Houston Rockets 109, San Antonio Spurs 104

@Spursfansteve,

You’re not listening. When Stephen Jackson asked for a trade, he asked to go to Texas(Mavs, Spurs, Rockets) or Cavs. The Warriors were asking for a shooting 4 and expiring contracts. They received Radmonvich and Bell. The Spurs erroneously thought the current makeup was great. The Spurs could have offered Bonner and one of Finley/Mason. But, the Spurs chose to stand pat. And now Spurs shed salaries of Haislip and Ratliff in a we quit mode.

Malik Hairston should see the floor before Bogans or Finley in every game.

Spurs if they wanted could go after Bobby Jones(U of Washington, 26 yr, 6’7″ 210, played with like 8 teams last year) next year as a defender. See draftexpress.com describe him as a … Bruce Bowen type. Or a Stacey Augmon.

Sorry, but this will be a pretty long post. For those of you not interested, get your scroller’s in gear.

I have to admit, for me, the Rocket game was a defining moment for this season. I’m hoping it was for Pop and the players as well. As many of you know, I’m a big proponent of coach Gregg Popovich. And I still am. However, there has now accumulated a number of factors that leads me to believe a significant change needs to occur in our line-ups and rotations. I do think that coach is going to follow suit shortly with many of the suggestions that I’m going to outline & briefly explain during the rest of my comments here. I’m going to start off by listing a number of obvious, but pertinent facts.

(1) We now have completed more than two-thirds of our regular season games (just 26 games remain, 15 road, 11 home, 19 of the 26 against +.500 teams).
(2) Our record this year has not even been close to .500 against +.500 teams. Our record on the road this year is also under .500 at 12-14.
(3) We are currently the 7th seed in the West, just a half game up on a game Portland team, two & one half games up on a gritty Hornet team, which has gained a bit of ground on us even though CP3 has been out. Collison has played great, and has been getting better. Plus, their other rookie 2-guard (Thorton) had 37 pts. the other night.
(4) Finally, we are this far into the season and we are still getting the kind of lackluster production (using our last game for example) too often from the following veteran players:

Starters:

Bogans - 14 mins., o-3 fg., 1 assist, 0 rebounds, 3 TO, 4 PF, ZERO points.
McDyess - 15 mins., 0-3 fg., 1 assist, 1 rebound, 1 TO, ZERO points.
Finley - 10 mins., 0-2 fg., ZERO everything else.

The three of them combined for 39 mins., 0-8 fg., 2 assists, 1 rebound, 4 TO, & ZERO points. You’ve got to be joking me, right?!

In addition, none of them played with any reasonable level of defensive intensity or effectiveness.

That is entirely unacceptable performance from 3 veterans on a team in the heat of a playoff race. Three veteran starter/role players should NEVER combine for a game like that considering the predicament the team finds itself in.

Bench:

Mason - 31 mins., 4-13 fg., 4 assists, 2 rebounds, 2 TO, 3 PF, 12 points.
Bonner - 8 mins., 1 assist, 1 TO, ZERO everything else.

Mason got a lot of minutes to get into the flow and still only shot 4-13 fg. This is not even a “bad” game for him - he’s had many worse ones, but Mason’s a shooter, so 4-13 fg.?! - in a game we really needed to win! This has been indicative of his performance all-year - UNFOCUSED & INEFFICIENT. Enough!

And Bonner? What kind of line is that? Eight minutes of what?????? All he really is is a shooter, and he takes what,… NO shots in close to eight minutes on the floor?! Ridiculous.

Okay, take a moment to reflect back on the opening of the Houston game. Timmy tried to get us off on a good start, scoring the first two points of the game on the opening possession, I think in the first 15-20 seconds of the game. Unfortunately, over the succeeding 4 minutes we proceeded to turn the ball over 5 times (by 4 different starters, with Bogans having two of them). And these five TO’s led to 4 Rocket hoops. Thus, at the 4:30 minute mark our score was already almost doubled, down 11-6. But more important than the score was the tone that it sets. It basically tells the opposing team that we’re not ready to play tonight; we’re sloppy with the ball & aren’t going to provide much resistance in transition “D”. WE SIMPLY CANNOT HAVE THAT, at this time of year, in our situation, on the road against a quality team.

