GAME DAY, BALA! GAME 15: SPURS AT WARRIORS, 20-1-2021, 9PM (CT)

[G R E Y]

From one early afternoon road game to another late evening one, we meet yet another external challenge with the goal of continuing and growing what we can control internally -- our transition game, maximizing everyone's strengths within the bubble style of play, and being consistently competitive. Let's put our best effort together on this momentous day.

WHERE: Chase Center, San Francisco, CA

WHEN: Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 9pm (CT)

Earn The Stripes Mode: E pluribus unum for our best bubble play!



GO SPURS GO!!!

[ducler]

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[G R E Y]

WHAT DEFENSE 'EFFORT' BY LMA TO NOT ONLY WATCH THEM DRIVE TO THE BASKET BUT MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!!!

[G R E Y]

GET OUR SUBS IN!

[G R E Y]

EARLY MENTAL TECH BY DEMAR... GET YOUR **** HEAD IN THE GAME, MAN...

[G R E Y]

SUBS IN: 13-1 RUN BY US

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STARTERS BACK IN. MISSING OUTSIDE SHOTS AND THEY MAKE THEIRS AND OUR AHRD WORK TO CLOSE TO 5 BALLOONS BACK UP TO 14-POINT DEFICIT...

[G R E Y]

LONNIE HAS BEEN TENTATIVE ON O, AND A COMPLETE ASS ON D.

TREY HAS SHOWN MORE HUSTLE AND SMARTS AND HEART, AND HE BARELY PLAYS.

TERRIBLE SHOWING BY THE STARTERS WHO KEEP TAKING OUTSIDE SHOTS.

ALL THE HARD WORK FROM THE BENCH IS BEING WASTED.

[G R E Y]

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I feel sick to my stomach for Pop and then bench guys.

The starters keep settling for 3s taking 12 of our 21 so far and making only 2. Lonnie is once again 1-2 at the half. Just inexcusably passive, picking up dribble early, not driving hardly at all.

What is most egregious is that our bench brought the deficit to within 5 points and then the starters came in and DeMar watches as Steph takes a shot on him without even getting a **** hand up to contest, LMA and Lonnie slide OUT OF THE WAY as opponents dunk on us. JUST. ****. INEXCUSABLE.

I hope Pop rips into them and sits anyone who doesn't flat out hustle in the second half, especially on defense.

[imagump1313]

Such a bad effort by everyone. I turned it off....

Like I keep saying, I don't care if they lose but if they don't want to be there, why should I want to watch them?

[G R E Y]

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Oof. Can't win game when we shoot 4-33 from 3. Then again, we shouldn't be taking so many given how we weren't hitting them. Just not enough downhill play. Some of it is due to their sealing up the paint, some of it is due to not enough movement to open up the paint.

Only DJ, Rudy, and Jakob shot well, and that will happen (I mean two games ago we made only 5 3s, last game we made a boatload, and in this game only 4, so a Jekyll-Hyde from the arc). But the defense was inexcusable for a lot of the game.

We need to figure out what to do about LMA because when he's not scoring early and getting into his rhythm, it's hard to justify leaving him out there for much else. He clearly needs more than a day off between games to look like he has knee joints and can move on D. But at least his reason is he's been in the league longer than any other player on the team.

What is DeMar's excuse? Absolutely abysmal example of what not to do on D in terms of effort, just flat out effort to do basic things like get a hand up and contest the guys taking the shot right in front of you. It's like some games he's two gears behind in his body responding to what his brain tells him to do.

And if Lonnie isn't going to assert himself on O then he has to assert himself on D. And if he won't assert himself on D but reverts to what DeMar does on that end, then he should sit. Inexcusable that Devin the rookie is outhustling you. So much raw athleticism yet what is between the ears keeps limiting him.

The stats I'm compiling are showing some trends we need to stop but there's no stat needed to see that teams with bouncy athletic Cs are giving LMA fits, and to the extent that he plays against them, our team. Something to address sooner rather than later. What's Milutinov up to?

[Phreak50]

I know they're all adults and shouldn't have any excuse but I kinda get the feeling the young guys don't want to play, mentally and physically around LMA and possibly even Derozan as well.

We should be calling every playoff hopeful team and offering those two.

[G R E Y]

I know they're all adults and shouldn't have any excuse but I kinda get the feeling the young guys don't want to play, mentally and physically around LMA and possibly even Derozan as well.

We should be calling every playoff hopeful team and offering those two.

