El Conclusión: San Antonio Spurs 93, Philadelphia 76ers 76

I really loved this game.

This last stretch has seen an improvement across the board from the roster. The ball movement has been excellent, and there are literally mulitple guys on the court in every transition who run the break competently.

Jackson had two passes which i thought were excellent looks which the reciever fumbled. One to Diaw was a great read.

There was also a break in the third or fourth where KL ran the ball up court with TP on his left and Danny Green on his right. Green ended up hitting a 3 from it, but the real joy was seeing weapons all over the place filling the lanes and the 76’ers defence in tatters.

Dejauns playing better D and really excelling at moving and staying active within the offence, which is his bread and butter. When he gets the ball in motion he negates so much of the defences height advantage.

Bonners filling in all the nooks and crannies. Bonners rotations in particular are like watching computer generated recreations of how the defence should be run. He may not be able to leap but he is a very solid defensive helper and rebounder.

Diaw is not meant to be this good defensively right? He is playing honest man D on every assignment and he seems to be reading the offence without an issue.

I’m pretty much drinking the Kool aid right now, I know, but this teams depth is off the charts, and we don’t seem to have anyone that wont bend himself to the will of the offence rather than try to bend the offence to themselves.

Loving it.

Point 4— 54-46 advantage?
Point 5- you know who was the on the floor in the stripes-probably told one of his coworkers to T Tim up.
Honestly-the guy should never, never ref a Spurs game again this season. Message to David Stern: get control of that egomaniac who holds grudges far too long.

Caught the game on firstrowsports.eu (finally). It was close until Spurs went on 8-2 spurt to end last 2 minutes of the 3rd qtr. I really feel this was a game where Pop was experimenting somewhat with some combinations on the court to see what works and what doesn’t (in addition to resting Duncan, Neal, Splitter). The contest was kind of helter-skelter with all of the TOs even though the score was in the mid-60s until the end of the 3rd. Got to expect some negatives with Jackson and Diaw as they get up to speed after their (until now) wasted seasons—but you have to be optimistic with their contributions so far.

Joey Crawford was one of the refs….

Hmmm…

Diaw is not as advertised.
There was a play to end the first half where Manu basically ran off a pick by Diaw and jammed it where instead of just hanging out by the three point line after Manu had burned by he chased the play down and got to the rim to contest any possible miss.

Was nothing special, but was definitely a play from a motivated switched on guy running the numbers, not a switched off lazy player.

Also he passes really really well. All of our bigs pass well..I’m a giddy school girl…

Yes, but the fact alone that he was reffing the game makes it suspicious.

Go to the end of the Associate Press game recap-
http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=320325024

I saw the game. Our defense was decent tonight, but nothing special. Philly just had an off game offensively. They were a bit out of sorts — the lowest turnover team in the league committing 21 turnovers. I’ll give our guys some credit for getting their long arms and quick hands into the cookie jar, but that young team can’t afford to go without a glue guy like Iggy, particularly out on the road against a top-tier opponent. Indeed, some of our steals mainly resulted from sloppiness on the part of the Sixers. Our guys were impressively opportunistic and resilient though on the last of a back-to-back-to-back, each one without one of the big three. It was a solid win in that sense.

El Conclusion is always the best part of this blog. The fact that it gets posted the same night as the game is even better. Keep up the good work Jesse.

Since I’m one of the few persistent defenders of DJB on this blog, I wanted to take a brief moment to critique his game, using tonight’s game as an example. I’ll limit my comments to two basic areas of his game: scoring and rebounding.

Scoring:

Tonight was actually a better than average game for Blair on the offensive end. Even so, he has much that he needs to still work hard on to improve. Here’s just a sample of top priorities in my opinion:

(1) He needs to make better decisions when receiving the ball on the low block. Receiving it there does not mean he should always make a move to try and score. Blair needs to become less predictable by passing it back outside much more frequently, or looking for cutters (Blair is a good passer, and this skill should be put to better use out of the low block). We should be training him to do that, in part by getting him the ball more consistently on the low block.

(2) He needs to study the footwork of smart players on his own team who’ve had plenty of experience receiving the ball in the low post: Duncan & Splitter. For example, Splitter has an excellent ball-fake, up and under move finishing with the left hand. Blair has excellent coordination and touch around the rim, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to learn these types of moves. He’ll need a broad repertoire of them to overcome his height and lack of hops disadvantage.

(3) He needs to learn how to get himself to the foul line, and “make” his free throws at a much higher percentage (over 70%). His FT % this year is disappointing. Again, there’s no reason he can’t get trained and train himself to do this. He needs to learn how to use ball /pump fakes, and vary and expand his offensive repertoire inside 10 ft to keep his defenders off balance, and use his girth/long arms to draw contact when appropriate.

(4) And the obvious, he needs to take more shots per day in the off season than he obviously has been to get more dependable and accurate from 15-18 feet (including tons of free throws — work on mechanics, routine, and concentration). As an offshoot, he needs to work some more still on his ball handling so that he can competently take the ball to the rack off the dribble from the 18 foot perimeter range.

Each one of these weaknesses you could spot in tonight’s game, even though he had a better than average scoring night.

