be more of a featured guy on offense.

HAHAHAHA.

Nah, kid, we were just messing with you. Just stand in the corner in the half court, run the floor on fast breaks and crash the boards when you can. Oh and use your 17-foot-long arms to steal the ball a bunch because how else are we supposed to get stops with Danny Green leaving shooters wide open all over the place?

To be fair, Leonard started slowly last season too, so I'm not really worried about his game or his flat jumper right now. I just know I haven't seen any of the plays with him that we saw in summer league and oh god that looks so stupid as I type it.

9. Yes, I noticed Parker has made some clutch shots.

I'm happy he made them. I'm not sure how sustainable it is to rely on Parker threes to win games though. I'd rather just be up 20 points if it's okay with y'all.

10. I miss Manu Ginobili.

Play already, you big-nosed dork.

My Belt theory: Because the McCovey Chronicles Needed Another One

Aaronstampler — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:36:18 -0000

Okay, so I've put some thought into this, and here's what I think...

Bochy and Sabean are completely flummoxed by Belt's plate approach, to the point that it either confuses or scares them, like Sabean's famous quote about "the lunatic fringe." The Giants brass simply can't comprehend the concept of anybody but a leadoff man (who MUST be your fastest baserunner, of course) or a pitcher looking to draw walks on purpose.

It boggles their minds.

Okay, so I've put some thought into this, and here's what I think...

It boggles their minds.

Grant referred to his Jr. High baseballing career in his excellent article about Will Clark that was featured on Deadspin. He, like me, was a kid who looked to draw walks, and kids who do this in Little League are generally though of as poor hitters who are basically hoping not to embarrass themselves in front of their friends and family. This stereotype is pervasive throughout the baseball world, at all levels. As the old saying goes about Caribbean prospects, "You don't walk off the island."

Certainly, there have been lots and lots of power hitters in baseball history who've drawn a shit ton of walks. Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds to name two. However, for all the walks they drew, I doubt they ever went up there looking to walk. Even with Bonds, who was surrounded by absolute crap late in his Giants career and expected to walk most every plate appearance, I strongly doubt he ever thought to himself, "Man, I hope I can work a walk out of this guy." Bonds and Ruth settled for walks, they didn't look for them.

This isn't my way of defending Bochy, Sabean or even Henry Schulman (who I've been told by many people in the know is a certifiable dick). I fully understand that Belt is a better player than Hector Sanchez, and I for one would like to see Belt play more and Sanchez less if for no other reason than it's getting pretty painful watching Sanchez "catch."

However, it certainly looks to my admittedly untrained eye that Belt's mentality is anathema to Bochy, Sabes, and even guys like "Bam Bam" Muellens and Will Clark. He looks to me like a guy whose main objective is to draw walks, and if he has to swing, he will. It's one thing if he was a centerfielder atop the order who's gonna steal 60 bags, but for him to play a power, run-producing position and have that approach is simply unfathomable for the Giants, especially when they've got Crawford and the pitcher behind him in the order. Belt would fit in fine in lineups with the Yankees or Red Sox, because everyone there are on-base machines with power and there are no weak spots, but with the Giants sixth and seventh in the order aren't spots where you can simply hope to draw a walk with two outs and leave matters to the guy behind you. National League baseball doesn't really work that way. Maybe he'd be a better fit in the AL.

One solution I've seen raised a lot is for Belt to simply be moved up to second in the lineup, but I don't think this is a practical idea. Not only would the concept of a first baseman hitting second make Bochy's pumpkin-head explode, but can you imagine the first time Belt takes a called strike three after the leadoff man hit a double or stole a base to get to second? Your second hitter has to be a contact guy who can, at minimum, get that runner over. He can't be taking called strike threes.

Really, I think that's the biggest thing. Grant and others have pointed out that Belt swings and misses at bad pitches plenty, so it's not like the dude never swings. But I think it drives the team's brass absolutely batty all the good pitches he doesn't swing at, particularly with two strikes. We all know a double play is worse than a strikeout looking when you've got a man on base, but I think the latter pisses off managers far more than the former. A double play is what happens with BABIP, it just comes with the territory (and I think most managers instinctively understand BABIP on some level, even if they've never heard of the stat). A strike out looking is just this pathetic, weak, impotent failure that embarrasses everybody, like, "Why are we even paying you if you won't swing at good pitches with two strikes?" I imagine managers looked at called third strikes the way football coaches would regard their fullback who didn't pick up a blitzing linebacker.

It's certainly not helping Belt, for all his supposed strike zone discipline, that he's done so little with it. You'd think if he was so choosy, waiting for just the right pitch at just the right location, that he'd be crushing the ball and putting up some really impressive slugging numbers. Instead, he's slugging a tick below Nate Schierholtz. No, Belt's not an empty singles hitter like Sanchez, but he's not exactly making pitchers pay dearly for location mistakes either. Guys like Cabrera, Posey and Sandoval absolutely murder strikes. Belt isn't doing that.

Again, I'm not saying I'd play Sanchez over him, because I wouldn't, so please don't misconstrue that. I'm just saying that I don't see as much value in a first baseman you can only bat 6th or 7th because he doesn't have typical first baseman pop and hasn't shown much willingness or ability to expand his zone and produce when the situation (men on base, one or two outs, crap behind him) calls for it, as some of you do.

I think the best solution would be to bat him leadoff, but good luck with that happening. The most practical one is to trade him to the AL, where he'd be another OBP cog in the those relentless lineups. As a Giants fan, my hopes for him are the same as my hopes for every guy on the team: Please learn to swing at the good pitches and lay off the bad ones. I'm used to being disappointed on half that score, and it's no different with Belt, even if though it's totally different.

Spurs Summer League: Kawhi Leonard and not much else

Aaronstampler — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 03:24:17 -0000

Hey there, ladies and germs, it's your old pal Stampler. I've got some time on my hands due to being a humongous loser, so I thought I'd take in the first couple of Spurs summer league games and report my findings. Those of you looking for that sunshine and lollipops merriment and optimism that I'm known for may be sorely disappointed, so fair warning.

Obviously we start with Kawhi Leonard. It's almost like cheating, having a guy of his caliber in games like this. It reminds me of the rec games I play in, where every now and then some guy who played in college shows up and he just dominates the rest of us like it's nothing. These are games to 22 where the guy will score 20 of the points in a 4-on-4 or 5-on-5 half-court game, even though he's being doubled at all times and the only time he doesn't score is if he feels like being merciful and getting his teammates involved or happens to brick a long three. Really, there isn't much cardiovascular exercise to be had in games like this, because I'm just basically standing behind the three point line, hoping the guy will pass out of the double. It's like every Miami Heat game, basically.

And that, in a nutshell, is the Spurs summer league: A homeless man's Miami Heat, with Leonard as LeBron James' stand-in.

There was this moment, I don't know if anyone else noticed it, in the first game against Atlanta where I want to say it was late in the third or early in the fourth quarter. It was after a commercial and the Hawks had some guy on the bench who had these humongous ears that stick out way to the side like open car doors. I don't know who he was, but it doesn't matter. The guy was just sitting on the bench and looking at Leonard, and to me it looked like he was in complete awe of him. Maybe I'm crazy, but I imagine it was a "come to Jesus" moment for this anonymous young fellow, a grim dose of reality or a bucket of ice water poured all over his dreams of becoming an NBA player.

I mean, the kid wasn't even involved in the three or four minute spurt of carnage that Leonard had just laid on the Hawks. He was on the bench, like I said, an innocent spectator. But he had a look on his face like, "Crap, you are so much better than I'll ever be."

I picture Mr. Dumbo Ears on the phone with his agent after the game, "Um...are there any jobs open in Israel? I can't play in this league."

Where was I? Right, Leonard. The typical cliche in pro sports is that guys, regardless of sport, improve the most between their first and second seasons and whatever advancements they make beyond that are incremental compared to the quantum leap between years one and two. It was certainly the case for Tim, Manu and Tony.

To the untrained eye it certainly appears that Leonard has improved by leaps and bounds with his handle, his pull-up jumper, and his playmaking. However, it's impossible to know how much these individual skills have markedly improved in the off-season and how much of them were simply there all along and just unused within the Spurs offensive hierarchy. It's inarguable that the whole point of Leonard's involvement in this summer league (and the injury risks therein) is to give him a relatively safe environment to build and showcase his game as an all-around point forward, but it's impossible to know how Pop -- who's not exactly known for his creativity and open-mindedness -- will ingratiate this shiny new toy into his offensive sets with three ball-hungry stars. I guess the best scenario is that Leonard becomes the guy Richard Jefferson was supposed to be when he signed, an athletic slasher who can attack the basket relentlessly from all angles, benefiting from the attention opposing defenses will be focusing elsewhere.

The positive news is that Leonard certainly hasn't been shy about being the man out there. You get the sense, both from his comments in interviews and his body language on the court, that he's got a chip on his shoulder about not being utilized more last year. He definitely doesn't look at himself as a rebounder/energy guy who can chip in with the occasional corner three. He wants the ball, he wants plays and sets run for him and he has no intention of waiting for Tim or Manu to ride off into the sunset for those things to happen. To me, that's excellent news, because last season's playoffs proved once and for all that this big three is no longer good enough to carry the team to a title. They're just too far past their prime, and will be even more so next year. The one, tiny, infinitely small chance the Spurs have of surprising us all and winning a ring next year is if Leonard makes the leap to full-fledged star, someone who's their most consistent, most valuable player through the course of the season simply because he has the legs and the energy to be. He has to be a guy who averages about 18 and 8 in the playoffs for us to have a shot. He really does have to be a poor man's LeBron.

Now this is the part where I ruin your parade.

The odds are highly against Leonard developing into the guy we want him to be. This is not a knock on him in any way. I love him as a player, love his temperament, love almost everything about his game. I'm beyond delirious that I was so wrong about him. I'll say it a billion times from now until I exit this mortal coil: I couldn't have been more wrong about Kawhi Leonard.

Still, there just aren't that many guys who can be stars, you know? What are the odds that the Spurs lucked into another one? It'd be almost unfair, right? While Leonard has dominated large chunks of these past two games, I can't stress enough how MEANINGLESS summer league is. This competition is a joke. These players are horrendous. It's like watching a freaking college game. And even in this environment there have been times where Leonard has been out of control in the lane, where he's committed bonehead turnovers, where he's tossed up horrendous shots. He's been great, but come on, it's not like he's been GREAT, you know?

Some whodat named "Josh Selby" scored 35 the other day for the Grizzlies. He's a 6-2 guard. Some schmoe named "Dominique Jones" had 32 for Dallas. Jimmer Fredette lit it up the other night for like 30, I think. Byron Mullens, a backup center on the worst team in NBA history last season, currently has 33 and 8 midway through the fourth quarter for the Bobcats. If you don't kick ass in the summer league, you shouldn't even be allowed to touch a basketball ever again, so please, let's calm down about Kawhi Leonard.

Kawhi's Supporting Cast:

Cory Joseph: The guy who's improved the most on this team isn't Leonard but actually Joseph, and the "Quantum Leap Corollary" applies to him too. He looks faster, stronger, his jumper's got some decent arc and range, and he's added a nice pull-up that I don't remember him having. He's been able to get to the bucket consistently and has even shown some playmaking skills, which is always welcome considering this team hasn't had a legit backup point since the 2005 NBA Finals.

Joseph looks like a guy who should be on somebody's roster (with the obvious caveat that summer league makes anyone with a pulse look good), but unfortunately I can't see how that somebody is the Spurs. They've got Neal, Mills and De Colo behind Captain Tony Sparrow (it was either that or Kareem Abdul-Parker). Even if Joseph is more of an actual point guard than any of those guys, I just think the financial realities will make it unlikely for him to be a Spur. I'd love for us to be able to stash him in Austin for another year, but my ample gut tells me he'll be plucked by somebody else and I wish him all the best.

James Anderson: Still fat, still lacking explosion. His jumper looks less wonky, but his absolute ceiling as a player looks like a 9th man on a crappy team and a 13th man on a contender. He needs to shoot a billion jumpers a day because he's not going to make a living taking anybody off the dribble.

Eric Dawson: You have to admire the perseverance of a guy who's 28, has played in the D-League the past five seasons and is still chasing the dream. Unfortunately, like Anderson, he's just not quite talented to stick in the league, no matter how much he wants it. For all his desire, his professionalism, his willingness to come in early and stay late and all those other cliches, you have to have a baseline of talent to be in the league (on merit, I mean, a GM can always make a mistake) and Dawson falls just short of that baseline.

It's his arms. They're too short and they limit his ability to rebound. He can't compensate with athleticism or anticipation. He simply doesn't have it. He doesn't have Blair's knack for scoring around the basket nor Bonner's range from three. Again, he could be in the league for some crummy team as a fourth or fifth big, but not the Spurs. And at 28, he has zero upside.

Luke Zeller: Speaking of Bonner, it's a popular notion to compare Zeller to the Red Rocket, but I think that does a tremendous disservice to Bonner, and I'm writing that in spite of Bonner's latest pitiful postseason fully in my thoughts.

To me, Zeller getting quality minutes in summer league is Exhibit A that Popovich and R.C. Buford have no agendas or ambitions whatsoever in summer league beyond developing Leonard. Pop even admitted as much in an interview during the Atlanta game where he all but declared that there aren't any roster spots available to be won. I suppose it's theoretically possible that somebody plays so well and surprises them to such an extent that they have no choice but to give him a camp invite, but I'm getting the distinct impression that Pop and R.C. went into this firmly with a "we know everyone 6-8 and taller on this team sucks," mindset.

If there was any, ANY goal of finding a diamond in the rough to supplant Blair or Bonner, they wouldn't be giving 25 minutes a game to a complete scrub like Zeller who has one marginal talent and no upside at all.

Tyler Wilkerson: Today I like him more than Dawson. Tomorrow I'll like Dawson more. I'm fickle like that. Ultimately, he's a 24-year-old who's 6-8, not a plus athlete and won't be able to guard anybody, a la Blair. He might get a camp invite.

Alexis Ajinca: The French Hasheem Thabeet, but not quite as good. A 7-2 monster, but you simply can't coach a guy to play hard, to give a damn, or to have instincts. He's quickly soured every coach he's ever had, and it won't be any different here. He's the personification of a Shakespearean tragedy if you're the sympathetic sort, or a complete waste of talent if you're not.

Ryan Richards: Not too far off from Ajinca. Richards is tall, agile and athletic. He seems to think he can shoot, though I haven't seen any evidence that he can. He also has no clue how to play whatsoever and doesn't seem to have a personality that would mesh well with the Spurs. I was disappointed that the guards never fed him in the post against the Hawks, though none of his misses so far have been close so I doubt he would've done anything if they had. I did like that one graceful power dribble he showed on a cut to the hoop in which he got fouled, and his free throw stroke looked good. It'd be nice if they could bring him to the Toros to see if there's anything to him, but I'm skeptical he'll ever amount to anything.

Marcus Denmon: Too short, short arms, not quick, not a point guard, no idea why he was drafted, even at no. 59.

The quest to find that magical big who'll be the difference-maker for us in the playoffs? Gotta hope and pray that he comes at the trade deadline, because we're not finding him in Las Vegas. They got Boris Diaw* last year, so you never know.

* P.S. I thought it was adorable how Pop said in the interview that his goal was going to be to get Diaw angry and change his mindset into being more aggressive offensively. Sure, because guys change their personality all the time at 30. I'm sure you'll have no problem turning Diaw into a chucker, Pop. And you'll get Bonner to rebound one of these years too.

The Spurs Post-Mortem: The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

Aaronstampler — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:11:11 -0000

Flip Out (via mzjonz)

Ugh. Lets get this over with, after the jump. Warning: This is really long. I hope you have a half hour to kill.

Do not expect this to have some kind of coherent flow. Not today. It's going to be more of a "stream of consciousness" thing if that's okay with you people.

I often play basketball with my best friend Manoli and his dad, Chris. He's well over 50 but still far better than both of us "young'ins," (we're both in our mid-30s, like most of the Spurs who matter, sadly) and he was a phenomenal athlete when he was younger, even though he's only like 5'5. That doesn't matter though. What does matter is that Chris has this habit, when he's watching basketball on TV, of yelling "dagger," whenever a guy hits a big shot -- usually a three -- regardless of game situation.

For example, instead of how you'll typically hear the phrase used, like when Manu pushed a seven point lead to 10 with about 1:50 to go in Game 2, Chris is liable to yell "dagger" when a guy hits a three to shrink a deficit from eight points to five. I always chastise him when he does this, because I'm an anal dork, and say, "It can't be a dagger when you're still trailing, dummy," or something to that effect.

Last night offered the latest proof, exhibit no. 6,425,932, that I'm an idiot who has no idea what he's talking about.

Kevin Durant's three right before half, over the outstretched arms of Stephen Jackson who was contesting the shot perfectly, was as much of a dagger as any shot I've ever witnessed in playoff history.

It doesn't seem like much, shrinking a deficit from 18 to 15 going into intermission, and certainly if you told me before the game started that the Spurs would be up 15 points at half I'd have gladly taken it, but I don't have the words to describe how psychologically damaging that shot was on the game, the series, the season.

Honestly, I couldn't even summon a swear when it went down. My heart just sank. My head dropped. I knew it was over. The Spurs played as complete a first half on both ends of the floor, and Durant and his teammates couldn't have been less rattled if this was a preseason game.

Dagger.

If anything that transpired in that second half surprised you in the least, then A) you haven't watched enough basketball, B) you're the kind of pie-eyed optimist I envy and will never be and C) you're a dope. That was the most predictable thing ever. It sucks, it hurts, I'm sick to my stomach about it, I'm angry, but anyone who describes it as a "shocking comeback," is a fool.

****************************************************************

I don't know if you do this, but this is something I've done with this Spurs team the past couple years when they would get off to big leads against good opponents, when it was evident that they'd have to win games more with their offense than their defense.

I do this countdown, but not by the clock. Rather, I do it by a fixed number. I calculate how many points the Spurs will have to score to hold off the opposition's charge. In fact, I distinctly remember doing that very thing in that big road win at OKC in the regular season. The Spurs had a huge lead in that one, like 26 or 30 points, somewhere around that, and I remember tweeting in the second quarter, "Spurs need to get to 110 points," and writing they need this many in the second half, this many in the fourth quarter and so on.

Well, when the score was 63-48 at half last night, even though in my heart I knew it was over, I told Manoli they needed 110 points, meaning a 47-point second half. I told him that the Thunder should be expected to score 30 points each of the next two quarters and that the Spurs will have to get 25 of their own to hold on.

Obviously, they didn't get anywhere close. Ran out of gas. I hate understanding how sports work.

*******************************************************************

Factoring into my calculations, and another thing I tweeted, Monday night after Game 5, was that the Spurs would have to be 20 points better than the Thunder in Game 6, to overcome the 15 free points the refs would give OKC. Well, they weren't 20 points better than the Thunder last night. Again, I hate understanding how sports work.

*********************************************************************

Right about here is a good time to tip my hat to Tim, Tony and Jack for their Herculean efforts last night. They all gave it every ounce they had.

I think it's fair to suggest that we wouldn't have gotten 23 points on 6-of-7 from downtown from Richard Jefferson in a Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals. I hope we'll get to enjoy one more full season from him, even at 35, and that it won't be too much of a headache with him wanting an extension or whatnot. It never ends well with Jack.

Tony deserves a lot of credit for the way he came out charging against the Thunder and really I don't blame him at all for not being able to sustain it. He's only 30, but it's an OLD 30. He's got a lot of mileage on his tires and he played his ass off this year. My only regret with him is that he didn't play this way in Games 4 or 5.

With Timmeh, I've run out of superlatives with him. I just respect the guy so, so much. Mainly I'm just sad for him. He deserved better from his coach, his teammates, and the league. It just disappoints me this is the world we live in. I think in many respects Duncan was born about 30 years too late. If he was just quietly and elegantly great in the 70's and early 80's, that would've been enough. No one would've tried to diminish him with this false "boring" narrative that the media have constructed as a flimsy excuse for "he doesn't want to dance for you nitwits."

The thing that kills me about Duncan is how nobody can remember anything beyond last week. There's this myth about him -- one attached to a lot of Spurs, unfortunately -- that he was never a terrific athlete and this "big fundamental" game was due to him never being able to run or jump. To be fair, it's a story that both Duncan and Pop have been all-too-happy to run with over the years. I think it gives them a perverse chuckle, seeing how stupid everyone is.

