San Antonio Spurs 124, Sacramento Kings 92: Lackluster first half, big second half
AT&T CENTER — On the very first play of the game — the opening tip, in fact — Richard Jefferson fell asleep (not literally, that’d be uncanny) and watched as Francisco Garcia, Jefferson’s defensive assignment, caught the opening tip and went to the hoop for a layup.
The first half produced some similarly lackadaisical plays, and some spectacular, as the Spurs led just 51-49 at halftime. Another 24 minutes of game time later, the Spurs headed to their locker room with their largest margin of victory this season in a 124-92 win.
The Spurs outscored the Sacramento Kings 73-43 in the second half and stretched a two-point lead to 32. Manu Ginobili hit four of six 3-pointers to lead the Spurs with 25 and Indiana George continued his aggressive offensive play, scoring 19 points on three of five from the 3-point arc.
San Antonio finished the game shooting almost 61% from the field and 63% from the 3-point line. They held Sacramento to under 40% on the other end.
Perhaps the best part of the game for the Spurs was that on the second night of a back-to-back, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, Richard Jefferson and Antonio McDyess all had the good fortune of sitting out the entire fourth quarter. Ginobili ended up playing 5:28 in the final period, but the 28:37 he finished with was just two minutes more than Parker.
On Sunday against the Suns, it appeared Pop was rounding a corner in his big man rotation. He had favored Tiago Splitter as the second big off the bench over DeJuan Blair. It seemed like a logical move heading into the playoffs. But in the last two games, DeJuan Blair has been the big man of choice to enter the game for Tim Duncan.
I’m not smarter than Gregg Popovich, nor will I ever claim to be. Whether it be about basketball or general knowledge. But for the life of me, I just can’t wrap my head around it.
From what I see, when Tiago Splitter is playing well, the Spurs are a better team than when DeJuan Blair is playing well. Early in the season, this didn’t matter, as Splitter was injured and inconsistent and Blair was rolling.
But as the season’s gone along, Splitter has adjusted and found a comfort zone. Blair, on the other hand, was pressing. Forcing shots, blowing assignments and gambling on defense. Splitter hasn’t been perfect, far from it, but he’s shown enough of the traits that made him a top European commodity to want him in the game.
For the record, this isn’t a discussion of Splitter vs. Blair vs. Matt Bonner. Bonner brings a completely different skill set to the table and is a different big man entirely. Blair and Splitter’s skills, and weaknesses, overlap enough that they are interchangeable.
In the second half on Wednesday night, Blair made one of the plays that displays why Coach Pop loves him and shows such faith in him. There was a loose ball rolling out towards the sideline and Blair dove on the floor for it, knocking it up court where Danny Green picked it up and hit a layup on the other end. Coach Pop applauded furiously and offered a fist pump Blair’s way.
“Coaches love that sort of thing,” Coach Pop said after the game. “You have someone like that trying to get minutes and be on the floor and show you what you can do, that he can play the complete game.
“That is impressive to any coach, so I was really happy for him that he did that.”
Sometimes in his sound bites, Coach Pop talks like Tiago Splitter is the leader in the clubhouse for playing time in the playoffs. When he says that Blair is “trying to get minutes and be on the floor,” he leads me to believe that Blair’s in danger of losing his grip on playing time, when the minutes show that’s not the case.
Blair has lost his starting job as the season progressed, but it’s looking more and more like any danger of him losing playoff minutes has passed.
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