Monday, March 29th, 2010...12:10 pm
Spurs vs. Nets: No letdowns
The San Antonio Spurs have won three of five games going into tonight’s game with the New Jersey Nets. Considering the Spurs’ winning percentage under Gregg Popovich is .671 and the type of competition San Antonio faced in the previous five games, the Spurs’ level of play appears close to where it should be in late March.
And so the Spurs goal for tonight’s game against the Nets should be simple: crush them. Blow them out of the water early, rest the vets and play the kids. Simple as that.
I understand the Nets are a professional team and should be treated as such. But the Spurs can out-class New Jersey at every position and in every style of play. There is no reason for the Spurs to toy with them and give the Nets hope. Play Spurs basketball and end it early.
Manu Ginobili has gone God mode this month and even made former haters appreciative. His play bears a strong resemblance to the best ball of his career. If Tim Duncan can step his play up to a consistent level (never thought I’d write those words), and Tony Parker comes back from his broken hand with little-to-no rust, the Spurs can be more than projected first round fodder.
But first things first, Nets on the road. Get it done.
53 Comments
March 29th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
But they’ll have to do it without Manu. Does anyone know if back spasms portend anything more ominous?
March 29th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
back spasm is what put tracy mcbaby out for the rockets for nearly a year. on top of his knee.
back spasm are nothing to sneeze at
March 29th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
What happened to Manu?
March 29th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Back spasms can also be an excuse to rest a player without incurring Stern’s wrath. Let’s hope that’s the case here.
March 29th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Manu hit the floor a lot in the Boston game. Probably being off his feet will do him some good.
On a side note, Spurs signed Alonzo Gee for the rest of the season. Not sure why the Wiz let him go. He was doing well with them. I’m sure the spurs were mad when they lost him to the Wizards.
Maybe he’ll play tonight.
March 29th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Going to the game tonight. Taking my niece and my two nephews. Hopefully they play well so I can turn them into spurs fans. Win last night was great. My youngest nephew loves the lakers cause of Kobe. I am hoping that Manu puts on a show that will make him change his mind.
March 29th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
acoording to espn, manu will sit tonight after experiencing lower back spasms. cross your fingers he’s alright.
manu or not, we should be able to beat ms. lopez and the nets. (“TACO FLAVOR KISSES FOR BEN!!!” ………southpark anyone?)
anyone see sheldon williams last night? looks like ken griffey jr. with giganticism (simpsons)
March 29th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
I dont know how bad these spasms are, but I hate to see it happen! Manu has been “Long haired Manu” for the last month. I would absoloutely hate for him to go down right now!
I would, however, love to see what Gee could offer…?
March 29th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
good point on sheldon williams. He does look like Ken Griffey Jr with giganticism
March 29th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
This game will be a dogfight from beginning to end without Ginobili.
At least Hairston will get a chance to show, once again, why he deserves more playing time over Bogans.
March 29th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
They should still win without MANU.
CRAP! Hopefully the spasms aren’t a big deal. KOBE had em earlier in the season. He seems to fine now.
Maybe the SPurs are just trying to be safe. Besides, with MANU they probably would have steam rolled them and MANU may have played limited minutes anyway. So they prefer to just rest him all together.
It took my breath away when I saw MANU feeling his back out on the bench. At least he wasn’t feeling out his ankle.
March 29th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
lvmainman@
bogans still has too much vet savvy to be overtaken by hairston. i think the spot minutes hairston has received are adequate.
and i’m conceding my “play mahinmi” posts. he has no future with the team, too foul prone, and does not protect the basket well. does have a nice touch around the rim. ohh well. hopefully he can entertain us against the nets.
@ johnny “it’s like there is a party in my mouth and everyone is invited!”
i am a simpsons/spurs geek
March 29th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
@RJ
I was one of the ones that wanted IAN to play too. BUt I too have conceded. Because its way too late to try and work him in now. I still think he could have been decent help off the bench if they just played him from jumpstreet.
I still think Hairston can be helpful, but it looks like we have seen the extent of his use this season. It’s not his fault. POP has finally set some stability to his rotations. But you never know with POP. He might put him in when you don’t expect it.
