Posts tagged ‘Tim Duncan’

To the City of Angels they go.  And no, the Spurs aren’t squaring off for a seven game series with the Clippers.

No, the Spurs are facing the revamped, restocked L.A. Lakers.  The same Lakers that stole Pau Gasol from Memphis, the same Lakers that easily dispatched of the Jazz and Nuggets, the same Lakers that have found successful niche roles for Ronny Turiaf, Luke Walton, and Sasha Vujacic.  Yes, them.

The Spurs, on the other hand, come in to this series as basically the same team thats lost its last three series against L.A.  Sure, Parker and Ginobili are better, but the offense runs the same.  Bench names may have changed, but bench roles are still the same. 

Without much further ado, the breakdown of the starting lineups.

PG Tony Parker vs. Derek Fisher

Tony Parker, first and foremost, is the better, quicker player.  That said, never underestimate what Fisher is capable of.  He’s a better defender than I’d imagine you’d give him credit for, and, he will more than once, more than twice, more than thrice hit a three that makes you want to pull your hair out.  Dude can bomb, and has a hear the size of a lion for hitting big shots.  Parker is going to need to keep Fisher on his heels by taking it to the hole as often as he can, exploiting his glaring advantage in the area of speed.

SG Manu Ginobili? vs. Kobe Bryant

First of all, I’m not so certain Ginobili will be back in the starting lineup, though it was a successful combination in the last five games of the Hornets series.  That said, these two won’t be matching up much, only when Manu has the ball.  If it’s even possible for a star of Kobe’s level, he’s an underrated defensive performer.  On the other side, he’ll be shadowed by Bruce Bowen, his foil and archnemesis for years now.  Sure, Bowen’s lost a step, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be able to pester the hell out of Bryant.  Kobe will get his, there’s no doubt of that—what Bowen has to attempt to control is how he gets it.  Then again, Kobe of today isn’t Kobe of yesteryear.  He passes more, he shares the ball, and doesn’t look to take over the game every single time he gets the ball.  The old strategy of, let Kobe be the ballhog he’s proven to be, might not prove as effective as it once was.

SF Bruce Bowen vs. Vladimir Radmanovic

Bowen will be living in Kobe’s shorts, so read up one if you want that review.  One other thing about Double B, he’s going to need to hit those corner three’s, consistently.  He’s almost always open, no matter how many he makes, so his consistency from long range will go a long way in determining how successful the Spurs are.  VladRad isn’t much of a serious factor on this team.  He plays his requisite starter minutes, 20 or so per game, and unless he’s particularly hot, he usually yields to the Luke Waltons and Ronny Turiaf.  Still, like Peja in the last series, Vlad Rad can get hot from deep, and isn’t one to be ignored.

PF Tim Duncan vs. Lamar Odom

Again, this is a matchup that may be changed.  Duncan could be on Gasol, or stay on Odom.  I’d imagine Duncan will be on Gasol on defense, though matching up with Odom’s quickness could be particularly difficult.  At 6′10″, Odom, when he wants to be, is a handful for opposing defenses.  He can handle the ball, shoot, take you off the dribble, or even back you down.  Not to mention, he’s long as hell, so while he may not be blocking a ton of shots, you can bet he won’t make it any easier for Ginobili and Parker to get their layups.  Duncan, on the other side, needs to go back to being the Duncan he was in the opening round.  Maybe not hitting game-tying three’s and scoring 40 points, but he can’t have any more of these dud performances.  Both Odom and Gasol are long defenders, but enough is enough already.

C Kurt Thomas vs. Pau Gasol

Gasol has been the difference for this team, no questions asked.  That’s not to downplay the transition Kobe’s made, or the play of the bench, or the return of Derek Fisher.  Those are all important contributors, but what kept this team atop the Western Conference was a mid season heist they pulled off, yielding a former All-Star center.  The Big Spaniard fits quite well into the triangle offense they run out there, and can do a bunch of things that should give the Spurs fits.  Like Odom, he also doesn’t block a lot of shots, but is long, and can play down there.  He can also spread the floor with a jumpshot, and, additionally, knows where to be.  In other words, you’ll often find him in the right spot cutting for a dunk, cutting for a layup.  At least thus far, Gasol has shown he grasps the spacing concepts of his new offensive system.  Thomas will have his hands full as well, though he’s proven he’s up to the task.  Rebounding, on both sides, and occassionally hitting that 15-20 foot jumper are his sole tasks.