Duncan was a BEAST in 1999, every bit as unguardable as Durant, Shaq, or Jordan in their primes. He could run and jump and threw down massive dunks on everybody. What happened was he tore up his knee in 2000 and had to change the way he played slightly. He lost about 40% of his leaping ability overnight and was still so damn good that he continued to dominate. But people acting like he never could jump are either badly misinformed or plain stupid, you pick.

************************************************************************

Hard to be too upset with Manu. You kind of saw this one coming, right? It's pretty ridiculous to play a 34-year-old 25 minutes a night all year, then play him 40 minutes (at Western Conference Finals intensity) and then expect him to have any legs two nights later. Yeah, he was screwed on a couple of plays. We'll get to that.

You want to hear the truth? I swear to God this is what I was thinking during Game 5: "If we win this one, I'd sit the big three for Game 6."

Unconventional? Obviously. Would there have been a ton of negative attention if Pop actually did it? Of course. But I realize the reality of the situation. It absolutely would've been the right move and one I bet Pop would consider before Tim and Manu shot it down. But it's just not realistic to expect Ginobili to be able to go balls out for 40 minutes twice in three days anymore. It sucks, it's sad, but it's the truth. My gut feeling is that on some level Pop would've realized it and limited the big three to the 25-minute range in Game 6, stretching them out only if they were winning in the fourth. I just can't imagine the team would've had that same intensity in Game 6 if they were up 3-2 rather than down 3-2 though.

What Pop should've done was slowly but surely trickle up Ginobili's minutes over the course of the last two months and definitely through the playoffs, again regardless of score. He needed to build up his stamina. Instead he went with the cautious, pragmatic approach. Who knows how it would've turned out? Maybe it wouldn't have mattered either way. All we know is that this didn't work.

*************************************************************************************

Going forward in 2013, there's probably nothing the Spurs can do that can make the next postseason end any differently than this one. Really the only thing I can think of is that the Lakers implode again in the early rounds and that either Durant or James Harden suffers some kind of freak serious injury. Barring that though, the Spurs run is over unless Kawhi Leonard transforms into another Durant overnight.

Not like it matters, but the smart move for the Spurs would be play Ginobili and Duncan a maximum of 55 games each (but at regular 28-32 minutes, not this shortened malarkey that doesn't allow them to build up stamina). Alternate their games so each one plays one game and rests the next and play them both against the top seven, eight teams in the league, your Thunder, Lakers, Clips, Grizzlies, Mavs, Bulls, Heat and Celtics. Probably limit Parker to 70 games and Jackson to 60 or so.

(All of this will be covered in the latest chapter of my book, "How the Spurs would have won the last 10 titles if I ran the world.")

***************************************************************************************

It's hard to complain about much. We had a good run. Won four titles. That's two more than the football, baseball and hockey teams I root for, combined. I seriously doubt Turkey will ever win a World Cup or even a Euro Cup in my lifetime. I'm pretty skeptical about the Philadelphia Eagles too, though that's less rational, I admit.

Still, this will probably bother me to my grave. This was our last shot.

The 0.4 thing in 2004 never bothered me much. That '04 Pistons team wasn't going to lose. They were so much tougher mentally than the '04 Spurs (or the dysfunctional Shaq-Kobe Lakers, for that matter).

I remain convinced that had the Spurs pulled out that Mavs series in 2006 that the Pistons would've found a way to overcome the Heat and would've been waiting for them that year, crazy for revenge. I've said it over and over, that Pistons team was obsessed about beating the Spurs the whole year. It would've been VERY difficult to win that Finals. Once the Spurs got prematurely eliminated, the Pistons didn't have the same heart and drive to beat Miami in the East. It just didn't matter as much to them.

I think this has to be the second worst series for a Spurs fan, after 1995. I suppose other people will feel differently.

***********************************************************************************************

I'm not going to give anyone here the satisfaction of harping about the officiating. I know it's what you all expect of me, to rant and rave like some crazed idiot, to write words I shouldn't write and to express sentiments you're all secretly thinking too but will pretend to be offended about in a public forum because that's how the world works now, you have to act certain ways that society expects you to.

But if our coach won't do it, if he doesn't care enough to, if winning a title doesn't matter that much to him as it does to us, even when it's the very definition of his job, then why should I or any of us complain about it? We all watched the game. We're not idiots. We saw what happened. There's no need to rehash it. There were, what, 25 sequences where calls that were or weren't made affected the outcome in that second half.

I will not list them off. What's the point?

The truth is if I wrote down everything I truly feel, I'd alienate everyone forever, to the point where I'd be banned from PtR, and you'd all hate me. Also -- and it pains me to admit this but it's the truth -- it bothers me to think some of the things I think. I really don't like that person. If I was someone else, and I encountered somebody who shared the things I feel, I would immediately distance myself from him.

Is anyone like that? Do you ever hate how you are and the things you think sometimes, even if you have the sense to not say or act on them? Does it bother you that you even thought them in the first place and went to that dark place? Or is just me? Damn, it's just me, isn't it?

I will say it'd be disappointing to discover that the league is truly rigged. I mean, if it is, what are we doing? Why are we wasting thousands upon thousands of hours and days and dollars caring about these complete strangers playing a game if it's not really a game at all but a scripted "entertainment program?"

It's like believing in God. You can't half-ass it. You either do or you don't. You might as well believe it's all on the up-and-up, because the alternative is just so much worse to contemplate.

Suppose you had the opportunity to inject truth serum into David Stern but he then told you every Finals winner of the past 25 years was predetermined. Would you really want to know that? Wouldn't you feel like you completely wasted a large chunk of your life? I know I'd feel like a moron.

It's the same thing with believing in God. If He/She/It/They doesn't exist, if there isn't *something* after this, I'd probably go insane in a week. People talk about living every day to the fullest and having no regrets, but I just don't think I'm wired that way. I would just be this morbidly depressed ball of fear.

Or maybe it'd be the best thing that ever happened to me. I have no idea. I never know what the hell I'm talking about.

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I mentioned this the other day, and I've written about this countless times earlier, but it's naive at best, foolish at worst and stubborn as all hell to act like the Spurs bear no responsibility at all for their public perception.

Pop has blinders on to the world around him. He thinks the NBA is that 94-foot court and nothing else when the reality is it's so much more. It is an entertainment product, at the end of the day, as trite and cliche as that sounds. It's not just a 24/7/365 news cycle, but a 24/7/365 entertainment cycle too. The world is every bit as competitive outside of that court as on it, and it's something Pop has never understood. Attention spans have never been shorter and the thirst for new stimuli, new information, has never been greater.

The world around Pop has changed and he's become a relic, a dinosaur. You adapt or you die. Pop has always refused to play the game within the game, and it's doomed his team yet again. He let down Tim, Manu, us, everybody.

And no, this isn't about the product on the floor. It's not about dunks or alley-oops or trash-talking or emphatically blocking shots into the sixth row. The Spurs cannot play that game and I've never been blind to that reality. I don't want them to do most of that stuff anyway.

No, my point is not being blind to your weaknesses, not being blind to the obvious.

The reality is you don't have 2003 Duncan anymore. You don't have 2005 Ginobili anymore. Your team is still damn good, but if it's better than the competition, it's by the flip of a coin, the slimmest of margins. On paper a Western Conference Finals against OKC was a 52-48 proposition, while against the Lakers it'd be maybe 60-40. Those odds clearly aren't good enough when everyone knows perfectly well all the TV executives want the other team to win. If it's 70-30, maybe you can trust the process and play it straight. When it's a tight series, you need to grab every edge you can get, use every weapon at your disposal.

Truth and compromise are two weapons Pop and his minions have never learned to use.

Pop obviously feels a certain way about the officiating during the games. He rides them constantly in game. Why not tell the world what you're seeing, feeling? If you think you're not getting a fair whistle, say so. If you think the league wants the other guys to win, say so. If you think your team is every bit as compelling and entertaining as the others, say so. Challenge people's biases. Question their perceptions. Push your players into the public consciousness, even if in Timmy's case he has to do it kicking and screaming.

Contrary to what people think, not every media person is a yellow journalist or a muckraker, looking to stir trouble. Most are just looking for an interesting angle. You know what's interesting? The truth. Let people in. Let them see and hear and feel what you're feeling. The Spurs should be one of the best feel-good stories in all of sports, yet so few people know about them. It's all Pop's doing, and it remains his single biggest failure, to not see the forest for the trees. You have to be willing to play the game, to know the reporters' names, to give them the occasional nugget or quote to get them on your side. Even Duncan can be coerced into this if you frame it in the context of "This will help us win games in the long run."

Either that or you find the next Michael Jordan with the 59th pick of the draft. Good luck with that.

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People I would've preferred to broadcast the game instead of Reggie Miller because they would've been less obvious about their rooting interest in the Thunder:

The governor of Oklahoma
The mayor of Oklahoma City
Miss Oklahoma
Any Phoenix Suns fan
Israel Gutierrez
Rick Barry
Brent Barry
Jon Barry
Rick Pitino
Mark Cuban
Eva Longoria
James Harden's beard
Kevin Durant's mother
Kevin Durant (because then he wouldn't be playing, you see)

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Lest you think that off-the-floor issues were my only complaints with Pop, far from it. I think it was asinine the way he treated Matt Bonner, Danny Green and especially Tiago Splitter this series. It was humiliating, mean-spirited, hypocritical, embarrassing, desperate, and most of all, tactically stupid. Congratulations, Pop, you got your lunch handed to you by Scott Brooks.

There's this cute myth, often perpetuated by former players-turned-analysts, that Pop treats every guy on the roster 1-thru-12 the same. I wonder what Beno Udrih would think of that statement, or Rasho Nesterovic, or Tiago Splitter.

It's undeniable that certain guys, the sacred cows like Tim, Tony and Manu, are allowed to make literally dozens of mistakes per game, because Pop realizes the good will outweigh the bad. Yet with other players, they're not allowed to make ANY mistakes, and get pulled after the first one, regardless of the fact that A) their roles are being jerked around on whims and they're being put into situations they're not used to, B) they're being punished mostly for defensive mistakes when the team has won with offense all year, and C) the ensuing fatigue you're placing on the five guys you trust will ensure you're going to get diminishing returns regardless.

It's a stupid mentality of "We're going to lose either way, but at least we'll lose with MY guys on the floor."

Everything about Pop is that it has to be his way. He'd rather lose his way than win another way. He's never gotten over himself.

I've come to realize that even more than basketball ability the single trait Pop values above all is toughness. It's why Gary Neal played last night even though he was mostly awful. Pop decided long ago that Splitter was physically soft and for that reason never allowed himself to warm up to him, even though the guy clearly can help on one end of the floor or the other in every game and against every team.

Pop told reporters he didn't play Splitter last year because he was always hurt, and that is a clear lie. He was healthy enough to play like 75 of the 82 games. Basically, Pop wrote him off mentally when he was hurt in camp.

This season Splitter missed games here and there with wrist, back and calf injuries. Other NBA players are allowed to get injured, especially in this manic, 66-game season, but not Splitter, apparently. Pop condescendingly compared him to Fabricio Oberto, saying he's a hard-working pro who's not very talented, when Splitter has demonstrated, repeatedly, that he's one of the best pick-and-roll finishers in the entire league.

Pop hardly played Splitter with Duncan all season, then expected them to have seamless chemistry in the playoffs. Splitter played seven seconds in the first half, with Brooks taking Kendrick Perkins out of the game to go small the second Splitter checked in. Pop wanted no part of playing a 2-3 zone against the Thunder's tiny lineup, even if it meant that Splitter and Duncan could've dominated inside on the other end.

However, instead of using it as an opportunity to get Duncan some rest and have Splitter anchor the Spurs own small-ball unit (where he'd be looking to score inside against Nick Collison), Pop took Splitter out in favor of Neal, kept Duncan in, and subbed Diaw as the lone big for Timmy in a tiny-ball offense two minutes later. In a completely unrelated story, the Thunder scored 12 points in 4:05 with Diaw as the only big and the Spurs were outscored 12-9.

In the second half, Splitter checked in and Pop immediately tore into him for not quickly double-teaming Durant on the floor. As if it's perfectly natural to ask your center to play power forward and then double team a small forward 15 feet from the basket on the wing. Yeah I'm sure that situation came up all the time during the season. As if the refs wouldn't have called a foul anyway. As if Pop wouldn't have blistered him if Durant just lobbed a pass over to Serge Ibaka for an alley-oop when he was left open. As if, as if, as if.

Also, I don't recall Danny Green doing anything wrong in his four minutes of playing time outside of the cardinal sin of missing an open three-pointer. I guess that was enough reason to not play him anymore. Good call, Pop. I can't believe a seven man rotation didn't have the legs to get it done in the second half against a team of 22-year-old aliens. Totally shocking.

Has Pop lost Green and Splitter forever? We'll see. I just know that other coaches don't embarrass their players that way, visibly lambasting them or yanking them out after a few seconds of putting them into games. You prop your guys up all year, tell them not to be afraid to make mistakes and then have them paralyzed with fear to make one. Way to go. Really good way to represent the organization.

No wonder he calls it "a program." He might as well be Bob Knight or Frank Martin. A complete disgrace.

And then to say "we overachieved in many respects," which is code for "none of this my fault, I coached my butt off."

What an ass.

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All that being said, you have to take your hat off to the Thunder. Yeah, they got a ton of calls, but damn if they didn't also hit a ton of shots. They absolutely were undaunted and unfazed by anything. They were not afraid. Honestly, as much as I wanted to hate them, I just couldn't. Maybe they weren't always super respectful of the Spurs, but that's a stupid, biased, selfish way to look at things. No team could ever fit the definition of how I'd want them to act and play and still be able to beat the Spurs. You need some arrogance and cockiness to do it. That's the truth.

Like I wrote before, I thought the Spurs played their best defense of the whole playoffs in the first half. They only had three turnovers, so it's not like OKC had a ton of free points. It didn't matter, they still had 48 at half. We paid for every single mistake, like Neal's miss of an open three that would've made it a 21-point lead (we never got over that 18-point threshold) or Manu's failure to box out Thabo Sefolosha. Westbrook and Harden both hit huge threes and Durant hit a couple. Daggers, all of them. They just wouldn't miss open jumpers and not nearly enough of the contested ones either.

It's not why they beat us, though.

They beat us because they changed the rules on us.

Coming into the series, there was a set narrative: Young, athletic, ISO team vs. Old, smart, deep team. They had their advantages, we had ours.

After two games, Brooks was able to convince his guys that they're not going to be able to win playing the way they play. They needed to dig in more against the pick-and-roll defensively and they needed to make the extra pass offensively. Once the Thunder started figuring out that whole "assist," thing, then game over man, game over. They're just too talented, Durant most of all.

And I keep harping on it, but the fact that Durant can play the entire game, and that Westbrook can play nearly all of it, kind of changes the rules, doesn't it? I'm not sure we've ever encountered anything like this before. There's just no break. They're relentless. There's no time for your bench to overwhelm their bench because they don't have a bench in the traditional sense. Their role players are allowed to be role players, because they never have that responsibility of having to do anything but play defense. Any points they provide are a bonus and they don't have to create any shots. They never have to put the ball on the floor. It's all catch-and-shoot, catch-and-dunk. The Spurs just can't do that. They need Neal, Jackson, Leonard and Green to create the occasional hoop out of thin air. It just didn't happen.

They say true immortality exists for people through family. Even when you die, you live on through the memories of your kids and their kids and so on. In a way, this is what it's like. The Spurs didn't die last night. For the Thunder to beat them, they had to become them. It's just the next generation, the next evolution.

There are slight cultural, generational and racial differences, but none of that stuff is important. At least, it shouldn't be to anybody. We never know with these things, but I really want to believe that Durant and Harden are good guys. Westbrook? The jury's out, to be kind, but the dude is a competitor, and it'd be hypocritical to make too much fun of him for being a shoot-first point guard who ignores more efficient scoring teammates considering that we're Spurs fans.

It doesn't necessarily mean I'll be rooting for them against Miami or Boston though. Really I don't care who wins. I'm over that whole hating LeBron thing. Yeah, he's a ... jerk, and D-Wade is an even bigger... jerk, but I think we've gotten to the point where the amount of criticism James gets is beyond unfair. There hasn't been a single postseason game this season where he hasn't shown up. Wade, on the other hand, has had maybe four or five good games. Everyone gets on James about not being clutch, but he's singlehandedly carrying that team for the first three quarters every night. If it wasn't for him, they'd be down 30 points going into the fourth, and what good does clutch do you then?

If they don't win it all (and they likely won't) I'm waiting for one sensible media person to write "Wade really let James and the Heat down," because that's gonna be the truth.

I respect the Celtics heart, especially Rondo, but I can't say I want them to win because it'd crush me if Garnett gets a ring at 36 and people start those ridiculous "KG is better than Duncan" arguments.

Hmm. I guess I'm rooting for the Thunder by default. I'll be a hundred times more emotionally invested in Euro 2012 (even though Turkey isn't in it) and the Giants. Thus concludes my basketball analysis for the foreseeable future.

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Finally, I just want to thank Tim, Manu, Tony, Jack, Tiago and the rest of the Spurs (everyone but Pop) for a wonderful season. It was much better than we expected and much worse than they deserved. Nothing makes me happier than watching them win games, but I realize that it wouldn't be fun without the possibility of losing. It's damn hard to win a title. Everything has to go your way. No regrets from my end.

Enjoy the off-season pounders.

(P.S. I bet you wish they listened to me about that whole baiting Westbrook thing, huh?)

There's Much To Rant About: The Take on Games 3, 4, 5 and 6

Aaronstampler — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 15:44:45 -0000

Well, that sucked.

They got blown out in Game 3, and we were all "Yeah, whatever. We were overdue for one of those. Pop probably wanted it to happen anyway. These things happen."

Honestly, I didn't even watch the first three quarters of that game. I was out actually playing basketball, poorly. But not as poorly as the Spurs. I don't even recall the details of who played well and who didn't, honestly. Nobody for the Spurs was good besides Jackson, right?

Then came game 4 and the good guys actually got off to a bright start. Then the benches got involved. Then Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins started making shots, off passes from Kevin Durant of all people. And they kept making them and making them and making some more. They were dunks and lay-ups mostly, but just enough jumpers here and there that it started getting annoying. The Spurs were within a couple of buckets most of the fourth quarter, but they could not get a stop to save their lives, mostly due to the fact that Pop insisted on playing small against the Thunder's big lineup and switching either Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili onto Durant. I mean, don't get me wrong, the guy deserves credit for making shot after shot, but they were all really close.

Game 5, I don't even know what to say about that. It was supposed to be "The Manu Ginobili Game." Like, 20 years from now we were gonna look back on it as one of the all-time legendary efforts in the Manu pantheon. Hell, it could've been right at the top. We were so close. Six point lead, third quarter, at home... and it all went to hell so quickly in a hail of turnovers, bad shots and so much relentless Thunder offense.

I mean, what's there to analyze? You all saw it. The team got into the penalty two minutes into the first quarter and mystifyingly never went inside again the rest of the period. You'd think that would be a coaching point that Pop would stress during a timeout. You'd think. Then, once Boris Diaw picked up his second foul, we saw our venerable coach completely lose his mind. First, DeJuan Blair was on the floor. Then it was Gary Neal. I know my first thought right then was "outstanding defense, coming up."

But wait, it got better. After Duncan got whistled for his second (on a questionable charge), Pop went with Bonner. Yup, Bonner, Blair and Neal together. I can't believe it didn't work either. Bonner allowed an open three on his lone defensive possession, and was quickly yanked for Danny Green, meaning somehow the two tallest players on the floor were Kevin Durant and Nick Collison. I think right around then I started cussing so much I might have blacked out for a minute or two. I can't think of a single situation where a Blair-Jackson-Green-Neal-Parker lineup sounds like a good idea, but for all I know they were +40 against OKC this year. Still, there was zero chance that was going to work. That's just a complete defensive abomination.