Now, before I get into suggesting some line-up/rotation changes, I want to make a point about fouls committed by our “young” bigs. Let’s look at Blair first. As you know, Blair fouled out of the game with about 7 minutes left. Now, granted he’s only 20 yrs. old, and believe me, I love the guy, but the fact is he hurt his team by being disqualified with that much time left. He committed 5 fouls in a 6:30 minute stretch beginning with about 2 mins. left in the 3rd Q, up until when he had to leave. He committed one foul for every 3 mins. on the court during the game! In addition to not being there to help the team in the last 7 mins., his 6 total fouls led to 9 free points to the Rockets. I’d love to give Blair some more minutes, but he’s really got to focus on his defense, and learn better how not to pick up fouls, yet still be effective on the court. Hell, his teammate, TD, is probably one of the top bigs of all time in doing this. Perhaps they need to work on this together more. I know Blair’s on the short side for his position, but regardless of height, one has to play sound, fundamental “D”, regardless of height, and avoid unnecessary fouls (he’s also getting some offensive fouls by not playing within himself on occasion).

As you know, Mahinmi has had little playing time this year, but many of you do recognize that he probably has even more of a proclivity to foul than Blair. In the Rocket game, for example, he also had about a foul for every 3 mins. on the floor, leading to 4 free throw attempts by Houston during his 10 minutes of game time.

So, just wanted to point out that fouls & turnovers are generally two significant areas where one can run into some risk playing young, inexperienced players. That said, we MUST now take some risks if we’re to survive this season without TOO much embarrassment.

And finally, I do have to say that I was impressed by the performance of Hairston. He stayed within himself (just 1 foul in 18 mins.), and was just plain steady & productive (8 pts., 5 rebounds - which I love, and played solid “D”) throughout his time on the court.

Thus, without further delay, I propose the following line-up/rotation options in light of our current predicament.

Preferred Starting Line-Up:

Parker - PG (if healthy; if not, HILL)
Hill - SG (if Parker healthy; if not HAIRSTON)
Hairston - SF (if Parker healthy; if not JEFFERSON)
Blair - PF (with short leash for foul trouble)
Duncan - C (sorry TD, I know you like PF!)

Preferred Bench Rotation, in order of minutes:

Ginobli
Jefferson (if Parker not starting - injured)
McDyess (less if he continues to tank)
Bonner or Mahinmi (depends on variety of factors, but Mahinmi should continue to get more of a look)
Mason
Bogans
Finley (sorry Mike, thanks for some memories)

I would also try to limit the rotation to eight or nine players max, with the majority of minutes usually going to the top eight. In other words, barring injury, Mason, Bogans, Finley, and Bonner/Mahinmi should get limited minutes on most nights. I think we have to go for broke and take a big step by putting Hairston in that top eight for the remainder of the season, and as of right now, I would start him at the two or three spot to see if he can continue to fairly consistently play as he did against Houston last night. His energy & defensive capabilities are needed, and the others (Mason, Bogans, Finley, in particular) have inexplicably failed to perform & play with a winning ATTITUDE, or with the effort necessary to win in this league. McDyess only gets a partial pass because we need his size - but he better start playing more consistently or he’s done. We’ll have to give Mahinmi even more minutes as long as he’s productive & gives 100% effort.

By the way, Trade TP, BALLHOG; on Bonner

SpursfanSteve is correct:

February 27th, 2010 at 10:20 am

“Bonner at the 3? Are you kidding me? He is far too slow to guard any small forward in the league. You had some credibility until you threw that out there.”

February 27th, 2010 at 11:35 am

“Bonner has problems keeping up with mobile 4’s like Odom! What do you think a true athletic 3 like Josh Howard or Lebron or Carmelo would do to him? There is a difference between a faker and a system player. Bonner has always fit our system before because it maximized his strengths and hid his weaknesses.”

Bonner’s clearly best as a situational perimeter “4”. Bonner has always been a weak to mediocre defender at best, regardless of who he’s guarding, but with most “3’s” he’d constantly be in the rear-view mirror.

