It was a high-low night in terms of plays run and injuries sustained.
From the arc Pau somehow kept throwing it over the tallest player on the court down low to LMA, who kept muscling the Unicorn for position, pinning him repeatedly, and getting either points or fouls for himself or driving team mates. KP fouled out, but not before LMA schooled him for 25 points (8-19) and five rebounds.
Pau must be spending some time in whatever time-reversing, youth-enducing chamber Manu rejuvenates in because he’s been incredible on the whole, but especially these past few games and continued it against the Knicks. Gasol scored 17 points on excellent 7-11 shooting, grabbed a team-high 11 rebounds, and lead the team with 7 assists. It’s such an asset having a versatile seven-foot C who operates from the top of the key essentially as a point guard with the best vantage point. He spaces the floor with a deadly outside shot, establishes position in the low block and gets opponents who have to respect his shot to collapse with him, facilitates for his team mates in finding the open player time and again, and gets physical in grabbing rebounds. All Manu-sharing-grandpa-juice kidding aside, Pau’s raised his level of play to earn a fourth straight double-double which stands out on its own, let alone for a 37-year-old veteran. He plays with intelligence, pride, and heart, and he’s been essential for us.
I’d read that Pop was considering resting LMA and playing Kawhi, but the opposite happened. It’s understandable with the Unicorn and Kanter that we needed the bigs to match, but despite more balanced minutes throughout the team, LMA has been leading in playing time every night, so at some point hopefully he either rests completely or we sustain a big enough lead for LMA to sit early. Yes it’s his job and he’s thriving, but Pop’s been keen to protect Spurs from wear and tear already, and January and February schedules are looking particularly brutal.
Let’s pause for moment to appreciate that our second unit has Patty, Rudy, and Manu on it. The options for us and headaches for opponents are endless. We shot 58% in the first Q. But some sloppy play like letting Knicks twice drive down the middle uncontested and the occasional mismatch of Patty on Unicorn on D, coupled with bad spacing, lazy passing and moving, and missed shots prompted a Pop timeout to right the ship. Pau bucket and one. Points. Every. Time. Not to be outdone by his bigs, Tony kept driving into the Unicorn and scoring over him, layup and after layup. We did a great job using double screens and pinning KP to get some space for Tony to work his magic around the basket. He provided 14 points on a productive 6-9 shooting in 29 minutes. It was so good to see Tony out there in all four quarters.
Murray’s shot was great on the floor, terrible at the FT line; Patty’s shot was terrible on the floor, great at the FT line (poor overall game, really, with turnovers and erratic play. Sometimes that energy gets off kilter and he rushes, doesn’t get set for his shots). They combined for 14 points, 6 assists, and 4 rebounds. Bryn was solid off the bench with 10 points (4-9, 2-4 from 3). Filling in for a resting Kawhi was Mr. Anderson who was a perfect 4-4FG and 8-8FT. The Spurs are 11th at 78% FT, but tonight were a well below a not-so-great average at 28-39 for 71.8% (Dejounte, 20 military push-ups for every miss...).
We get these long shooting droughts that we can snap ourselves out of, but this one stood out. In the second Q, we didn’t score in the first two minutes so a Pop timeout resulted in a Forbes 3. But outside of FTs, we didn’t score from 7:41 to 3:05, and then not again until 0:56, and with that production our 8 point lead dwindled to 1 at the half. It’s no wonder the Knicks won that quarter.
You have to hand it to them, they kept counter-punching with a quick pace that had us on our heels at times, and quick closeouts on D, but in the third Q we went on a 9-0 run of our own to get a 12-point lead. Our momentum was cut by an abysmal end of Q foul called on Murray. Refs decided that with 0.1?! left Baker was hampered in shooting a 3 (it was more like a split second Hail Mary toss to see if he could get something out of bumping into Murray). Uuuugh just brutal... Baker hit 2FTs.
In the fourth, we flirted with blowing the game open with a 17-point lead, but Beasley and Jack kept us honest and focused. We ended up with six players in double figures, including all five starters. All of Danny’s shots (8) and makes (5) were 3s for 15 timely points. His 2 rebounds, 2 assists, and block don’t adequately convey the impact of his presence against the Knicks. Danny was great at making them chase him all night, that is, until he tweaked something again. I hope he and Rudy, who hobbled off the floor, will be ok...
Loved: Sean’s breakdowns and explanations of our plays during timeouts. Very clear and insightful about both the plays and their benefits.
* Pop taking Bryn aside and clarifying positioning and play execution when Knicks were shooting FTs. There’s always a teaching and learning moment in a game.
* We average 14 turnovers a game, but had only 9 tonight, while getting 28 assists and 53 rebounds.
Not so much: free throw shooting and bunnies (though there were fewer tonight).
Noteworthy individual achievements:With the 25th win of the season, Pop ties George Karl for fifth all-time in victories at 1175
Also:
Parker has scored in double figures in 930 career games. Among point guards, only Gary Payton (1,035) and John Stockton (1,061) have more games scoring at least 10 points in league history. ... Green is the 127th player in league history with 900 3-pointers.
http://www.espn.com/nba/recap?gameId=400975265I love this team. GO SPURS!