March 29th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
@doggydog world - I think you hit it on the head. Pop may have planned to rest Manu anyway and this spasm gave him an official reason that doesn’t grab Stern’s attention. Especially right across the river from the NBA offices.
March 29th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
I’ve been dealing with back spasms on and off for a few years now. “Back spasms” is kind of like “back pain”; it can be anything from a minor irrititant that fluctuates from unnoticeable to slightly noticeable on a daily basis, to bad enough to make it painful to walk. I’ve found that even the bad stretches only last a few days. And I’m sure that with all the medical attention he’ll get, Manu should be able to play again soon. Unless there’s something more serious underlying it.
March 29th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
I’ve watched a lotta Nets this year (live nearby), and think this is a perfect night for the build-Blair-up project. He can do serious damage on Lopez, which’d raise his confidence going forward. Hill on Harris also sounds like a good idea. Endorsing the play-the-kids idea, basically.
March 29th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Would love to see Blair, and Hairston get a heap of burn, but i hate it when we play really low end teams.
So often we play down to their level.
March 29th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Alonzo Gee? Really?
Odd Signing….
March 29th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
@Ballhog - not odd at all.
They signed him to prevent him from getting taken from another team like the Wiz did. That probably prompted them too, once he was dropped. He played well with Washington. They were just too cheap.
Spurs are working on bringing a lot of athletic guys into Summer League and maybe training camp.
Finley (gone), RMJ (likely gone) and Bogans (free agent). They also are short on 1’s. Temple brings a combo of 1/2 while Cedric Jackson brings 1. Marcus Williams might be back. Who knows, but its good that the Spurs are looking at young guys a little bit sooner in anticipation of getting younger for next season.
Hill and Hairston (who will likely being the normal rotation next season), have probably helped prove this guys can work.
March 29th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
I like the Alonzo Gee signing. Gives the spurs a chance to say yes/no and really audition him hard in camp.
Has anyone seen Jerrells play lately?
March 29th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
George hill is such a pleasure to watch. Fantastic to see how far he has come this season.
March 29th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Well Grego…
This team will need to find at least two diamonds in the rough this offseason. Maybe peek into some small conference schools and find a special player or two.
Trying to win with marginal players is not as strong of a possiblility as it once was. NBA is becomming more athletic by the day.
Spurs can experiment a little at players 9-12 on thier bench, but players 1-8 must be solid. Your first three players off the bench have got to be able to pick up the slack in case of off nights or injuries to the top players.
Marcus Camby in the middle or a guy like JJ Reddick in the backcourt would be sweet.
If Ginnobli is to come off the bench, if he is even here next season, Spurs need a solid starting 5.
If it were possible, that kid Perkins in Boston is nice. He would bring a lot to the Spurs line up.
March 29th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
I’d love to see the spurs get a big like Perkins. Just the perfect foil to Tim. Have coveted his skillset from afar all season. Plus he works like a horse.
We have drafted pretty well the last few seasons. Picking up Hill & Blair, Hairston looks good too.
Tim / Manu / TP / Mc Dyess / Hill / RJ / Blair / Hairston is a good base.
If we can hold that and Add Splitter to the mix and use Bonner & Change as the end of the bench, I can see some light at the end of the tunnel. I’d be happy to reup Ian at the minimum or just a fraction above for another two seasons just to have him on as insurance.
Basically taking this team as presently constructed, maintaining the velocity that we hope to be at by seasons end and putting a quality Big into the mix would be a solid off season in my opinion.
March 29th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
No manu and the spurs cant even beat the nets whoah.
March 29th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
I just threw up in my mouth.
March 29th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
A let-down is inevitable, but losing a game like this is utterly ridiculous!
March 29th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
That was a waste. Rather beat the Nets and lose to the Celtics.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
epic face palm. pop got a bit overconfident, i feel, in the early going playing the bench without an adequate lead
March 29th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
All the expletives I know come to mind.
Frustrating! What is wrong with Duncan?
March 29th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
This is BS! Pop rest the only player who plays like he wants to win and the Duncan a company lose to the worst team in the NBA! I done with the Spurs this year. Simply tire of getting my hopes up. The will be first round fodder for sure as long as Pop doesn’t take the final regular season games serious enough to play his full arsenal of players.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Well deserved, well earned loss to the worst team in the NBA.