I also agree with:

Colin
February 27th, 2010 at 2:41 pm

“To all armchair coaches: Poppovich didn’t lose this game. He is the coach for a reason and we are spectators (vocal spectators) for a reason. Anyone who watched this game should see that there was no fire or enthusiasm for any sustained period by the players.”

It’s a lot easier to sit here on the blog and second-guess the coach, rather than have your posterior literally on the line each night. Pop knows this has been a difficult season for him, personally, and as a coach. He might not blame a good part of it on his players, because that’s who he is, but I would. Veteran guys that have always produced to varying degrees in the past (McDyess, Bonner, Mason, Finley, & even Bogans) have flat-out NOT BRUNG WHAT THEY’VE ALWAYS OFFERED IN THE PAST to the table for each & every game this season. And nobody knows why, other than that they simply flaked on Pop, the team, the fans, and themselves (and please don’t tell me it’s because Pop is too hard on his players, he’s a dictator, etc. - it’s all hog wash - leaders that win are often tough & disciplined, and there’s been very few players of note that don’t respect Pop as a coach). Pop’s main fault in my view was that he stuck with these malingerer’s for too long because he respected their resume as a veteran in this league, and he believes in the advantages of experience, as do I. He’s never had players take advantage of this respect & patience in the past, and so he thought they would eventually come along in the second half of the season, as most of his veterans in the past did. Fact is, the newer veterans screwed him over, and underneath it all I’ll bet you that he’s pissed about that. I could be wrong, but I think he’s about had it with they’re lack of energy, lack of consistency, lack of hunger, lack of pride & self-respect, and, even though it’s a risk playing younger, inexperienced players, ones that he may rightfully still have some questions about, the fact is we have come to the end of the rope: WE’RE NOW MORE THAN TWO THIRDS THROUGH THE SEASON and we’re still seeing performances the likes that McDyess, Bonner, Bogans, Mason, & Finley are turning in. It simply can’t go on any longer. Pop is too good of a coach for this. He’s going to have to make some changes that he still might consider a bit risky. And, I think he will, soon, because I’m convinced he knows that at this point, he SIMPLY HAS NO OTHER CHOICE.

Pop just play the damn kids!!!

I’m not smarter than Pop but sometimes even the great ones miss something. It happened to Dean Smith in 1994. Larry Brown insisted on playing Mark Curry when he had Tayshawn Prince on the bench (circa 2003). Auerbach swore Joe Forte was the next big thing. Moral is….sometimes even the best make mistakes.

And really what are we asking? Bogans is a journeyman so was Ratliff. Give these young bucks consistent minutes. No need wasting good minutes on journeymen……

Consistent minutes for Mahimni, Hairston, and Mason.

Funny one would scoff at Jaren Jackson. He started the first championship season as a starter but was later moved to the bench as he became ineffective…this partly motivated him to help crush the Lakers (22 and 20 in the last 2 games at the Forum)

Colin, you have some good points, but you are missing the big picture here. Pop is a great coach because of his great playbook on offense and defense. The guy can work a system. The problem this year is something he has only recently had to face, and he is not showing himself as being adept at dealing with it. Every previous championship, he has had some star players that were getting into or in their prime, but still relatively young. He would surround those players with a few elderly, hard working roleplayers. For this first time in a while, his star players are aging, so the idea of playing that system which worked before is rediculous. What we fans who love the Spurs are doing is asking for a simple swap. Let Duncan, Ginobli, and Parker (after he has some rest) be the stars, but instead of surrounding them with other old roleplayers, give them a supporting cast that is yong. It is a simple switch from young stars with old roleplayers to older stars with young roleplayers.

I would also contend that with time to develop together, Parker, Hill, Hairston, Blair, Mahimni, and Splitter look like a better core seven years from now than anything any other team is developing. Seven years from now, the Lakers won’t have Odom, Bryant, Gasol, or Artest. I think the six guys listed above are a better group than L.A.’s understudies. And the best part is, we still have room for drafts, signings, and trades to go with that group or upgrade it. Right now though, it is a solid future sqaud and it should be fostered and given more playing time than the trainwreck we picked up over the summer.

