Tuesday, February 24th, 2009...10:56 pm
The Notebook: Spurs-Mavs, 2/24/09
For most media outlets, the story of this evening’s 93-76 victory over the Mavericks will be the inspired offensive play of Tony Parker. He ended the game with 37 points, 18 of which came in the first quarter (during which I believe he missed only a single shot). His 12 assists weren’t an insignificant contribution either. At the outset of the game he was nothing short of unstoppable, and although fatigue would eventually catch up with him, the level he played at deserves all the attention it receives.
But for your humble author, the story of the game was the aggressive play we saw out of our bench players, in particular our oft-maligned front line. Our big men faced a perilous situation: Containing the dynamic scoring ability of Dirk Nowitzki without the defensive prowess of Tim Duncan (sidelined with a sore knee) seemed a daunting task. They responded with poise and intensity.
Kurt Thomas stood out statistically, scoring 10 points and pulling down 15 rebounds, but to talk about any particular defensive performance would take away from the wall they formed collectively. The double teams on Nowitzki (5-15 from the field) were not merely swiftly executed but cleverly conceived. The potent German hardly took a shot without a hand in his face the entire evening. The Mavs failed to score at least 20 points in 3 of the 4 quarters, despite a slightly higher pace of play than normal on the part of the Spurs. In fact, my only criticism of Parker’s performance this evening would be that, despite our comfortable lead late in the 4th, he continued to attack the rim early in the shot clock.
The only notable offensive performances came from Josh Howard and J.J. Barea. Neither of these are surprising: Barea has the start-stop style of speed that has given the Spurs problems before (in that respect he is similar to Devin Harris) and the Spurs are notoriously soft in the middle, where Howard prefers to do his dirty work. Although, in actuality, Howard didn’t have a horribly impressive night form the field (5-17, 1-6 from 3-point range). He did most of his damage by consistenlty making his way to the charity stripe, where he made 8 of his 10 attempts.
No discussion of this evening’s game would be complete without a brief mention of Michael Finley, who nailed three straight 3-pointers in the 4th to put the game solidly out of reach. Finley may not be the scorer he once was, but he plays with an air of grizzled malice that I continue to appreciate. He remains a fearless contributor, and although his fearlessness is just as likely to produce misguided fadeaways as it is dagger 3s, I do love the stern sense of pride he emits when his shot is dropping (I’m going to ignore the fact that, if you take away Finley’s 4 3-pointers on 4 attempts, the Spurs were 2 of 16 from beyond the arc).
The flip-side of the unbridled effort we saw this evening is that this was the front end of a back-to-back. Luckily the Blazers, who we face tomorrow in SA, were in Houston tonight and hopefully will be a little winded themselves. I don’t know whether we can expect to see Duncan take the floor*, but according to Ridiculous Upside, we may get our first chance to see this Pops Mensah-Bonsu character I keep hearing about.
*My guess is Duncan will play tomorrow. I understand the Spurs said Duncan had a “sore knee,” but we just began a stretch of 5 games over the course of seven days. I wouldn’t be surprised if Popovich was trying to give Duncan a little rest without causing the media frenzy we saw after the Denver game.
25 Comments
February 25th, 2009 at 2:08 am
totally off-topic (even though there isn’t one yet) and irrelevant-
Colts releasing Marvin Harrison today. For years the parallels have been made btwn the colts and the spurs, building smartly around franchise players, signing role players to more than they could get anywhere else bc they fit in the system, letting them walk whence their productivity in said system was obviously spent. One thing that never got said about the spurs: they didn’t do sean elliott wrong, they didn’t do the admiral wrong, and it barely needs saying about timmy. that was once what they would have said about james, harrison, and peyton in indy. well, count peyton as their timmy, and who’s left?
you know who.
and if we don’t close out the “duncan window” with another ‘ship, i at least hope we don’t let them go down like indy did with their “other 2 of top 3″.
cus at ain’t respek.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:25 am
“Finley may not be the scorer he once was, but he plays with an air of grizzled malice that I continue to appreciate.”
That’s the best description of Finley I’ve ever read.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:06 am
I’m actually excited about watching Pops play tonight. My rational mind says that it’s too late in the season for him to have an impact in our championship chances, that he won’t have time to learn our defensive schemes and Coach Pop will bench him.
But then there’s the little voice in my head whispering about monstrous blocks (like the one Hill had yesterday) and powerful arms backing Tim up, and I can’t help but wonder. So this one’s on you, Mr. Varner.
Regarding the game, I loved what Hill did out there. I was shocked when I saw how bad his line looked in the boxscore. He was definitely jobbed by the refs a few times, especially when he was defending Barea or posting him up. But I’m starting to see glimpses of Bowen-like defense from him, where he’s glued to the other guy and his hands just won’t stop moving about.