Let me be the first to say, nice try Phoenix.  You really did put in quite the effort.  Trading a young superstar, acquiring an aging big man.  All with the hopes of finally finishing off that arch-nemesis team from San Antonio.  The thugs that knocked you out last year.  The son-of-a-guns that seemed to have foiled you nearly every step of the way since Steve Nash became a Hall of Famer.

Well, if you’re the Suns, at least you can take solace in these few truths. 

1. You still have two more years of Shaq’s 20 million dollar contract left!
2. You did win one game, and did it really impressively.
3. You came close in Game 5.

To put some perspective on this series, the Spurs have now beat the Suns in four of the last six playoffs.  The Suns, throughout the drought, haven’t changed much.  Steve Nash still captains the ship, Mike D’Antoni runs the the team from the bench (though, according to Yahoo! Sports Johnny Ludden, maybe not for much longer).

The personnel may have changed (the Joe Johnsons, the Jim Jacksons, the Leandro Barbosas, the Grant Hills, the Boris Diaws), but honestly, it doesn’t matter much.  There are a few fundamental flaws in this team that simply aren’t changed by bringing in Shaq, or having Steve Kerr come in and run the team. 

They just don’t play defense from the perimeter (everyone not named Raja is basically a human turnstyle), or from inside (while its nice, theoretically to have Shaq and Amare down there, neither is that great of a defender at this point in their careers, and both are too often in foul trouble).  Further, they are always making stupid mistakes.  Boris Diaw backing Ginobili down, throws the ball to the second row.  Raja Bell makes a bad pass to Steve Nash on the inbounds, he can’t control it, they lose possession.  Mental mistakes seem to have always plagued this club, the image of Steve Nash looking wide-eyed at an official for a call at the end of any game sticks in my head as the logo for this team.

As for the Spurs, Tim Duncan, business as usual, and Tony Parker, despite that missed FT down the stretch, was the man.  Hate to say it, but he was amazing this series.  Over 29 points per game, TP did his thing.  Manu clearly needs the rest until whenever the NOH series starts.  Ginobili has been clearly limited, hitting the low last night with only 8 points in just over 27 minutes of action.  He doesn’t look to have the same explosiveness throughout the whole game.  A spurt here, a drive there, but not a sustained, Manu Ginobili-esque effort.  He should be fine.

 As for now, all you can say is good riddance to the Suns.  They did try their damnedest to beat the Spurs, even mortgaging their future and changing the makeup of their team.  Too bad, I guess.  Some things just are better left alone.  Or, left out.

Boxscore

Last night in San Antonio, the Spurs took care of home court advantage, beating the Suns with a decisive third quarter. For the second game in a row, Phoenix lost a double digit lead inside of the AT&T Center and felt stymied by the Spurs defense in the second half.

Here are some highlights and post game reaction.

After allowing a monstrous 61 points in the first half, the Spurs put the clamps on. 11 points in the third quarter, 24 in the fourth, and 5 of those 11 came from Shaq free throws. Add to the mix that after going for 25 in the first half, Amare Stoudemire starts the second half 1-9 from the floor and finishes with only 8 points in the second session.

The Spurs were led by the guard that began the night as the second fiddle to the 6th Man of the Year. Tony Parker lit up the Suns pathetic defense for 32 points, all of which seemed to come from that painted rectangle they have set up in the middle of the floor. No one, and I mean no one, wearing orange could stop either Tony or Manu last night. In fact, it was the same the game before.

Foul trouble didn’t much plague the Suns big men this game, though Nash, O’Neal and Stoudemire had huge games, the rest of the Suns team combined for only 21 points out of the 96. Not a recipe for success.

Big Shot Bob Robert Horry made his first basketball appearance in over a month last night, registering just a tad over 3 minutes of action. Nothing to exciting to write about here, just glad to see Bobby back in action, and here’s to hoping for more.

Manu Goes Off After taking two overtimes to reach 26 points in game one, Manu decided to eclipse that total in about a quarter less of action. Ginobili went nuts, as did his running mate Tony Parker, driving to the lane with ease, delivering a no-look tight-rope pass to a cutting (and then dunking) Tim Duncan, and even finding time to drop a few treys in there. Manu finishes with three three’s, but more importantly hits eight of his nine free throws.

You think the Suns might have trouble rebounding mentally from Game 1, how about us fans? Talk about a mental. I honestly don’t know if my brain, my heart, my central nervous system can handle a game like that again.