It's an interesting observation, Phreak, and I have thought the same - much more so last season, but in games like this one, this season as well. It's not about lack of scoring, that was pretty much team wide, but about effort, especially on the D end. Both were sieves yesterday, and when the bench works so hard to get back within striking distance only to have them go back in and give the game away with poor D and DD's whining after every non-call, it grates on the team. Like enough already, just get on the same page.

The ironic thing about your last sentence is that we're very much one of those teams that is in the playoff hunt and wants to be. The counter argument I'd make is that with 15 games in, we have a decent idea of the ebbs and flows of this team (minus Derrick who is a huge factor because it moves Lonnie to the bench), and if we are serious about being in the playoffs - and we are - then we should be seriously looking at upgrading the 4/5 with a more mobile, consistent, younger big. We are 7-3 with LMA in the line-up, but we can't afford 4-point, 2-rebound games. That's too much of a drop off, and we don't know on any given night which version of LMA we'll get. Plus if he's not scoring, he's not really contributing a lot else at this stage. He'll have vintage games, sure, but we can't rely on that happening, and can't use him any less than what we are - a big with a J, screener, and an occasional post up. His body just doesn't seem to be able to give the same output after a day's rest.

DD I'm not worried about because he can fit into a variety of line-ups and can still put up points. He's going through some personal issues so it's likely affecting him emotionally on the court (far shorter fuse of late), but he's more consistent. When he does, the young guys love playing with him.

We're in a pickle with LMA. I wonder whether Boston of Miami would have interest? Portland needs a big but I don't see us helping a conference rival. But for Boston and Miami we'd need a third team involved to get that younger more mobile big back.

[Phreak50]

I think we'd happily move LMA to Portland if it made him happy before retirement but the only way it works money wise is if Portland moves a package of Nurkic and fillers or CJ and they won't do either for a fading Aldridge.

He'd be a good floor spacer in Boston or Miami though I haven't checked the way that could work.

[G R E Y]

Well we’re a Jekyll-Hyde team, and I think it’s in part due to the internal issue, however unspoken it may be, that Phreak alluded to in an earlier post. We were up against another team with a big, bouncy, mobile C and with LMA starting there’s just always a slow start against such situations: Lakers, Jazz, Pelicans, Wolves (ironically we lost with their C out, but when he played in the first game, we still started slow 34-28 after the 1ST Q and had to play catch to win in OT), and now Warriors: we’re 2-6 against them so far. If we play each of those teams three times, that’s fifteen games against opponents with such bigs, and there are other teams who have them.

As I stated earlier, we simply can’t rely on LMA to be ready game in, game out, and my sense is that we came into this game expecting that we’d struggle. This is part mental hurdle, part self-fulfilling prophecy. We know it’s going to be harder, because experience has shown we’ll have to fight from behind. Sure enough it was; sure enough we did. But we’ve had some fight in us for most of them (except Utah), but this game felt off mentally from the get go.

Our opponent started with better energy and focus, pressuring our O to stay out on the perimeter. But it was also a function of our back court making decisions far too slowly with the ball, and pulling back to reset plays time and again rather than driving with conviction. 0.5 basketball it was not. Their bigs were in our heads early.

And so we settled for outside shots, and kept taking them, back to pounding the rock with what wasn’t working rather than moving off ball more, fighting through screens, getting more physical, moving the ball crisply and making shots.

When we shoot this poorly – 37.2FG%, 12.1% from 3(!) - the chances of winning against a team with one of the best scorers in league history are slim. But it was more about how we went into this game, the game plan, and why we lost so convincingly that but for a 13-1 run by the subs to bring the deficit to within 5, it looked like we were out of it early and just... accepted it. Going through the motions doing the same things too often wasn’t going to get it done.

The game plan of doubling Curry backfired early and often. The other Spurs didn’t rotate quickly enough, and our opponents kept making the extra weak side cut and extra pass for easy points inside when we helped D inside. When we didn’t commit to help D the ball handlers drove inside off screens or made their outside shots. They clobbered us 56-44 points in the paint. When they drove, we fouled, making 8-12 FT’s in the 1ST Q alone to go along with 4-4from 3 and 12-19 FG’s to our 4-4FT’s, 2-4 from 3, and 9-22FG’s and their 12-point lead.