Kurt Thomas had an incredible game. His shot was falling, like it has for nearly the entire season, but he was also rebounding well and turned into a Duncanish defensive stalwart that anchored our D for the entire game. It fills me with hope for our chances this year to see him play at that high level.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:16 am
I have to confess that I was about to quit on the game yesterday just because TD and Manu were not playing, I assumed the silver and black were going to be routed by Dallas. Five minutes into the game, Tony was playing the game of his life.
What surprised me the most were not the 34 points, because, after all, he took 32 shots so his field pct was 46% (below his average this season), it were the assists there were a couple of quality passes to Fab that I would have never imagined
Looks like all the rumored-to-be-traded guys tried to step up, Fab, Hill, Bowen
It was a great game and it was awesome to see the short handed team roll over the Mavs. Specially defensive-wise
February 25th, 2009 at 5:37 am
about that “sore right knee” I was having doubts about that too. Although it wasn’t that well played to the media.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Personally, I’m worried about Duncan’s knee. He’s admitted this year that after every game it is sore. Joe Alexander reported on the Spurs game chat last night, that before the game Duncan was flexing his knee and massaging it. Hopefully it was nothing serious, but I don’t think he was held out of the game for the same reasons he was held out of the Denver game. Obviously, if last nights game was a playoff game Duncan would’ve probably played. That is just speculation of course because I have no idea how his knee actually felt.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:17 am
To be honest, here is what I thought would happen when I found out that Timmy wasn’t playing (and this is wha a lot of teams do short-handed): we would come out of the gate on fire, build a nice lead, and then the stronger, healthier team would just catch up and win going away. Tha that happens all the time. The Spurs never took their foot off of the pedal (even when they should have; I too was a bit frustrated by Tony in the 4th, but I don’t think he could get himself out of high gear). By far, one of the more impressive TEAM wins of the season.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:20 am
Pop said in an interview with somebody at SI.com that he did hold Tim out of the Denver game because of his sore knee. He was going to hold Finley out for back spasms and Ginobili out with the hip contusion. At that point he decided to just hold Tony out, too. Apparently his knee has been bothering him all season and Pop is just looking for opportunities to rest him when he can. It worked like a charm last night.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:45 am
I liked the Spurs’ hustle and intensity. I don’t see why they can’t play that way every night. They looked liked the younger team last night.
February 25th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Great post. Great win. And I agree with that statement by Finley. I was 7 rows behind the bench when he dropped 19 against the Wizards on Saturday, and there’s always that sense of professionalism and intensity. In the huddle, even with the Spurs up comfortably, he was listening attentively, giving directions to younger players. I really enjoy having him on our team.
As for Pops Mensah-Bonsu, why hasn’t anyone jumped on him? If he leads the D-League in points and rebounding, wouldn’t someone be willing to take a shot at a 10 day contract? Does his game not transfer well to the NBA level? I don’t know much about him other than what I’ve read on this blog, which has been very helpful.
February 25th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Also, Denver keeps losing and we are acutally widening our lead on them and the rest of the pack, so, one loss wouldn’t hurt us, theoretically, that much. Then, of course, we went out and won last night. I wouldn’t be at all suprised if Pop sits Tim again tonight. A three game lead on the rest of the division, Cleveland looming. Yup, I will bet Timmy sits again tonight.
February 25th, 2009 at 7:45 am
For us to pull out a comfortable win without Duncan and Ginobli was fantastic! I agree with LatinD - Hill was a pest on defense and seems to have a very bright future in the league.
Now time for a rant: I love the Spurs, I obsess about them but what really ticks me off is Popovich’s attitude about this Duncan “knee” issue. Why must everything related to the Spurs ALWAYS be shrouded in complete mystery - as fans of the Spurs we are stakeholders in their play and absolutely deserve to know the whole truth about the health of our numero uno player. I am certain that Pop isn’t being completely forthright with what’s going on and I think that’s really unfair to us fans.
February 25th, 2009 at 7:52 am
[...] Original post: 48 Minutes of Hell » Blog Archive » The Notebook: Spurs-Mavs, 2/24/09 [...]
February 25th, 2009 at 7:58 am
I’m a diehard Spurs fan and I’m totally OK with Pop playing “hide the ball” with injuries and rosters. Anything that could give an opponent any sort of insight should be protected.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:06 am
I’m thinking that Duncan’s “sore knee” last night was more of a way to prevent a sore knee tonight instead, because we definitely need Tim on Friday and if his knee is sore because of a back-to-back and has to sit out then, there’s no chance we beat the Cavs.
