SPURS GAME DAY! GAME 52: SPURS AT SUNS, 30-1-2022, 8PM (CT)

[imagump1313]

You just have to admire Primo not giving up and taking that last shot like that. I think that was the best last shot that didn't mean anything I have ever seen in NBA history.....

[G R E Y]

You just have to admire Primo not giving up and taking that last shot like that. I think that was the best last shot that didn't mean anything I have ever seen in NBA history.....

Send in your resume, gump!

You have just the right balance of form and inviting suppleness on the pucker up lmao

Sean better look over his shoulder...

[imagump1313]

You just have to admire Primo not giving up and taking that last shot like that. I think that was the best last shot that didn't mean anything I have ever seen in NBA history.....

Send in your resume, gump!

You have just the right balance of form and inviting suppleness on the pucker up lmao

Sean better look over his shoulder...

I really do understand the homerism and I hope he turns into a good player. But Sean, please stop insulting our intelligence. You don't need to ram the kid down our throat. Let him grow up and earn it.
BTW, I LOVE Sean Elliott too and he is one of the better color guys in the league.

[Phreak50]

Sadly I think Lonnie will only ever be worthwhile if playing with two or more all-stars.

In a team like this his negatives just stand out so much.

He has so much talent and still so, so, so much room to grow but I doubt he ever gets there. Which sucks because I was his biggest fan.

I disagree on Sean Elliot. He is one of the worst to colour commentate. Huge homer, laughs instead of complimenting and doesn't read the game as well on the sidelines.

[G R E Y]

4TH Q: SPURS 110

SUNS 115

Who had Spurs leading by 12 after three Qs while missing three starters from their crystal basketball?

It was all going so well despite the weird pass in the air TOs and missed bunnies and missed rotations.

Then they started the 4TH Q on a 15-2 run... and really that was a deciding run. A lot was made on social media about the refs' collective missed call when Booker fell, rolled, dribbled after picking up the ball and was given a timeout. After retaining possession they hit an end of clock 3. Pop was classic levels of irate. He's for the most part been more Zen and embracing the long-view teacher role, but man oh man does he still have that glare and choice words at hand; it's terrifyingly impressive. Imagine making the wrong call, knowing it, and having to stand there as the wrong arbiters of rules against the wronged fierceness of Pop explaining exactly what they did wrong. OOF. And I LOVE it that he's ever vigilant and diligent to the rightness of it all.

Anyway, it was a bad call, but part of a series of plays that led to the outcome. Every play counts.

We still caught up to them and took a lead later, but once again their top talent executed in late game situations. It's what best teams do best and what we aspire to. We were well on our way until...

It's interesting that post-game Pop praised our young group for the hustle and the competitive play. And yet he also had us do this:

Read on Twitter

What. A. ****. GOAT.

Sure, lads, great play (for a rebuilding team without three starters) but let's now quickly go over things (rebuilding team or not, we should be doing these things better).

So on the base of their 15-2 start, they finished for their highest scoring Q of 36 and our lowest scoring Q of 19.

We shot 45FG% overall but it dropped because of the final Q's 7-25FGs, 3-10 from 3, and 2-3FTs. So that 28%FG when we did a lot better previously and needed a lot better to finish strong.

Some positives: our 3s, both the attempts and makes, were above our average, so 13-37 without two starters who take them was a positive. This was the first game in I don't know how many seasons where not only all five starters attempted a 3, but everyone who played attempted one.

Tre manning the point like a real PG stood out well once more. He is a true PG and even with his lesser experience, a pure PG making pure PG plays was an insightful contrast. He has a nice balance of driving and making plays for others. He was terrific in transition, and for most of the game made layups with the right angle off the glass. He did this very well up until late in the game when his layins were a bit rushed and low so that they were blocked or he missed the bunnies. In Summer League he had command of late game situations, but at this level his inexperience and perhaps some nerves showed.

I did love that he was a tenacious defender, and I think I saw him swear at Paul who fouled him after Tre stole the ball. He hit his chin on the court and when he got up he yelled to Paul something along the lines of "... I'm gonna **** your face up!" Woa! The hottie model face belies a trash talking firecracker. Love it!

He's a smaller guard but was up against a smaller HOF guard who has made a long career despite his size so it's an excellent test and example.

Tre has to get used to taking more 3s as it's part of the modern game, and finish with more variety at the rim, sort of like DJ and Keldon have added those high off the glass shots. But he still finished with 15 points on 7-12, 0-1 from 3, and a team high 9 assists. He had 3 boards, and was the ONLY starter with an O board, in his case, getting 2.

