Wednesday, November 11th, 2009...9:58 am
San Antonio’s Silent Slump
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An under-reported Spurs story through six games is their three point shooting slump. Have a look:
|
Season Three Point% |
Career Three Point% |
| Roger Mason Jr. |
.238 |
.392 |
| Matt Bonner |
.345 |
.407 |
| Richard Jefferson |
.294 |
.352 |
| Manu Ginobili |
.387* |
.376 |
Quick Thoughts:
- I’ve included Manu Ginobili in the slump chart because his 6-8 performance against the Raptors brought him back to normal. In the first five games of the season he was out of rhythm, and it showed.
- Michael Finley is shooting well. His 7 for 13 season performance is a big help. But his numbers are the only positive anomaly. For his effort, George Hill has not attempted enough deep shots, nor does he have enough history, to think one way or another about his 4-7 mark.
- The Spurs rely heavily on three point shooting, and they’re typically in the .380 range for a season. They almost always shoot a much better three point percentage than they allow, and holding opponents to a mark in the .330s is an extremely positive indicator for their defense. San Antonio is shooting .357 on the season; their opponents are shooting .367, but this isn’t nearly so worrisome if one subtracts Toronto’s 11-17 blitzkrieg. The Spurs’ perimeter defense is not far from being where Popovich would want it. It’s their interior defense that has looked problematic.
- On the whole, the Spurs’ early season shooting struggles are nothing to worry about. Their players need time to settle, and find their place amongst a largely remade team. Take Roger Mason Jr., as one example. Even though Big Shot Rog has a year within the system, he is looking for his spots all over again with the addition of Richard Jefferson, the emergence of George Hill, and the full-time return of Manu Ginobili. Last season, Roger Mason had more opportunity to find his way because the Spurs were not as deep and the early season injuries to Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili provided him with minutes. Mason Jr. will have to be more of a surgeon this year; last season was something more akin to quick!-stop-the-bleeding triage for the Spurs’ sharpshooter.
- When one sees four important players struggle all at once, it’s reasonable to assume the team is out of sync. Most of our readers can attest to this, without reducing their evaluations to an interpretation of numbers. We’ve watched the Spurs’ clumsy dance routine with our own eyes. This is a team that will play better once they get a sense of the dance floor, and the favored motions of their dance partners. The night is young.
- Returning to my pet theme of the week, Coach Popovich is tasked with the massive job of finding the right 5-man combinations. His job is difficult this season, but the he’ll figure it out eventually. One thing to watch in tonight’s game is how and when Pop plays Matt Bonner. Bonner played a huge role off the bench against the Raptors, and he continues to do a lot of things that contribute to the team’s success. Another decision along these lines involves Roger Mason Jr. Keith Bogans has played reasonably well, and Mason continues to struggle. To whom will Pop give more minutes against Dallas?
- As you might have guess, I’m hopeful that Manu Ginobili, Richard Jefferson and George Hill will continue to aggressively attack the basket. They only help themselves by forcing defenders to give them space to find shots. And besides, if there is such a thing as a rhythm player, Ginobili, Hill and Jefferson would seem to qualify; they always find their game shortly after they’ve attacked the rim a couple times.
- Finally, how Pop determines to use Theo Ratliff is indirectly related to all of this. Ratliff is not helping the Spurs much right now, and with Duncan out, more low post scoring could help open up shots for San Antonio’s perimeter players. Ratliff started last game, but quickly played himself into foul trouble during an ineffective 9 minutes of action. This begs the question, once again, of whether it wouldn’t make more sense to have another look at Ian Mahinmi or Marcus Haislip, especially if Popovich is only planning to use Ratliff for a few minutes per game.
