Would've 2011 Spurs changed the outcome? What was the main issue?

[Ritzo]

When talking about first round upsets, the 2007 Mavs are always brought up but not the 2011 Spurs. Is it because it got overshadowed by the Mavs upsetting the Heatles in the Finals?

They won 61 games in the regular season, Manu and Duncan made the All-star team while Parker got snubbed. All I remember was ZBo and Marc Gasol destroying Duncan. What was really the main problem? How would they match up against the Mavs if they met in the playoffs that year?

[Blame Rasho]

The mavs were just a better team. Spurs lost and that was that. Manu was hurt, broke his arm in last game of season before playoffs. It is when pop started player management / rest era.

[QMemphis]

If the Grizz make it past the Thunder they would’ve beat the Mavs in the Conference Finals and beat the Heatles as the ultimate underdogs.

[MrGoat]

That Memphis team was good, that was when they were at the height of the grit n' grind Grizzlies. No one wanted to play them even if they were the 8 seed, OKC had to go through a grueling 7 game series to eliminate them in the second round.

Z Bo really gave Duncan the business in that series too and just flat out outplayed him, it was arguably the worst playoff series Tim Duncan ever played

[SportsGuru08]

If the Grizz make it past the Thunder they would’ve beat the Mavs in the Conference Finals and beat the Heatles as the ultimate underdogs.

Dirk in particular got a huge break in facing OKC instead of Memphis. Facing Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka in the front court allowed him to rest on defense, something he couldn't have done against the Grizzlies.

[MrGoat]

If the Grizz make it past the Thunder they would’ve beat the Mavs in the Conference Finals and beat the Heatles as the ultimate underdogs.

Dirk in particular got a huge break in facing OKC instead of Memphis. Facing Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka in the front court allowed him to rest on defense, something he couldn't have done against the Grizzlies.

They would have made Dallas work harder than OKC did for sure, but they wouldn't have ultimately been able to beat them for the same reason OKC survived them, Memphis just didn't have the offense to keep up with them in the end, Durant gave them just too much firepower, and Dirk was even better than Durant in 2011. Z Bo and Gasol were able to completely destroy Tim Duncan in that series on both ends, Tim Duncan averaged 12 points on sub 50% shooting for the series while Gasol and Z Bo both feasted. That wouldn't have happened to Dirk because no frontcourt had a defensive answer for him in the form he was in that year, and he had real frontcourt help for once because they had Tyson Chandler that year. Still would have been more difficult for Dallas than OKC was, when Dirk dropped 48 on them in game 1 they never mentally recovered

[BrianInPhilly]

If the Grizz make it past the Thunder they would’ve beat the Mavs in the Conference Finals and beat the Heatles as the ultimate underdogs.

Dirk in particular got a huge break in facing OKC instead of Memphis. Facing Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka in the front court allowed him to rest on defense, something he couldn't have done against the Grizzlies.

I mean Dirk faired just fine against Gasol, Bynum, Odom series before so he would have been just fine. He was a solid post defender around that time. Randolph would struggle defending Dirk way more than vice versa.

[prophet_of_rage]

People ignore how good that Mavs teamnwas because it's cool to crap on Lebron for losing to them but the truth is that Mavs team was 2/3 in the West won one less game than the Heat overall while.playing in the West and demolished the Lakers, ending Kobe's quest for six and the Phil Jackson era in LA.

Rick Carlisle's coaching genius showed during that time. The Mavs didn't get lucky. Nobody was touching Dirk's offence from the high post and the short corner. Chandler would still shut down the rim and the Grizz didn't have anybody else to stretch the floor.

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[bovice]

If the Grizz make it past the Thunder they would’ve beat the Mavs in the Conference Finals and beat the Heatles as the ultimate underdogs.

Mavs vs grizz woulda been intriguing, that's a toss-up. but I agree that grizz would have beaten heatles. heat couldn't handle the size

[SportsGuru08]

People ignore how good that Mavs teamnwas because it's cool to crap on Lebron for losing to them but the truth is that Mavs team was 2/3 in the West won one less game than the Heat overall while.playing in the West and demolished the Lakers, ending Kobe's quest for six and the Phil Jackson era in LA.

Rick Carlisle's coaching genius showed during that time. The Mavs didn't get lucky. Nobody was touching Dirk's offence from the high post and the short corner. Chandler would still shut down the rim and the Grizz didn't have anybody else to stretch the floor.

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The Mavs were the second oldest title winning team in history. Their recent postseason history leading up to 2011 was three first round losses - two of which came as a No. 1 or No. 2 - and a second round exit in a gentleman's sweep. And they were swept in the first round the year after.

They were one of the flukiest title winning teams of all time.

