Thursday, April 16th, 2009...8:40 am
Other People: Postseason Water Cooler
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- The SportingNews says Spurs in 7.
- Kelly Dwyer, Yahoo!: The Hornets took in another hot one from David West, who poured in 34 points, but he was outplayed by Tim Duncan. West tried, he contested shots and worked, but Duncan finished with 20 points, 19 rebounds, six assists, four turnovers and a block in 33 minutes. West played over 48 minutes, but he only pulled in seven caroms as New Orleans was out-rebounded by 13. Why New Orleans didn’t foul the Spurs with scant seconds left in regulation, up three points, I have no idea. I’ll never understand why coaches prefer to play the badass in this situation. It’s something to keep an eye on as the playoffs unfold. There will plenty of close games, and plenty of chances for coaches to get this one wrong.
- LJ Ellis, SpursTalk: The player who authored the pass to Finley was Roger Mason, Jr. The play was designed for Mason to get a look but the secondary play was for Finley and Mason made the right read and a good pass. Other than that pass, it was a rough outing for Mason. He didn’t shoot well and he struggled as the backup point guard. The silver lining continues to be the fact that Mason has made noticeable strides defensively over the last month to the point that he hasn’t been a liability on that end as of late.
- Kevin Arnovitz, ESPN: Having already nailed a decisive (if dubious) 3-pointer this week at Sacramento, Finley ran a flare cut along the arc — courtesy of a perimeter screen from Duncan — and drained another in a series of buzzer-beating 3-pointers for the Spurs this season. This one sent the game into an anticlimactic overtime period that the Spurs won handily behind Duncan (six points, six rebounds and a block of Chris Paul).
- SpursDynasty: Say what you want about Pop, but the man knows how to draw up inbounds plays. That play was beautiful. I love his guile, his fearlessness. We’re going to get one great shot and live with the outcome. No trying to extend the game, no “let’s have our best player go one on one and try to create something”.
- Mike Monroe, San Antonio Express News: The Spurs denied Paul an opening to take Posey’s inbounds pass. Finley and Ime Udoka then converged on Hornets forward Peja Stojakovic when he took the pass near midcourt. “Ime tipped the ball (from Stojakovic),” Finley said, “and then I got the ball. Then Ime stole it from me, knocked it away. I was trying to get a tie-up for a jump ball, and maybe get a timeout, but Ime was trying to get the steal, being aggressive so we could maybe get the layup. That didn’t work out for us, but ultimately, it all worked out for us.” Udoka watched the ball pop up in front of him after Finley and Stojakovic fell to the court, but he couldn’t get control of the ball. “We weren’t trying to foul…We did a good job, and (Stojakovic) fell down, and it looked like it was perfect for us, but I lost the ball. But this time, they missed some free throws down the stretch. I felt bad about it, because ‘Fin’ was about to tie him up at halfcourt. He didn’t really see me coming, and I was able to rip it out and start a two-on-one, but I lost the ball.There were eight seconds left, and we were down two. We could have got a two-on-one going, so I felt really bad. But Posey missed one of the free throws and gave us another chance.”
1 Comment
April 16th, 2009 at 11:24 am
I think coaches might not go for the foul because, well, just remember the previous game against New Orleans: Parker fouls Paul, then he fouls Paul again, then he trips Paul and sits on his back while Finley is stomping on Paul’s hand, then Udoka comes with a chainsaw and attempts to cut Paul in half… but no foul is called before Paul tries to launch a 3 from the 7th row of seats while Ginobili isn’t even touching him. Ahem.
Basically some coaches might think that letting the other team play and trying to defend the basket is more predictable than handing the game over to the refs.
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