I was watching the Warriors vs. Knicks tonight and NY had single coverage on Curry which worked far better. I think Dejounte could have done a solid job on Curry – he did get a couple of steals - and it would have taken the pressure off the rest of the team to make rotations to cover the open opponents. We tried the box and one defense with Lonnie and I think DJ on Curry and that worked somewhat better except for when Curry beat our D in transition before we set anything up. Lonnie really wasn’t up to the task and this test gives us some good insight as to where is on D and how he translates the adversity into other aspects of his game.

Lonnie is just not stepping up on either end. Last season he took to social media in some not-so-subtle posts for more playing time. Well he’s got it and then some. And? He starts a drive and backs out, he picks up his dribble in a half court set not really knowing what to do except pass it around the arc. His handles are fine for short plays around a screen or when he’s got speed driving to the basket. He is too slow in deciding what to do with the ball in terms of creating his own shot or making quick passes and this helped our opponent’s already aggressive D adjust and seal up any potential lanes. And his lack of aggression was again on display with 1-2FGs at the half, this even with DeMar out early in the 1ST Q because of foul trouble. So many missed bunnies again, and his more reliable 3 isn’t falling either (3 points on 1-6, 1-4 from 3, no FT’s, 3 rebounds).

On D Lonnie is simply not making smart or assertive plays. He has literally stood and watched – once even backing out of the way! - as the help D at the basket as drivers dunked and made layups. He didn’t get over screens aggressively enough and got behind the driver over and over again. He didn’t contest nearly hard enough for their baskets and 1 foul situations.

Not sure what the issue with him is. Perhaps it’s growing pains of playing slowly increasing minutes on the bench to suddenly being thrust into the starting SG position and playing 28.6 minutes per game (over 12 more than his previous average) and playing against the best back courts in the league. It’s a big jump, and the level of play and it’s intensity seems to be a steep learning curve for him. Too passive in looking for and creating his own shot, too passive in hounding drivers and preventing shots. Consistency and competitiveness has been a knock on him from college and as a young player who has made some strides, these are still the foundations we need him to strengthen.

LMA only played 23 minutes, the lowest of the starters, but I still thought that keeping him out there until 4:31 of the 1ST Q was too long. He went back in at 6:26 of the 2ND Q when we were down 10, brought it to within five before our opponents exploded for a 19-point lead by half. The starters were back in the 3RD Q and LMA went out at 2:37 at which point we were down 18. He didn’t play in the 4TH Q. On the one hand, I like the minutes adjustment where LMA sits the 4TH Q and the pattern of when he’s on / off leading up to it. On the other, we could have taken him our earlier in the 1ST and 3RD Q’s at the very least. He was ineffective when he helped on D leaving their big mobile C alone under the basket for easy dunks (nobody helped on the C either, so late recognition and rotations all around). He was ineffective on the boards getting out-jumped time and again, and he couldn’t score from almost anywhere (4 points on 2-8, 0-3 from 3, no FT’s, 3 rebounds, 1 block).

Here’s the issue with his O consistency:

Spoiler:

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Jakob played far better, with better footwork, competing for rebounds, cutting to the key for finishes at the basket (5-9, 5 boards, 3 on O), making the extra pass, making it more difficult for their C to score.

Here’s some insight into his defensive impact:

Spoiler:

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He was competing more overall but he played only two minutes more than LMA. Rudy had a great O night but played only 19 minutes to Lonnie’s 25 and Keldon’s 27.

Only Dejounte hit the 30 minute mark, and this reflected the fact that he was far and away our best player on both ends, competing from start to finish getting steals, pushing the ball, hitting his J’s driving to the basket, rebounding, passing with no turnovers.

Perhaps Pop just wants the players to do what they could in the minutes they got, see whether they could figure things out as the game progressed, give them a chance to get something going.

But DeMar got into foul trouble early – 3 in the 1ST Q – largely on poor D and poor mental handling of non-calls against him for an early patented frustration tech. His early fouls were also a function of poor team defense, but when he flat out doesn’t do basic things like get a hand up on Curry for an uncontested J it is inexcusable. DeMar often tries to get back the points on the other end after plays like that, but how much better would we be if he did that after actually trying to stop shots, too? It’s all the more problematic when he isn’t able to make it up on O (15 points on 3-8, 0-1 from 3, 9-9FT’s, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal).