Lastly, while I get your point about Mahimni not having proven himself only two games in, I do find fault in that reasoning. He has had two games where we was really efficient with the minutes he played. How many games have McDyess or Bonner been as efficient as Mahimni has been in the rare appearance he gets? I could contend that hardly anyone is playing nearly as efficiently as they are getting paid? Let’s give Mahimni more minutes.

I saw the game on the telly and I thought that despite the loss, the bench really looked good. Right now, the Spurs need to give time and exposure to their “lesser” talents, and this was the best opportunity to be so (with the Rockets being in the cellar of their division).

It really was hurtful to watch, especially with RJ missing his unnecessary fancy shots, but I thought that if these are the guys who are gonna support Tim, Manu and Tony in the playoffs (I’m NOT doubting that they would make it), it’s best to have them exposed to lesser teams. Yeah sure - Scola, Martin and Brooks scored 30+ plus points in the game… so what did the rest of the team do? Parker is injured, and Timmy and Manu practically were non-contributory as they sat starting from the third quarter… But the team that consisted of Blair, Hill, Hairston and RJ practically made the Rockets nervous in the late 4th quarter. We can only imagine how it might have been had we had an unpredictable veteran (Manu) or a stable anchor (Timmy) playing along with them.

It’s quite obvious that Pops waived Haislip and traded Ratliff to give more playing time to the younger kids. Sure, Bogans is a journeyman, but so was Bowen before he landed on the Spurs. And he was not really great on his first year. I want to give more time to Bogans as I think he has the potential to be as good as Bowen. For the meantime, he and Hill could help each other with the defense. I don’t think the coaching staff are just standing pat and scratching their you-know-whats and giving up on the players’ defense.

Of course, there’s a lot of improvement for the team, and watching how they got buried in the early half could be really heartbreaking, but I think that this is the time for the bench to grow better and mature in preparation for the playoffs.

C’mon guys, despite the shortcomings, let’s give some love to our San Antonio Spurs. Let’s give Pops our trust that he’s doing things the best way possible.

GO SPURS GO!

Not today. No more excuses for coach Pop. I know you guys love Pop and think he can do no wrong. He has, does, and is.

I have stated this before and will again. He is out of touch and full of himself. His ego has costs this team a season and his style is hurting his players.

Also, people keep dogging Mason. Mason is decent. HE can play 15 minutes per night and not kill you in the process. He is not a good defender, nor are the rest of the current Spurs, but he is not worse than Bonner. Sorry guys, but Bonner sucks.

Even though I see no NBA player in Bonner, I see even less in Bogans. Of all of the players that we could have brought in at that price, Bogans was Pop’s worse decision as Spurs coach. He is horrible. He has nothing. No defense, no presence, no shot, no ability to create, no passion to be the best.

But, even though this coach has demonstrated clearly that he has lost it, you guys still carry his purse for him.

Enough. Spurs are almost at .500 because of this man. He has neurtered Jefferson and Mcdyess and tried it on Mason. Mason was smart enough to ask for a trade and the pressure was removed from his gonads.

Our defense has been horrible and yet, HOF Popster wont consider a zone. Our offense sputters and we find ourselves having scoring droughts at critical moments during games…He makes no adjustments.

Our big 3 are players. They are players even though they have gotten older. Cant bring in a bunch of elderly players to play with your aging veterans. Its just dumb.

This coach made the wrong decisions this season. He blew it. Cant blame it on the players, cant step out of resonsibility. The players dont put the team together. He does.

Besides, I see this team suffering if we were to lose Duncan, Ginnobli, or Parker.

I dont see this team losing if we lost Popovich. Any coach can come in a play a bunch of scrubs, run good players out of town, and fail to make adjustments. I say we bring in our fellow blogger Jim Henderson as coach.

Finally,

Hairston will be my example here…He can play. He has earned an opportunity to play. He is clearly our second best 2 guard on this roster. However, he toiled behind our bench in street clothes.

This coach knew Hairston could play. He knew Haislip could play. He let Haislip go because he would have taken Bonner’s minutes. Pop was not going to let that happen. Bonner is his boy!

However, I try not to get excited because our Big “3” has not gotten excited. They havent said a word about these horrible line ups and rotations. They havent said a word about Bogans or Bonner or Finley getting minutes and playing dead.