Terrible for three and a half quarters. Michael Finley comes alive for a game-tying, regulation-ending three pointer. Tim Duncan of all people hits a seemingly planned, wide-open three pointer to end and tie the first overtime. Tony Parker inexplicably fouling Steve Nash from beyond the arc, subsequently fouling out in the first OT. How about Steve Nash then missing one of those three FT’s. Or, Steve Nash’s fading, corner three to tie things up with under 15 ticks left. Manu’s running, fading, falling, twisting banked layup.

Phewwwwww.

That’s basically all I did after the game on Saturday. I exhaled, over and over again.

If You Are What You Say You Are Tim Duncan is and forever will be a superstar. Simply put, the man does everything when it counts. Have his regular season numbers been on the decline the last several years? Without question. But, Tim Duncan, like Derek Jeter and Tom Brady in their respective sports, elevates his game when it matters most. To put it into perspective, prior to his 40 point outburst, TD had only scored over 30 points five times this season. For his career, he’s averaging nearly three points and a rebound more per game in the playoffs than the regular season.

The three pointer, crazy as it was, sums it all up. Here’s a guy that’s gone 0-4 all season, has scored nearly all of his baskets in this game on back-to-the-basket post moves. With around 12 left, his team down by three, he calmly sets a screen at the top of the key, and, instead of rolling to the basket like most men his size are want to do, he pops back to the wing, behind the three. Shaq obviously doesn’t go out to get him, why would he? Duncan receives the kick pass from Ginobili, and sets himself up to hit the game tying three, as if he’s done it all year. Whatever needed to be done, he was there to do it.Sixth Man Manu Ginobili has gone even further to cement himself as a better player than Tony Parker. The foul on Steve Nash was enough to warrant a pink slip for Tony, but the fact remains that Manu again took it to the hole when it matter and won the game for them. In fairness, Parker was having similar success against the rag-tag D the Suns throw out there. And, congrats to Manu on winning the 6th Man of the Year Award. Leandro Barbosa and Jason Terrycame in distant a second and third. Ginobili becomes the first player since Ricky Pierce in 1987 to win the award and lead his team in scoring.

Next Game Keys Forget all this nonsense about whether or not the Suns can come back mentally from a crushing game one loss. That’s all baloney from the media. These guys are good, damn good and to be fair, only a few mental mistakes and “lucky” shots cost them the game. That said, the Suns won’t become a good defensive team over the course of a few off days. They have one good on ball defender and that’s Raja Bell. If he’s sticking Manu, that means Tony should be able to get to the cup nearly every single time. The true key is to get the two big stiffs in foul trouble early. Neither can really play defense on Tim Duncan, but it is tough to have them both out there wreaking havoc on either side. If things go the way they likely should, they’ll get themselves in trouble.

File This In The I Hate The Suns Folder Says Shaq on some of the foul calls he received, “That [flopping] is some bull. Then you all write like these [expletive] guys can play. Give me a [expletive] break.” He went further, “I ain’t changing nothing. I’ve got 700 days left [on his contract], and I ain’t changing a [expletive] thing. … I got four [rings] doing it my way, and I’m going to continue doing it my way.” Well, to you, we here at SASpurscast say, good luck with that. Truth is, he’s probably partly right, but partly wrong. Does Fab flop? You bet. Thomas does a bit too. That said, the Diesel has been getting away with this nonsense for near a decade. Unfortunately for the Big Cactus, he just isn’t as good as he used to be, and he isn’t getting the same calls he used to get. Sort of like when Greg Maddux stopped getting three or four baseballs on each side of the plate. Too bad.

 Spurs Drop Tough One At Home

Boxscore 

For some reason, some how, this team can’t score any more.  That’s been the real issue for parts of the entire season, and, unfortunately with only a handful of games remaining, the lid on the rim has returned.

 As I wrote earlier, the Spurs hadn’t scored over 80 in a game in two contests.  After reaching 95+ seven out of their last eight games, the dubious streak continued again tonight.  They could only muster up 79 points, and barely even got there.  The numbers, in this particular instance, don’t lie.  While the Spurs are by no means an offensive juggernaut, they do average over 95 points per contest for the whole season.  Don’t forget that they also attempt near 20 treys a game.  Tonight, against a largely porous (though, admittedly improved) defense, they could only find nine threes, and made only two. 

 While you can look at some of the lesser players’ production, the Spurs have always and will always live and die by the production of their Big 3.  Duncan, Parker and Ginobili combined for a paltry 21 for 50 from the floor, good for just 42% from the floor.  Not terrible, but not good enough to beat an obviously talented team in Phoenix.