Ginobili couldn’t suck it up and play.
Duncan couldn’t make a layup.
Hill couldn’t make a layup after blowing by Harris with no defense around.
Bogans on an inbound play refused to guard the his man inbounding the play and let shoot and make an uncontested 3 pointer when the Spurs were up 7.
11 for 20 from the FT line.
Well deserved, well earned loss to the worst team in the NBA.
If we wind up the #8 seed and play the Lakers in the 1st round, we’ll all know why.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Seems like the players just have no will to win, appart from manu no one seemed remotely interested in taking charge and willing the team to victory, I dont know what is up with Tim but this is just sad, like the losses we had to the thunder last season just sad.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Man, this was really a game where we needed TD to step up.
Two observations:
Bogans ball-watches way too much on defense instead of watching his man.
And Dejuan Blair had 11 points and 11 rebounds in 17 minutes.
I don’t get why Pop didn’t play him more…
Oh well, this game alone should garner an MVP vote for Manu Ginobili.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
This is like late last season’s loss to the (then) lowly Thunder. Maybe they are setting a new tradition of losing to the surging (but still bad) young team. It’s not like Nets were playing well either. They were playing as bad as they normally do, but the Spurs were playing worse. It’s that simple. I understand it was a back-to-back roadie, but losing to THE Nets? Come on…
March 29th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
good call on the letdown!
the spurs had to have been paid off for this game, you know jay-z paid pop to throw this game so his team didnt tie the record.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
I am so angry and I need a place to vent…
One waits all season long for a turnaround, even through some of the losses & injuries the past 4-5 weeks have been very hopeful. I have heard all the excuses for our poor performance and all the reasons for our good ones. There is no excuse for this tonight. Fuck!
March 29th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
F*** of the spurs play. Hate to see play like that shameful to the coach and players no body showed any willingness to win the game. full responsible for duncan. they would have easily win blair played in place of duncan. once again its because of coach. Hey man its shame to loose man. without manu this team is nothing today it proved. Timmy is a Dummy today??????????? they are guarunteed the eight place frustrRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
March 29th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Did anyone else think this was almost a guaranteed loss?
We have such a horrible history of playing nearly exactly to the oppositions standard.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Hey pop resign as the coach what a shame. i am shameful as a spurs fan what about you as a coach???
March 29th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Alright, everybody. Did the possibility enter anyone’s thick skulls that Pop was perfectly OK with losing this game?
This Nets game doesn’t matter. Like I said: outside of moving all the way up to the 2 or 3 seed, and even then only gaining home court for the first or maaaaybe second round, and in a sense risking falling back in to the Lakers’ bracket - at the 4 or 5 seed?
What he’s betting is this: stay in the 6/7 position. Home court against Dallas or Denver doesn’t really matter as much as how we match up with them. Avoid the Jazz and Lakers at all costs.
Here’s the upside: he gets to dick around with the lineups for a few games, seeing what works and what doesn’t. Oh, we’re all gonna groan about it over at 48, but. The man gets paid a lot of money to do what he does, I don’t, and neither do you. If this kind of treading-water, experimenting-with-lineups strategy behooves the Spurs (I think it does), the one thing to keep in mind is that wins, until you’ve played 82 games, do not matter. Who you are as a team at that point does foremost, and to a lesser extent, who you’ve positioned yourself to play, and in what order, in the playoffs. Then comes the sorta-advantage of home court.
Way, way down at the bottom of the list is how much chance of fist-pumping you gave your fans tonight. Y’all want a team you always get to feel awesome about but that never wins shite? Get a load of Cleveland and Dallas and Phoenix. Those guys are usually pretty fun to watch.
So if you think Gregg Popovich should be fired, you’re basically asking for Mike D’Antoni as a replacement. I, and many, vehemently disagree.
March 29th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Hey pop what lesson you learned today hope you learned names won’t win games only play win games example DUNCAN name is not enough to win the game play like blair win games. i don’t know why you didn’t play blair ???????????????????
March 29th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
No Coach wants to loose a game for seeding . its very tight from 2 to 8 . if you are not trying to compete you are a looser? nobody wants to be a looser?????