Why should they. They are all paid and dont want to rock the boat. Boat rocking takes courage and is motivated by strong desire to remain competitive and to win championships.

Pop has neutered them all and our franchise is now in peril because of it.

Lack of motivation, fire, and passion on the floor? Coaching…

Destroying players confidence-Coaching

Rotations- Coaching

Line Ups- Coaching

Defense-Coaching

Scoring droughts-Coaching

Finally-Player personnel decisions….same guy, different hat. Pop!

I just cant justify holding the players accountable on this one.

Four championships or ten….Right now is what is important and right now Pop is sucking…

Its not personal, just true!

@ colin.

popovich was basically forced to play blair thanks to his coaching staff. blair is obviously a much more savvy player from the get-go, but pop still doesn’t play him the 20 + minutes he desverves out there. pop shows no patience to tutor young players and let them make mistakes.

ian has been in the spurs sytem long enough to know his place on the defensive rotations. he certainly knows the spurs system much better than antonio mcdyess. ian is the only shot blocking, athletic post presence we have and this is something our team is desperate for. we are going to get torched by younger frontcourts the rest of the year.

i agree there are some things ian is sorely lacking, but letting him develop is much more appropriate than allowing dice and bonner to get blow by in a nightly basis

Colin, I’m not attacking you, I’m just fed up with the “if Ian doesn’t play it’s because Pop knows something we don’t” line. Well, maybe he does, but in the 2 games Ian has played this season he showed he deserves to get more playing time (especially when in the same game McDyess, Bogans and Finley combine for ZERO points).

The point is, I don’t care what Ian is doing in practice, because that’s not where games are won and lost, but on the court. And on the court he’s been better than all our bigs not named Duncan-and by “big” I mean whoever Pop feels like playing at the 4 every night, even though the guy might be 5-7 inches too short for the job.

I think the Spurs put themselves in a fix re: Ian by not picking up his option (and I think I stated that right when it happened). It’s a lose-lose situation for the Spurs: if Ian plays badly, then it’s obviously not helping the Spurs; if he plays well, he will go away next summer. I think part of Pop’s reluctance to play him is linked to that.

I also think focusing on “rookie mistakes” is short-sighted. If the Spurs had done that before then a guy like Parker wouldn’t be getting any time. We know what happened with Hill in the doghouse too. It might happened to Blair too. And all that for what? A few fouls (and FT opportunities for the opponent) and a couple of missed rotations? I’d still take that over vets who contribute absolutely NOTHING night in night out. NOTHING.

I’m also baffled by your assessment of Ian’s allegedly low BB IQ. Because he picks up some quick fouls? On the other hand look at his defensive work against Houston _starters_. Good weak side help (blocks, altered shots), stays with his man, doesn’t bite on fakes more than any other guy on the team, moves his feet well (not to mention his intensity). This guy is good enough to play in the NBA, and I’m confident he will be showing it whenever he gets playing time. Do you remember Diaw in Atlanta? He’s not a future HOFer for sure, not even an All-Star… but he’s still much better than some of the Spurs starters.

Again it’s not hard to root for Hairston or Mahinmi, even given the limited time we saw them play, because some of the current players on the Spurs roster are just so USELESS. I’m 5’9″ with no basketball skills, and I’d still be more productive out there than Bogans or Finley-it’s like playing 4v5 at the moment.

Fan Steve, Playing Blair at the three is not ignorant and cant be compared to the concept of trading Tony Parker(which is really ignorant). You can play Blair at the three when they play zone. He is not that slow and blocked alot of shots during college. like I said let him play every night until he fouls out. His production would out weight any negative.I dont care how things look on paper, enough talk about Bonner.

ballhog

“Lack of motivation, fire, and passion on the floor? Coaching…

Destroying players confidence-Coaching

Rotations- Coaching

Line Ups- Coaching

Defense-Coaching

Scoring droughts-Coaching

Finally-Player personnel decisions….same guy, different hat. Pop!”

Wow. Your post shows that you are really out of touch. Playing the game is not as easy as it looks on TV.

@ Colin where did you play and when?

you played basketball yet you’re not intelligent enough to understand who needs to be playing and in what situations? Strange…