Pop completely panicked and made so many stupid decisions all at once, completely getting frazzled. Going to Blair so early reeked of desperation, and yanking Bonner after 50 seconds was pretty disrespectful. If you're going to do that to a guy after one mistake, don't even play him. Pop never seemed to have any sense of when to go big, when to go small or how to plan ahead. I can't believe after how poorly that first stint went, that he didn't find a way to prevent Parker from being on the court alone. He should've left Duncan out there and dared the refs to call him for his fifth. I think Tim would've been smart enough to not get it. Putting Parker on the floor with four guys who are struggling big time and expecting him to lead them was wishful thinking.

Where Pop also disappointed me - as always - is in his stubborn refusal to play the political game in his pre- and post-game pressers. He'll ride the refs during the games sure, but never to the point of getting a technical and never after the game. I *REALLY* don't care what any of you think about the morality of this. All I know is that Phil Jackson was a master of manipulating the media to his cause between games and Doc Rivers is the best there is at it right now. The media loves Rivers because he plays the game. His answers are insightful and respectful. He calls the reporters by their names at the same time he bitches about calls. I don't think I've heard Pop call one guy by his name in all the years I've listened to him interviewed.

Is Pop so cheap that he isn't willing to pay one fine for the cause? It's not like it actually comes out of his paycheck anyway. And that money goes to a charity and is thus tax deductable. Instead of paying it to the government you're just paying it to the United Way or whatever. He wouldn't have it either way.

If Pop ever tried to make friends with some of these guys, if he ever took the time to actually say some of the things he felt, maybe he could influence some ref to call Perkins for one of his eight thousand moving screens, to call a block on Collison instead of a charge, or to convince the public at large that Duncan, Ginobili and Parker deserve every bit the respect that OKC's big three have gotten, if not more. I mean, it's a joke that Collison was getting calls against Duncan out there. That's ridiculous.

Is it a 100 percent guarantee that campaigning between games would've changed even one call? No. But at least we'd see Pop do something. At least we could sleep at night knowing he tried everything at his disposal. The fact that he won't resort to that is like leaving a bullet in your chamber, no matter how unsavory that bullet may be. We shrug or even giggle when he does hack-a-whoever, but it's perfectly okay that he never airs out the refs publicly? Sorry, not buying it.

Offensively, their only chance was for Parker to carry them for those few minutes when Tim and Manu were on the bench. Let's not beat around the bush: He failed. He failed miserably. He did not answer the bell. Take your pick, whether it's the Grizzlies series last year or Game 6 of the Dallas series in 2006, or Game 7 of the 2005 Finals or the Lakers series in 2004, we've seen this over and over again from Parker in the playoffs. This Sefolosha thing is not different and it is not unique. Every playoff team worth its salt has the same game plan in the playoffs against Parker: Knock him down, repeatedly, and watch him wilt. The Thunder have made it clear that Parker will not get a layup in this series and they're fouling the crap out of him every time he tries. Their physicality has gotten into his head and it has affected his on-again/off-again jumper. It hasn't helped matters that he no longer has Green to rely on for the corner three.

The score was 15-12 when Duncan checked out, leaving Parker alone among the big three. It was 23-19 OKC (an 11-4 run if you're keeping track) when Ginobili came in for Tony. In the third quarter it was 69-68 Spurs when Manu checked out. Three minutes later, when he came back in, it was 74-71 Thunder. In seven total minutes playing without the other two, it was 17-6, Thunder. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: YOU CAN'T PLAY PARKER BAREASS NEKKID IN A BIG GAME.

Obviously it's not helping matters when the supposed "Deepest team in basketball" is down to pretty much 5.5 guys the coach can trust. Green is mentally fried. Bonner is the softest guy I've ever seen. Neal was monumentally poor in Game 5. Splitter isn't offering much resistance defensively, and has really weak hands, constantly losing the ball. Pop has lost confidence in all of them.

Here's the thing though: It's not fair, and plainly inaccurate, to say our bench is getting exposed in the playoffs or that our bench is getting outplayed by their bench. It's not accurate for the simple fact that the Thunder (and to a large degree the Clippers before them) are wisely not letting themselves get into the bench vs. bench tactics of the regular season. Whereas the Spurs prefer to use a whole backup unit, or at least four reserves at once, the Thunder never use more than three. And it's always a spare three. It's not like those guys are counted on to handle the ball or score or anything. They're just on the floor because the rules dictate you need to have five players there at all times.

You know how many minutes the Thunder played at least two of their big three last night? 48:00. Westbrook and Durant played the whole second half, in fact, while Harden merely played 30 of the final 36 minutes. Not very sporting at all, is it? They're aliens, I tell you. ABC/ESPN thinks it's so fun and awesome that they're beating the Spurs. We'll see who's laughing when they're slaughtering millions and enslaving us all. Maybe then some of these refs will think "Hmm, I wish I didn't call all those lame fouls on Duncan."

Of all our doghouse guys, the only one I've personally lost all faith in is Bonner. He shouldn't play anymore, period. I think the other three are salvageable in certain respects.

Splitter has shown signs of life, but it seems every time he's in the game the Thunder go small and their perimeter guys can't miss a shot. He was fine in his first stint, but in his second stint the Spurs got outscored 15-3 in five minutes, and very little of it had to with Tiago. Neal, Parker, Ginobili and Leonard all committed turnovers in that stretch and nobody could hit a shot, while at the other end Westbrook had his best spurt of the game.

Green can still play dogged defense at times. He just needs to understand he's not allowed to dribble under any circumstances and that he's only allowed to shoot open threes. Seriously, if he sets foot with the ball inside the three point line, I'd bench him.

Neal is what he is, a streak shooter. He's not afraid, but the reason he's not afraid is because he's about as smart as a box of hammers. Gotta give him a few minutes to see if he's got his jumper falling on Wednesday, but a real short leash.

Anyway, it's probably not going to happen. We have to be realistic about these things. The season -- this weird, blessed, inspiring, miraculous, shocking, heartbreaking season -- will probably end tomorrow night, barring the incredible. The following is my 6-point plan to pull off what nobody thinks will happen, a Game 6 win on the road so that we get to a Game 7 for all the marbles Friday at San Antonio.

1) Minute breakdown and rotation:

Center: Duncan 36 minutes, Splitter 12. Have Splitter come in at the 3:00 mark of the first and third quarters and play until the 9:00 mark of the second and fourth quarters.

Power Forward: Diaw 28 minutes, Leonard 20. Play Diaw the first seven minutes of each period. Play Leonard the final five minutes of each period.

Small Forward: Leonard 14 minutes, Jackson 34 minutes. Have Leonard play the first 3:30 of each game at the three, leaving the final 8:30 for Jackson. You'll note that Leonard gets 3:30 of rest before checking back in for Diaw at the four spot. The most Leonard plays is 8:30 at a time, with a lengthy quarter break.

Shooting Guard: Green 14 minutes, Ginobili 34 minutes. Green plays the first four minutes of the first and third quarters and the first three of the second and fourth quarters. Ginobili plays the final eight minutes of the first and third quarters and the final nine minutes of the second and fourth quarters.

Point Guard: Parker 40 minutes, Neal 8 minutes. Parker plays the whole first and third quarters. He plays the first three minutes of the second and fourth quarters. Neal checks in at the 9:00 mark and plays until the 5:00 mark of the second and fourth quarters.

Minute distribution: Parker 40, Duncan 36, Ginobili 34, Jackson 34, Leonard 34, Diaw 28, Green 14, Splitter 12, Neal 8. You'll note that two of the big three is on the floor at all times. You're welcome.

2) For the love of God, pack the paint. You can live with the jumpers from Ibaka, Harden, Durant, Westbrook, whoever. Just don't give anyone any layups or dunks. Nothing easy. They're due to miss some jumpers, aren't they?

3) Less than 15 turnovers. I can't imagine us winning a game if we have more than 15. Some of the turnovers, like when they draw a BS charge or when we get a ball poked away on a drive, can't be helped. But so many of them are preventable. Careless passes, dumb moving screens, guys not paying attention on the fast break... we can't have those.

4) Parker needs to dominate. Somehow, someway, he has to have a 30-10 kind of game. Either his jumper has to be on or he has to put his head down and throw his body at people over and over again, no matter how much they knock him down. He needs to have the pick-and-roll going with his bigs because they're trapping that way less than they do with Manu. The pick-and-pops with Duncan are there. The three pointers to Diaw are there. They're doing a good job of taking away corner threes, but that's no excuse to average four assists a night. If Parker doesn't come out on fire and have like a 10 point first quarter, we're probably in big trouble.

5) Show them the game film of Celtics-Heat Game 5. Show them what it looks like to play with balls on the road. Show them the difference between a team that expects to win no matter how athletically superior their opponents are. Show them how they dig in the paint defensively. Show Parker how a point guard who's 1-of-10 shooting can still dominate a game and contribute so many ways to a win. Show Duncan how Garnett is still kicking ass and taking names at 36 years of age. Show the bench players how guys like Mickael Pietrus, Keyon Dooling and Greg Stiemsma aren't afraid, whether they play 8 minutes or 28. Show what swagger, smarts and heart look like.

Yeah, it's not a fair comparison. The Thunder are way better than the Heat. They're younger, there's three stars as opposed to two, and they shoot way better. Well, guess what? The Spurs - supposedly - are supposed to be way better than the Celtics. They're not playing like they are.

6) We need to find our Robert Horry, and we need to bait Westbrook. Again, as with my Pop rant earlier, this goes into the territory of the dark arts and most of you won't care for it. I don't care. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I'd rather listen to all the pundits and writers bitch and moan about our asterisk fifth championship the rest of my life than not win it at all.

We've all seen Westbrook's act by now. We've seen how he reacts to plays both good and bad. We saw him block Green's practice shot (at the other basket) way after the halftime buzzer. (How the hell was that not a technical foul for taunting by the way? Oh right, because Pop didn't make an issue of it.) To be tactful, he's a hothead. To be honest, he's a punk. To be blunt, he's a complete dickhead.

We can get to this guy. I know it and you know it.

I'd prefer for it to be Green who gets him back, but I'd settle (and expect) for it to be Jackson. Give him a hard foul. Get in his face and say something about his family or his choice of social companions. You get my drift.

I bet anything he swings. Not a subtle one the refs can ignore, either. A full-fledged roundhouse or an uppercut. One so bad it'll definitely get him ejected for that game and most likely suspended for the next one. Maybe in a miracle some kind of melee breaks out and a couple of their guys leave the bench and get suspended for Game 7.

Would I prefer not having to resort to that to win? Of course. But again, desperate times call for desperate measures. And there's nothing to feel guilty about because ultimately we'd be leaving fate in the hands of Westbrook and the Thunder. It's his decision whether to retaliate or to laugh off the foul and the insults and to prove he's far too smart and mature to take the bait. It would be his teammates' decision whether to leave the bench or not. Nobody is pointing a gun at their heads. Let's see if they keep their composure.

Do I think we'll do this? No. Do I think a team that wants to win bad enough should try it? Absolutely. As if Westbrook doesn't deserve to be knocked on his butt just like Parker has been.

Just do me a favor Spurs and either win the damn game or lose by 40. My heart can't take another heartbreaking loss.

Or, how about you just win the damn game? Thanks.

When Parker Plays Like That, The Spurs Don't Lose

Aaronstampler — Thu, 31 May 2012 01:23:49 -0000

Game 2 Thoughts: Yoda-ball

I'm not saying the 2011-2012 Spurs are the greatest basketball team of all time. But nobody was beating them last night. That was as close to an "A+" game the offense could throw out there for about 2.7 quarters. The Oklahoma City Thunder hustled, tried a myriad of different tactics and coverages, different lineups, and different rotations. None of it mattered at all.

People have been going under screens on the Tony Parker pick-and-roll from the first day he stepped onto an NBA court and nothing has changed over the subsequent 11 years. What was true then remains true now: When Parker's consistently hitting that 19-footer, you're simply not beating the San Antonio Spurs.

A couple of earlier contests

There were two regular season games Game 2 reminded me of, probably our two most important ones of the season.

The first was March 16, at Oklahoma City, a day after they traded for Stephen Jackson. They didn't have him in the lineup yet, Manu was resting his strained oblique, Boris Diaw was still anchored to the Bobcats bench and Tiago Splitter played a whopping three minutes before checking out with a back injury. The Thunder were smarting after the curb-stomping the Spurs handed them in their previous meeting, with Parker running a personal lay-up drill en route to a 42 point, nine assist game, and they were determined, Russell Westbrook especially, into not letting it happen again. They got physical with Parker early, cut off all of his lanes to the rim and hounded his jumper too. None of it mattered.

Parker was like Yoda that night, diagnosing the Thunder's schemes in milliseconds and making the right play time and again. He found DeJuan Blair for easy lay-ins over and over, his corner shooters in the second quarter, and finally some space in the third quarter to score for himself. The Richard Jefferson black cloud of indifferential suck was lifted, the boys all had a bounce in their steps, and the Spurs had 92 points through three quarters on the way to a 114-105 win. That game brought the Spurs within two of the Thunder in the loss column and gave them the regular season tiebreaker, and all of a sudden the idea of our guys running them down for the first seed didn't seem like such a pipe dream.

The second was April 17, at Los Angeles, in the middle of a back-to-back-to-back, where the big three had to convince Pop on the plane to let them play. They were eager to get the rotten taste out of their mouths after the Lakers punked them at home six days prior, with Andrew Bynum in particular beasting them to the tune of 30 rebounds. I think it goes without saying that had the Spurs won that earlier game, or maybe even had a more respectable showing, that the fellas would've taken that roadie off to rest.

Parker came out like a man possessed in the return engagement, exploding for 19 first half points, most of them coming on long twos off the pick and roll where Bynum couldn't get out to him in time. Eventually Duncan and Ginobili joined in the fun and Parker started exploiting the Lakers adjustments and finished the game with 29 points and 13 helpers in a 112-91 rout. That was only the fourth of what is now a 20-game winning streak, but to me that was the night the Spurs announced to the world that they were serious contenders for a ‘chip; not just for the way they dominated their supposed kryptonite Lakers, but because that was the first time Pop gave DeJuan Blair a DNP-CD in favor of giving Splitter and Diaw more run.

The twentieth game

Anyway, back to last night. I have been patiently waiting for the Spurs to break out an "A" game for a good long while. It hadn't happened since Game 2 of the first round against Utah (a game I attended and I have to admit it lost some luster for me because Ginobili scored a whopping four points). You could argue that they came close to that standard for the final three quarters in game 3 against the Clippers, when the score was 85-51, but it's still hard to call the performance an offensive masterpiece when they managed only 96 points and shot 46 percent overall.

After increasingly nervier games at LA and the first one vs. OKC, I woke up yesterday morning thinking, "Man, it'd sure be nice to have a blowout so we wouldn't have to sweat out a fourth quarter."

For most of the night, it looked like my premonition was going to come true, but these young alien freaks refused to go away and there were still some anxious moments in the fourth. I suppose that's how it should be and we'll have to deal with that. It's the Conference Finals, and it's supposed to be hard. To quote Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great."

I don't fault Scotty Brooks for the hack-a-Splitter at all. They needed to do something to break up the flow and the rhythm, before the game really got away from them. Every coach in that situation is looking for that "Marty McSorley illegal stick (ugh) moment." In 1993 the Los Angeles Kings were moments away from going up 2-0 on the road in the NHL Finals, clinging to a 2-1 lead when Montreal Canadiens coach Jacques Demers told the refs to check the curvature of McSorley's stick. It was deemed illegal, the Canadiens were awarded a power play which they used to tie up and then they won in overtime. They never looked back and won the series in five games.

The move didn't really net Montreal any points, just as Splitter made enough free throws to keep the margin where it was, but I thought Pop erred in going back to Duncan after Splitter clanked the sixth of his 12 attempts. It brought Duncan back into the game sooner than he's accustomed to, and he was a bit out of sorts, I felt. And then Pop went back to Splitter again to start the fourth and the whole thing looked haphazard and disorganized, like some sort of Vinny Del Negro rotation. I would've preferred to see Splitter finish out the quarter as long as he was making at least half of his freebies, and to me it looked like he was building a solid rhythm at the line, having made three of his last four. He was getting nice arc on the ball (Duncan's attempts were flatter, actually) and shooting them straight.

Brooks went back to small ball in the fourth, just like game 1, but this time the Spurs kind of struggled for a while, with Serge Ibaka back there instead of Kendrick Perkins. I can understand why Ibaka - and all the switching - could cut off some of Parker and Ginobili's penetrations, but for the life of me I don't get why we bailed them out with Duncan meekly posting up way on the baseline instead of closer to the middle, where he could really back the skinnier Ibaka down. Or why not leave out Duncan high and have him attempt 16-foot jumpers, draw Ibaka out to him and then go to the cutters on the back door?

Whatever. Eventually the Spurs figured it out. Green missed four threes, but at least three of those were good looks, I thought. Manu and Tim got a couple of pick-and-rolls to work and later on both Tony and Manu found a few cracks of daylight to the hoop. At least the Spurs big three showed that the Thunder and the Heat don't have a patent on the concept of putting your head down, bullying your way to the basket and getting to the line, and that's important because as much as we gush at all the amazing passing, the hail of threes and the artful layups, you need a certain dose of "nasty" to win it all.

Going forward, what makes me happy is that it will be practically impossible for the Thunder to surprise anyone with their adjustments for game 3. Everyone and their mother knows that Perkins is about to be chained to the bench and that the Thunder will be playing small more often than not, the rest of the way. It's pretty easy to predict that Thabo Sefolosha will get most of Derek Fisher's fourth quarter minutes next time around (especially if Fisher isn't shooting well in quarters 1-3). If Splitter is in the game and there's already four team fouls on the board, then he might as well start practicing his free throw stroke. We see these adjustments coming a mile away, so it's going to be easy for Pop to counter them. In this chess game he's always two steps ahead. We also haven't seen a breakout game from Duncan yet, and I have a feeling he's due for one. I betcha he gets at least 24 points in Game 3.

Defensively there isn't as much to feel good about (particularly for Gary Neal), but you have to think the Thunder stickied their laptops in Game 2. Their big three can't combine for 88 points again, right? Right? Even allowing for the crappiness of their supporting cast, 111 points allowed is way too many and not a winning formula for us. They need to do more to take Harden away, especially when Durant and Westbrook are on the bench. He consistently takes the highest-quality shots of the trio and I'd prefer if anyone but he shot the ball.

One story I think is overblown is how Westbrook is supposedly wrecking the team with his selfishness and that he doesn't pass enough. Westbrook takes maybe three or four horrendous shots per game, but you live with that. He still had eight assists and zero turnovers last night. He's never going to be confused with Steve Nash, but he passes plenty and makes the passes that are there to be made. People get on him because he's a hot-head and he's always got that puss on his face, whereas Durant has that "guy you'd want your daughter to marry" demeanor.

Nobody ever wants to get on Durant, but having watched quite a few Thunder games, here's the truth: He doesn't work nearly as hard on either end of the floor as Westbrook does. Westbrook isn't a quality defender by any means, but at least he usually plays hard even if he doesn't play smart. Durant just sags back and give up shots to anyone who wants to take them. He doesn't like guys being physical with him on either end. He doesn't work hard enough to get open, doesn't run around screens that much and usually if Westbrook does give it to him, it'd be 25 feet out and with a man right on him. There are times where he zips around screens to get the ball, but they're never sustained for more than two or three possessions at a time before he dials it back down.

The more I watch the Thunder, the more sense it makes to me how Durant can play 44 minutes night after night and seemingly never tire. It's because, shockingly for a guy who averages about 30 points a game, he just doesn't do a whole lot out there. LeBron James is really in his own galaxy when it comes to work rate. I'm already having a hard time sleeping thinking about this.

I thought Spurs in six before the series began. Now I'm thinking Spurs in five and wouldn't be surprised if it was four. For two straight games, San Antonio has had one of their big three play great, another play pretty well, and the third just there for the ride. As long as two of them don't outright suck, they're going to be in the game. Conversely, if the Thunder can't win with all three of their guys going off, how can they win? If it was a weekend afternoon game, I'd be nervous, but I'm actually feeling pretty good going into Thursday, for all the reasons listed above.

Your 3 Stars...

3) Manu Ginobili: "What's that, Tony? You need some help to wrap this one up? Well, if you insist..."

2) Kawhi Leonard: If he's within 15 points of Durant and equals his rebound/assist total, that's a win.