February 25th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Nevermind what I just said. I hadn’t found any real actual reports until I checked spurs.com again. Here’s the skivvy on Duncan, which still isn’t all that much yet: http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/Duncan_sits_with_stiff_knee_tests_to_come.html
February 25th, 2009 at 8:54 am
As many of you have commented in this and other posts, I try to see the positive of having Manu, Timmy and Tony sit out every once in a while to reduce the risk of injury and resting them, specially for back-to-backs so the rest of the team can gain confidence and get meaningful minutes instead of the usual garbage time against the other team’s scrubs at the end of blow outs.
However, even when I’m glad of this, I am not as optimistic about making a big deal of ONE great game from these players. They can show up their potential and impress, or even give us hope, but we have to be realistic enough to notice these games are mere positive outliers of what they can do and we can’t possibly expect they can do this every game. We have to remember that for each great game they are then more likely to have a awful one.
February 25th, 2009 at 9:04 am
I say let Parker and Ginobili be the focal point of the offense. Have Duncan be the anchor on “D” and on the receiving end of passes. I don’t like seeing the Spurs dumb the ball into Timmy EVERY trip down, wait for the double team, then kick out for the 3. Spurs would be a great running team especially with one of the fastest PGs in the league.
February 25th, 2009 at 9:10 am
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Popovich was trying to give Duncan a little rest without causing the media frenzy we saw after the Denver game.”
If this is true: HAHA, I like the fact that Pop respects Portland more than Dallas now. I can imagine Pop’s thoughts “I need to hold Timmy out one of these two games… We can probably beat Mavs without him, because.. well lets face it they have no post presence. Portland has Aldridge and Oden.”
February 25th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Our rodeo road trip didn’t produce the usual effect of kicking us into 5th gear like usual, so I think Pop is doing the right thing by letting the team shift down to 3rd and cruise for a little bit. It gets the bench guys a taste of a decent boxscore, gets the team out of the same ol’ same ol’ and allows some rest for a massive, beastly push during the playoffs. Everyone worries so much about the day-to-day actions of the team, without realizing that Pop is willing to give up a pawn (potential loss to the mavs) or even a bishop (dropping to the 3rd seed) in order to get the opponent’s king (championship).
February 25th, 2009 at 11:07 am
spurs just signed pops to a 10 day contract!!!
i’m not expecting much because the hairston hype hasn’t evolved into much because he’s getting limited minutes, BUT i’m hoping the popp lets pops get some run while resting timmy.
February 25th, 2009 at 11:22 am
@dtm: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m hoping for, especially if Oden isn’t going to be playing. Also, an official statement: http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/57537/20090225/spurs_sign_mensah_bonsu/
February 25th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Here is a link to it:
http://blogs.mysanantonio.com/weblogs/courtside/2009/02/spurs-add-pops.html
I’m sure Pop will give him at least one chance with enough minutes to show himself up. After all, what is the purpose of the 10-day but to try you out.
February 25th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Great points about our roster status, to rest or not to rest Tim’s knee, and Pop’s attitude.
GMT thanks for links. Daniel, meong good posts.
Phoebus, values over championships, I can agree with that. So that means we don’t want to sign Horry to hip-check Kobe into the scorer’s table?
Martin, even though our over-the-rumor hill gang led by Fab and Bowen can stay with Mavs, only the playoffs will prove if these guys have anything left in the tank. They certainly aren’t buildt to run, but
Mason, going to Tim first opens up the shooters.
Latin D, that’s the first time “Kurt Thomas” and “incredible game” belong in the same sentence, but I could not believe the cuts to the basket.
NL if Finley’s gonna coach the young guys, great, I’d used the tag “satisfied after one championship” with him, though, as in he disappeared during the WCFs when we needed points. Will he do it again?
ThatBigGuy, we are still down one bishop to the Lakers.
Rou, as mentioned, Oden is out tonight. I doubt Pop cares about Blazers or Mavs combined as much as we care about this blog.
Trey, agreed. It’s all about long term status of the knee, but I think its just the same thing as all year.
MikeT, we were charmed, but Terry’s out too.
Ken, I agree, we should sit Tim again, were too old and its too important.
Samm, I’m not sure Pop is hiding the ball as much as he doesn’t really know what’s going on with Tim.
Finally, I’ve always been dismayed at Pops interaction with the media-he takes things too seriously, sometimes, and should SELL the Spurs more. He’s gotten better this year, though. You can’t expect the media to ask intelligent questions, so you have hype the everyday, and Pop doesn’t like to play games.
At the same time, most people hate the Spurs no matter what. And some writers pick them though they should not be favored this year. But everyone pays attention as long as we are winning.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
[...] Graydon mentioned in today’s Notebook, the Spurs have signed Pops Mensah-Bonsu to a 10-Day contract. What follows is possibly the most [...]
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