That's solid considering this was Tre's third ever start. He, Doug, and Drew were most efficient from the starters. Doug earned every penny of his contract tonight making 9-15, 6-9 from 3 for a team high 24 points along with 4 boards, 2 assists, and 1 steal. He moved well and ran all over the court. He sometimes has weirdly erratic finishes for missed bunnies at the rim so some control and consistency is needed there, but overall he was an important part of our O. Drew, one of the other starter fill-ins, chipped in 6 points on 3-6, 0-1 from 3 (bold to attempt it), grabbed 5 boards, 4 assists, and 1 steal. He and Jock - 5 points on 2-5, 1-3 from 3 - combined for 11 points, 8 boards, 6 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block.

Frankly, it points out just how important Jakob is for us; he's had better stat lines alone than what Drew and Jock combined for tonight. And while I appreciate all three, it also indicates we need to still shore up our bigs position. Their back up big who up until recently was not even in the league and was signed on a 10-day contract outscored both our bigs combined with 10 points and 11 rebounds. Several times Pop had to redirect Drew about where to go from the sidelines, and a couple of times our plays were broken because Tre kept motioning for Drew to do something other than what he was doing out there and we couldn't execute what we were supposed to run. All it takes is that one guy who isn't doing what he is supposed to for the whole thing to fall apart. Drew's a big hustle and response guy, but looking back, it's rather amazing we ran a Jakob-Drew rotation for a lot of last season. I really like Drew, but man sometimes he looks lost. And that's not just in running some plays. Sometimes when he posts up, he looks so awkward i trying to make a move he ends up sort of curling up his body and trying an awkward sideways fadeaway that misses badly. I like his hook shot and it's effective when we get him the ball in the middle of the key at the right time, but post up moves do need work. Anyway, without Jakob, we lost the points in the paint battle 52-44.

I keep playing this note, but since we're not playing Thad, I can't wait for us to bring up Zach. He feels like a secret weapon we're carefully nurturing (well we're always careful with return from injury players). I do wonder whether we give him a look before we decide what we can get for Thad....

Keldon and Devin struggled with efficiency. It happens. Although Keldon is better in moving the ball along, Pop lit into him for not executing the whole play and he took an early shot rather than passing it along to Devin. At this stage, we are about development, and players have to understand that they are going to get theirs even if they make that extra pass and learn to run the good to great to the end. Still, Keldon got 4 assists in this game which is well above his 1.7 per game average this season.

Scoring wise, Keldon was chasing it a bit this game which may explain why he got tunnel vision at times and had to be reminded to move the ball along. He finished with 16 points on 6-16, 2-8 from 3 (oof), 2-2FTs, team high 8 rebounds, and team high +8.

Defensively, Keldon lags in switches and is late to contest - this stands out, so it's a pattern he has to improve. Also, he tends to not always get his hands up even when he's close to the shooter, or have his hands out enough when covering a player on the perimeter, and so there's Pop time and again on the sidelines with his arms out showing the defensive stance he wants from us. Finally, Keldon gets caught on back door cuts a lot. A lot a lot a lot. It stands out with him more than anyone else so he is getting exposed here and needs to pay better attention and keep his head on a swivel better and read the plays better, too.

Devin was the surprise starting SG, a position we used him least in this season at 11% of the time. Seventy-four percent of the time he's played SF for us and while even then he's been working to find his consistency, maybe the stretch of the new position (old, really, as he played it in college) he struggled to find his O. Pop has said some very complementary things about him and his game recently, and it does feel like we're pushing Devin into bigger and broader situations to expand his game faster. He's the Keldon without the yelling, and has quietly stepped up to show more of his O game. That said, it's still a work in progress as he scored only 7 on 2-12, 1-5 from 3, 2-2FTs, but also grabbed 7 boards, and dished 2 assists.

Love his rebounding work. He pounces among opponents to get his hands on balls and has a knack for working to find them.

Our bench contributed 42 points (one better than our league best average of 41PPG) largely on the strength of Lonnie's 22 somewhat infuriating points. As gump has pointed out, I sometimes over focus on Lonnie and his mistakes, but Christ, outside of DJ and Derrick, he's been here the longest and still makes maddening choices and errors and missed bunnies. His engagement when without the ball is better, his man D is better, but why does he make a great play and then follow it with choices where you think, "Who just did that? And where's the guy who did they previous thing that was really good?" It's like the reward for a great play is two inexplicably poor ones, like somewhere inside him he can't help but punish himself with tunnel vision mistakes.

Lonnie has split his SG/SF time almost 50/50 so it was interesting that Devin, the less experienced of the two at SG at the pro level, got the nod. We're definitely stretching Devin (like we've tried to do with Lonnie in putting him in various situations and positions). Perhaps because Tre is undersized and we wanted more back court height and defensive soundness to match the opposition's talented back court that Devin got the nod. I do wonder the impact this has on Lonnie (that and Devin now being the first player off the bench and actually averaging more MPG than Lonnie). He pushed for taking 21FGAs (second only to Booker in the game), making 10 of them, the only player to reach in double figure baskets, though frankly it's a numbers game. The more you take, the more you'll almost eventually make. He was 0-5 from 3, and all of them were from the top to the left side of the arc. I wonder whether he's more comfortable on the right side. Anyway he certainly was in this game, making most of his shots at the rim and just to the right of the middle. He also contributed 5 boards (3 on O - great!), 2 assists, and 2 steals.