1) Tony Parker: He brought the physicality. He understood it was a big-boy game out there. Okay, so he made a bunch of 18-footers. I'm just enamored with the new entity, Gregg Popovich: Quote machine. What is going on?

PS: Every time the Spurs have won at least 10 playoff games in the Duncan era, they've closed the deal.

PSII: Every time a No. 8 seed upset a No. 1 seed in the playoffs, a team from Texas has gone on to win the whole thing.

PSIII: Don't know if you heard, but Phil Jackson isn't coaching the Thunder.

What Really Happened In Game 1 of Spurs vs Thunder

Aaronstampler — Tue, 29 May 2012 02:20:45 -0000

Game 1 Thoughts: Meaningless Regular Season is Meaningless

Among the popular reasons to pick the Spurs over the Thunder - and I admit to being as guilty as anyone - was their regular season success over them in 2012. The Spurs won two of three meetings, including a romp in their only home date, and blew OKC's doors off from downtown, shooting a blistering 51.8% (28-of-54). Tony Parker and Tim Duncan were both critical, of course, but our real difference makers in the regular season series were Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard, who averaged 11.0 and 14.3 points against the Thunder respectively, and shot 15-of-22 (68.2%) from three against them.

You know who wasn't good against OKC? One Tiago Splitter, who actually combined for 15 points (and 7-of-8 from the free throw line!) in the first two games but was also -31 in 37 minutes. His "best" game against the Thunder was the last one, in which he got injured after three minutes and had a three trillion on the stat sheet, but was a +7 nonetheless.

You know who else wasn't good against OKC? Three of the top eight guys in our rotation, Manu Ginobili, Boris Diaw and Stephen Jackson, though they all had the convenient excuse of not playing them at all. What I'm trying to get at is that we had limited information to go off of, due to various circumstances, and we had to make our best guesses from what was available.

I feel kind of stupid for doing it now, actually. I get mad all the time when "experts" point to San Antonio's mediocre regular season defensive stats as though it's their fatal flaw, when so few account for the fact that Jackson and Diaw joined the team during the final third of the season. Once they were mixed into the rotation (jettisoning Richard Jefferson and greatly diminishing DeJuan Blair's role) the defensive numbers improved dramatically, to the point where the Spurs were a top-five team in efficiency from then on.

The point I'm trying to make is that none of the regular season stuff against the Thunder matters. It's not valid at all. The Spurs played in those games, yes, but they weren't these Spurs. That team would've gotten the second or third seed and probably have been bounced in the second round by the Lakers. These Spurs are pretty decent.

Or they were, until game 1 against the Thunder, anyway, where day was night, white turned black, up went down and James Harden (59.4% FG vs. Spurs and 20 FTA) actually missed a few jumpers and didn't go to the line. The only reasons I knew this wasn't some bizarre dream were that Russell Westbrook was still playing like a total jackass and Derek Fisher was once again killing the Spurs in a playoff game.

Much (like ridiculously too much, find another angle guys) has been made of Pop telling his guys that he "wants some nasty" but to me the story of the game was the Spurs defense basically bailing the team out for three quarters and keeping the game from becoming an insurmountable blowout. Through three quarters the Thunder were 28-of-67 (41.8%) from the floor despite all the easy run-outs and fast break points they had from our turnovers and their nine offensive rebounds. Their triumvirate of Harden-Westbrook-Durant was particularly awful, shooting a combined 16-of-45 (35.6%). Of the three, I thought only Durant was getting decent looks - how can he not, considering his length? - but Harden was forcing a few things in the lane, clearly looking for whistles, and Westbrook had all kinds of buffoonery.

There was no way the regular season Spurs could've played as poorly as they did on offense, shooting 26-of-67 (38.8%) and 6-of-20 (30%) from deep, with 16 (ugh) turnovers, and been anywhere within hailing distance from the Thunder, or too many other Western playoff teams, really. Instead of 71-62, we'd have been looking at 83-62 and have a safe drive home, everybody.

In the fourth quarter, where they flipped the script and turned a nine point deficit into a ten point lead, it's not like the Spurs magically started playing appreciably better defense. The Thunder actually shot 44% in the fourth, boosting their overall percentage, and yes, I know their 5-of-7 finish in garbage time boosts that. Still, their 2-of-9 start to the period didn't strike me as remarkable because you don't shoot 41.8% through three quarters without a few 2-of-9 stretches sprinkled in. The Spurs did draw four offensive fouls in the final stanza, but again, the Thunder had nine turnovers the first three quarters, so it's not like it's a huge bump to go from three to four in the final 12 minutes.

No, ladies and germs, here's what happened in Bizarro Game 1: The Spurs went from a team that executed superbly and consistently for four quarters on offense and saved their defensive efforts for the final quarters to one that played consistently in their own end the whole game and waited for their offense to show up in the fourth. In other words, they played like the good ol' championship Spurs teams of yore (momma).

Obviously most of the roses are falling at Manu's feet (we'll get to him in a minute) but I think it's important to note that the catalysts for the comeback from nine down were Gary Neal and Splitter, who erased the first seven points of the deficit while Ginobili was on the bench. Then Parker, who was unspeakably awful in the first half, had the second of his two second half bursts, hitting a top of the key jumper and then a nice up-and-under against Kendrick Perkins to give the Spurs their first fourth quarter lead.

I thought it was awesome that our bench came right out of the gates playing so well since the first two series they were so poor until the closeout games.

Jackson's physical defense on Durant drew a few fouls, but he didn't give the Thunder superduperstar an inch of room and was strong enough to not allow any post-ups, unlike Leonard, who let Durant get in the lane on him all Dirk-like, a few times. I think it's odd how Jackson hardly ever looks to shoot anymore, but if he's happy with his self-designated "Durant-stopper" role, who am I to argue?

Neal hit his usual assortment of clutch shots and it didn't even bother me when he took that pull up 26-footer. At least it was open, unlike some of the threes that Green and Leonard forced. I've seen Neal make plenty of those shots all year. The only issue I had with Neal's play was that he didn't close out on Fisher a couple of times, but at the same time he drew two charges by sagging in the paint.

Splitter, who's struggled with his post moves all postseason, tossed in a couple from close range and finished off a couple of his usual pick-and-rolls from Manu as well. The Brazilian big man came down with a half dozen boards in 12 minutes and drew a charge too. Still, his free throw shooting has become so putrid that I fear they're gonna start hacking the Brazilian out of him now any time he touches the ball, so we'll see how that goes. One way or another, some of our foreign-born dudes are gonna be fouled hard in this one, probably by Perkins, who'll then make more incredulous faces when the refs blow the whistle.

(Perkins may be even more annoying than Westbrook. He's gonna become the league's first player ever to get whistled for a flagrant-two and insist he didn't even touch the guy).

Bonner, I thought, exposed a coaching hypocrisy last night, and I'm not writing that as a critique of Pop, because every coach does it. Coaches always say they're never gonna pull a guy for missing shots as long as he takes the ones he's supposed to take and plays hard and smart in all other facets. Well, that's exactly what Bonner did. He defended well, rebounded well (for him) and took his two open looks. He clanked them both and hardly saw the floor the rest of the way. I thought he played pretty well, all things considered. He was a +7 in his 10 minutes, before a -6 in the last 22 seconds obscured his effectiveness in spacing the floor. We'll see what kind of run Bonner gets as this series goes on.

I'm forgetting a bench guy. Oh, right, him. Manu's first four minutes were cover-your-eyes awful. I was yelling in the bar, imploring him to touch the ball after the second of Parker's two horrid jump pass turnovers, and what does Gino do in his first touch? You guessed it, a jump pass turnover. Then another sloppy one, where the only guy in the world who knows that he's going to cut sharply left - Harden, because he does the same thing - easily stole the ball from him. Then a dumb step-back that Durant easily swallowed. I was wincing, Ginobili looked so bad.

Out of nowhere came a seven point spurt. Another step-back, this time on the shorter Thabo Sefolosha. Then an awkward drive into traffic where the ball somehow rolled in. Then that ridiculous turnaround three at the buzzer. I actually am glad that was his first three-point attempt of the series. He didn't have time to think about it. I think it was the key for the rest of his game.

You'll notice that Ginobili had an unusually high amount of lay-ups in this game, five by my count. I think the key for this was that, finally, he wasn't stagnant at the top of the key, running down the shot-clock, waiting for the trap to come. Rather, he was on the move, attacking. He got one reverse on a sharp cut and another lay-in on a nifty out-of-bounds play where he lost Harden, and Perkins was too slow to rotate over. Two late drives in the fourth quarter, including his three-point play which basically iced the game, came because Manu surprised the Thunder by attacking earlier in the shot clock than he typically does.

Parker tried to do the same thing in the first half, and I think it was a part of the game plan, but the team was just too rusty, too unused to the speed, length and athleticism of the Thunder, to make it work. I think over the long run it's a good strategy though, and one that will pay dividends. Attack them before they're set, before they can trap. They just have to be sharper, and to hit their wide open shots, to pull it off.

Going forward, it's hard not to be confident. All night long, the Spurs consistently got better shots than the Thunder. If they get those looks night after night, eventually the percentages will "regress to the mean," as DeJuan Blair put it. Nah, just kidding, that was Manu. The moment may have been too big for Leonard and Green (who wasn't even close with his misses and also had a couple of terrible turnovers and some perplexing defensive miscues), but I'm not about to give up on them after one game. I recall them struggling in game 1 vs. Utah too, and then they lit it up in game 2.

The only thing that worries me (and just about the only thing I got right as far as predictions go) is that maybe Scott Brooks will be... I want to say smart but that's not the word... will be not stupid enough to play small for so long the rest of the way. When the Thunder are small, Duncan will be way better than their opposing big, regardless of who it is. They'll be limited in how much they can trap the pick-and-roll because they won't have anyone to protect the paint. They'll leave themselves vulnerable to the drive-and-kick game. There's really no reason they should ever use it, even if Perkins is terrible, because like I wrote in my preview, I think the Spurs will score against it almost literally every time. Which they did.

If you tell me that they're gonna play with two bigs for 46 minutes a night, meaning that the 6'19" Durant will be their "small" forward, then yeah, I'll start worrying, because then it's going to mean that the Spurs will have to win some 88-84 rock fights. Those games will come down to free throws and who makes more contested jumpers. DO. NOT. WANT.

Your Three Stars (Make your free throws, Tiago):

3) Gary Neal: If you told me he was going to play the final 15:15 of a close game, without injuries being a factor, I would've thought you were a stupid person.

2) Tim Duncan: I bet you thought I was gonna put Jackson here, didn't you? Calm down with the Cap'n Jack hysteria. He was aight. The Thunder still would've scored 214 points on 83 dunks without Timmy's involvement. Quit listening to the media doofuses and watch the games.

1) Manu Ginobili: If not for one 35-point outing (also against Memphis) last year, this would've been the second straight season that Ginobili had his season-high in points during a playoff game. Cut that Robert Horry stuff out, Manu.

P.S. More bizarre-ness: Westbrook and Durant both missed emphatic dunks, while OKC's best dunk of the night was registered by Nick Collison.

Grading the Spurs Individual Performers Against the Clippers

Aaronstampler — Fri, 25 May 2012 16:40:50 -0000

Quick Game 4 Spurs-Clippers thoughts before I get to the grades/preview:

I think Pop kind of took a dive.

Well, maybe not a dive per se, but you can't tell me he would've been terribly bothered if they lost that game, and at the very least he wanted exactly what we got, a close game that had to be pulled out late in the fourth quarter. Jeff Van Gundy pointed out during Game 3 that the team hadn't really been challenged like that in the playoffs, and even in that game where they were down 24 early, the comeback was so sudden and thorough that they had a solid 8-10 point lead through most of the fourth quarter, so it wasn't very stressful. It was good for the Spurs to face a team with their backs to the wall in a back-and-forth game, and it also gave Pop a chance to see the small-ball lineup of Duncan-Leonard-Ginobili-Green-Parker in crunch time, which I believe we'll see a lot of against OKC.

The main reason the game looked fishy to me was how the Spurs guarded the pick-and-roll, or rather how they didn't. Through three games they either trapped Chris Paul outright or at least steered him heavily toward the baseline. In game 4 though it looked like a carbon copy of our "meh" regular season defense, where the Spurs just played the pick-and-roll like any other slappy team and gave Paul free rein to go middle.

Pop knew the offense would be good for 95-plus points. He just wanted to ensure that the Clips would be in that neighborhood as well. Letting Paul be Paul again was the only way. And if CP3 did it so well that it opened up another 20 point lead for LA and if the Spurs started sloppily again on offense, then it would've been an "L" and Pop would've finally gotten what he wanted, an excuse to yell at some people and not having to answer stupid winning streak questions any longer. Win-win.

In the grades you'll note I'm including what the player's PER was for the series. However, since I couldn't find any websites that would tell me that, I had to estimate. I did this two ways. One method was to average out what a guy's total postseason PER is against what it was after the Jazz series, either adding or subtracting the difference as necessary. Since both series ended in four games, the average between the two should be close, right? Well, not exactly because some guys played more minutes in one series than another. Another, probably closer to exact method, I got from JRW. I added each player's game score for the four games, divided it by the number of overall minutes they played for the series and then multiplied that number x 48. You'll see that in all but a couple of exceptions the range between the two methods was pretty close. Just pretend the PER is the middle of that range and be happy.

Tim Duncan: A

21.0 ppg, 9.3 rebs, 3.3 asts, 2.0 blk, 1.0 stl, 1.3 TO, 59.4 FG%, 80 FT%, 34.0 mpg, +69, +.507/min, 27.6-30.0 PER*

You know in "A Boy Named Sue," where Johnny Cash sings, "I've fought tougher men, but I really can't remember when..." well that's how I feel about Timmeh's playoff series against the Clips. I know he's had better playoff series, but it's been a long while, right? The Suns series in 2007 and 2005 are both comparable, but he gave up a boatload of points to A'm'a'r'e in both, in part due to the game plan. I think 2006 against the Mavericks might have a solid case, and I do recall Duncan himself saying it was the best one he ever played, so let's go with that unless you want to get way back to the David Robinson days.

Obviously the thing that makes this series special for Duncan is that he did it at the ripe old age of 36. It helped him greatly that A) the Clips didn't really have anyone for him to guard B) he's surrounded by a great team, and C) the sweep reduced the wear and tear that would've likely set in with a prolonged series. Still, at this stage of his career we couldn't have possibly asked for any more from Duncan in any single facet of his game.

His only two periods of haggard play were both excusable, if you think about it. Duncan started extremely sluggishly - as did everyone else - because of that afternoon start on the road; and then in game 4 he was poor to close out the first half because he'd sat out basically for a full quarter (so about 40 minutes) and was stiff. Overall though, he had pretty much everything going in his repertoire, jumpers both in the lane and on the left elbow and baseline, pump fakes and drives, floaters, jump hooks, you name it. And those two backdoor passes in the fourth quarter were sublime.

Defensively, by the time game 4 rolled around, it seemed like Blake Griffin had either figured out, or had supreme confidence against (or willing accomplices in the refereeing crew, take your pick) all our bigs besides him, so Duncan had to take on that challenge, while simultaneously trying to protect the rim against the drives of Chris Paul and Eric Bledsoe. It wasn't always pretty, but I blame Duncan for very little of it.

Going forward, I think the Clips were a good warm-up for Timmy because the Thunder will be similar in that he'll get to play a lot of centerfield defensively and won't have to worry about anyone grinding him down in the post. I imagine Serge Ibaka will get his share of open 15-footers, but I'll give those up all day to protect against Russell Westbrook's drives. Tim's going to have to be a monster on the boards, and offensively I imagine he'll be taking his usual high-screen jumpers against Kendrick Perkins, while making hay in the post against the slimmer Ibaka and Nick Collison. The Thunder typically play a lot of small ball, with Kevin Durant at the four, but they know that's going to be doom against us, right? We'd probably have an eFG% of 70% against that, I'd guess. Of course, they'd probably have 68% against us.

Boris Diaw: B+

7.5 ppg, 6.3 rebs, 3.0 ast, 0.5 blk, 1.0 stl, 0.5 TO, 48 FG%, 57.1 3PT%, 50 FT%, 26.0 mpg, +55, +.529/min, 16.34-17.9 PER*

Unquestionably the MVP of the series through the first two games, Diaw fell back to earth somewhat on the road. Fatigue may have had something to do with it, as he had to play four games in six days, and more minutes than he's been accustomed to. When you factor that he had to dig in against Griffin for most of those minutes, you can see why his play would slip somewhat. More troubling to me was Diaw's field goal attempts through the four games: 9, 7, 6, 3; and his assist numbers: 5, 4, 2, 1. Basically his usage trickled down to practically nil by the end.

Did the Clips start paying more attention to him defensively and rotating more aggressively? Not really, and even if they did, that should've meant more dimes. Instead Diaw just started hot potato-ing the ball and lost his aggressiveness. This simply will not do against the Thunder, as Diaw will need to make Ibaka pay for not coming out on him. He must shoot the ball.

Defensively Diaw should get a break as Ibaka doesn't have that many ways to hurt him. He just has to box out and respect the guy's 15-foot jumper. Diaw isn't nearly the shot blocker Ibaka is, of course, so he really has no excuse to be anchored to the paint like his counterpart will be. He's not gonna do much good down there trying to challenge the likes of Durant and Westbrook and all that's gonna happen if he tries, is a bunch of soft and-1s. OKC does like to go small quite a bit, so I doubt Diaw will get 26 minutes per in this series, but I suspect he'll contribute more offensively than defensively, which hasn't been the case so far during his Spurs tenure. One area he'll have to do well though, is on the boards. If the Spurs allow as many second-chance opportunities against these guys as the Lakers did, they're screwed.

Kawhi Leonard: B+

10.0 ppg, 6.5 rebs, 0.8 asts, 0.8 blk, 2.0 stl, 1.0 TO, 56 FG%, 50 3PT%, 75 FT%, 29.0 mpg, +34, +.293/min, 17.92-20.3 PER*

We know Leonard is pretty good. Heck, the guy made the All-Rookie First-Team. Still, it's hard for me to comprehend how he could possibly elevate his play in the playoffs as 20-year-old, yet somehow he's done precisely that. Just when I thought that Pop would start limiting his minutes more and more at this stage, preferring to go with the more experienced Stephen Jackson, Leonard has forced the issue (to be fair, so has Jackson, in reverse), emphatically declaring that he's one of the most vital, irreplaceable cogs in the machine. He's not going anywhere.

Leonard is currently leading the NBA with a .650 true shooting percentage in the postseason. The funny thing about his three-point stroke is that he doesn't seem to have many roll in-and-out on him a la Ginobili. He either swishes the shot or unleashes one of those flat scuds that chip paint off the rim. Leonard's ability to hit that corner three is important of course, but what's great about him is that he can score in different ways, whether it's running the floor in transition, shooting that pull up jumper from 12 feet or cleaning up on the boards. It will be critical for Leonard to continue his hot shooting, because the Spurs will need to make Durant - a notorious roamer - work on defense and to punish him for his lapses.

In the three games against the Thunder this year Leonard averaged 14.3 points on 61.5% shooting and 71.4% (5-of-7) from downtown, along with seven rebounds and three assists per game. In short, he hasn't exactly been intimidated by these guys. Conversely, he's done a decent job on the other end against Durant, as the Thunder superstar shot 46.8% (22-of-47) against the Spurs in three meetings.

Leonard's defense will obviously be a huge focus of this series and while he was greatly overrated in that regard for most of his rookie campaign, he improved by leaps and bounds in the postseason. I figured going into the Clippers series that the relatively plodding (and limited by a broken hand) Caron Butler would be right in Leonard's wheelhouse, and Butler didn't disappoint, where even the shots he made were contested pretty well. Durant will be ten times the challenge that Butler was, but all I want from Leonard is to stay in front of him, keep his hands up and not pick up cheap fouls. Keeping Durant off the line will be critical in this series. Also, like Diaw he has to help out on the boards.

Usually Leonard finishes games on the bench as the Spurs go with Green, Parker and Ginobili to close games, but Durant's presence will insure that he's out there down the stretch unless Jackson is having a particularly productive outing. It's almost unfair to expect so much from a kid who's not even old enough to drink yet, but here we are.

(Oh, Kawhi, if you do a good job, then LeBron will be your next assignment.)

