Game Preview: Spurs vs. Grizzlies

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In a game against the Memphis Grizzlies, the spotlight might not glow very bright George Hill, but for a night at least, it’s yours-even if it is only on Fox Sports Southwest.

An outstanding backup point guard? Sure. A quality shooting guard? Check. But the lead guard for the entire night? He’s done it before but it will be interesting to see how far he has come given the majority of the minutes at point guard.

Hill is certainly a different type of point guard. He lacks Tony Parker’s scoring chops and creative ball handling, leading to fewer shot attempts and forays to the basket. This often leads fans to confuse Hill as a pass-first, pure point guard.

In previous descriptions of Hill’s game, I’ve mentioned that Hill has lacked that elusiveness that the game’s best creators have. Changes of directions and speeds. A lot of his drives are in straight lines, taking advantage of driving lanes presented to him as opposed to creating them himself. For this reason, I wonder if Keith Bogans doesn’t cede his starting spot to Manu Ginobili or Roger Mason to take some of the playmaking pressure off Hill.

I will say that slowly, Hill has added more creativity to his game and given a chance to run the offense more, it will be interesting to see how the game plays out.

Joining him in the starting lineup will presumably be Antonio McDyess, whose 17 points against Atlanta gives hope that the Spurs will have a viable big frontline down the stretch of games. Â That will be needed tonight against the Grizzlies and their new (never thought I’d write this) All-Star forward Zach Randolph.

Essentially trading Pau Gasol for Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol is still among the questionable trades in the recent NBA history, but Randolph’s surprising play this season has at least given Grizzlies general manager a leg to stand on.

Hopefully Hill can hold down the fort until Tony Parker can do the same.

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  • buns

    …and steve Nash sure can play D.
    I’m not trying to convince anyone TP is better than he is.
    TP was something close to alone last year. That might explain an early exit (oh, that was hard to find btw).
    I don’t live in the past, I just respect the past.
    Now you can blame everything you can on an injured TP. Ranking Harris higher (4 wins?) if you’re happy with it.

    “Pops system doesnt fit the current players that we have now”
    And it did fit with, say, 2003, 2005 and 2007 rosters? Which had Parker. Good point you have.

    But “you were a PG”, you know it all.

  • http://48minutesofhell.com Jesse Blanchard

    In closing this argument, and I hate to belittle our guys to prove a point but, look through the Denver box score. The shot distribution was the same. Hill had four assists and and four turnovers. Jefferson and Ginobili were wildly inefficient. And our defense was shredded by another opposing point guard.

    So, either point guard is not the only problem or George Hill is not the answer yet. And we sure could have used Parker in that dry spell down the stretch.

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