Once a Strength, the Foreign Legion is now a Problem

by Matthew Tynan

The night began the way most Spurs games have of late. San Antonio’s starters — Kawhi Leonard, in particular — were running circles around the Mavs, continuing a trend that’s been elevated since Tiago Splitter’s return to the regular opening lineup.

And then, the reserves entered the game.

Lost in all the other drama this season — the Tony Parker injury and subsequent struggles, Kawhi’s eye and hand — has been the colossal drop-off in bench production. At the surface, the fall doesn’t seem that precipitous. The backups are still averaging more than 40 points per game, which is down just about four points a night from last season and still good for the third-most productive in the league. But it’s not the entire bench we’re talking about.

The four most important pieces — Manu Ginobili, Boris Diaw, Marco Belinelli, Patty Mills — have been bad as a group (we’re not including Aron Baynes here, given his role as a normal contributor has developed more recently than the others, relatively speaking). Where last year the Spurs’ momentum seemed to surge for 48 minutes, regardless of who was on the floor, the energy has been thwarted thus far during the campaign for a repeat.

In all fairness to the Foreign Legion (as that group was so wonderfully dubbed last year), the fortune of good health and individual consistency hasn’t been part of the equation this time around. Mills has played in just 39 games this season after right-shoulder surgery during the offseason, and he still hasn’t found his shot; Belinelli has been up and down and in and out of the lineup with injuries himself; Diaw has been a shell of himself on the offensive end until recently; and Ginobili has been noticeably more inconsistent this season than he was last. This core group of bench players has appeared together in just 15 games; last year, they were together for 46 contests.

Consistency, familiarity, and rhythm are major parts of success in this sport. Bringing up the fact that these players have missed so much time isn’t an excuse, it’s a valid form of reasoning. Last season, that 4-man group just destroyed people. They scored nearly 120 points per 100 possessions and outscored their opposition by 22.6 points per 100 possessions while boasting a patently absurd 64.9 true-shooting percentage. Those numbers have crashed to a miserable offensive-efficiency rating of 92 and a true-shooting mark of 49.7 percent this season.

As a point of reference, the Spurs’ starting lineup is putting up monster numbers in 211 total minutes: 118.1 ORtg, 91.9 DRtg, 60.6 TS%. The difference in what the two units are doing is preposterous.

San Antonio’s strength is in its numbers. Last year it proved that a team can still win a title while relying heavily on bench players. And while the overall numbers from the reserves haven’t fallen off a cliff, keep in mind that those four extra point per game could be the difference in all those overtime appearances this year. The Spurs are winning games by an average of 4.5 points this season; last year, that number was a league-high 7.7. Those extra points matter.

The Spurs still have 12 games to find some sort of rhythm for that bench unit, and it’s good that Ginobili was able to return to the fray last night. Between the time Splitter was reinserted as a starter and Manu sprained his ankle against Minnesota (five games, counting the T’Wolves win), that four-man lineup had actually begun to show a little progress, scoring nearly eight points more than their season average per 100 possessions. That isn’t nearly what it was last season, of course, but, hey, progress is progress.

If fans are looking for something to get worked up about (an inevitability after a loss), don’t let it be the 101-94 defeat in Dallas last night. Don’t let it be a bad game from Parker. The Mavs are a tricky matchup for San Antonio. They know how to defend Parker with endless waves of switches, their quick guards are quite difficult for Spurs perimeter defenders (yes, even for Leonard and Danny Green — it’s their weakness), and Rick Carlisle is a wizard or a magician or a practitioner of dark magic or whatever you’d like to call him. Just don’t let it be any of that stuff.

In the grand scheme of the NBA, San Antonio’s depth is what makes it so unique. Last year, the Spurs booted the common concept that a bench has to shrink during the postseason. Maybe the minutes-allocation changes a bit, but that team went 10-deep until the confetti fell. It’s going to continue to do so. It has to. Its elder statesmen aren’t as capable of handling a ton of minutes anymore.

The Spurs had a 12-point lead when Leonard left the floor with 1:03 remaining in the first quarter, the last remaining starter to get his first breather. They were outscored 86-67 the rest of the way. The momentum gained by that opening period was lost just minutes into the second, and it never really swung back their way until a late run at a comeback.

Don’t let last night in itself concern you. The Mavs needed that win. It was a bigger victory for them than it was a loss for San Antonio, if you’re into that sort of existential jibber-jabber. Let it be the fact that it was a reflection of the problem that’s manifested itself all season. It’s one of the reasons this team is in sixth place at the moment, a stunning 13 games behind first-place Golden State. The silver lining in the team’s bench play this season is that it’s been pretty damn good defensively, holding the opposition to fewer than 90 points per 100 possessions. It’s had to be good. It’s what’s kept it from being an abject disaster.

But if that group can’t find its offensive rhythm soon, the chances of this team getting back to the level of the 2014-NBA-Finals Spurs are slim to none, and early summer won’t be nearly as much fun.

Tonight against the Thunder is a good place to start looking.

Stats courtesy of NBA.com.

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