Danny Green: A

12.3 ppg, 4.0 rebs, 1.5 asts, 0.8 blk, 0.8 stl, 1.5 TOs, 56.3 FG%, 57.9 3-PT%, 50 FT%, 25.3 mpg, +57, +.564/min, 17.63-19.1 PER*

A better percentage from three than from two and from the free throw line? If that doesn't scream Bruce Bowen 2.0, then I don't know what does. Well, except for that whole "guarding the other team's best player in crunch time," thing. Green had a monster series, shooting at least 50 percent from the field and 50 percent from deep in all four games and helping to shut down Chris Paul again and again when he had to. We've all seen Paul draw cheap fouls late in games, but Green was able to bother him with his length, was able to keep his arms straight up, and strong enough to not get bumped off his spot.

There are still minor quibbles with Green's game. I wish his shot selection was better at times (Leonard already seems to have a better grip on that aspect of the game). I wish every lay-up attempt wasn't a heart attack waiting to happen. I wish there was a little button I could press that would send a minor shock at him every time he even thinks of attempting that hideous floater of his or a pass longer than ten feet. I wish he could dribble.

Then I remember that he's a 24-year-old, coming off his first real season in the bigs, and that he's not blessed with anywhere near the athletic gifts that Leonard is. I mean, for a Spur he is, but as far as NBA wings go, Green is probably in the 40th percentile, no? He's got decent arm length though, and he can move laterally well enough. If Green can ever figure out how to get around screens, he's going to have a very lucrative career as a pro.

Against the Thunder, I think we'll see quite a bit of him on Westbrook, with Parker spending time on Thabo Sefolosha or Derek Fisher. If Harden gets hot, he can switch there in the hopes of cooling him down. Again, as with Leonard on Durant, Green has to avoid foul trouble. It hurt the Spurs big time when he picked up two quickies in game 3 against the Clips. Offensively, my guess is that Westbrook will spend some time on him, with Scott Brooks not wanting to pick up fouls (or fatigue) guarding Parker. Westbrook doesn't play any defense and constantly spaces out, so Green will have to bury him with threes. Green was 12-of-25 (48 percent) against the Thunder this season, but 9-of-14 (64.3%) from deep. I guess the lesson there is don't shoot it anywhere near Ibaka.

Um, the Spurs season will depend on Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Tony Parker: C+

17.3 ppg, 3.3 rebs, 7.8 asts, 0.0 blk, 1.3 stl, 4.0 TOs, 36.1 FG%, 16.7 3-PT%, 82.8 FT%, 37.0 mpg, +73, +.493/min, 13.2-15.08 PER*

If you told me before the series that Parker would shoot 36% and average four turnovers against the Clippers and that just about everyone on the bench would be below par as well, I would've thought that spelled a shocking and terrible upset or at the least a seven game series. It's a testimony to how well the four other starters played (and perhaps also an indicator of how flawed the Clippers were) that the Spurs were able to sweep aside CP3 and Co. despite Parker's relatively pedestrian performances.

No doubt most of you think I'm being far too harsh, so let's get the positives out of the way first. It's true that the Clippers focused the entirety of their defensive game plan - such as it was - on stopping Parker. It's true that the wee rapping Frenchman (TWERF? Did I ever call him twerf?) [Editor's note: No, you didn't. I just checked. -jrw] did lead the team in +/- and had a perfectly respectable 7.8 assists per. He also did a pretty good defensive job on Paul, trading the assignment with Green back and forth based on Pop's whims. And yes, Parker was pretty good in the fourth quarters, as has been his custom. All those points are valid.

Howevuh... every team worries first and foremost about stopping Parker, so I can't quite give him credit for overcoming that, and it's not like the Clippers defense was that daunting. For the most part I thought that Parker's jumper was wonky, that his overall shot selection was poor at times, and he uncharacteristically missed too many lay-ups and floaters. I'm not reading too much into it, choosing to optimistically go the other way and say that he's gotten them out of his system in time for a real opponent. Also, as always, I thought he ignored Manu too much when the two of them shared the floor, but you're free to ignore that complaint.

I'm not a mind reader, but I'm guessing that Parker's game plan against the Thunder will be "to come out aggressive" and his mode will be on the "attack" setting. Sounds random, I know, but it's just a hunch I have. Can't say I'd blame him if he indeed felt that way, as Tony had all kinds of success against OKC this year. Personally though, I was even more impressed by his most recent game against them where he had 25 and 7 in a road win, than the 42 point, 9 assist game he had against them in February. In that encounter nobody on the Thunder was ready to answer the bell. They were listless and sluggish, going through the motions. In the final regular season game though, they were more than ready to meet the challenge, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at Parker, with Westbrook particularly intent on not being embarrassed again.

It took Parker about two minutes to figure out their scheme. He patiently drew the defense to him over and over and found Duncan and DeJuan Blair for easy layups, time and again. Once the Thunder adjusted their coverages, he got it out to Green and Leonard on the corners. When OKC adjusted to that, Parker finally went to work and got himself some easy layups. Basically he was like a surgeon, slicing them up. He - and by extension the Spurs - had an answer for every tweak OKC presented to them defensively, and that's the main reason I'm predicting they'll win the series. The Thunder's only hope is that Parker gets sucked into some mano-a-mano duel with Westbrook, but I think he's smarter than that. And if he's not, Pop will be prowling the sidelines to remind him to be.

The matchup should favor Parker for several reasons. First off, he'll have more rest, both literally, in terms of minutes played, and figuratively, because I figure he'll get to relax a bit on defense by getting to cover Derek Fisher, where all he'll have to do is not allow open threes. Defensively he's smart enough to know where his help is and to steer his guy accordingly. Offensively, there's less pressure on him to score, so he'll have the luxury of picking his spots and getting more quality looks. As long as Parker keeps the turnovers down and continues to feed the shooters, we're solid. Finally, there's the fact that Parker won't need much time to adjust to Westbrook's pace and class. He's coming off a series where he faced Paul and the super-athletic Eric Bledsoe. Westbrook, by contrast, has dealt with slugs like 58-year-old Jason Kidd, who can't do anything but shoot threes; and two guys in Steve Blake and Ramon Sessions who had no hope of staying in front of him. Parker will seem like a cross between Allen Iverson and Lionel Messi by comparison.

Manu Ginobili: B-

14.0 ppg, 3.0 rebs, 4.5 asts, 0.5 blk, 0.5 stl, 2.0 TOs, 40.5 FG%, 28.6 3-PT%, 84.2 FT%, 28.0 mpg, +10, +.089/min, 17.91-18.8 PER*

The best thing you can say for Ginobili's series against the Clippers was that it was better than his series against the Jazz. He scored in double figures all four games (barely), shot it slightly better, and got to the line more. What Manu could not do for any consistent spell, outside of game 1, was to seize a game by the throat or to rally teammates to his cause. For whatever reason, he just wasn't a difference maker out there, regardless of whether he was playing with the starters or the bench crew. It's a concept completely foreign to longtime Ginobili observers and even to the 2012 Spurs during the last two months of the regular season.

Some of that has to do with the success of the starting unit of course. There are simply fewer opportunities for him to take over or save the day when things are already going hunky dory without him. Another factor is that he and his bench mates were facing better competition, as the Clips left Paul and Griffin out there for a big chunk of minutes in the futile hope that it would do them some good. Simply put, our bench rarely got to feast on their scrubs and the Clips don't have that many scrubs to begin with. Bledsoe and Kenyon Martin are their two best defenders.

Still, with all that being said, Manu is just not being aggressive enough for my liking. He stops the ball far too often a la Carmelo in waiting to see what the defense is going to do instead of just attacking them before they get set. He also tried to force too many passes to guys who didn't have that much more, if any, advantage over him as far as who their defenders were and what their position was on the floor. Finally, he passed up too many open shots, particularly in the final two games. Even his meager number of field goal attempts is misleading because a couple each game were prayer shot-clock-bailouts.

I'm not alarmed yet, but I would be if he weren't trending upward. I'm guessing the importance of these games will ratchet up Manu's intensity to the desired level, but I don't see him forcing anything at the outset. If I know Ginobili's mindset like I think I do, he won't feel the need to change anything unless the team drops a game or they're in a competitive situation where they are trailing by a few points. Indeed his most energetic moments against the Clippers were in that second quarter in game 3 when the team was fashioning a late run to cut the deficit from 20 to seven. Typically though, Manu has a "don't fix what's not broken" mentality.

What I'm interested to find out is how Scott Brooks will adjust to Ginobili. Thabo Sefolosha has had some success against him in the past but he's a starter and Manu's a reserve. He and James Harden play in similar rotations, give or take a couple minutes here or there. Will Brooks switch things up and have Harden start? Will Pop react to that by having Manu start? This could be like a couple of hockey coaches mixing and matching lines. I just think Gino will have to take the initiative to attack Harden, Westbrook and especially Fisher whenever they're matched up on him. I still expect that the end result of those attacks will mostly be passes, as Ibaka is wary of leaving the paint and the Thunder like to leave shooters open.

All I know is that in both rounds one and two, the bench was outright poor or just not very good until the final game. We can't have that here. These guys have to be ready to compete from the beginning, even if the reality is that Westbrook and Durant will likely be playing against them in the second halves. Because they're aliens that don't get tired and must be destroyed before they enslave us all.

Tiago Splitter: C-

7.3 ppg, 3.5 rebs, 0.3 ast, 0.5 blk, 0.5 stl, 1.0 TOs, 76.5 FG%, 27.3 FT%, 17.3 mpg, -20, -.290/min, 14.61-15.0 PER*

Splitter was terrible, to put it kindly, when the series began. He wasn't that good in game three either, but had a decent enough game two and finished up strongly in game four. It's fair to say that he has solidly supplanted Matt Bonner and is now legitimately the team's third big man, in what may well be a three-deep rotation going forward.

I'll start with the negative, as is my wont. I wasn't happy with Splitter's defense on Griffin, especially early in the series. I thought his rebounding was quite poor and obviously his free throw shooting was abominable. About the only time he was effective defensively was when he was playing alongside Duncan. His post-up moves looked slow and awkward and were completely ineffective. His passing wasn't as sharp as it had been. Far too often, he looked like an average backup center.

On the bright side, he had better movement and timing on his rolls to the basket than in the Utah series, and his best performance of the playoffs came in the most recent game, so there's at least some momentum. There were a couple of times where he was whistled for fouls against Griffin when clearly it was the victim of superduperstar hype. (I can't stand how Griffin uses his off arm to push off on just about all of his post moves and then whines for fouls afterward.) It's impressive that he and Duncan have as much chemistry as they do, particularly on the defensive end, considering that they hardly played together at all during the regular season.

I doubt that's going to be a concern against the Thunder, and it will be interesting to see how much of a role Splitter has in that series. Bonner seems to be a better fit against them, but he's been so underwhelming in the playoffs thus far that I don't know if Pop will have much patience with him. If the Thunder go small with Tim on the bench, wouldn't Pop be obligated to post Splitter against Ibaka every time to take advantage of that mismatch? Splitter didn't factor much in either of the Spurs wins against OKC, so I have no idea what to expect. I just hope he gets more of a fair whistle than he got against the Clips, but I have my doubts on that front.

Stephen Jackson: D

1.3 ppg, 0.3 rebs, 2.5 asts, 0.0 blk, 0.3 stl, 1.3 TOs, 33.3 FG%, 33.3 3-PT%, 14.5 mpg, -13, -.220 mpg, 2.68-6.4 PER*

Weirdest. Stat line. Ever.

Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think Jackson would average more assists than points in a series and dude nearly doubled it. He was so reluctant to shoot against the Clips, for whatever reason, that he fired up a grand total of six shots in the entire series, in 59 minutes of play. And half of those came in a comfy game 1 win.

For whatever reason Jackson never seemed to be into it mentally when he was on the floor. I've already written at length about his dreadful game 3, but even in the other three games he was mostly content to meld into the scenery. There was no one for him to guard on defense (I thought he'd get some small ball looks against Griffin but that never materialized) and he hardly ever tried posting up the smaller Clips swingmen.

What was odd about his timid play was that Jackson should've come into the series on a high. He played really well against the Jazz and shot 53.3% from downtown against them. Whatever happened during that long break completely changed his mentality. Maybe he had personal issues, who knows? Or maybe Pop just told him to take a load off mentally and save your energy for Durant in round 3 and perhaps LeBron in the finals.

Jackson's playmaking was in fine form, aside from a few awful passes in that penultimate game, and like the rest of his bench mates he saved his best game for last. I really doubt the Spurs can overcome the Thunder unless he raises his game up a couple of notches though. It's asking too much of the three swingmen to play exclusively and I'd prefer not to use Neal as a two guard defensively. Jackson has to play, he has to stick his nose in there against Durant, has to take the open three and has to rebound. Seriously Jack, one rebound in 59 minutes? No free throw attempts? What the hell is that? We could get He Who Shall Not Be Named to do that.

Matt Bonner: D-

2.5 pts, 1.8 rebs, 0.8 asts, 0.3 blk, 0.3 stl, 0.0 TOs, 36.4 FG%, 33.3 3-PT%, 11.8 mpg, -19, -.404/min, 6.74-7.5 PER*

The case for Matt Bonner vs. People Who Think He's A Playoff Choker is not going well for the Red Rocket. On offense he passes up shots and doesn't make the ones he takes with the same regularity. His rebounding rate somehow plummets, when it was anything but impressive to begin with. And then there's the defense... great googly moogly, the defense. Bonner got roasted to the tune of 118.4 points per 100 possessions against the Clips. Gary Neal was the next worst, at 113.3.

That's a massive gap. Huuuuuuge.

To give you some perspective, Bonner allowed 103.0 points per 100 possessions during the regular season, when the Spurs as a whole were playing far worse defensively than they are in the playoffs. Everyone around him has turned it up several notches, while he's noticeably declined, and during the games it was definitely noticeable. It'd be one thing if it was just getting rag-dolled on the boards. At least we're used to that. But it's everything, from missed rotations, to post guys scoring on him, to not getting much aid from teammates. Maybe he's not playing that much worse than Splitter, Jackson and Neal, but all of those guys get to play more minutes with Duncan, so they'll look comparatively better.

I just know the "fresh meat" factor with him (where opponents go at him with the confidence of a Westbrook against Steve Blake) ratchets up by a factor of ten in the playoffs. It's clearly a part of every team's game plan, to the point where I fully expect the Thunder to be actively looking for Ibaka and Nick Collison against Ginger. It doesn't help matters any that he gets no respect at all from the refs. It's all very depressing.

I wish I could say his season stats vs. OKC are encouraging, but it's just the opposite. Bonner totaled 14 points on 13 shots in the three games, and grabbed a whopping seven boards in 57 minutes. Somehow his playing time increased from 12 to 19 to 26 minutes in those three games, though in that last one there was no Splitter (and obviously no Diaw) so there you go. You'd think he'd prosper given how small the Thunder play and how poorly they guard the three, but Bonner just didn't do a whole lot against them.

Like everyone else on the bench, Bonner saved his best (least worst?) game for last, but Pop showed last series he wasn't afraid to yank him out of the rotation and I suspect that his patience will be even less this round. Bonner better shoot it if he has even a moment of daylight, because against the Thunder's quick athletes that's all he'll get, a moment. And God help him if somebody like Sefolosha gets an offensive board over him.

Gary Neal: C

8.3 ppg, 2.3 rebs, 1.8 asts, 0.0 blk, 0.0 stl, 1.5 TOs, 54.5 FG%, 45.5 3-PT%, 80 FT%, 15.0 mpg, -17, -.283/min, 17.1-17.6 PER*

Neal is very lucky he can shoot it, because he is terrible at everything else. Well, I suppose he rebounds better than Bonner, but that probably says more about Bonner than Neal.

The Clips were all over his dribble, and by now I think it's well established that he doesn't have a good handle. It's something I expect the Thunder to exploit relentlessly with their quick hands and long limbs. I'm covering my mind's eye just thinking about it, if that makes sense.

Also, he's terrible on defense. If every guy Bonner faces imagines that they're Charles Barkley, then every guy Neal goes against imagines they're Dwyane Wade. In fact, Neal singlehandedly saved Mo Williams from being a total embarrassment in that Clippers series, and he probably made Eric Bledsoe some money for the offseason. I swear to god, if Derek Fisher starts lighting him up, I'm gonna lose my mind. Just don't leave your man, dammit.

When we're on offense though, and have advanced the ball beyond half court without incident, then Neal actually becomes quite good. His playmaking has improved by leaps and bounds since he's joined the Spurs and I feel he's really underrated in that regard. Neal can now run a competent pick-and-roll with Splitter and he's getting better about finding other guys as well. Also, his confidence in freezing out Ginobili from the offense is nearing Parker levels, so he's learning well.

It sounds obvious to say that Neal's main contribution to the team is his scoring, but what I've come to appreciate about him is that he's not just a shooter like a Steve Kerr. Neal is a scorer, in the mold of Vinnie Johnson. There's a difference. He can be a catch-and-shoot guy, but he can also create his own shot, whether it's a drive, a floater, a pump fake and a long two, whatever. Mostly what I like about him, and what I've liked from day one, is that unlike so many guys in this league, Neal is not afraid. Confidence is the most important asset you must have to be a successful player and while Neal is surely one of the worst athletes in the league, he's beyond a doubt one of the most confident, especially when it comes to his strengths. If our season comes down to one jump shot, who would you rather have taking it than him?*

There's value in that.

(Yes, even over Manu.)*

(I'd have Ginobili making the pass though.)*

Anyway, Spurs in six. I've got the home teams winning the first five games, and us finally breaking through on the road on the third try when Durant and Westbrook finally start running out of gas and too many of their jumpers fall flat. It'll be the lowest scoring game of the series and the Spurs will win something like 93-84. Onward.

Game 3 Thoughts...

Aaronstampler — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:35:08 -0000

Since Fred Silva covered the core of it, in the sense of getting better shots over 48 minutes tends to produce favorable outcomes, this will be less a recap and more free association thought bubbles...

jump it

First off, I'll point you toward this data set; 91, 83, 90, 81, 92, 88, 86.

The observant among you will recognize these numbers as the point totals of our opponents throughout the first seven games of the postseason (and that's with extensive garbage time thrown in, in a couple of cases). Granted, neither the Jazz nor the Clippers are what anyone deem explosive offenses, but when you allow 96.5 points per game in the regular season, that 87.2 looks mighty fine. I know I've written it before on Spurstalk, though probably not here, but I've thought all along that 95.5 points is a realistic barometer of expectation for this team's defense in the postseason. If we allow 95 or fewer and lose, 'twas the offense's fault. If we allow 96 or more and lose, blame ze D.

Might as well take a poll now: With the high-powered Thunder coming up, should we tweak that number to 97.5, or is it fine as is?

****

Okay, next, I want to clear up a small myth about this game. The popular narrative in big comeback wins is that one team slowly chips away at a deficit, a little at a time, a 6-2 run here, an 8-3 run there, basically "Pounding the Rock" personified on a basketball floor. In most cases, I suppose this is true. This game was not one of those cases.

In the 5:58 between Nick Young's corner three to make it 40-16 and Manu's shot clock-beating wing three to make it 48-31, you'll note that a whopping four points had been sliced off that 24 point deficit. Believe it or not, it was still 48-28 with 3:20 to go in the second quarter.

No, the comeback was quick and dirty kids. The story of the game was three runs. Clips broke out with a 14-0 in 5:30 late in the first, the Spurs had a Manu-fueled 15-2 closing burst in 2:40 late in the second, and of course the 24-0 thrashing through eight minutes of the third. Okay, so maybe the last one wasn't that quick. Still.

My favorite part was that Magic said that the Spurs didn't have enough in them to come "all the way back" from a 10 point halftime deficit, while the three other analysts, who actually are on the set because they can break a game down and are not, you know, Magic Johnson, had befuddled looks on their faces, like what are you watching? Magic is a top-5 all-time player and a brilliant businessman, but good lord is he a crap analyst. Johnson changed his tune after the game, praising the Spurs teamwork and saying it reminded him of the good ol' days. Watching a game with him must be like watching a game with my cousin, where whenever team on the TV was the local one, she'd just root for whoever was leading. She was eight.

