Spurs’ Title Defense Starts on Road in Brutal Matchup with Clippers
Of the five possible first-round matchups the Spurs were facing as they entered the final night of the regular season, starting the playoffs as the sixth seed against the Clippers in Los Angeles was easily the least desirable. They went from sitting in the front seat next to the Warriors, to riding in that uncomfortable back seat where you have to turn your foot sideways to actually fit your legs into their designated area. It’s not quite the trunk, but damn it man, the front was WAY better.
It’s sort of amazing how quickly things changed, too. San Antonio was on an 11-game winning streak and touted as the clear favorite to land in that second spot, and in a 2-v-7 matchup with Dallas. Instead, the Spurs have to deal with Chris Paul and what is probably the third best team in the conference on paper. But such is life out West.
Speaking of on paper, San Antonio is favored to win this series despite not having home-court advantage. And it should be. This team has been rolling for the last 25 games, dropping opponents by an average of 14.6 points per 100 possessions. That’s a gargantuan number over nearly a third of the season. The Spurs are a much deeper team and have a serious advantage on the wing in Kawhi Leonard, a guy who’s been an absolute nightmare for the Clippers all season.
Still, the elements in the makeup of Los Angeles are potentially harmful to San Antonio. Do not expect this series to go the way the 2011-12 matchup went; This Clippers team is capable of knocking off the defending champs, but it’s going to take a monster performance from its starting unit.
Battle of the bigs
The combination of Tim Duncan and a healthy Tiago Splitter has been molded into an elite front-court pairing over the last several years. Not from an explosive offensive standpoint, but just in an overall sense. They score enough, but they rebound, defend, and pass at a level not matched by many around the league.
Los Angeles’ big men pose a unique problem for the Spurs, though. There isn’t a more athletic duo at the power forward and center positions than Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, and nobody’s confusing Duncan and Splitter for dunk-contest participants. Jordan and Griffin lay constant siege on the basket and play far above the rim, necessitating San Antonio’s bigs pay constant attention to their positioning so as not to get yammed on.
And the possession is far from over once the shot goes up. As a whole, the Clippers are not a great offensive rebounding team. In fact, they’re near the bottom of the league in terms of offensive-rebounding percentage. But in the 87 minutes Jordan and Griffin have been on the floor together against the Spurs this season, they’ve killed it on the boards.
San Antonio’s defensive schemes against Los Angeles tend to work fairly well when it comes to that front-court matchup, but it’s that second jump and those tipped balls that can really hurt at times. The Spurs just don’t have the athleticism to out-jump those guys for 50-50 rebounds. It’s paramount that they defend well initially and then limit second-chance opportunities for the Clippers, because the one thing you can’t allow against one of the best offenses in the league is cheap baskets.
But again, the schemes Gregg Popovich cooks up against the Clippers are very difficult on the two Los Angeles bigs.
Chris Paul and the Rivers gang like to run a lot of two-man screen action that forces the defense into a harsh decision-making process: Do we stay with Paul, dive with Jordan, or pop with Griffin? Los Angeles’ offensive sets are designed to compromise at the point of attack, then react accordingly to what the defense presents.
What the Spurs do well defensively is eliminate the team’s best options. When Paul gets into those pick-and-roll actions, expect San Antonio to surround the point guard and drop on the roll man. The Spurs will do everything they can to defend the paint and the rim from the jump in this series, but oftentimes that means leaving Griffin in space in the mid-range area.
Griffin is basically an average shooter. He drops 40 percent of his mid-range jumpers, which is right on par for the rest of the league. But the Spurs will take that shot all damn day.
Watch, because you’ll see this a lot: Paul gets a screen from Jordan, who runs to the rim while Griffin pops into open space created by the attention given to the ball-handler and the roll man.
You can see San Antonio’s priorities in that clip: It’s going to stop the point guard and sag in the paint to try and prevent any lob opportunities. If Griffin takes an 18-foot jumper, then the Spurs win; and even if he passes on the shot and the Clippers are forced into their secondary offense, San Antonio is still in really good shape, especially if its personnel is able to recover the way they did.