March 29th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Phoebus,
“The man gets paid a lot of money to do what he does, I don’t, and neither do you.”
Agreed.
March 29th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
pop is not ok to loose games best example last years last win against hornets. they win the division even though they know taht they are playing against tough dallas in playoffs. nobody loose games for seeding??? no excuse for this loss??
March 29th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
I’m not saying he planned to lose it, but maybe he played the guys that have been showing up everyday in practice and working their tails off. Maybe he was trying to have another George Hill kind of improvement, looking through the bench for another piece to the playoff rotation. He’s the coach, let him do what has got us 4 rings.
March 29th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
I’m not a big fan of the +- stats, but for the record, Duncan had the worst on either team. He had as many turnovers as the entire Nets team, shot only 40% from the field, and missed 75% of his free throws. He’s really looked bad out there for the last several weeks. Earlier in the season, I thought he could play at a high level for 2-3 more years, but I’m beginning to doubt if he can even finish out the year. If Duncan can’t play at an All star level in the playoffs, then we may be out in 5 or 6 games. No matter what the hell happens in the offseason, we absolutely have to get a 7 footer who can help him out down there.
March 29th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
This game was not important. If the Spurs win or lose in the playoffs, it does not depend on how they played the Nets with both Manu and Tony out. Pop should consider resting Duncan more.
March 29th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
hey every game important in the west if we win today there will be a chance to become 3rd or fourth seed. denver lost today so why it is not important???each and every game counts for the seed???
March 29th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
I said that Timmy has been playing bad lately and I got YELLED at. Timmy is the leader of this team and he needs to step up. Ginobili did and he did nothing tonight, that last turnover was horrible, the play obviously didn’t go as planned, just poor poor execution. What an embarrassment to lose to the worst team in the NBA.
Now having said that, I do not put it past Pop to want to go against the Fakers in the first round. Better to go against them when we are fresh. Or maybe thats just me and the fact that I can’t face the truth.
Will the real Tim Duncan please Stand Up?
March 29th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
“Will the real Tim Duncan please Stand Up?”
Oh, lord, the short-sightedness.
The guy is uh, 34, I think? His knees are giving out. He’s effective in half-court situations where what’s being demanded of him is making the perfect basketball decisions, executing Pop’s gameplan as far as who should have the ball in their hands and when, etc.
To expect more than that means you have a very rudimentary understanding of what happens to big men in the NBA once they hit their mid-thirties. Shaq helps the Cavs this year in only a few ways: being in the right place at the right time for the put-back or important rebound, or the savvy pass to push the fast break. Garnett, same. Duncan is obviously, to anyone who has eyes, entering the same decline.
But to discount those advantages to the Spurs is equally retarded. Sure, we aren’t gonna win championships on Duncan’s back anymore, but seeing a veteran big man execute those vital esoteric big-man tasks is exactly what a rookie Blair needs. It’s what makes Ginobili credible to the young bench when he acts like a player-coach, like he did tonight, even with the loss.
Duncan’s limited, now and forever. But his accumulated game knowledge is still worth his salary, and if y’all want the Spurs to atomic-bomb this team and trade wily-nilly for the next few years, well, do you really want to experience what the Chicago Bulls fanbase has over the last few? doubtful.
March 29th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
“What an embarrassment to lose to the worst team in the NBA.”
OK, now I’m really gonna yell at you, on Pop’s behalf:
Winning games in the last throes of the regular season only matters if your team has a confidence problem. PERIOD.
Ours doesn’t.
March 30th, 2010 at 6:56 am
Another horrible coaching effort by clueless. Which just goes to show how TDs decline relates directly to the decline of POP… STRANGE…
I dont care if he wanted to win or lose. He has an obligation to us to entertain and win.
Next, Why isnt he playing Ian or Blair when “dicking around” with the rotations. Hes been doing this the whole year. We need consistent play from post to win a playoff series. This showed tonight, Tim cant do it all by himself anymore.
Pop tried to do what won him 4 rings. He put it all on TD and just like the past couple years we cant get it done. But somehow it isnt Gregg’s fault.
Why does hariston look as unathletic as bonner when he runs and dribbles? Hilarious.
March 30th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Nothing like taking 5 steps forward and 12 steps back!
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