SPURS GAME DAY! GAME 9: SPURS VS. CLIPPERS, 4-11-2022, 7PM (CT)

[G R E Y]

Sochan's not shy about shooting I'll give him that.

[G R E Y]

Now we have Devin bringing it up to initiate the O, gets to his spot, and J.

[G R E Y]

Bad pass and giving up points the other way.

Seven point lead down to 3 with some wonky decisions.

Good timeout.

Our pace is too slow and plays into opponent strengths.

Push, keep moving, keep running back on D.

[G R E Y]

Feels like we haven't seen Keldon in a long while...

[G R E Y]

Tre man D running backwards arm up staying clean and physical is special.

Tre drives the other way.

Four-point swing.

[G R E Y]

WTF was that wide open 3?!

[G R E Y]

We need to figure out how to NOT TO the ball and how to SCORE the ball.

Clean it up on both ends, Spurs!

[G R E Y]

Sochan O board STUFF!

[G R E Y]

Crap TOs...

[G R E Y]

Doug can make 3s and layups but middys - nope.

[G R E Y]

Aaaah Tre! You have to take it. Good D effort. Good of the team to reward him with the shot after he was the first to run down the court.

[G R E Y]

4TH Q: SPURS 104 CLIPPERS 113

Our second worst scoring Q coincided with Keldon's least efficient game, with Devin, our hottest hand, sitting out the final Q due to minutes restriction, as well as with us giving up the highest scored Q against.

We allowed three more 3s than we made, and that's game right there. We missed EIGHT FTs in an inexcusable 10-18FTs which made it hard to get a big enough cushion and the slim margin of error cost us.

Tre led the starters with 18 on 7-15, 3-5 from 3(!), team high 6 assists, 2 boards and 1 steal. His defensive peskiness and work on 3s are paying off. Handles are still a WiP, but he's our steadiest presence at the point. Relentless little pitbull.

Sochan has to work on his shot outisde the arc. Rookies don't come fully formed, and we knew his O game was going to need work, and it does. He's terrific in transition, he has a nice form in midrange shots, but the 3 needs a lot of work. He's not shy about shooting it (0-4), but opponents don't respect it given how much space he's given to launch them. It'll come along, but this is one of the growing pains that he and we must go through.

He's out there for development and it is his defensive versatility that is getting him minutes. This was a tough test for the rookie with facing a larger variety of experienced scorers. Grewat putback O board dunk, solid switching, very god passing vision especially with the bounce pass to a back door cutting Devin. We'll need him to learn to get to the FT line more and make these. He has the potential to spread the floor, but right now it's too spotty.

His front court partner had a rare weak game. There are some opposing Cs that Jakob looks pedestrian against and his 4 points on 2-6, 0-2FTs was a tough night for him. He hardly ever had an easy basket, got outmuscled, thrown off his spots, rhythm, and game. He did tie Keldon for a team high 7 boards (2 on O), 3 assists, team high 3 steals, and 1 block. But he was also a team worst -21. Sometimes that stat belies what a player actually contributes; others, like in this game, it more or less passes the eye test. He worked hard, but it wasn't to good effect. He looked smaller, weaker, less athletic, less coordinated. And yet he still put up helpful numbers across the board. We just couldn't get more out of him tonight and he couldn't stop his counterpart from feasting on him.

I have to adjust what I said about Sochan's fellow rookie starter, Mal. I do still love his game, but I love what it will be. What it now is is a raw version that is inefficient, unbalanced in terms of shot selection and exploiting opportunities (he was 1-3, no drives), but he's a talented scorer that we must help him get the most out of his game. It will come, but once Romeo returns, he gives the solid D and can surely manage at least 2 points per game. It was also a tough challenge for Mal in his first ever career start so there's lots for him to take in and learn from.

Keldon had one of those what-if games: what if he scored just his average this season at his usual efficiency? But like with Devin's what if he played his usual end of game minutes, the game is the result of what is not what if. And so we had to try to make do without the full services of our two top scorers and best players.

With yet another brand new line-up, three starters combined for 12 points. Our 23 assists were below our league best 30 per game, and the 3s attempts and makes as well as overall FGAs were below our average, too. We got lulled into a half court pace that was just too much dribbling, just to much undecisiveness, just not enough cohesiveness. And so a slow start with inefficiency by us and not stopping scoring against put us behind 17 early.

Our cohesive bench did a great job fighting to get us back in it with balanced contributions from the 3,4,5 around Devin. Zach scored at all three levels again and had contributions across the board again and Diop did scored at the rim. We even got a double digit lead and held it going into the final Q, but couldn't sustain it without our usual line-up and our usual pace and efficiency. Our bench still outscored theirs 60-37. Everyone but JRich was efficient on the bench, one of those unusual inversions of the starters.

We were outrebounded 43-33 but we doubled them 6-3 on O boards. We had a 56-44 points in the paint advantage by the end of the game thanks to a more dedicated drive game from the 2ND Q onwards.

TOs have been biting us this season but we managed to have a respectable 13 which cost us 15 points but we were +5 in this department.

Doug is emblematic of so much that is the best of us. He's a great guy, is the best at his role, and his modern shot chart of rim and arc is now something we've more fully embraced as a team. Most of our players' shot charts were either within the paint or beyond the arc; the beautiful game adapted to the modern game.

Some things to clean up include getting up on O players and running back on D from the start. The shot not falling should make our legs work all the more on D, not less, to help keep us from falling too far behind. Faster starts in terms of movement with and without the ball to keep defenses moving and exploit defenses not being set is something we've caught teams with when we've won. We're now on the first losing streak and getting back to how we play best, more free-flowing, ever moving, transition style with stingy, energetic D has to be there to give ourselves a better chance to win. Let's see what we've learned from this one tomorrow night.

[G R E Y]

NOTEWORTHY ACHIEVEMENTS

Read on Twitter

[G R E Y]

HIGHLIGHTS

Watch on YouTube

POST-GAME INTERVIEWS

Read on Twitter