When the young guys are taught to hustle and be defensively responsible or they’ll get benched and see LMA barely contesting or rebounding and DeMar looking like a pylon getting driven on and not bothering to even raise a hand to contest and they still get their regular minutes it creates an unspoken double standard. I don’t like that we have to maintain this delicate balance with these two vets in particular. I do understand that LMA is the oldest on the team and shouldn’t be expected to do on D what he once did, and that with DeMar going through a rough time personally it wouldn’t go over well to yell at him or bench him to make a statement. I think overall the young guys respect them and understand these contexts, too, but they’re only human and there’s only so many times that having the young guys (and the other two vets) hustle and make the right plays only to see it fall apart when often the same one or two guys don’t that it creates a disturbance in the force of the cohesion we want.

I like listening to opponent broadcasts on road games because it gives some objective insights into our players. The commentators had a lot of good things to say about DJ’s combination of speed, finishing at the rim, defense, and improving J; Jakob was complimented for his smart, mobile defense and great footwork in cutting to the basket; Keldon was praised for his physical drives and creative finishing at the rim. He has added that scoop lay in now which is a nice addition to the tool kit.

Keldon drove throughout the game but especially in the 4TH Q and got to the FT line a team-leading 11 times, making 8. What I love about him is that when his shot isn’t falling – and it was one of those games when just about nothing was from anywhere – he just kept pushing relentlessly, like he was going to take it out on the basket for all the misses. Eventually he was rewarded and turned a 2-12 drought into 12 points. That he keeps finding ways and trying harder in different ways the more he misses is one of the most endearing things about him.

His shot is a bit strange with its near perfect circle arc. Sometimes it has disappeared from the screen before reappearing at the rim. His release is like a compact catapult and I wonder if over time it can be simplified – higher and quicker. It just seems like there’s a lot of extra moving parts to get it off and it slows him down and makes for some spectacularly inefficient games at times. This doesn’t explain his missed bunnies at the rim, of course, but perhaps it’s just a function of both going up against certain opponents and shots not falling in one area just somehow not falling in others. And yet he persevered.

He along with Patty (3-11, 0-7 from 3) and Devin (2-8, 1-4 from 3,3-4 FT’s) just couldn’t get anything going on O, but none of them stopped defending. Patty was shadowing Curry and making it harder to pass and shoot better than Lonnie; Devin never gave up on plays like when he got a hand on a Curry ball from behind him forcing a jump ball toward the end of the 1ST Q.

How bad was our shooting? Well we once again didn’t get any 30+ point Q’s. Also, in seven minutes of 2ND Q play, Trey had 5 points which was more than three starters after two quarters, then still more than three starters after three quarters, and finally more than two starters after four quarters. Just. Wow.

p.s. Quality Euro step drives by Trey. A nice addition to his game. I liked his energy and effort.

Here’s a broader context of our shooting troubles:

Spoiler:

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Spoiler:

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In a post-game interview DeMar said that all the misses affected the team in other parts of the game. It’s honest and insightful. You could clearly see the team being deflated by the misses and having to rely on a D against what they knew going in was going to be troublesome made things that much harder. We were outrebounded 54-43 though we had a 12-10 O board advantage. We gave them a lot of shots to recover. The Knicks’ bigs presence with Robinson, Randle, and Toppin gave our opponent fits tonight with their physicality and doggedness. True they were on the second night of a back-to-back, but it’s clear that there is a way to fight through the defensive interior they put up with us. And I think we could have broken through with faster, more decisive ball and off ball movement to force defenders out of position, but we didn’t do enough of it early on and it is clear that they imposed their advantages better. Watching tonight’s game was a study in contrasts – Knicks were physically imposing, made quick passes, screens, and shots. Most importantly, they made them. They are the lowest scoring team in the league and matched their 100PPG at the 7 minute mark of the 4TH Q. We couldn’t crack 100 on 94 attempts, three more than our opponent.

After the game Pop was more philosophical saying you can’t win every game. It’s clear he sensed that after the tearing into the team in the timeouts (I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall at half time), this was one of those games that too much went too wrong for too long to harp on about it. It’s not like the team doesn’t know how to play any better and doesn’t know how to fix what went wrong.

Keeping an eye out for changes to our bigs situation while waiting for Derrick to return is a holding pattern I hope we won’t be in for long. I think the latter will go a long way to helping our back court and, therefore, team defense such that it even offsets the former somewhat. Still, we know we are a team that needs to compensate for a lack of mobile, bouncy bigs and unless or until we get some we need a full team effort to impose our strengths. Shots won’t always fall; defense shouldn’t along with them. As always, it’s about how we respond. Nine of our next eleven games are at home, so it’s a great opportunity to regroup and string some good consistency and wins together.