[DaddyCool19]

Wow I did not expect this:

Mavs were 1:2 against them in the regular season and these are the stats of both in those games:

Game 1
Dirk: 12/10/2
Z-Bo: 23/9/4

Game 2
Dirk: 7/5/1
Z-Bo: 23/20/2

Game 3:
Dirk: 23/5/2
Z-Bo: 27/9/1


Dirk averaged 14/7/2ish and shot 17/38 from the field and went 4/11 from 3.
Z-Bo averaged 24/13/2 ish in those 3 games and shot 29/47 from the field with 0/2 from 3.

I geniunely did not see this coming. I watched Dirks run back then by waking up in the middle of the night and he seemed unguardable at times. Thought Dirk would easily average his regular season numbers or better against Z-Bo, who wasn't really known for his defense.

[Iwasawitness]

People ignore how good that Mavs teamnwas because it's cool to crap on Lebron for losing to them but the truth is that Mavs team was 2/3 in the West won one less game than the Heat overall while.playing in the West and demolished the Lakers, ending Kobe's quest for six and the Phil Jackson era in LA.

Rick Carlisle's coaching genius showed during that time. The Mavs didn't get lucky. Nobody was touching Dirk's offence from the high post and the short corner. Chandler would still shut down the rim and the Grizz didn't have anybody else to stretch the floor.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

The Mavs were the second oldest title winning team in history. Their recent postseason history leading up to 2011 was three first round losses - two of which came as a No. 1 or No. 2 - and a second round exit in a gentleman's sweep. And they were swept in the first round the year after.

They were one of the flukiest title winning teams of all time.

Sportsguru at it again with ignoring context.

[Bornstellar]

Manu broke his elbow in the last regular season game that year. That was the year Pop gave Manu the keys and let him be our first option en route to 61 wins. Problem was that team was fools gold. Their offense was nice but their defense was lacking and this was before Duncan slimmed down and had his resurgence and before Kawhi/Green were on the wings. Even if SA had beaten Memphis I doubt they would have beaten Dallas had they faced each other.

Spurs might have beaten Memphis if Manu wasn't injured and if Pop doesn't stubbornly glue Tiago Splitter to the bench while DeJuan Blair and Matt Bonner were getting destroyed by the Memphis frontcourt

[SportsGuru08]

People ignore how good that Mavs teamnwas because it's cool to crap on Lebron for losing to them but the truth is that Mavs team was 2/3 in the West won one less game than the Heat overall while.playing in the West and demolished the Lakers, ending Kobe's quest for six and the Phil Jackson era in LA.

Rick Carlisle's coaching genius showed during that time. The Mavs didn't get lucky. Nobody was touching Dirk's offence from the high post and the short corner. Chandler would still shut down the rim and the Grizz didn't have anybody else to stretch the floor.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

The Mavs were the second oldest title winning team in history. Their recent postseason history leading up to 2011 was three first round losses - two of which came as a No. 1 or No. 2 - and a second round exit in a gentleman's sweep. And they were swept in the first round the year after.

They were one of the flukiest title winning teams of all time.

Sportsguru at it again with ignoring context.

There is no "context" needed for your hero completely s***ing the bed against a team he had no business losing to. Seriously, even most Bron Stans have given up excusing this one.

[Iwasawitness]

The Mavs were the second oldest title winning team in history. Their recent postseason history leading up to 2011 was three first round losses - two of which came as a No. 1 or No. 2 - and a second round exit in a gentleman's sweep. And they were swept in the first round the year after.

They were one of the flukiest title winning teams of all time.

Sportsguru at it again with ignoring context.

There is no "context" needed for your hero completely s***ing the bed against a team he had no business losing to. Seriously, even most Bron Stans have given up excusing this one.

Oh there's quite a bit, but that's not the point at hand here, since I've never once tried to excuse his bad performance and have always told it like it is.

You said the Mavs were one of the flukiest title winners ever, and for some reason use their past playoff exits as proof. If you gave any actual thought into your posts (which you don't), you'd understand how silly this is. Mavs acquired Chandler, Peja and Stevenson all in that off season. All three were key rotation players and one anchored their defense and was a key reason in LeBron being shut down. In other words, it makes no sense to bring up their past seasons. They were a very different team at this point.

If you were watching back then, you would know this. But hell, if you had any clue what you were talking about, you would know this too. But neither of those things are true, so here we are.

[QMemphis]

I want to remind all the fans that keep bringing up Manu’s injury the Grizzlies team did not have Rudy Gay due to injury as well the entire playoffs.

Regardless of what you think of him Rudy was a top 10 SF in the league at the time and would’ve provided even more scoring and size. Rudy also could’ve potentially returned had the Grizz been able to advance. Side-note: (He hit a game winner against the Heat that regular season as well).