In terms of development, there are some consistency and engagement improvements off ball and on defense that stands out well for Lonnie. But there's also no doubt that Lonnie remains an enigma with respect to core aspects of his game, namely his decisions with the ball and his finishing at the rim. He was efficient in the 1ST and 3RD Qs (he missed two long Js in the 2ND Q), but pushed too much and struggled in the final Q, making only 3-8 which included 1-4 in the paint, 0-2 from the arc, and 2-2 in non-paint Js.

Lonnie continues to baffle with his drives into multiple defenders without any Euro or spin move, like literally into them and then either falls or gets stripped, continues to baffle with ignoring wide open team mates like Juancho who correctly rolled to the bottom left, was wide open, but Lonnie instead waited until he was covered and passed out to reset for reasons known to only him, and perhaps not even that. The drives and passes BACK mid air that get picked off because he does it without first checking who is there to pass to, drives and passes only when he's too contested to get to the rim, the pulling back and resetting our play while time winds down not because we're doing something wrong, but because he's not comfortable with the options he has or sees and needs that reset.

I do wonder with some concern by now at what prompts his decisions, and how much longer we want to keep finding out what I suspect, based on the way we're trying to expand Devin's game slightly faster, we already know.

So back to development, 10-21 isn't terrible, but when combined with the eye test of the decisions he made on some of those shots, oof.

Primo actually led the bench with 28 minutes and while he showed some flashes, he also had a game high 5 TOs, some of the bad pass variety, some of the lost ball on drives variety, and some a mix of both, like his drive to the basket then jumping and trying to pass back in mid air without looking first which was easily picked off.

I do really like his defensive willingness and tenacity, and his fearlessness in taking off the dribble 3s. He's certainly not afraid of the moment. That drive and pretty scoop finish and then baseline cut for a reverse were nice, too. There a poise about him that feels older than his actual age, but then at times his actual inexperience shines through.

Full credit to him, though for making 50% of his FGs and 3-4 from 3 - second best in makes on the team after Doug - for 13 points, 3 O boards (!), 1 assist, and 2 blocks.

I didn't realize Juancho played 15 minutes. He's a hustle guy who is in the right places defensively, makes the right switches and covers the right players while pointing to team mates where they ought to be going. Loved his hustle play to get the jump ball and stick with the 50/50 loose ball and get a putback basket. He chipped in 5 boards (2 on O), an assist, and a steal.

So some things to work on include late game execution and ball protection, shot selection - which ties directly to earlier full execution of good to great plays so we're familiar with what we need to do rather than improvise and get stuck with poor decisions, and poise under pressure.

We responded well to their counter attacks but did get outperformed by a talented and experienced back court. Speaking of back courts, we will have to work out the two best players in any given time there who can consistently make 3s. Tre and Devin combined for 1-6. And in a close game when neither Devin, nor Lonnie, nor Keldon for that matter are making their 3s, shutting down the best 3s shooter becomes a bigger priority for the opponent, and an easier one when there are fewer players to worry about.

Our switches and rotations as well as contesting well will need work, as does our P&R coverage. We tended to have too many players drop along with the ball handlers and drivers and leave too many others too open. Basic fundamentals of running out and having arms up and out is still something some of our players need reminding of. Why I don't know, but here we are. Hopefully we drive more and get to the FT line more as well.

It was an important test and measuring stick for many of the younger players to go up against such a finely tuned offense and deal executing properly in pressure situations. As players chase consistency, Pop and the coaching staff reinforce the right plays, the extra passes, the right reads and responses, the right positioning, and the right mindset throughout. I like how we competed and for the most part how we played together, with the reminder that all it takes is one or two players to start going after theirs to upturn a given series of plays. And while there's no such thing as a perfect game, and sometimes you win ugly ones you may not deserve, there are benefits from a loss where you gain experience from the good and bad play of lesser used players. There is a lot to learn from this one and that is valuable for a developing team like ours. I do like that we competed and found ways to keep fighting back, and we weren't intimidated by a team with the best record in the league. Sometimes the mindset to compete and not mail it in considering the David-Goliath circumstances is the biggest challenge but we took that on well.

Hopefully the guys we rested are ready for the next series of games and those who got bigger roles can take in what they got from this game and be bigger stars in their regular roles. All the while, I do like we have waves of players pushing players in front of them. We're all the better for it.