GT Feb 22nd, 2013 (MIN/OKC & SAS/GSW on ESPN)

[MistyMountain20]

Sucks for the Lakers that GSW & Houston won today after their hard fought win over Portland.

Are people really expecting that the Lakers will catch up to the Warriors?

I know the Warriors lost 6 in a row, but I explained why in a post above.

The main factor here is that Golden State is ending their season with the most home games left in the NBA. I think the Warriors are most likely going to be competing for 4/5 rather than 7/8 seed.

The thought process should be more due to Golden State's weak SRS. Basically their games could have easily gone either way and right now they happen to be squeaking by. Maybe they did enough of that where it won't matter as much or the return of Bogut will offset that, but GS hasn't been particularly dominant.

[TaylorMonkey]

Jarret Jack is basically Monta Part 2 in a fraction of the salary.

Except Jack can handle and he actually makes big shots at the end of games. And he's actually efficient. Jack is what Ellis could have been if he worked on his handles, embraced the PG role, and was willing to come off the bench.

Monta was actually pretty efficient in his early Warriors days.

From the bench. Precisely.

[TaylorMonkey]

Jarret Jack is basically Monta Part 2 in a fraction of the salary.

Except Jack can handle and he actually makes big shots at the end of games. And he's actually efficient. Jack is what Ellis could have been if he worked on his handles, embraced the PG role, and was willing to come off the bench.

Monta would have embraced the PG role if the Warriors didn't draft a point guard to take that starting PG position after Monta was told he would be the replacement of Baron Davis.

Lol. They drafted another tiny shooting guard. Except this one actually has handles.

[justinandimcool]

The Spurs are amazing. Outside of Parker and Duncan, and to some extent, an ailing Ginobli, none of their other players are really all that special. We were clearly disrupting a lot of their sets and offensive flow and we were still neck and neck the whole game. Even down 10 before we chipped away and Jack got his swag on.

Anyway, when watching them, I keep thinking, "this is the best team in basketball?" because visually they don't strike you that way. Props to Pops.

If I'm being honest with myself, I saw a lot of remnants of 2011 against Memphis and 2012 against OKC tonight. While it's a nice idea that we have such team oriented guys who know their role, it's still painfully obvious when the going gets tough that the Spurs roster has once again overdosed on their fascination with 'classyball'.

In a professional league such as this, running sets and knowing your role won't beat hungry, young, tough, super athletic swagged out teams. It's just the culture of the game today. Attitude and athleticism wins out more than not these days. Ball movement and execution can only do so much if you can't match the quickness and energy.

Pop is GREAT against 90% of the league, but against 10% of the league he looks outdated and proves the Spurhaters right.

My one and only hope this year is that our defense is different than years past. We actually have some balls now, we'll see if it makes up for the lack of length and quickness.

[Shem]

You gotta give Dave from BlazersEdge props for writing this:

Had this game been played in Charlotte I'm not sure I'd be taking such pains to explain this. But I'm keenly aware that this happened in Los Angeles, with the Lakers, in a game that--if not exactly "must win"--was important in their burgeoning push for the playoffs. If I'm a Rockets fan, a Mavericks fan, a Jazz fan, or really anybody in the playoff picture I'm not happy about this either. Memo to the NBA: we've seen things like this happen too many times for the Lakers to accept or pass over this. After the referee scandal in which specific accusations were made that officials conspired to help this specific team you promised that the league was clean. Review those fouls against LaMarcus Aldridge. Review those calls in the last couple of minutes...THREE of them at minimum. Now come back and tell us that again. The only way you can do that is admit some sky-high-level incompetence here, which should earn its own reward. And while you're trying to determine an appropriate response, review the reaction of these refs to the Blazers when they were questioned. Apparently one of your officials thinks Metta World Peace didn't touch Nicolas Batum on that baseline play after having seen the replay multiple times. Go figure that out.

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[Jajwanda]

The Spurs are amazing. Outside of Parker and Duncan, and to some extent, an ailing Ginobli, none of their other players are really all that special. We were clearly disrupting a lot of their sets and offensive flow and we were still neck and neck the whole game. Even down 10 before we chipped away and Jack got his swag on.

Anyway, when watching them, I keep thinking, "this is the best team in basketball?" because visually they don't strike you that way. Props to Pops.

If I'm being honest with myself, I saw a lot of remnants of 2011 against Memphis and 2012 against OKC tonight. While it's a nice idea that we have such team oriented guys who know their role, it's still painfully obvious when the going gets tough that the Spurs roster has once again overdosed on their fascination with 'classyball'.

In a professional league such as this, running sets and knowing your role won't beat hungry, young, tough, super athletic swagged out teams. It's just the culture of the game today. Attitude and athleticism wins out more than not these days. Ball movement and execution can only do so much if you can't match the quickness and energy.

Pop is GREAT against 90% of the league, but against 10% of the league he looks outdated and proves the Spurhaters right.

My one and only hope this year is that our defense is different than years past. We actually have some balls now, we'll see if it makes up for the lack of length and quickness.

Has nothing to do with running sets and swag. Has to do with other team's increasing their level of play, matching San Antonio and execution and beating them out of sheer talent.

Your teams lacks ISO scoring. They have no explosive scorer to carry them through a drought.

[spearsy23]

Wow, overreaction to the 2nd game of a back to back. Tony Parker isn't an explosive scorer now?

[justinandimcool]

I get his point, it's not like TP is this machine of a scorer that can carry us through stretches by himself. That said, there are only like 4 players like that in the world so it's not a big deal.

And it has everything to do with the Warriors swag = aka attitude, toughness, discipline, energy. Jarrett Jack helped too, but it was mostly due to intensity on the defensive end. It disallowed the Spurs to run their sets. If the Spurs can't run their sets and play classyball, they don't have the athleticism or "nasty" to fall back on- it happened with young teams like OKC, Memphis, and now GSW. This was a nice reminder of what needs to be developed so this doesn't happen in April or May again.

[420]

How many games would your favorite team win if they shot 34 FTAs to their opponents 12 FTAs.

I'll kick things off: 82-0 and 16-0 in the playoffs.

Go.

[Flash Falcon X]

Mark Jackson's speech in the huddle last night.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xGy289NdIc[/youtube]

[justinandimcool]

That was awesome. It really is a special thing when you see a coach that relates to his team and can get them to buy in.

Sometimes I feel like Pop lacks this. I look at guys like Blair, Diaw, Splitter, Neal, etc. interact with Pop and their body language just has this aura of resentment. Sometimes I feel the morale is low even when they're winning because of how hard Pop is on the guys.

[Pimpwerx]

Jackson has to be a coach and a veteran leader on such a young team. That was a great motivational speech. Even if they lost, he would have won the faith of some of the guys because he showed confidence in them in a big moment. Good for him. PEACE.