Although it has been over a year since the San Antonio Spurs faced the Orlando Magic, tonight’s game picked up right where the ‘08-09 regular season series left off. After playing a competitive first quarter, the Spurs failed to challenge the Walt Disney Co. Magicians for the remainder of the game’s 36 minutes, and lost in Orlando 110-84.
Whenever Wayne Vore makes it into the AT&T Center, he likes to chart shots. It’s what he does–Vore charts the San Antonio Spurs, one shot at a time. Some of the best Spurs-related reading of this season has come from Vore’s ongoing conversation with Chip Engelland about some of the things the Spurs’ coaching staff looks for during games. Good stuff.
All of that has led to this: Vore unveils the San Antonio Spurs’ expected field goal percentage.
Don’t look now, but the San Antonio Spurs have suddenly won eight of their last nine games. The Spurs’ margin of victory over that span is 10.5. Is it possible that San Antonio’s embarrassing March 8 loss to a wounded Cavaliers squad will rise from our memories–dragging one leg behind itself, and half-falling forward–as the San Antonio Spurs’ don’t-poke-the-zombie moment of 2010? Keep reading →
Sitting at 6-1 since February ended, the Spurs have escaped the Ides of March in relatively good shape. Now if they can just survive the rest of the month.
If the month so far has been a confidence building warmup, tonight marks the beginning of a hellish stretch run that pits the Spurs in 12 games against playoff teams, five sets of back-to-backs, and the only remaining two home stands a Lakers/Cavaliers, Rockets/Magic treat.
Fortunately, the Spurs have been quietly working their way into shape. Keep reading →
Statistical geeks love him, casual fans and traditionalists abhor him. Given that the team manages to stay out of the headlines and no longer employs Bruce Bowen, perhaps no Spurs player is more polarizing than Matt Bonner.
How polarizing? Just take a look at the opening paragraph of one of Timothy Varner’s more recent posts.
Whenever I talk with Matt Moore the conversation invariably leads to Matt Bonner, someone I do my best to defend. Moore thinks Bonner stinks. Shouldn’t be on an NBA court, or something to that effect. He’s the cause of much beard-tugging consternation for our favorite hoophead. My response, the easy response, is to tell Moore that Bonner eats APM for breakfast, and then smugly kick my feet up and call it a day. No rants against redheads here thank you.
Unless you have an obsession with Daryl Morey and Shane Battier (and most fans advocating Bonner probably do), the thought of changing a game without being directly involved in many plays is a hard concept to grasp. Keep reading →
Not exactly known for being fleet of foot, Matt Bonner pulled his best David Robinson impression, helping to force Craig Smith into a missed layup and then beating the Clippers in transition for an “acrobatic” reverse layup.
With the score still a reasonable 20-14 before the basket, and still in the first quarter, that sequence is all you need to know about the effort level of a Clippers team that rolled over at the first sign of adversity. Or, as head coach Kim Hughes put it:
“I think we had four players on our defensive side competing tonight and that’s not enough,” Hughes said. “I thought most of our guys didn’t compete. Keep reading →
The Spurs have put out a press release to announce the signing of Garrett Temple to a 10-day contract.
The 6-6, 190-pound Temple has seen time this season with the Houston Rockets, Sacramento Kings and the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the D-League. Signed as an undrafted free agent by Houston on 9/22, he averaged 2.5 points and 0.3 assists in four preseason games with the Rockets before being waived on 10/21. Temple was allocated to Rio Grande Valley on 11/4 and averaged 14.9 points, 3.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 30 games with the Vipers. He signed his first of two 10-day contracts with Houston on 2/8. In nine games with the Rockets he averaged 5.0 points and 1.6 rebounds in 13.1 minutes. On 3/3 Temple signed a 10-day contract with Sacramento. He averaged 2.2 points and 0.6 rebounds in 4.6 minutes with the Kings.
This is a little surprising, but happy news nonetheless. The surprise comes from San Antonio’s lack of playing time for a player such as Temple (although, these signings create opportunity for locker room and practice court evaluation, more than anything), and from the fact that Cedric Jackson had the appearance of 2010-11 training camp invitee in his limited minutes against the T-Wolves.
The happy part of this is to see that the front office is proactive in finding players for next season’s roster, and their mining for diamonds in the rough is to be applauded.
Richard Jefferson shook off a string of bad performances in his return to the starting lineup and two key players got some much needed rest.