****

We've covered this ad nauseam, but nevertheless I thought Arash Markazi from ESPNLosAngeles.com got some good insights from Randy Foye after the game. I interviewed Foye once. Good dude. As was, I reluctantly admit, Caron Butler (a big Michael Vick fan).

"I overplayed [Ginobili] and I kind of felt him about to make the move but I said he can't because that pass is too tough," Foye said, "and at the last minute, when I was getting ready to rotate my feet, it came. He pushed my body up enough and made the play.

"Those guys have been playing together for so long that if they look at each other one way, they already know to go backdoor. When guys play together for a long time, all you have to do is look at that guy a certain way."

It's the kind of chemistry the Clippers simply don't have and not-so-secretly long for while they watch the Spurs slowly pick them apart, showing how far the Clippers have to go before they can truly be considered title contenders.

"I'm not going to lie to you. It was devastating today," Foye said. "It was tough on the psyche and definitely tough on the body. You're out there and you're giving it your all, and they go fast and then they go slow. It's basically like [Popovich] is over there saying, 'Pick your poison.'

"'Oh, you're going to take away Timmy [Duncan]; there goes Kawhi Leonard in the corner. Oh, you're going to take away Kawhi? Here's Ginobili, and Tony Parker is going to go coast to coast. If you take that away, we're going to kick it out to Danny Green for a 3.'

"It's pick your poison with those guys."

Yup.

*********

Parker had a pretty strong performance in game 3 overall, especially compared to his battered and bruised counterpart, but here's another myth that needs busting: His defense on Paul wasn't that great yesterday. I re-watched the game and took notes. He was 4-of-8 against Parker and 1-of-1 against Neal (that ghastly steal and breakaway layup, ugh). Against non-point guards Paul was 0-of-8 (0-of-3 vs. Leonard, 0-of-2 against Green and Diaw, 0-of-1 vs. Manu). Just sayin'.

**********

Yes, the Spurs came out flat. Yes, that road noon start always bites them in the rear. Yes, Manu was just as bad as everyone else in that first quarter, starting 0-of-3. Still, I think what triggered LA's great start and threw everyone on the Spurs out of whack was Danny Green's two quick fouls. I thought Pop erred big time in subbing Neal, unquestionably the team's worst defender, instead of Manu or even Jackson, against the Clippers starters. They immediately started working him over like a speed-bag, when Griffin wasn't busy tossing in everything, that is. Not much you can blame on Pop over the final three quarters, but he didn't do much to help in the first.

*********

Speaking of which, let's call a spade a spade: Stephen Jackson was absolutely hideous out there, to the point where I thought the gamblers might have gotten to him. Let me be clear: I wanted RJ gone as much as anyone, and I'm beyond thankful that the trade to get him out of here happened. I'm fully aware that there's no way the Spurs would be here right now without Cap'n Jack's contributions, and I give praise every day to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that he's a Spur once more. That being said, even Jefferson was never that bad in any of his playoff games the past two seasons.

That's the risk you take with Jackson, in a nutshell. When Jefferson is bad, he's just a ghost. Passive, passionless, ineffectual, jogging up and down, you don't even notice him on the floor. When Jackson is bad, it's impossible not to notice him because he's cover-your-eyes awful. In his nine minutes of playing time he was easily the second most valuable Clipper after Griffin and it's hard to believe Pop let him play as long as he did. Wisely, Pop left him on the pine in the second half.

******

Which naturally leads us to the next topic... that 10-deep bench isn't looking too hot of late, is it? Ginobili's playing average, for him, but he's practically a starter anyway, so it's hard to count him. The other four though, gak. While both Duncan and Diaw shut down Griffin in the second half, he had a brief resurgence when Splitter checked back in. It's plain that he views both Tiago and Bonner as fresh meat and has all kinds of confidence against those two, and it doesn't help matters that A) they're both soft and B) the refs don't respect them at all when it comes to Griffin's elbows because C) see A.

I keep writing it, but I think this might be 2005 all over again my friends, when a supposedly 9-10 man deep rotation got whittled to seven by the end. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, mind you, considering the end result in '05, but Splitter, Bonner, Jackson and Neal are not pulling their weight. Hell, they're not even holding their ground. They've all been huge minuses this series.

I'm being totally honest when I say I wouldn't be opposed to Pop shutting down the big three altogether tonight. I disliked it in the regular season because I thought home court would matter against OKC, Miami and Chicago (idiot me) but now that we've got it, why not use it to rest our vets? Let Holt make some extra concession and parking lot money. Let our crowd enjoy watching the Spurs run Paul's flopping ass off the floor one more time. What's the harm? A loss would probably make Pop happy anyway, give him something to yell about during practice. He HATES those "what does winning X in a row mean to you?" questions.

If the big three do have to play, then I'm hoping there will be a strict governor on their minutes. No more than 25 for Tim or Manu, under any circumstances, and no more than 29 for Tony. Either the bench will redeem themselves and close this series out, or they won't. It's not worth risking The Big Three's health just to go for a sweep. I'm hopeful that the Clips are deflated to the point where they won't put much more than a token effort out there tonight and that the bench will either discover their pride or just egress to the mean. Also, you'd think fatigue would hurt their guys as much as it would hurt us. Griffin played 43 minutes yesterday and Paul played 39, and they're both supposedly hurt.

*******

I thought Buck Harvey raised a good point that I hadn't considered yesterday. There may have been more to Pop's hack-a-Evans strategy than just putting a terrible free throw shooter on the line. It also allowed his exhausted starters (Tim and Tony, primarily) to not have to expend any more energy on defense; banging in the post, running, chasing, rotating, etc. Buck argues that while Duncan and Leonard played 38 minutes and Parker 37, it was more like 33-34 once you factor in the gimmickry. Kudos, Pop.

******

Another 91+ minutes for the Clips bigs. Is Del Negro ever gonna try anything different? Maybe he's as crappy as everyone says. (Or he knows it'll be a veritable lay-up line for the Spurs if he does go small. Damn him.)

*****

Your 3 Stars...

3) Tony Parker: Took about four or five shots I really didn't like in the first and third quarters, and had the aforementioned defensive issues against Paul, but he was solid late and was pretty much the only Spur who seemed aware that the game had a 12:45 start. Has gotten the better of Paul in all five of their head-to-head meetings this season.

2) Tim Duncan: Pretty damn awesome the last three quarters, scoring every which way, guarding Griffin, passing, rebounding, protecting the rim. Do not dunk on him, Blake, it just pisses him off. I am a bit worried he's not even trying to dunk anymore. Hopefully he'll have a few days off coming up.

1) Kawhi Leonard: Mea culpa, mea culpa, a thousand times mea culpa. I definitely should not be an NBA scout. The Bruce Bowen comparisons are ridiculous and nonsensical. He's got a little bit of quite a few players in him, from Dennis Rodman and Sean Elliott on the Spurs side to Carmelo and Tayshaun Prince. But no Bowen. And there isn't any one guy he's a perfect replica of, which I believe is a good thing. All the great players are originals.

*****

Last thing:

Last year, through 73 games the Spurs were 57-16, having just lost third of what would be a six game losing streak, as they were coughing, wheezing and sputtering toward the finish line.

This season through 73 games the Spurs are 57-16, and on a 17-game winning streak. They've been declared the prohibitive title favorites.

So alike but so different.

Game 2 Thoughts (Rinse, Lather, Repeat)

Aaronstampler — Fri, 18 May 2012 19:27:51 -0000

[Editor's Note: In addition to this piece you're reading, the man you know as Aaron Stampler has also written a treatise on the Spurs and the Myth of Personality that you should go read. Yes, I know it's on BleacherReport. No. I don't care. Go and read it anyway. -jrw]

Well, that was boring. The Spurs have won 16+ games in a row and six in a row in the postseason. They're headed to LA for Game 3 of a playoff series. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

Actually, idiot that I am, I was watching SportsCenter after the game and Stan Verrett (one half of the Verett/Neil Everett tandem that has elevated themselves to the lofty perch of 2nd most loathsome SC anchors ever, behind Stuart Scott & Rich Eisen) said that the last time the Spurs started 6-0 in the playoffs, they lost in the Finals to the Pistons in '04. The 10 p.m. SportsCenter is based in LA these days, so I suppose there's a new policy in place that all Kobe Finals losses get transferred over to the Spurs instead. Not only do we have four **** LOB trophies, but now we've got two ** Finals losses y'all. Man, I can't believe Timmy and Co. let 'Sheed and KG punk 'em like that. Totally bummed me out.

Well, that was boring. The Spurs have won 16+ games in a row and six in a row in the postseason. They're headed to LA for Game 3 of a playoff series. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

Anyway, ze game, in honor of our fabulous Frenchmen. It's certainly arguable that both Diaw and Parker were our two best players last night and not arguable at all that Diaw was the best. I got a few metaphorical raised eyebrows around these parts when I didn't give anyone on the Spurs an A or even A- grade for the first round, but I can assure you that through two games Diaw is absolutely at an A level for me in round two (though I should point out Parker was at an A through three games vs. Utah before his game 4 performance dropped him). Diaw took seven shots, which is a bit high for him, and more surprising still, made them all, including a couple threes. Despite all that, he still passed up two or three shots. Still, his overall game was masterful. His passes were surgical, his drives oddly graceful for a tubbo, and his defense on Blake Griffin exemplary. Clearly Dirk Nowitzki wasn't the only All-Star PF that Diaw can shut down.

Pop, as is his nature, is downplaying how surprised the team is by Diaw's play, but I guarantee you that NO ONE thought he'd be this good. We simply wanted him to functional for 15-20 minutes and be slightly better than Blair. Instead, Diaw has already leapfrogged Splitter and Bonner and is the second best big on the team. I just can't stress enough how much of a game changer his acquisition has been. The game plan for this team used to be to just try and hold serve with the starters and wait for Manu and the bench crew to break the games open. Now the starting unit is doing that by itself and making the bench an embarrassment of riches (more on that below).

I was going to write that if Pop went into a lab to create the perfect complement to Duncan that it'd be Diaw but two inches taller and 15 pounds slimmer, but that's hyperbole. The truth is it'd be a cross between Diaw and David Robinson. The point is that Blair (or Antonio McDyess) would not be in the equation. Hmm. Come to think of it, that guy sounds a bit like Robert Horry. Darn it, I might have to appreciate Horry more in retrospect.

Nah, didn't bring it often enough. Also, we got him too late in his career.

Okay, now the birthday boy. Again, Parker's shooting percentage wasn't anything to throw confetti over. Also, he had only five assists to three turnovers. Still, for the overall effect he had on the game, it was an improvement on game 1. The way the Clips trapped him led to some "hockey assists" for Tony (you'll note that Diaw had four dimes) and moreover I was impressed with the toughness he showed in responding to the Clippers' physicality and roughhouse tactics. The jumper wasn't falling much, but Parker refused to back down.

Of course where Parker really made his mark was on the other end, where he was an absolute doberman against an obviously wounded Chris Paul, who all but exposed his jugular to him and begged to be put out of his misery. While Green didn't quite bring the same intensity in his match-up against CP3, and fell for a few of Paul's veteran tricks (Green also gave up a few jumpers to LA's shooters when he got sucked in helping inside), Parker more than took up the slack with his dogged determination and tenacity against Paul, not giving him an inch of space, refusing to quit on his pursuit when screened, even drawing a pair of offensive fouls against his visibly frustrated counterpart. We've long grown accustomed to Paul exerting his will, not just against opponents but against referees, bullying and intimidating them into backing down and giving him what he wants. Last night against the Spurs, he just didn't have it in him to fight back or argue with anybody. He knows he's a beaten man. He knows what's going on with his body. He knows what he's got to work with around him and what Parker has around him, including the respective coaching staffs. Chris Paul is looking forward to getting this over with.

Blake Griffin too, I think. You can see it in the blank stares and the shoulder sags. Whatever defiant postgame bravado he showed after Game 1, it wasn't there after Game 2. Doubt hasn't crept in for this team as much as it's moved in unannounced, raided the fridge and left an unholy stench in the bathroom. In the likelihood that the Spurs scrape out a Game 3 win, Game 4 the next day might be an ugly thing to behold, in terms of how uncompetitive it could get. I could easily see a score that's like, 90-60 after three quarters, on the way to a 110-85 final.

As for the rest of the crew, Timmeh was his usual remarkable self and the Clippers strategy of not fouling him (21-of-34 FGA, 2-of-2 FTA so far) doesn't seem to be paying off for them. He's got too many moves for those guys to handle. I can understand the logic of not doubling him, but this has the faint aroma of Spurs-Rockets in 1995, only we're the Rockets. It's a bit silly to respect Parker and Ginobili like crazy but not Duncan, but ultimately it's pick your poison regardless. To round out the starting five, Green redeemed himself on offense by hitting four bombs, all of them timely, and Leonard had one of his better defensive games from the standpoint of combining both his individual assignments and his team defensive play.

The bench, though, continues to be an issue. Manu started out brilliantly with 10 quick points and a pair of helpers, but once left on his own with the other subs, he couldn't get anything going. The Clips reserve bigs aren't huge scoring threats, but they've defended well, no doubt. For whatever reason, we can't crack them. Neither Bonner nor Jackson are being aggressive at all and Splitter has been up-and-down (perhaps his FT woes are hampering his desire). Neal was better at both ends than game 1, but that's not saying much. Once Manu missed a few shots, he lost his confidence and it didn't help him at all that he was pretty much frozen out by Parker in the second half (seriously it's like Tony will pass it to anyone but him; annoying) and in truth Ginobili didn't appear to be working very hard to get open.

I suspect the bigger problem for the bench of late is they're having a problem finding the proper motivation and intensity. These guys have been used to being difference makers all year. That's what having DeJuan Blair and Richard Jefferson in the starting lineup will do for you. Now that Boris Diaw is starting, the starters are "beating the brakes off people" in Deion Sanders parlance.

I know it's been popular among sportswriters, especially the national ones who are paying reluctant half-attention to the Spurs, to act like everybody on the team is playing well in every game, but it hasn't been the case at all. We're just so good (and our opponents so mediocre) that we only need half the team to play well and the other half to be so-so to win games by 15+. If we ever got a great game from both the starters and the bench, a game would be over at half time. Games like that will happen one out of 10 times. Similarly, one out of 10 neither the starters nor the bench will show up and we'll lose. Some day, maybe even Saturday, we'll lose. But no, not very often.

To put last night's game in some perspective, the Clips shot 69.2 from deep (9-of-13) and a much better percentage from the line (73.9, which doesn't sound impressive, but 16 of those 23 attempts were taken by Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Kenyon Martin and Reggie Evans, and they combined to make 10) than we would've expected. They still lost, badly. The Spurs, a supposedly soft, "live by the three, die by the three" team, had a 50-18 edge in points in the paint, thanks to Duncan, Parker and Diaw. Though the two teams shot a similar percentages the Spurs put up 16 more shots (and made 11 more) because they had seven fewer turnovers and two more offensive boards.

The misinformed critics will continue to state that the Spurs' weakness is protecting the rim, based almost entirely on their memories from last season's series against Memphis and one regular season contest this year against the Lakers (the subsequent routs against LA not registering, apparently). It's quite the opposite. All year long, even before we got Diaw and Jack and shed RJ and Blair, the weakness has and remains perimeter defense. We give up open jumpers, somewhat by personnel limitations, somewhat by choice. It's "who we are." Pop's gambled that his team will get more open shots -- and make more -- than the other team. He all but dares people to take them. Just don't be venturing inside for lay-ups, dunks and free throw attempts, those awful gnomes of efficient offense.

I'm gonna guess the Spurs won't lose any games this postseason when they outscore the opponent by 32 points in the paint. Just throwing that out there.

The one aspect of the game that surprised me was that Vinny Del Negro didn't resort to small ball. By my count the Clips played with two bigs for 91:11 last night as opposed to 82:35 in game 1. Surely by now he's got to realize that any combination of Duncan, Diaw and Splitter will be loads better than any combination of two bigs he can put on the floor. Outside of maybe the Splitter/Bonner combo, why would he ever want to play with two bigs? I suppose he's worried that if he goes small then either Parker or Manu will have an easy lay-up every time down the floor, and he's probably right. Maybe he doesn't want the game to get into a track meet since there's no way Paul can keep up with Parker in a back-and-forth freewheeling game. Maybe he thinks guys like Leonard and Jackson will get way more offensive rebounds than guys like Caron Butler and Randy Foye.

Yeah, I think I've answered my own question. Still, it'd have been fun to see Ginobili score a bunch of points, dammit. Vinny's kind of a party pooper.

Three stars (easier than Game 1)

3. Timmy: I've written

2. Tony: Way too much

1. Boris: About this game

I wrote a thing

Aaronstampler — Sat, 19 May 2012 05:48:51 -0000

Look at this long thing I wrote. It's all about the Spurs. Read it, read it now. And demand for this link to be on the front page. Demand it of your overlords!

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1188656-the-san-antonio-spurs-and-the-ironic-fraudelent-personality-myth

Thank you. Crap, I need this to be 24 words longer. Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili. Tiago Splitter. Beno!

Look at this long thing I wrote. It's all about the Spurs. Read it, read it now. And demand for this link to be on the front page. Demand it of your overlords!

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1188656-the-san-antonio-spurs-and-the-ironic-fraudelent-personality-myth

Thank you. Crap, I need this to be 24 words longer. Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili, Manu Ginobili. Tiago Splitter. Beno!

Game 1 Thoughts

Aaronstampler — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:08:50 -0000

Because I don't have much to do right now and there's no way I can just watch this Celtics-Sixers game without bludgeoning myself.

First off, if you don't recognize that Boris Diaw was the MVP of Game 1, I've got no time for you. Simple as that.

I mean, good lord was he awesome. The individual defense on Blake Griffin. The rotations on defense to snuff all their pick-and-rolls and backdoor cuts. His awesome board work on both ends. His timely cuts on offense. The high post passing that absolutely RUINED the Clippers defense. All in all, that has to be the finest playoff performance for a stretch four in a Spurs playoff game since Game 5 of the 2005 Finals, no? Or at least since Game 7 of the same.

I can't stress emphatically enough how impressed I was by Diaw's all-around game at both ends of the floor. The Clippers came in with a fantastic defensive game plan to take away Tony's scoring, not giving him the time or space to drive to the hoop or shoot his mid-range jumper. I haven't seen him defended that well, as far as taking him away as a scorer, since those vintage Mavericks teams with Avery Johnson. Even the Lakers, who've notoriously been successful against Tony over the years, especially when it mattered, were so mainly to Parker's jumper going wonky. The Clips managed to take the drive and the jumper away, completely selling out on Tony.

It's a strategy that would've probably been successful for the first 50 games of this regular season. The acquisition of Diaw (and to an extent Duncan's resurgence and Ginobili's return to health) has changed the equation into one few if any teams in the NBA can solve, and certainly not the over-matched Clippers. Now, when Parker is trapped he simply tosses it out to Diaw on the high post and lets his fellow Frenchman carve up the Clippers with five different options at his disposal. Diaw can shoot it, drive it off the opponent's run out to him, drive and kick to either corner or drive and dump it down to Tim for a lay-up after Duncan's man comes out to contest the drive. Combine all that with the five offensive caroms he collected, and Diaw simply made the starting unit devastating to behold.

To be fair, Parker was anything but horrible. Quite the opposite. I've long despaired that his biggest failing as a player, and the reason why I've felt for some time that he was overrated by Spurs fans even though he's underrated by the rest of the planet, is that until this season it was impossible for Parker to contribute to a win (at least in his mind) if he's not scoring. In 2012 though his game is developed -- or at least he's finally gotten a pair of young horses in Green and Leonard who can run and shoot -- to the point where he not only has an answer for every coverage he sees but is secure enough in his own game to trust those answers. Parker forced very few shots, especially in the second half, and it's no small feat that he racked up 11 assists considering how many possessions Diaw, Duncan and Ginobili used.

Defensively Parker deserves a ton of credit too, for helping to shut down Chris Paul. Danny Green did most of the grunt work, and it was plain that his size bothered Paul (full credit to Pop by the way for giving Green some experience in the regular season against CP3), but Parker has his part in it as well for steering Paul into corners and traps or for being the trapper himself. The two of them expended a lot of energy in their own, as the did the bigs who came over to close on his shots and clog passing lanes. To be honest I'm not sure what Paul and the Clippers can do too differently to combat this defensive strategy. I imagine they'll try to use Eric Bledsoe or Mo Williams to initiate the offense more, but neither of those guys are any good at creating shots for others, and Paul isn't nearly as useful as a shooting guard.