But the Clippers have counters. They’re going to run a lot of these drag-screen sets, where both bigs help free Paul from his defender’s reach as they set up back-side action to help free Griffin for quick-hitting post action. Blake isn’t long, but he’s lightning-fast, physical, and explosive. Watch how quickly the window opens.
San Antonio’s front court is going to have to be on full alert at all times. If the Clippers’ big men get to their spots on the floor, the Spurs will be in trouble. When Los Angeles successfully causes havoc on the inside, it opens the floor for its shooters. But it’s much easier said than done.
The popular opinion is San Antonio’s bigs don’t match up well with the Clippers’ front line. That feels like an argument that’s safe to make at a bar, but the numbers don’t necessarily back it up. The fact is, the Spurs have outscored the Clippers by roughly eight points per 100 possessions over the last two years while Griffin and Jordan have been on the floor at the same time. That’s an alarming stat, considering Los Angeles’ dependence on those two players.
But what’s weird in all that: The starting lineup has been just fine offensively in limited time against San Antonio. It’s only 42 total minutes, but the Paul-Redick-Barnes-Griffin-Jordan lineup is scoring 120 points per 100 possessions against the Spurs this season. It’s allowing nearly a 114 net rating, but that’s still a difference of six points per 100 possessions, which is a solid number.
Still, the Griffin-Jordan duo murders the rest of the NBA — he Clippers are 15.4 points per 100 possessions better than their opponents when the two big men are on the floor together — so I’m not sure what to make of it. What I do know: Whatever it is the Spurs are doing that neutralizes the two, Los Angeles better figure it out. Because once you break up that starting group, the Clippers are mostly a disaster.
Battle of the benches
If the Clippers don’t get monster performances from their starters in each game, they might be completely sunk. L.A. has the most efficient offense in the NBA at 109.8 points per 100 possessions, but that number swan dives into an abyss when Doc Rivers deploys his reserve unit.
The Spencer Hawes, Glen Davis, Hedo Turkoglu, Jamal Crawford, Austin Rivers lineup is posting an offensive rating of 98.1 and a defensive rating of 106, and you wonder whether or not he’ll even be able to put that group on the floor during meaningful minutes at all in this series.
San Antonio’s bench isn’t what it was last season from a shooting perspective, but it’s still the second-highest scoring in the league, and we know it’s capable of hitting that next gear. And ever since Pop made the semi-permanent move of replacing Patty Mills with Cory Joseph as the team’s primary backup point guard, the Spurs’ reserves have taken off.
In the 17 games Aron Baynes, Boris Diaw, Marco Belinelli, Manu Ginobili, and Cory Joseph have seen action together, that five-man unit is outscoring its opponents by 12.8 points per 100 possessions and has jump-started the bench, offensively. Pop has done a great job mixing and matching starters with reserves, but this series is built for the Spurs’ bench.
San Antonio is arguably better at each bench position, with the exception of maybe Crawford. The Clippers will have a nearly impossible time defending when Rivers goes to his reserves, while the Spurs will continue to send in wave after wave of shot-makers.
But it’s not like we’ll be seeing a ton of baby Rivers and Turkoglu on the floor in this series. Doc has no issue playing his starters heavy minutes, and in all likelihood, he’s going to have to do just that. Still, for those 10-to-12 minutes per game that prominently feature reserve groups, Los Angeles better hope its starters build a lead beforehand, because it’s going to have to hang on for dear life. The Spurs are going to be ready to pounce.
The Clippers have no answer for Kawhi
Doc has the ability to work around certain lineup deficiencies by limiting the court time his bench sees against San Antonio, but I’m not sure how he’s going to be able to address the Kawhi Leonard problem.
Keep in mind, we really haven’t seen these two teams match up this season at the heights of their respective powers; the last time they faced off, San Antonio was mired in its awful Rodeo Road Trip slump and sending Jordan to the free-throw line 28 times (!!!).