|
Season Three Point% |
Career Three Point% |
| Roger Mason Jr. |
.238 |
.392 |
| Matt Bonner |
.345 |
.407 |
| Richard Jefferson |
.294 |
.352 |
| Manu Ginobili |
.387* |
.376 |
24 Comments
November 11th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I was thinking the same thing as you on the last bullet, Tim. Ratliff has looked sluggish and out of place. Who is going to guard Nowitzki tonight? I wouldn’t mind seeing Mahinmi or Haislip active tonight to see how they would fare against him. Dirk been on a pretty solid tear, and I’m not sure any of the guys who have been playing can match up with him, unless possibly (?) going smaller with Bogans or Jefferson.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:34 am
@Bryan: I wasn’t even thinking about the Nowitzki match up, but you make a great point.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:51 am
The only worry when it comes to the 3pt shots is that even when the team is settled and everybody knows their role, a shooting slump can happen at the wrong time. With the team’s increased dependence on the long shot a mis-timed shooting slump could spell doom. I will feel a lot better if they shot less threes.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:11 am
lasespuelas, i like your idea of seeing us shoot less threes. any team with an athletic back court can chase us off the line and with tim duncan commanding less double teams, 3 point shots may be harder to come by. sometimes it appears we are forcing the issue.
i think dice should get the assignment on dirk tonight. anybody who can body up with dirk and not fall for the up-fake will have success. kurt thomas was masterful of this strategy last year. keith and rj may do well, as bowen once did in 2006.
pop needs to play haislip or mahinmi tonight. not only to give dirk a different look, but see if either one of these guys can take minutes from the seldom used theo ratliff. i wouldn’t be surprised if pop is saving him for the post season, but we need another big that can block shots.i would rather see mahinmi on the floor considering his ceiling is much higher. slip is as good as he’s going to be. we don’t need either one of these guys to pull down 8 boards a game. our defensive rebounding is strong, but we need someone who can contest shots in the lane and chase after offensive boards. how about an alley-oop? wouldn’t that be exciting?
November 11th, 2009 at 11:36 am
I vote Haislip. When we picked him up, he was supposed to be the designated mobile-4-stopper. I hope we see some of that tonight.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I agree that it would be more interesting to see Haislip on Nowitzki. I remember that his ability to guard mobile bigs was one of his calling cards at signing, and I don’t know if that holds true for Mahinmi. Either way, Ratliff wouldn’t seem to be the right one for that assignment (though we may need him to plug other holes in the post with TD out).
November 11th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I wouldn’t mind seeing both Mahinmi and Haislip active tonight and Hairston on the sidelines. What with Bogans, Ginobili, Hill and RJ, we should have enough people to throw at their perimeter threats (Terry, Howard, JJB).
I’m pretty sure Pop’s worried that Haislip and Ian will pick up costly, ill-timed fouls, but that being said, I have to echo the other voices here that as long as we know we’ll be facing teams with athletic bigs with deep range (Dirk, Odom, Aldridge, perhaps Rashard Lewis and even Rasheed to some extent) we might as well put ‘Slip and Ian in to see what they can do now, as opposed to two months from now.
I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Pop go small against Dallas. Especially looking back on the Warriors/Dallas playoff series, Stephen Jackson guarded Dirk almost exclusively, and was able to really frustrate Dirk with his mobility and craftiness on D. RJ could perhaps fill a similar role, although he doesn’t quite have the length or the defensive mentality yet that Jack has.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I would love to see the young guys given some time also. I would like to see Haislip on D more than anything else. Hopefully a young athletic player can keep a hand in the face of Dirk and change the occasional shot and maybe frustrate him some.
Without Tim I think a win tonight is a tall order but if Hill, Manu and RJ and driving instead of settling for threes we might be able to win another shoot out.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I’m surprised about all the love for Haislip. Mind you, I’m not in San Antonio and I haven’t seen him play since his last go-round. Has he developed into a defensive stopper now?
November 11th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I would argue that RJ’s numbers can be a little deceptive.