I'm not too worried about their offense, really. In game 1 Caron Butler and Bledsoe got off. In game 2 it may be Williams and Randy Foye. Very rarely will it be all four or even three of the four. It's true enough that the Spurs shot a crazy percentage from 3 (13-of-25, 52%), but so did they (9-of-19, 47%). The shooting wasn't what separated the teams. Besides, if you had to bet on one team's shooting from deep staying at this level and the other team's to wane a bit, wouldn't you bet on the Spurs for the former and the Clippers for the latter? After all, their defensive strategy seemed to be to take Parker's scoring away at all cost, at the expense of allowing open threes with a couple simple passes. It's pick your poison. The Spurs are allowing their share of open threes, but not as many, because the Clippers don't have a Diaw of their own, nor a Ginobili or a Duncan, when you think about it.

As superb as Reggie Evans was in the first round against Memphis, it seems clear that he's going to be a spectator in this series. Diaw has changed everything. The Clippers' only shot is to go small and hope their wings shoot and make better decisions off the drive than our wings do. Both teams will furiously trap the pick and roll. The difference is that the Spurs can play 4-down with Duncan -- who not only is a better passer and a shooter than Griffin but would simply destroy him on post-ups -- and they have a guy in Manu who might go for 30 and 10 dimes if the Clips decide to defend him the way they did in the 4th quarter, with his man desperately running at him off a double team and only one big in the lane. Manu will have a lay-up, a floater, some FTs an easy pass for a corner three or a dump off to Duncan for a dunk every time. Or a wide open three if his guy doesn't come. Pretty much what Diaw got last night when the Clips played with two bigs, in other words. Pick your poison.

My one concern: Our bench. I'm not too worried about Tiago, yet, and I still think he'll get his off the pick-and-roll or the high screen with Manu. He's a rhythm guy and the long lay-off hurt his timing on those rolls. He should be better. With him my only fear is that Del Negro might borrow a page from Pop's playbook and start sending him to the line on purpose.

No the bigger worry is Gary Neal, who really shouldn't be playing in this series anymore. The Clips have too many small guys who are quick and can score and pressure the ball. Neal can shoot, and he plays better with Ginobili, but I don't really trust him to dribble or pass or guard anyone on that team. Give Patty Mills a shot, with strict instructions that lackadaisical defense, hurried jumpers with 18 seconds left on the shot clock and looking off that guy with the jacked up nose are three quick ways to go back to the bench tootsweet. I suppose one or the other have to play, especially when Tony needs a blow and the Clippers are small, but Mills may be the lesser of two evils here.

The other issue is Matty. Like Evans for LA, if this series goes small then he's glued to the bench. No complaints or issues with defense yesterday, save for the dumb foul on Bledsoe, but he passed up one open three and didn't look to be moving too aggressively in the search for real estate. The Spurs look crazy deep, ladies and germs, but I kid you not when I say that for most of the 2005 season that squad was considered deep too. You'll be amazed how quickly 11-man rotations shrink to 10, then 9 then 8 when the stakes get higher and Pop's patience gets shorter. Championship Spurs teams have usually gone with three bigs, so it won't be too shocking to see Bonner, as awesome as he was during the regular season, joining Blair and Neal on the bench, wondering what happened. Our opponents are just gonna get smaller and smaller as we go...

Your Three Stars (with apologies to Manu, Kawhi and Tony, who were all quite good)

3. Danny Green: Pretty damn close to perfect, except for a couple of missed lay-ups and that horrid floater/charge. Stop that.

2. Tim Duncan: If you haven't read Chris Ballard's sensational article on Timmeh, do so, immediately. Best article on Duncan that's ever been written. I disagree with Ballard on one thing though. He wasn't always a center. He actually was a legit PF when he started. Once Horry entered the picture and Pop fell in love with the concept of a "stretch-4" (no doubt influenced by 'Sheed's success against LA in '04) then his philosophy changed. Or maybe he realized it's a lot easier to find 6-10 guys who can shoot than the next David Robinson, even at the '99-'03 stretch of his career.

1. Boris Diaw: It's not even fair anymore. Can we install a seatbelt to the bench when he's sitting? I'm sure Stern will be looking for any way possible to suspend him.

P.S. Three stars used to be so much easier. Spurs screwed it up by getting a bunch of good players. Jerks.

Handing Out First Round Grades to the Spurs Players

Aaronstampler — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:50:59 -0000

Stampler's Round One Grade Extraveganzzzza

I confess that I don’t quite remember the particulars of the Grizzlies series in 2004, but that Utah squad had to be the worst playoff team we’ve faced in the playoffs during the glorious Tim Duncan Era, right? I mean the Cavs still had LeBron, and they did take care of the Pistons back in 2007, and win two other rounds of the playoffs in the (L)Eastern Conference besides. Utah, on the other hand, was just awful. Them boys couldn’t shoot.

While the Spurs were quite good overall in games 1 and 2, I didn’t see much evidence in anything that transpired over games 3 and 4 that would have fans of the Thunder, the Heat or even the Lakers to be shaking in their sneakers to be honest with you. The brutal truth is that while our defensive FG% looks sterling, I saw a ton of makeable shots missed by Utah’s bigs. I can’t say with any confidence that fellows like Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol or Serge Ibaka would miss those shots. Hopefully I’m wrong. The bigger concern, of course, was the staggering number of offensive rebounds we gave up. That part actually has me quite concerned. Can anybody besides Duncan pull down a rebound on this team? The Spurs have shown all year that they can defend the paint, but I still worry whether they can successfully win defensive possessions by coming down with the board. Also, it seems that they will have to commit so many guys to the rebounding effort that their running game will be all but dead, which will diminish one of our biggest strengths. Obviously teams that crash the board offensively run the risk of getting run on if they don’t get come up with it, but it’s a risk that Spurs opponents seem willing to take since we’re pretty much unbeatable when we play fast.

Stampler's Round One Grade Extraveganzzzza

Because of these things, I still think the easiest road to the Finals for us would be the Clippers in round two and the Thunder in round three. While we definitely have an advantage in perimeter athleticism against the Lakers, they’re just too good at getting the game to play at their preferred pace (witness that the series against the breakneck Nuggets has been in the 80s and 90s), and their ability to get calls worries me to no end. Like the execs don’t want a Lakers-Heat series. Please. Even though the Thunder also have star power with Kevin Durant, they’re still in Oklahoma City and not that much more popular with casual sports fans, many of whom I suspect are as turned off by Russell Westbrook as I am.

I’ve been weighing the pros and cons of who’d be an easier opponent in round two, the Clippers or the Grizzlies, and while I think we should beat either in no more than five games, it makes more sense to prefer the Clippers.

Yes, the Clips have the best overall player. Yes, Paul will flop, get a ton of calls, bully the refs, and is a legitimate threat to go to the line roughly 43 times each fourth quarter. There’s also the flopping of Blake Griffin and the thuggery of Kenyon Martin to worry about, not to mention the potential hot shooting of Mo Williams, who killed us in a game earlier this season. It’s true that they beat us once and would’ve a second time, if not for a Neal miracle shot.

Howevuh: People forget that Parker was out in the game we lost. Splitter and Ginobili were both injured during the game we nearly lost. When both were healthy in the second game of the regular season, we cleaned these guys’ clocks. Also, we haven’t played them with Jackson and Diaw (and no RJ, it should be said) on the roster.

The bottom line is they have nobody on their roster who can guard Parker or Ginobili, the coaching match-up is hilariously one-sided, and I trust Pop make Reggie Evans a spectator in this series by fouling the crap out of him if need be. In fact, if we don’t see a ton of hack-a-Reggie and hack-a-Griffin, then it’s a good sign we’re up a bunch of points and don’t need to resort to that kind of catch-up tactic. I’m really at a loss while Lionel Higgins hasn’t tried it in their series, but I hope he doesn’t figure it out.

As for the Grizzlies, I’m perfectly aware that we went 4-0 against them in the regular season. I know that revenge would be a huge motivator for us. I know that 2012 Z-Bo isn’t 2011 Z-Bo. I know that Rudy Gay is far more likely to shoot them out of games than win them. I know that even with one arm, Ginobili basically toyed with Tony Allen in the playoffs last year (look it up). I know that Parker would be even more driven to play well against Mike Conley than he would be against CP3. I know all these things.

I don’t care. I’d still rather face the Clips and save the pounding and wear-and-tear on Timmy. Like I said, we should beat either one in five, but I’d expect the Clippers series to be less physical, at least in the legal sense. There will be some cheap shots, but that’s who they are. Godspeed, fellas.

Here are the grades:

Tim Duncan: B+

14.3 pts, 8.8 rebs, 2.5 asts, 1.75 blk, 1.0 stl, 1.25 TO, 46.9 FG, 78.6 FT, 22.6 PER, 30.3 mpg, +48, +.397/min

As has been the case for most of the year, the lion’s share of Duncan’s offensive production came in the first half of games. He had some spring in his legs at San Antonio and was able to show off some moves. That liveliness (as well as his jumper) abandoned him at Utah, which probably had something to do with the cumulative fatigue of having to bang down low with Al Jefferson and Utah’s other bigs for four straight games. While his production both statistically and PER-wise was the closest to his regular season averages of any Spur, I think it would behoove Duncan to face the Clippers and Thunder going forward rather than the Grizzlies and Lakers. Even with the rest he’s gotten in the regular season in terms of overall minutes and in the playoff games in terms of the spread out schedule, I think it’s fair to expect that he’ll wear down over the course of a prolonged playoff series if he has to deal with a serious low post scoring threat for 35+ minutes per game.

Boris Diaw: B

5.5 pts, 4.8 rebs, 2.0 asts, 0.25 blk, 0.5 stl, 1.25 TO, 60 FG, 100 FT, 33.3 3PT, 13.9 PER, 24 mpg, +46, +.479/min

The full-figured Frenchman continued the same surprising form in the opening round playoff series that has been the case since joining the Spurs – mainly that he’s been more of an asset defensively than offensively. Upon his signing I had no expectations whatsoever defensively for Diaw except that he’d be a slight upgrade to DeJuan Blair, almost by default. To my surprise he’s worked as well in tandem with Duncan as any big I can recall since maybe the Nestrovic/Muhammad tandem back in the 2005 salad days, and I was very impressed by the job he did against Paul Millsap. Can’t say I was nearly as wowed by any other area of his game though. That 13.0 defensive rebounding rate is right around Bonner-ville territory and if he continues to pass up wide open shots on offense Pop is going to choke him out (if Tony or Tim don’t do it first). Really, while I wasn’t too happy with the officiating in this series overall, I thought the refs showed remarkable restraint in not giving us any 3-second calls in the paint, and Diaw’s hesitation to shoot would’ve been the main culprit if they had. I can’t imagine Blake Griffin will be too keen on guarding 20 feet from the bucket, so it’s imperative that Diaw takes the open shots.

Kawhi Leonard: B

7.0 pts, 3.3 rebs, 0.5 asts, 0.0 blk, 1.0 stl, 0.5 TO, 45.5 FG, 100 FT, 40 3PT, 14.3 PER, 20 mpg, +37, +.463/min

Is it me or does "The Aztec" never put a full game together? I mean, I realize he’s a 20-year-old rookie who was drafted just outside of the lottery and playing in his first playoff series, so it’s completely unfair to expect him to be a star or anything, but it always feels like something is missing in his game. When his shot’s on, the defense is matador-ish. When he’s dialed in defensively, as was the case most of the series against the ghost of "The Big Bug," he’s meh on offense. Heck, the one breakout game he had, Game 2, where he scored 17 points and was solid in his own end, he had three whole rebounds in 25 minutes. I’m probably being unfair to him, and my expectations are too high and too unrealistic, but I think it’s pretty obvious that Pop doesn’t trust him much for this postseason run either, as Leonard’s minutes continue to shrink. Slowly but surely he’s heading toward regular season DeJuan Blair territory, where he’s gonna play the first six minutes of each half and that’s it. I did like how Leonard was able to compete against the bigger Jazz lineup, but outside of Manu I can’t think of any Spur who would benefit more from playing the Clippers in round two (against a slower, hobbled Caron Butler) than the Grizzlies.

Danny Green: B+

8.5 pts, 4.0 rebs, 1.0 asts, 1.0 blk, 0.5 stl, 1.0 TO, 42.9 FG, 83.3 FT, 31.3 3PT, 13.3 PER, 24.5 mpg, +52, +.531/min

Green had a fairly quiet beginning to the 2012 playoffs, but you could certainly argue he’s been the most consistent Spur over the course of games 2-4, as he led the team in overall plus/minus and plus/minus-per-minute. Even though his three-point marksmanship wasn’t as uncanny as we’ve grown accustomed to, Green continued to demonstrate his "Bowen 2.0" talents by being able to contribute mightily to wins even without scoring. He completely shut down precocious Gordon Hayward, snatched a few boards, ran on the break well enough to get a few easy transition hoops in games 2 and 3 and showed in the closeout game that he could function just as well with the bench unit as he does with the starters. Similar to Bowen, I cringe whenever I see poor Danny attempt to dribble, especially against pressure. While he does a great job of locking down opposing twos, on offense Green is strictly a three. Hopefully he’s learned a thing or two from his experiences guarding Chris Paul during the regular season, because I have a feeling we’re going to see that matchup quite a bit in a week.

Tony Parker: B+

21.0 pts, 3.5 rebs, 6.5 asts, 0.0 blk, 0.75 stl, 2.5 TO, 50.0 FG, 79.3 FT, 100 3PT, 26.2 PER, 32.8 mpg, +45, +.344/min

Here’s how dominant Parker was in this series: he was putrid – I mean gawd awful – in game 4, probably the worst of anyone in the 11-man rotation, and he still put up a PER of 26.2 for the series. How you view his performance overall has less to do with Parker and more to do with your personality (glass full vs. glass empty) and your personal biases (are you pro-Tony or anti-Tony). On one hand you can point to his overall brilliance in the first two games and his awesome fourth quarter in game 3, in which he shot 5-of-5 from the field and 6-of-6 from the line. Or you could be a cynical pessimistic bastard like me and point out that he played six crappy quarters out of eight in Utah. Did the physicality of the Jazz start to take its toll on Parker, who has disappeared in past playoffs when opposing teams (most notably the Lakers, Mavericks and Grizzlies) started roughing him up a little, or did he simply grow bored with the one-sidedness of the series? As always, my tie-breaker in these existential Parker debates comes to one simple question: Is he passing to Manu enough? ::shakes head side-to-side grimly:: At least we know motivation won’t be a problem against Chris Paul.

Manu Ginobili: C-

8.5 pts, 3.5 rebs, 4.5 asts, 0.5 blk, 1.0 stl, 2.75 TO, 39.4 FG, 62.5 FT, 21.4 3PT, 12.6 PER, 24.8 mpg, +26, +.263/min

I credit Manoli for pointing this out to me, and I definitely didn’t want to admit it at the time, but I swear that missed dunk got in Ginobili’s head. If you’ve scrutinized his career to the degree that I have, you’re no doubt aware that Manu’s notorious for letting isolated embarrassing plays (usually particularly damaging turnovers) send him into funks and tailspins that typically last two or three games before he snaps out of it. He retreats into this shell, where he gets allergic to the ball, especially if he’s out there with Tim and Tony. "The Big Three" were good collectively in Game 1, but outside of that almost the entirety of Ginobili’s offensive production came as the point guard of the second unit, as either Parker froze him out or he froze himself out, whichever version you prefer.

Obviously it’s pretty foolish to judge Manu solely on his scoring, particularly this season when he’s playing with four other guys who can score at all times and the starting unit is good enough where there isn’t that pressure to "save" them, but call me old-fashioned, I’m never going to accept these games where he’s getting only six FGA. To me, that’s a sign of half-hearted effort on his part. It didn’t help at all that he had to play with Blair in game 2 as opposed to Splitter (I’m guessing he’s played fewer minutes with "The Dancing Bear" than any big these past two months) or that the score was already 20-8, good guys, by the time he checked into the game.

The passing was sharp and the defense was pretty good, but while the layoff will help Manu’s head and his legs, I fear his rhythm will once again be shot to hell. Still, I’m pretty optimistic about the match-up with the Clippers. They’ve got a good starting lineup, so the games should be close early on, which will keep him interested, and their shooting guards are smallish and crappy defensively. Better them than a steady diet of Tony Allen, right?

Stephen Jackson: B-

10.0 pts, 3.8 rebs, 1.5 asts, 0.75 blk, 0.25 stl, 0.75 TO, 43.3 FG, 100 FT, 53.3 3PT, 16.0 PER, 24.5 mpg, +25, +.255/min

Stephen Jackson doesn't just make love to pressure. Stephen Jackson does things to pressure that aren't even legal in 14 states.

While Jackson has been all that we could want and then some since re-joining the Spurs, his shooting from downtown could charitably described as "inconsistent." However, his stroke is looking pretty pure these days, particularly if he’s wide open. Sure, he turned into Danny Green inside the paint, but what are you gonna do? As long as he’s not a turnover machine, I’ll be thrilled with anything from Cap’n Jack above Kobe’s point-per-shot standard of excellence. More interesting to me is his work on the other end. While I wasn’t impressed with Jackson’s defense on Utah’s perimeter guys, I thought he was great against Millsap and some of the bigger bodies he was matched up against. He would’ve been a natural fit against Rudy Gay vs. Memphis, but with that series looking more and more hypothetical by the day, I’m left to wonder if we’re going to see any of him against Blake Griffin should Pop decide to go the small-ball route vs. the Clips. I’m intrigued by that possibility because I think Jackson, more than any Spur wouldn’t put up with Griffin’s nonsense, and heaven help Bill Simmons’ man-crush if he tries to flop against Jackson. My spider sense tells me that series is going to turn nasty given the bullying, churlish and defiant personalities involved (Griffin, Paul, Kenyon Martin) especially the closer the Clippers get to elimination, and you know Jack will stick his nose in it. Thank god we traded for him.

Matt Bonner: C

4.3 pts, 2.3 rebs, 0.5 asts, 0.75 blk, 0.25 stl, 0.25 TO, 41.7 FG, 66.7 FT, 50 3PT, 11.3 PER, 16.0 mpg, +29, +.453/min

I’d love to tell you that Ginger exorcised the demons of playoffs past, but alas I cannot tell a lie -- unless women are involved. Yes, Bonner shot the ball well from deep, but come on, what are we talking about here? Ten attempts is a ridiculously small sample size from which to draw many conclusions on. More important to me was how he held up defensively and on the boards against Utah’s bigs, and in that regard I think the results were mixed. Predictably, the Jazz, like the Grizzlies last year and virtually any opponent Rocket has faced throughout his career, viewed him as fresh meat. Bonner was pretty decent defensively and better than decent in game 4 when paired with Tiago Splitter, but he still got rag-dolled on the boards throughout the series, and it just got worse and worse each game. You can pick the excuse, whether it’s that he doesn’t have the physical strength to hold his ground, or the heart to do so or the rebounding instinct. If you’re a complete homer you can just say that the refs have zero respect for him and he’s not getting any over-the-back calls. It’s true that he was stuck with Blair in game 2 (yikes), but he was so weak down the stretch in game 3 that Pop had to resort to the Duncan-Splitter combo to hold the lead. Looking forward, I honestly wonder if the Spurs can even afford to play Bonner against the likes of Reggie Evans, Blake Griffin and Kenyon Martin. Again, I see a large helping of small-ball in our future.

Tiago Splitter: B+

8.0 pts, 3.7 rebs, 0.3 asts, 0.67 blk, 1.0 stl, 0.33 TO, 47.6 FG, 44.4 FT, 19.6 PER, 15.3 mpg, +22, +.478/min

The toughest Spur to grade, on account of the fact that he missed one game – a blowout win no less – with an injury and only played seven minutes in another, so we pretty much just have the two games at Utah to go on. It’s criminal how little respect Splitter gets from the refs; he reminds of Russians in the NHL in the early 90’s. That being said, he HAS to go up stronger with the ball. Maybe this is one of those rare times where there’s a language barrier from Manu’s Spanish to Tiago’s Portuguese, but something is getting lost in translation. Also, the post moves looked a bit rusty to me. Hopefully he’ll have a bit more room to get them off against the Clips, who don’t have quite the height that Utah did. Defensively Splitter was far more impressive, at least altering shots if not blocking them, but his board work was good, not great. I’m curious to see how Splitter will react in the second round, because I’m positive the Clippers will try to intimidate him and hack him silly. It’s also easy to imagine Paul getting calls – even and-1s – against him while initiating all the contact. I’m getting preemptively upset just thinking about it.