But Leonard’s defense has always made things difficult on the Clippers. In the 98 minutes against L.A. this season, the Spurs have held the best offense in the NBA to just 102.6 points per 100 possessions; when he’s been off the court, the Clips have feasted on San Antonio — 117.2 points per 100 possessions.
There will be no limitations on minutes for Kawhi in this series. So long as he stays out of foul trouble — and he’s very good at that — it’s very likely we’ll be seeing him for 40 minutes each game, and he’ll spend a little time guarding everybody. But given his increased workload on the offensive end, Pop will be somewhat judicious about when to deploy his face-hugging pterodactyl on the Clippers’ hot hand.
But I’m most curious about Leonard’s offensive contributions against this team, because L.A. has nobody who can defend him for a full game. We’re going to see Matt Barnes draw that assignment early on, and he’s their best perimeter defender not named Chris Paul. But CP3 is far too small to match up with Leonard.
Still, even their best perimeter defender is going to be physically outmatched.
And if Barnes gets in foul trouble or heads to the bench for a breather, Crawford and Redick are going to have their hands full. Neither is even close to big enough, and Kawhi will take advantage, whether that’s in pick-and-roll situations, in isolation, or out of the post.
In rare instances where one of the Clippers big men switches onto Leonard, he’ll be able to create more than enough space to get a clean look. His crossover pull-up is too quick.
Generally speaking, it’s bad news when your worst matchup, personnel-wise, is the opposition’s best player, and that seems to be the case for the Clippers in the first round. Rivers will certainly mix things up to try and take pressure off his perimeter guys, and you wonder if he’s going to try and lure the young Finals MVP into forcing the issue and messing with the Spurs’ offensive ecosystem. Should be fascinating to watch.
I came into this preview thinking this was going to be a six- or seven-game series. These are two of the very best teams in the league, each capable of getting to the conference finals or even the finals should things break right. But the more I’ve researched, and the more video I’ve watched, I’m leaning much more toward the feeling that Los Angeles is going to be overmatched in a few key areas. And what’s surprised me most is how the Clippers’ starting lineup has seriously underperformed against San Antonio relative to what it’s done against the rest of the league. That’s supposed to be their biggest strength.
To be very clear: Los Angeles can absolutely win this series, and home court is a much bigger deal against San Antonio than many might believe. The Spurs’ offense is significantly worse on the road than it is at home, scoring about eight fewer points per 100 possessions away from the AT&T Center. If the Clippers catch a few breaks along the way, and if San Antonio’s 3-pointers aren’t falling (39 percent at home; 34 percent on the road), this thing could get really interesting. This is going to be a very competitive series, regardless of series length.
Still, we have to remember: The Spurs have a different gear. The performance we saw in last year’s postseason, particularly in the NBA Finals, was unlike anything we saw at any point during the 2013-14 regular season. But considering they’re starting on the road this time around, they’re going to have to spark things a little more quickly than they did last year.
Aside from the Pelicans game and the final Rockets game, San Antonio has been surging. That wasn’t the case last April. I think that means a lot in terms of their confidence heading out on the road, and they’re going to need it, because history doesn’t bode well for six seeds.
The only team to come from the sixth seed to win an NBA title? The 1995 Houston Rockets, who went on to clinch back-to-back championships. Whether the Spurs can do that remains to be seen, but I believe they’re going to get off to a quick start.
Spurs in 5.
Notes:
- Trevor Zickgraf wrote about Tony Parker yesterday, and he was spot on.
- Caleb Saenz creates hype videos that make your skin crawl.
- The Popovich-Rivers matchup should be fun to keep an eye on, because it’s in the playoffs where coaches truly start to matter. The regular season is all about the players, but the postseason is a different analytical animal.
- This could be a very floppy series, and there will be some agitators (Matt Barnes?) playing a large role.
- Who wants to set the over/under on Jordan free-throw attempts in this series? I’m leaning toward 100 or so. Will this be the series that forces the league to make a rule alteration to eliminate the Hack-a-Player strategy?