Given the quality of the opponent, and the nature of the game, extracting any other meaningful insight or trends from last night’s game would be an exercise in futility. Keep reading →
The stakes may not have been as high, nor the visiting team as good, but the Spurs put on a throwback performance reminiscent of their first championship run, though probably not in the most flattering sense: an ugly win they will not apologize for.
Manu Ginobili once again carried the Spurs, scoring 28 points while grabbing six boards and five assists and generally willing the Spurs to a victory. Needless to say, Ginobili is back, something Timothy Varner reiterated (while also pointing out the need for a contract extension) in today’s daily dime.
But Ginobili is providing a reason for league GMs to think twice about thinking twice–he’s regained his super-stud form after two seasons of continuous ankle injuries. His February 2010 numbers ran in lockstep with his career-best work. Since reinsertion into San Antonio’s starting lineup, Ginobili has responded by scoring 38 and 28 in take-notice outings against the Cavs and Knicks, respectively. Keep reading →
Back in late January I wrote a piece indicating that an impending lockout, while probably needed for small market owners like Peter Holt, could have some very negative ramifications for the Spurs on the court.
Before tonight’s game, Mike Monroe from the Express-News brought up another possible consequence of the lockout: What will it mean for the Spurs and Tiago Splitter?
His point was with a lockout looming, even if offered the full midlevel exception would Tiago Splitter come over to the NBA knowing he will, in all probability, lose a year?
Reports are that Splitter has drawn heavy interest from Real Madrid, as noted earlier, setting up a possible bidding war.
The article mentions the deep pockets of Real Madrid, one of the wealthiest and most successful sports clubs in Europe in both soccer and basketball, and Tiago Splitter’s young age, which would allow him to stay overseas a few more years while still affording him the opportunity to come to the NBA in his prime.
Again, it should make for an interesting summer.
It’s official. The rumor from Woj on Monday that the Spurs would sign Cedric Jackson has, as expected, proven true.
The San Antonio Spurs today announced they have signed guard Cedric Jackson from the Erie BayHawks of the NBA Development League to a 10-day contract. Jackson is the 22nd call-up of the 2009-10 D-League season.
With apologies to Manu Ginobili, when the Spurs acquired Richard Jefferson fans were expecting more than a (sometimes solid) bench player. Starting alongside Duncan and Parker, Jefferson was suppose to help move the Spurs to the top of the standings.
The only movement Jefferson has seen so far this season, however, is his name up and down the lineup card. For much of this season Jefferson has been stationary in the corner, as if he were Bruce Bowen or Sean Elliott before him.
And there are still questions why Jefferson has struggled? Keep reading →
The 48MoH guys were expecting to have John Krolik of Cavs: the Blog on to share some overreactions to the Cavs-Spurs game, and to discuss this year’s Cavs team and how it’s different from the 2007 team that was swept by the Spurs in the Finals. Unfortunately, Krolik couldn’t make it. So instead, Graydon and I pretended we knew what we were talking about when discussing the Cavs and somehow managed to turn out a half-decent show.
For those of you who missed it, here’s the set up.
The Spurs are down 3 with 9 seconds remaining. Popovich has the clipboard, which usually means a clean look out of the timeout. At this point in the game, Roger Mason Jr. was 0-7 from distance. Manu Ginobili was 6-10, but he had also scored on two long, foot on the line three point attempts. And he connected on a 7th three pointer at the final buzzer, when the game was already out of reach. In other words, Ginobili was within inches of 9-13. George Hill, it’s worth noting, connected on 2-3 off his long range attempts.
If you want to look at this play in detail, and you should, Sebastian Pruiti has a frame by frame breakdown at NBA Playbook.I agree with Pruit, it was a magnificent play.
Buck Harvey has done a bang up job recounting the post game reaction.
Talking Points
Dwayne Jones is visibly frustrated. You’d think a guy who just put up 26 points and 14 rebounds against first round draft pick Byron Mullens, in a win over his team’s conference rival, would look happier.
The 6′11″ center stands in his socks, game shorts and un-tucked jersey in the hallway outside the Toros locker room at the Austin Convention Center talking to Dell Demps. Demps, the Toros General Manager and Spurs Director of Pro Player Personnel, is doing everything he can to reassure Jones that eventually he’ll have a chance to play in the NBA again.
