GAME DAY, BALA! GAME 9: SPURS VS. CELTICS, 9-11-2019, 4PM (CT)

[G R E Y]

Well "without having watched the game" is part of the issue in that there's an imbalance of perspective both of a player or the team, and of what fans choose to focus or chime in on. I don't except fans of other teams to watch the Spurs (caveat being those of any given opponent), but DeMar is actually having a really efficient season so far. He wasn't in hero mode in this game, but he did make some mistakes out of frustration. And LMA isn't taking up his driving lane, not sure where that's coming from. LMA's more of an outside presence, guys move around to clear space anyway, and DeMar is already second in driving attempts. He's hardly been the problem, but one game where just about everyone not named Patty or Trey had off nights and a familiar contingent reappears, the one that disappears when credit is due, like, say, when he had an 11-assist game.

When people say things like '... same old DeMar' what they're also inadvertently saying is he wasn't properly developed. He gets credit for growng his game such as he has, but he also wasn't held to account on the D end as he was developing his game. That brings us to expectations of Pop which are almost cartoonish at this point, either as some sort of 'saviour' or 'villain': when a player is struggling it's 'oh send him to the Spurs, they'll fix him' when the fact is dealing with human beings, motivations, and long-ingrained habits has only so much malleability so Pop instead finds ways to work to a player's strengths, so that's making sure he can get to his spots and has opportunities to drive or distribute, not suddenly become a 3-threat; when we have a bad game the blame on Pop, be it rotations or style of play, both of which he's shown to adjust, are compounded with criticism of style of coaching which doesn't jive with a third of the league plucking talent from the Spurs coaching / management tree.

I will say that though we looked not cohesive, sort of collectively, what? sad or absent-minded something. Sort of like if you get some bad news before work and then are preoccupied by it for the rest of the day and don't function properly. It's not like guys weren't trying, they were, it was just out of sync. Lemons happen. Patterns over a series of games are more fruitful to examine as there's a bigger sample size. LMA with three games with under 10 shots is one of them. He's looking more svelte this season, as if ready to run more, yet isn't doing himself the favour of beating opponents down the court consistently for far easier points.

It boils down to a - it's one game, b- having a balanced view point of both bad and good games, and c - let's see how we respond.