 The Spurs did get what they wanted:  both Shaq and Amare in foul trouble (both Phoenix big men had their fourth fouls by the end of the 3rd).  That said, Shaq didn’t miss much of anything in the paint (suddenly, the jump hook that made him look ancient returned), and Timmy clearly looked like he was wearing down at the end of the game.  The same baby hooks that Shaq was getting on Duncan, Tim was getting on Shaq.  Trouble was, they just couldn’t drop for TD.

 So, what exactly is the problem?  Well, I think being the oldest team in the league isn’t helping.  If you’re optimisitic, you’d have to believe that the Spurs are just waiting to fully turn it on, though, even then, you’d have to be concerned with why they aren’t playing “hard” now, when so much is on the line as far as seeding goes.  Ginobili seems to go in out of spurts, so maybe this is just a down spell.  Better to peak now than later?  Who knows.  The one thing I’ve been saying over and over for a while now though, they need guys like Brent Barry and Robert Horry to be able to come off the bench and not only produce, but at the very least, give a blow to the likes of Michael Finley and the big guys on team.

What’s Next?

The Spurs get a game off, they head to Seattle for a Friday snoozefest with the Sonics.  The Hornets won tonight, so that just makes the possiblity of snatching that one spot all the more improbable. 

The Spurs play host to the Suns tonight, in a battle between two teams that have already clinched the Western Conference playoffs.  Still, there is much to play for.  San Antonio comes in 1 game back of the leading New Orleans Hornets; the Suns sit in 6th with only 2.5 games separating them and Chris Paul. 

 Last time the two teams met, a month ago, the Spurs fell 94-87 in Phoenix.   Though, the game was much closer than it appeared, as free throws and garbage baskets put the final touches on a 7 point loss.  The result of some poor luck (Kurt Thomas not hitting wide open jumpshots, Tim Duncan missing layups–6-19 FG–) and some poor calls (come on, we all know that Duncan got clobbered and Shaq and Amare curiously didn’t get a foul call whistled on them as soon as they each got 5), the Spurs couldn’t quite close the deal.  Add all of that to how awfully the Spurs shot in that game.  They never were able to get going against a Suns team that allows over 100 points per on over 45% shooting.  For the game, the Spurs shot under 40%.  The game, even statisitcally, wasn’t pretty.

The solution, far as I see it, is fairly simple:  Get Kurt Thomas involved.  Having both Amare and Shaq allows the Suns to put bigs on and around Duncan at all times.  That being said, neither of the Suns big guys are comfortably defensively on the perimeter, where Kurt Thomas has made a living knocking down jumpers off pick-and-rolls for over the last decade.  It isn’t an accident that his best game (11 points and 7 boards in 29 minutes) came against Phoenix.  Amare likely will be on Timmy, and Shaq will not (and more importantly, cannot) pop out to contest a 15-20 footer from Kurt Thomas.

Elsewhere, the formula seems to be the same.  Allow Parker and Ginobili to dictate the pace offensively, run things through Duncan, and try not to get caught up in scoring in the 100s.  Sounds pretty easy, no?

 Playoff Picture

Games Left: 3H, 2A.  Road Games back-t0-back against LAL and Sac.

Truth is, after this game, the Spurs still aren’t out of the woods.  A tough date in L.A. with Kobe awaits, as does a rendezvous with Utah to finish off the season.  The most important thing for the Spurs–don’t take the garbage games (Seattle and Sacramento) too lightly.  Losses to those teams could wind up meaning the difference between having home court advantage or not.

What to Watch For

80+? The Spurs haven’t scored in the 80s in two games, one of which was an embarrassing 64 point effort (tied for the lowest in franchise history) against Utah.  If they want to win tonight, I’d imagine they’d have to do better than that.

More Manu  After a blistering February, Manu Ginobili has considerably cooled over the last month plus.  March saw him score 19 ppg, while the first 3 games of April have seen the average dip to just over 11.  Maybe it’s been fatigue, maybe just shots aren’t falling.  Whatever the case, this team needs him to get going if they’re going to win later on. 

Barry Time?  When will we see Brent Barry out of street clothes and in a Spurs uniform?  If the Spurs really want to get away with cheating, they’re going to have to actually play the player they reacquired.  My suspicion is that his calf injury is more serious than they’re letting on.  He does need some run though.  Unlike Robert Horry, some people can’t just be dusted off for the playoffs.