Gary Neal: C+

8.3 pts, 1.3 rebs, 1.0 asts, 0.0 blk, 0.25 stl, 0.5 TO, 59.1 FG, 100 FT, 55.6 3PT, 23.9 PER, 13.0 mpg, +12, +.231/min

Like Bonner, Neal shot the ball very well in round one of the playoffs. Really, he lit it up. Also, like Bonner, it was practically the only good thing you could say about his performance. Neal would be "Exhibit A" on the limitations of the PER stat, which even its inventor, John Hollinger, has acknowledged is far from perfect. Neal is unquestionably the tenth man in the rotation as it stands, and it’s perfectly fair to wonder if he won’t be the odd man out if and when Pop decides to shorten it as we get deeper in the playoffs (Leonard is also in danger of this, I believe). Pop was so unimpressed with Neal’s defensive work that he played him sparingly in game 3, choosing to ride Parker for 39 minutes instead. It’s fair to wonder how much run Neal will get against the Clips, who have all sorts of backcourt scoring threats. I could envision a Ginobili-Green backcourt tandem very easily, or even a Ginobili and Patrick Mills, to counter LA’s ball-pressuring.

I will say in Neal’s defense that it was ill done by Pop to stick him with Green to close out game 4 against Utah. While I much prefer Neal over Mills in a pairing with Ginobili or Parker, if neither of our star guards are out there then I’d rather have Mills on the court because he’s the superior dribbler. I trust Mills to at least be able to beat a trap and to be able to score in garbage time.

DeJuan Blair: C

5.8 pts, 3.5 rebs, 0.5 asts, 0.0 blk, 0.5 stl, 0.0 TO, 58.5 FG, 50.0 FT, 24.2 PER, 11.5 mpg, -8, -.174/min

If Neal is "Exhibit A" on the flaws of PER, than surely Blair is "Exhibit B." He somehow got 46 minutes in this series, which obviously had a lot to do with Splitter’s injury and the overall wretchedness of the Jazz, but also was a disturbing signal that Pop wasn’t wholly satisfied with Diaw’s play and that he hasn’t completely given up the ghost with "The Dancing Bear." I suppose I can’t complain about the board work, but that facial tic comes back whenever he’s paired with Bonner.

Since I don’t have much else to say about Blair, let me just add that I left Splitter on the floor too long at the end of game 4 – 11 straight minutes is really stretching the limits of his endurance – and that right way to go would’ve been to put a hungry Blair back on the court for mop-up duty. If I was the conspiratorial kind, I’d suggest that Pop put that lineup – the ham-fisted, plodding Neal-Green backcourt, an exhausted Splitter, an ice-cold Leonard – in the hopes that exactly what happened would happen, so that he’d have something to yell at the team about during practice this week, in a "You guys think you’re so hot, well a freaking eight-seed tossed your salads for six straight minutes," kind of way.

Good thing I’m not that kind of guy, he sounds like a total pill.

Patrick Mills: B+

3.0 pts, 0.3 rebs, 0.7 asts, 0.0 blk, 0.33 stl, 0.33 TO, 80.0 FG, 100.0 3PT, 27.3 PER, 5.7 mpg, -3, -.176/min

I have nothing noteworthy to say here except that it’s effing awesome that Patrick Mills is our 12th man. Actually, as we were watching the waning minutes of game 2, Manoli noticed that Jackson was on the floor and asked me why he was.

Me: Because somebody has to be? We’ve got to have five guys out there.

Him: What about that one fat guy, Anderson?

Me: He’s out there, see? No. 25.

Him: Oh yeah.

Me: We’ve got 13 guys dressed and Jackson’s our ninth man, we’ve got 9 thru 13 on the floor right now (granted, it was tiny-ball, with Blair as the only "big").

Him: Stephen Jackson is the ninth man on this team. Holy crap.

Me: Yup.

A Look at Gregg Popovich: The Good, Bad and Lucky

Aaronstampler — Wed, 02 May 2012 06:45:32 -0000

I originally titled this "A Look at Gregg Popovich: The Good, Bad and Ugly and the punchline was going to be that he's the ugly, only I was going to lead off with the ugly thing in the intro because I needed to write some words before the jump and I couldn't think of anything, so there you go.

This is actually going to be ~~mostly halfway~~ non-complimentary, I swear.

You don't trust me? Well you'll have to read for yourself then... GO! gogogogogogo.

This is actually going to be ~~mostly halfway~~ non-complimentary, I swear.

You don't trust me? Well you'll have to read for yourself then... GO! gogogogogogo.

As most of you may know, I've had my issues with The Superfluous G over the years. I think his mantra of "getting over yourself," is ironic, because I have yet to see any evidence that he ever has, judging by his dealings with the press, the ultra-paranoid (and, let's call a spade a spade, quite possibly fascist) way the Spurs operate with the fourth estate in general per his commands, and the stubborn refusal he's shown over the years to either never embrace certain players (Udrih, Barry, Splitter) or to never stop embracing others (Van Exel, Finley, Blair).

Man, that was a long run-on sentence. And we're not off to a very complimentary start, are we? I'm such a shitty writer.

I had a few concerns about the 2011-12 Spurs before the year started. Some that were justified as it turned out and some not so much. I'd love to claim I'm some expert or novel thinker when it comes to basketball in general or the Spurs in particular, but the truth is there are thousands of folks out there who work harder and think deeper about this stuff, taking the time to crunch all sorts of numbers for formulas I can't hope to understand. That leaves me to use only my ignorant biases, random generalizations, and my ample gut to theorize and provide explanations for things I can't possibly know.

All of the following is probably complete utter bullshit you don't need to read. But the "truthiness" quotient won't be too off.

Okay, so after taking the time to sit down and really think about it, if you were to break down the season so far into categories of "Good Pop," "Bad Pop," and "Lucky as hell Pop," a fair breakdown would be 40-20-40.This may come off as some unjustified insult, but it's not. All pro sports teams need an unimaginable amount of luck to win big. True difference-making superstars are so few, especially in basketball, and the variables for what can go right or wrong are incalculable.

Take the Jordan-era Bulls for example. First they had to have the ridiculous good fortune that the team drafting ahead of them in the 1984 draft had Clyde Drexler on the roster already, so they valued Sam Bowie more. Oops. Before you feel too bad for the Blazers, just remember that they learned from their mistake and it all worked out well for them 25 years later.

Where was I? Right, the Bulls. Anyway, even Jordan alone couldn't win it all. He needed a sidekick. Now I know former Bulls GM Jerry Krause said the first time he saw film of Central Arkansas prospect Scottie Pippen that he had an orgasm (that's not me being vulgar, he actually said that), but still, Krause had no idea that Pippen would ever become the player he'd become, just like the guy before Krause who made the no-brainer Jordan pick had no idea he'd go on to be the greatest ever.

Even then, these guys needed the right coach. No NBA team in 1990 would've ever hired Phil Jackson, who had no NBA head coaching experience previously. He was too much of a hippie wild man. But the guy who preceded Jackson, Doug Collins, was such a tightly-wound micromanaging spaz that the Bulls had to go with the complete opposite of that. Jackson happened to meat Tex Winter in his coaching journey, he introduced the triple-post offense to the Bulls and blah blah blah, six championships.

Still, that doesn't even factor in that in all those years, all the games, both regular season and playoffs, all the countless practices, neither Jordan nor Pippen nor anyone of consequence really suffer any kind of serious playoff series altering injury. That's pretty lucky.

Now Pop has never had any problem admitting his good fortune in landing with a team that won draft lotteries a decade apart to land two of the best big men of all time. I've long contended that the Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker drafts were almost equally as lucky, because while the Spurs did their leg work on both, they never projected either to be anything more than rotation guys. Hell, they liked Gordan Giricek more than Ginobili initially, and Parker bombed his first workout for the Spurs so badly that R.C. Buford had to beg Pop to give the French teenager another shot.

We don't need to go into a long term paper about all the ways luck factored in the Spurs four championships. I trust you all are objective enough and have good enough memories to think of some examples.

Where I think luck helped the 2012 Spurs is in three major ways, two of which Pop couldn't have possibly seen coming.

1) Manu breaks his hand.

The story of Pop traveling to the Olympic qualifying tournament to talk trash to Parker and inform him that that level of intensity and leadership is what he'd have to bring to the Spurs sounds all wonderful in theory, but the fact of the matter is that for the past two seasons the Spurs were, essentially, Manu Ginobili's team. Parker even said as much. Ginobili was off to another fast start in this campaign (even though he had no training camp and was in the worst shape of anyone on the team by his own estimation) while Parker started off poorly. It took Ginobili's injury to really transfer that responsibility to Parker, and to his credit he took that opportunity and ran with it.

Manu's injury has been a mixed blessing for various reasons. It forced Pop to give Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green more playing time (and hastened those players' development) and it reduced two frantic months of wear-and-tear from Ginobili's legs. Hell, even after he came back Pop was afraid to play him over 24 minutes. Somehow I doubt Ginobili would have 2.8 dunks in him on April 29 had he played the whole year.

2) Cap'n Jack comes home.

Sure, it all seems like a terrible nightmare now, but that wasn't a dream, ladies and germs. Richard Jefferson, that brainless, soft, unmotivated pile of crap, with literally one of the lamest tattoos on the planet (and I know a thing or two about having lame tattoos, ask Manoli) was actually our starting small forward for two-and-a-half seasons. With him still here we're probably a third seed right now, maybe worse, and no kind of contender unless Pop pulls him from the rotation completely and either Green or Leonard show remarkable poise in the playoffs for a youngster.

Just do me a favor: Picture all the minutes Stephen Jackson played for the Spurs these past two months. Now picture those minutes being taken up by Jefferson. You had to force down some vomit right then, didn't you? Anyway, looking back on it, clearly the Spurs should've amnestied RJ, because he blew ass this season. But they didn't, and got away with it because my local "professional" basketball team is run by idiots. The 30th overall pick for $22 million the next two years? Sure, why not?

Anyway, Pop was gonna keep running Jefferson out there as long as he was on the roster. Holt doesn't believe in sunk cost. It really worked out quite well that the Spurs were the only NBA team who'd take a flyer on Jackson at this point and also the only one where he could get along with the coach.

3) Boris loves Tony.

On this one I'm willing to give Pop some credit. I have a feeling this move was in the works for a while. Maybe Pop didn't know in the off-season that Diaw would be a Spur, but I have no doubt he knew well in advance before it actually happened. Parker's his de-facto assistant GM for all the French guys, just as Manu is for the South Americans.

Still, without Diaw, Pop would still be starting Blair. And the thought of Blair guarding Andrew Bynum or Pau Gasol makes me want to cry.

Now here is where Pop gets credit for being good.

1) Offense is less tiring than defense.

I think I wrote about this last year. I think Pop and Buford made the conscious decision a few years ago to change their philosophy to go from defensive-inclined role players to offensive ones. Not because they wanted to, but because they had to.

For all of Pop's ranting and raving about defense, I think the dirty secret is he actually doesn't want the big three to expend much energy at all on that end of the floor during the regular season. Defense is tiring. Defense requires maximum effort. Defense leads to injuries. Pop just wants his guys to stay healthy. Brilliant offensive execution is a cheap and easy way to win a shit ton of regular season games against crappy teams that don't happen to have three of the top 25 players in the league on their roster.

The media idiots will swear that the Spurs aren't one of the most talented teams in the league, because for most people "talent" equals running, jumping, 360-degree dunks and alley-oops instead of basic basketball fundamentals and being able to understand and execute 5-on-5 offensive and defensive concepts. As counter-intuitive an opinion as this may be, I don't think Pop does too much coaching during regular season games. I think most of his work gets done in between, during practices, shoot-arounds and video sessions. As arrogant as it sounds, I think the Spurs actually "out-talent" most of the teams they play, by virtue of the brilliance of not only their big three, but also their overall depth.

2. Sagging inside the paint.

As awful as the Spurs defense has looked at times, the little-known secret about them is that when they've been exploited, it's been hot-shooting perimeter teams, not the interior bullies (with one notable exception). Again, the mediots like to use stereotype that the Spurs are soft and undersized up front, and while there is some truth to the latter, the fact of the matter is they just don't give up very much scoring inside the paint, even though they don't have any elite shot blockers.

Pop made the decision in the off-season to have his wings sag in the paint. We don't throw hard doubles at the bigs (mostly because so few in this league are worth the trouble), but we pester them just enough to make them think. Our wings stick their arms in there, they hedge, they do a lot of half-way things. It works well particularly with Green and Leonard because they have can swipe the ball and cause havoc.

Where it backfires is we leave shooters open from 18-23 feet more than anybody. I mean, wide open. Not just the role players too, a lot of the good ones. Sometimes guys get hot and hit five, six in a row. Sometimes, like that Miami game, or the Chicago one, no one ever seems to miss.

Pop's gamble is that Tony and Manu (and Tim, sometimes) will create more wide open looks than the opponent. Our guys will share the ball and be more patient, not settling for just a good look but he best look. Pop's betting our shooters are better than the opponent's shooters, and that during the course of a 48 minute game, if both teams play the same way, we'll make fewer mistakes (offensive rebounds, needless fouls, unforced turnovers, transition points) and make more open shots. Pop always says basketball is as game of mistakes and when the Spurs lose he usually says the other team made a lot of shots and the Spurs didn't make enough. Obviously he's speaking in cliches, but Pop doesn't speak much, if ever, about defense these days. He speaks about effort, aggression, ball-handling, passing and shot making, but not defense.

It doesn't have to be dominant to work. Just do enough things write to outscore the other team by a basket or two each quarter, and it comes out to a deceptively easy 8-16 point win in the end. I like to think of facing the Spurs the way batters talked about facing Greg Maddux, "a very comfortable 0-for-4," because he didn't strike too many guys out or feature 101 mph pitches to worry about. He just moved the ball in and out, changed speeds, and got people to hit the ball off the sweet spot of the bat for easy ground balls and pop flies.

Similarly, the Spurs won't throw down all these fancy dunks or swat your shots into the fifth row. They won't talk trash or preen for the cameras and embarrass you. They'll just play their game, let you have your share of the highlight plays, both teams will have open outside shots galore and when it's over and you've lost by 15, you'll wonder "How did that happen? We were playing well."

3. Big Three Bench-warmers

Obviously the team needed to rest their stars in this compacted 66-game four month sprint, but the lengths that Pop went to, pretty much refusing to play Ginobili more than half the game even though he was begging for more minutes or limiting Duncan to 28 a night, looked to be extreme. On two occasions he outright tanked games that seemed important at the time, and in others he rested Duncan or Manu separately. At the time it seemed he was being overly cautious with Gino, especially after his return from the oblique injury. Now, it looks as though Manu had to sit out some games, as he revealed it was taking him forever to regain fitness and that he was dealing with a lot of muscular issues (cramps, pulls or tendonitis, I'm guessing).

I thought his decision to rest one of the big three in each of the first back-to-back-to-back was brilliant and couldn't understand why he didn't adopt that strategy in that ridiculous April schedule, resting one of the big three in each of the non-playoff teams we'd play, so we never tank a game but still reduce fatigue on those guys.

Pop's way worked out better than I could've dreamed. They only tanked the one Utah game, lost another to LA, but played it mostly serious every other night and were so dominant that they hardly ever needed to play anyone over 15 minutes anyway. I often marveled at his rotations, the way he'd get 13 different guys to play between 10 and 20 minutes. That takes a lot of choreography from the staff.

No matter what anybody tells me about the importance of health, even if I hear it straight from Tim or Manu's mouth, I refuse to believe the team didn't care at all about record and having home court over Oklahoma City and Miami. Sorry, the way they played Tony and Manu all three nights of the second b2b2b, played the big three against Cleveland after that last Lakers game and played Tony and Manu the next night after that against Portland is all the proof I need that they cared. And they damn well should have!

Besides, Pop and the big three did fly to Phoenix. I don't buy that they made that trip because the NBA ordered Pop to play that Suns game straight in case it held playoff ramifications for Utah. I think the big three flew down there just in case Miami beat Boston the night before and the magic number to clinch home court over Miami was still one. Once the Heat lost to the Celtics, then there was no reason to risk playing anyone. It was probably for the best that the Suns lost to the Jazz anyway, just so the Spurs wouldn't have caught too much flak from the league and enraged Utah fans.

I think if you stick truth serum in Pop, he'd tell you he wasn't as worried about Chicago having home court because he still thinks Miami (or Boston) are the favorites to come out of the East anyway, but that he definitely wanted home court in a potential game 7 with Miami or OKC.

Now here are my issues with Bad Pop.

1) Not enough time on the court for Tiago and Tim.

I know they haven't been good at all offensively, and I understand the "stretch four" dynamic that makes this offense so potent, but still, it's another wrinkle to use, another look we can make people have to prepare for and it's a way to play Tiago more minutes. We're still relying more on Diaw than Splitter to beat the Lakers, and that worries me. I want those two guys to be able to play down the stretch of a game where we've got a lead.

2. Too quick a hook for the kids.

Pop pulls Green and Leonard at the first sign of trouble, usually a defensive screw-up. I think it sends a bad message. I've read countless articles stating that players love to play for Pop because he treats Duncan the same as the 12th man. Baloney. Tim, Manu and Tony all make plenty of mistakes, but they're not walking on egg shells. I think Pop needs to trust these guys more. They're a big reason why we got here. In fact, if we cut down to a nine man rotation as we go deeper into the playoffs, I'd drop Neal (terrible defender) before either Green or Leonard. Give Manu the 12 minutes at backup point while Parker is on the bench and that equals about 108 available minutes between him, Leonard, Green and Jackson. Give Ginobili 33 of those and that leaves 75 for the other three, 25 per. Perfect. If either Leonard or Green are really struggling one game, then give the spare minutes to Neal.

3. Won't fight for his team.

I'll get into this more some other time, but sometimes I get sick of Pop's classy bullshit, especially this time of year. The players need to know their coach has their back. It's plain as day that the league and its TV partners do not want the Spurs to do well in the playoffs. I am deathly afraid we won't get a fair shake by the refs, even at home. Phil Jackson was a master at using the manipulating the media to bitch about the refs and get calls for future games. Pop never, ever, ever talks about calls. He leaves his guys out there naked to fight for themselves, and then pisses on their graves, saying the other team was the aggressor, that they were more physical and we were soft, even after games like the recent one at Utah, where it was a complete screw job.

Then thee was that last game against Memphis, where the Spurs won to complete the season sweep and then he said if the teams met 10 times it'd be 5-5. What the fuck was that shit, Pop? Why plant that seed of confidence in the Grizzlies' heads and doubt in our guys' heads? Why not show some pride and confidence? The Lakers always believe they're the best team, even when they're not, and it usually works for them.

To me Pop constantly gives off this air that nobody should ever respect the Spurs, nobody should care about their games, nobody should watch them play and that anyone who spends time thinking about sports is an idiot. I hate it. You make millions of dollars because people care about this. You've got countless fans who live and die with this stuff. It's an entertainment product. You coach one of the most exciting, most offensive teams in the league. Why not puff your chest out, just one time and say, "Our team got screwed because of x,y, and z and if you all watched us play you'd see this, that and the other.

I just feel like the Spurs are always so content to be out of sight and out of mind, and while that works in the regular season, it can have dire consequences against the league's darlings come May. Derek Fisher in '04? Mavs games 3 and 4 in '06? Brent Barry in '08?

This isn't 2005 anymore Pop. Your guys need every edge they can get. You gave them the physical edge with rest. Now give them a mental one when they need it. One catchy sound bite a game, timed right, can work wonders. Get people talking about your team. Make it a conversation topic. Make it interesting to people.

The basketball isn't going to be enough. IT'S NOT ABOUT THE BASKETBALL.

(Okay, that's a preview into next time... I'll just close by saying I think Pop did deserve the Coach of the Year award, but it's not like I would've kicked a puppy if Thibedeau won it)