Rebounding:

Prefacing this category is my previous contention on this blog that Blair’s drop off this year in rebound rate, particularly on the defensive glass, can mainly be attributed to Duncan’s resurgence this year, currently at a career record 28.6% defensive rebound rate. Blair has also played a good deal of minutes with Kawai at the SF, who’s a much better rebounder than RJ. And while I still believe that these factors explain part of Blair’s defensive rebound drop off this year, I’m starting to be concerned that it doesn’t explain as much as I thought. He has as far as I know only played two games this year WITHOUT Duncan next to him: the blowout in Portland, and tonight’s game at home against the Sixers. Blair had 10 points and five rebounds in 21 minutes in the Portland game, and 19 points and 6 rebounds in 31 minutes in tonight’s game. Granted a small sample, but still evidence for concern. So tonight, without Duncan, in a game we need to win at home against an Eastern Division leader, we needed to have a good showing on the boards. Blair was paired with Bonner, against the 19th ranked in rebounding Sixers, so he should have had a good night on the boards, right? Well, six boards in 31 minutes is not too impressive, not for DeJuan Blair. The following are the main points I noticed, with a few caveats, which may represent at least part of the explanation:

(1) He’s simply not giving enough effort on the defensive glass. He’s not moving quickly enough, he’s not establishing box-out position consistently enough, and he’s not looking to anticipate where the shot’s going carefully enough. The fierce aggression and physical play he’s known for is inconsistent at best.

(2) The caveats: the sample size of games not played with Duncan is too small; the game against Portland was a wacky game, and tonight’s was the 3rd of back to backs — he was tired; he’s lost some intrinsic motivation, and the 22 year old has not been effectively motivated extrinsically; he needs to lose weight - a guy with no acl’s needs to be lean & mean to be an energy bunny on the boards.

The fact is, this team needs DeJuan to be better on the boards as one of the many things it needs to advance deep into the playoffs. Anybody have any thoughts on this matter?

The Spurs had very active hands and frequently stripped the ball from 76ers players. I’m surprised we weren’t called for more fouls, but overall the Spurs were pretty active on the defensive end. Good for the third game of a back-back-back

I will also do a little +/- with DJB game…..taking what you have said above.

1-DJB tonight doesn’t WANT to go 1 on 1 on te low block but tonight his teammates kinda pressured him into it by dumping the ball down loaw and just watching him. He even spent 5-7 seconds once looking to make a pass back but all 4 players just sat there and looked at him. No movement. Part of this is DJB fault, he keeps calling for the ball by flashing to the strong side. But his teammates have to make cuts to the rim off him in the post.

2-Footwork - Has good footwork, just no moves. He actually pulled off a Great dribble spin move(his best/most reliable post move from the left block only), and went for the up/under with the left. It just rolled off the rim. What he lacks is mostly patience at the rim/paint area. When he takes his time usually good things happen for him. Even if he just uses a simple hook shot he needs to learn to take his time and use his WIDE BODY. Tonight when he missed the running hook he didn’t jump into the player to create contact and separation to get off a better look. he instead rushed it and tried to beat Bland to the center of the lane and left the hook short on the front of the rim.

3-FT’s - ABSOLUTELY - He needs to make 65% at least from here on out. I have seen him make them so there really is no excuse to go 1-4 from the line tonight. Also If/when he learns to be patient he will get fouled alot more, he still tries to speed shoot to beat other players off the ground too much.

4-jump shot. As much as I would like him to add this too his game, i really don’t want him outside shooting too may jumpers. It basically bails the defending team out whenever DJB isn’t putting pressure on their bigs in the paint area. I feel if DJb just slows down a little he will get close to 60% in the paint and that plus his FT% increase will do wonders for his scoring.

REBOUNDING

1-Effort - This basically sums it all up - 3 plays tonight DJB and KL were close to a rebound and DJB just allowed KL to grab the board, although this may be better for our offense, KL pushing the rebound quickly. DJB needs to set a tone that ALL BOARDS ARE HIS and then just make a quick outlet pass to KL.

2-Run outs…….For some reason Blair ends up contesting A LOT of 15ft jumpers and sometimes farther out. After the contest he tends to keep drifting down the court looking for an EASY 2. He needs to contest and block out and look for the long rebound.

But that’s what I have been noticing from him lately.

Never thought you would critique Blair as you just did with negatives as well as the positives. A great assessment to the player we call DJB and a new found appreciation for your writing skills.

Good job GoJH.

Some good points. I agree with much of what you said. Nevertheless, I’m a bit troubled that some of the solutions you offered are not happening.

Perfect assessment on yours and ghosts part. But he was able to get what he got on offense in terms of points the last 2 games by 1- Kaman and the suspended guy didnt play and 2- that sixers front line is nothing to write home about. But still a good way to get some work in with the guys feeding him. Maybe the extra footwork and rebounds and he’s right there like he was in his rookie year. But I do know one thing those two games sure helped his confidence and what better time for it to come closer to the end of the season. This playoffs will be different for Blair and for this team. Everything is starting to click. We may be unstoppable once everyone is healthy and on the same page. Good takes TD.