If we throw out RJ’s first two games (all his numbers look stellar except free throw shooting):
41.7% 3pt
For added benefit, his overall:
63.3% fg (7 FGM/game on 11.5 FGA/game)
November 11th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
i had good seats to almost every preseason game, i was really focusing on blair and haislip in those games , and even though haislip wasnt putting outrageous boards and numbers up he was playng hard, from what i saw he was playing alot better than bogans, ian, and alot quicker than theo in the preseason. so i really hope pop puts his players to use rather than acting as if they dont exist, and i hate to be negative but if i see finley called out there to guard dirk i will soil myself.
November 11th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Against Dallas I expect Pop to for some reason shorten the rotation and go small for long stretches. I don’t see Pop experimenting too much tonight (or is that every night?)
November 11th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I want at least one short stretch of Hill guarding Dirk with weakside help. Is this completely absurd? I’m sure it seems so. But Hill has length and quickness and the only thing Dirk could do against him is post him up. Which would be where the weakside help comes in. Since we are still in the experimental stage of play, i wouldnt mind seeing Blair get a little time on him too. If he plays smart i think he has the physical tools to keep up with him. But he would have to play smart, which sense hes a rookie that might be asking a bit much.
And i vote for deactivating Bogans (and Ratliff if need be) and activating Haislip and Hairston. Bogans is effective at denying his man the ball, but after his man gets it, Bogans gets burnt. The thought of him chasing JET around makes me sad. Are both Duncan and Parker going to be out tonight?
November 11th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
RJ on Dirk no doubt. He did well against West.
November 11th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
apparently, i wont be watching any of the game because i live in freaking oklahoma city and the idiots up here have a baylor/mizzou football game on fox sports. i hate this place. i cant even find the OKC game televised. anyone know where i could watch it?
November 11th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
I LOVE the starting lineup that Pop sent out tonight: Hill, Bogans, Jefferson, Blair, McDyess.
Substitute Tony for Hill and Duncan for McDyess and I think we’re good!
November 11th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
It’s official.
The spurs should bring parker and duncan off the bench and have ginobili and jefferson starting.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
With RJ’s latest game, if you throw out his first two games,
33.4 mpg
21.4 ppg
60.2% fg (7.8 fgm/game on 13.8 fga/game)
41.3% 3pt (1.4 3-fgm/3.4 3-fga)
4.2 reb/game
3.2 apg
1.4 spg
1.4 turnover/game
His free throw shooting is very Spur like though.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
RJ is the best Spur right now. These are weird games, but those stat lines from these last two are out of this world. Qualified by my admittedly absurd excitement these past two games, it seems like he might be our best all-around offensive player since George Gervin. When I watch this team play, the whole offensive hierarchy of the past decade seems irrelevant. I think to be truly successful, the Spurs should give up on the idea of Tim and Tony as the 1st and 2nd option in all situations. Just look at how weird the high pick gets with McDyess floating out towards the 3 pt. line instead of rolling to the basket. This team has options and schemes and talent not suited to a big two or big three offense. I’m pretty pleased that we can win sloppy games against the Mavs, though. I think Pop was trying to throw out as many different looks as possible, but McDyess played very well on Nowitzki tonight.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
^^But Spurs struggled when Dallas went zone.
This is where Duncan is most important, especially against a team that has weak post defense, that will get burned if they don’t help.
Even if you kept Duncan and Parker as the 1st two options, you can sit them at different periods and utilize the rotations with different sets of players.
In theory Pop could have 2 of the big 4 on the court at all times (with Hill in some of those lineups).
November 11th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Hopefully these last two games have helped to silence the crowd of people wanting to release or not play bogans. The spurs know talent and they are also are very high on driven hard working individuals, That’s what bogans showed tonight. plus he can hit the three ball.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
maybe the spurs should start hill, manu, rj, blair, and McDyess, and bring Tony, roger mason, bogans, bonner and Timmy off the bench. let manu rj and hill attack the rim all first quarter with blair and McDyess cleaning up the boards. then slow the game down and keep the lead
November 11th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Dare I say… Ewing theory??? j/k, but obviously, it’s really good to see the Spurs win and get some of the new guys involved.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Go Spurs!!
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