[maverick_41]

People ignore how good that Mavs teamnwas because it's cool to crap on Lebron for losing to them but the truth is that Mavs team was 2/3 in the West won one less game than the Heat overall while.playing in the West and demolished the Lakers, ending Kobe's quest for six and the Phil Jackson era in LA.

Rick Carlisle's coaching genius showed during that time. The Mavs didn't get lucky. Nobody was touching Dirk's offence from the high post and the short corner. Chandler would still shut down the rim and the Grizz didn't have anybody else to stretch the floor.

Sent from my SM-S9080 using RealGM mobile app

The Mavs were the second oldest title winning team in history. Their recent postseason history leading up to 2011 was three first round losses - two of which came as a No. 1 or No. 2 - and a second round exit in a gentleman's sweep. And they were swept in the first round the year after.

They were one of the flukiest title winning teams of all time.

Tyson Chandler

[CIN-C-STAR]

Everyone remembers that Manu was playing through injury because he had the sling/cast or whatever it was on his arm the entire series, but people forget that Duncan was also playing through injury.
The Spurs were so beat up that the Grizzlies tanked the end of the season to purposefully drop to the eight seed so they could play them, so they were also a better team than their seed would indicate.
Also though, the Spurs defense was not great that season as they lacked good defensive wings and were playing Dejaun Blair heavy minutes, when he lacked size to defend in the post, had no verticality for help defense, was too slow to guard on the perimeter, and just really wasn't a good defender in any way.
I rather liked that Grizzlies team and think they were kind of underrated too. Z-Bo and Gasol were a pretty elite front court, Conley was a good point guard, and they had excellent team defense and depth, so I'm not trying to takeaway from them winning the series either, but a fully healthy Spurs team could have given them a much tougher series and very likely might have won.

[Rust_Cohle]

Ginobili injury at the very end of the regular season was massive. He had a broken arm and tried playing through it. Memphis was also the worst matchup in the entire conference. And fair play, Memphis were amazing at home in that series. But without losing that series, maybe the Spurs don't get aggressive for drafting Kawhi and going on a very very nice run from 2012-2014.

[Doctor MJ]

Manu broke his elbow in the last regular season game that year. That was the year Pop gave Manu the keys and let him be our first option en route to 61 wins. Problem was that team was fools gold. Their offense was nice but their defense was lacking and this was before Duncan slimmed down and had his resurgence and before Kawhi/Green were on the wings. Even if SA had beaten Memphis I doubt they would have beaten Dallas had they faced each other.

Spurs might have beaten Memphis if Manu wasn't injured and if Pop doesn't stubbornly glue Tiago Splitter to the bench while DeJuan Blair and Matt Bonner were getting destroyed by the Memphis frontcourt

So I want to piggy back off your posts because it focuses on the key issue of Manu being injured in the series where they got upset. This isn't a coincidence, and I'd just note that while Manu didn't always show the greatest signs of per minute impact on the Spurs in the playoffs, he did whenever they won titles.

As such I want to push back on anything that connects Ginobili with "regular season fool's gold" - I know you didn't call him that, nor do I believe you see him that way, but the sentiment can easily get attributed to someone without lived experience from the time. I would say that Ginobili WAS the "gold" that generally allowed the Spurs to win chips, and the fact that they don't have more chips from the time period than they do could be said to be a product of Ginobili failing to "max out the gold" in the playoffs with the kind of consistency that we expect from GOATs.

None of this is meant to imply though that the '00s-90s Spurs many chips wasn't first and foremost about their great defense anchored by Duncan, but of course, most years, something stopped them short of chip. And part of what was going on was about Ginobili being better and worse.

Before I end, I also want to point out that the Spurs adopting a pacier, spacier offense wasn't a mere gimmick, just as it wasn't for any of the other 29 teams that have now moved in that direction. If Pop had insisted on keeping on the way he always had, the '10s Spurs resurgence leading to that last title just doesn't happen. Pop would of course after that zag partially back into the paint with a midrange volume scoring orientation surely inspired by the talent of Kawhi, but then buried as he decided to on the Aldridge/DeRozan. I would thus suggest that what Pop decided to pivot to in 2010 was not fool's gold but rather "the way forward" for the team and the NBA, and when Pop himself decided to test whether the new paradigm had gone too far, he learned the hard way that not only had we not passed equilibrium, but we still had at least one more generation of "even more 3's" to go before such a reactionary zag could be expected to pay off. (And on that, last season is the all-time peak for 3's, so the zag hasn't happened yet, but it will eventually happen, and when we do, I expect to see a consistent dip in 3's that reaches a new stable equilibrium. Maybe that new stability will be below last year's average of 37.6 3PA, and if so, the zag is ready now. But Pop went full zag after a season with league average 29.0 3PA, and I think we can say pretty confidently, this was well below where we should expect the new equilibrium to be.)