GAME DAY, BALA! GAME 15: SPURS AT WIZARDS, 20-11-2019, 6PM (CT)

[G R E Y]

Playing the right way and executing our system for a whole game is the goal tonight. Locking in together, running back and communicating on defense, closing out and contesting shots, and rebounding on one end, imposing our offense, moving on and off the ball, creating good to great shots, and paying attention to fundamentals on the other are central to the task before us. Let's get after it!

WHERE: Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C.

WHEN: Wednesday, November 20, 2019, 6pm (CT)

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GO SPURS GO!!!

[G R E Y]

This explains why Derrick has looked off the last couple of games and played fewer minutes in the last one:

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Hopefully Keldon gets some time and make a good impact with his tenacity and energy.

[ducler]

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[G R E Y]

WOW! Interesting that Jakob is back in the starting line-up. Didn't see Dejounte coming off the bench, but let's see how we do! GO SPURS GO!!!

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[G R E Y]

Which back court player is supposed to be stopping Beal? I thought for sure Dejounte would get that assignment, but that's what subbings are for. Perhaps style of play and Patty's facilitating suits this line-up better. Dejounte's team running ability is still a work in progress and this seems to be a more cohesive, familiar group, at least on O.

I wonder whether this means that Dejounte closes the game defensively? This was Derrick's responsibility, but with him not playing tonight, maybe we're switching when Dejounte plays to fulfill that role.

EDIT to add: They're just talking about our slow starts, so maybe this line-up will help get a better flow to start the game.

[imagump1313]

Im not that juiced having Mills play more minutes but whatever......

At least we aren't down big early like usual but we are playing the Wizards. Its a lose, lose because if we lose its terrible and if we do anything positive its because we are playing Washington.

[G R E Y]

Jakob as starter has no points in the first Q, but terrific pass to find LMA on the back door cut - already their connection paying off.

Trey off the bench doing what he was doing as starter, good rebounding.

Beli has now scored some points with good off ball movement and passing from Patty, but before that he was responsible on two blow-by 2s in the key and fouls. He gets scored on easily and was a team-worst -4 in only 3 minutes of first Q play. Amazing. To his credit, he kept moving off ball and made some Beli-eque shots.

Dejounte needs work running a team as a facilitating PG - it is all the more glaring now that we see Patty facilitating well. DJ needs more seasoning.

Much better ball movement, off-ball movement and easier scoring for us with this new starting line-up.

We DO NEED TO CLOSE-OUT AND CONTEST THE 3. Every. Time.

[G R E Y]

DC, Rudy, LMA in together - don't let me down!

[G R E Y]

Don't like the shot selections - 3 long shots in a row - to end the Q here.

Create good to great shots, Spurs!

Need better movement, and not settle for the outside shot. Get it inside, for a surer shot.

EDIT to add: In terms of game management, we have to make sure we don't start settling for shots once we get a lead. I get we are trying to build the lead with the 3, but we have to move the defenders for better shots rather than missing everything outside for the last 2 minutes or so. It should send a mesage that we are cooling off and have to WORK for our points the way we EARNED them - ball and off ball movement, cuts, P&Rs - these have created wide open shots all game.

Focus and hustle for the rest of the game, Spurs!

[G R E Y]

Bad shot selection overall in this 3rd Q by us. DeMar gets into the key, and in the air instead of taking it to the basket or a floater kicks it out to LMA of all people for a missed 3.

THREE O chances, 3 misses on 3 long shots.

[G R E Y]

YEAH. EVERY TIME BELI GOES IN ANY OPPOSING TEAM GOES ON A RUN. EVERY. TIME. HE SAPS THIS TEAM'S ENERGY. HE GETS BLOWN BY. HE MISSES BUNNY DRIVES. WE GET SHELL SHOCKED, WE STOP RUNNING BACK ON D, WE GIVE UP A 22-3 RUN.

GET BELI THE **** OFF THE COURT. FOREVER.

End of rant.

[G R E Y]

We need to contest 3s and make more 3s right now.

[G R E Y]

And in opposite-ville, we give up 3s, and miss our shots, and have bad turnovers late in the game.

[G R E Y]

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[G R E Y]

We got what we wanted from the new starting unit - 132 points is huge and should win you every game. We scored 30+ in three quarters. The problem, of course, is that we gave up 138 and with three 35+ quarters against. We lost despite having 8 - EIGHT - players in double figures, (and two not scoring - Trey and DeMarre), so it's clear that when we want it, we can score in a variety of ways. And to put it kindly, our opponent was giving up everything. The trouble is so were we after we got a lead. We scored 69 points in the first half, but gave up 75 points in the second, including 38-29 - the biggest disparity even though as Baphomet pointed out our third quarters have been our strongest.

And I ask again - who guards Beal? Nobody, apparently, not when they went on a hot scoring 22-3 streak in the third Q, not when we actually brought it to single digits at I think under 4 minutes left in the fourth Q. I know DeMar is having an very efficient O season, and he was great there again tonight, but winning games is in the details team-wide. Why did he let Beal just trot up the court wasting precious seconds and allowing them to set up on O because the ball handler wasn't in any way kept off his rhythm? Why are we leaving such big gaps between ourselves and 3 shooters so that even when we close out, we're too far behind? Even if a player drives past us, we can rotate and at least give up a 2 instead. We got Rui and Beal into foul trouble (2 each) with solid energetic defense in the first Q and then didn't focus on them enough to get them into bigger foul trouble sooner.

Back to 3 contesting, to put it in perspective, here's the 3 deficit for us the last two games:

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And the corollary is that we were feasting inside in the first half, and they opened up the inside with their outside shots and ended up scoring the same number of points in the paint by the end of the game.

Our patterns are still creeping in and you think we'd get to a point of stopping them just when they do, but we keep lulling ourselves into a false sense of security as soon as we get a double digit lead. Up ten points, and we finished the first half with really poor, lazy shot selection not scoring on any of our outside shots in the final 2 or so minutes, this on top allowing our opponent to catch up to within 3 points in the first Q after we had a comfortable lead.

We settled for shots, we did not run back on defense, and despite leading, we allowed our opponents to find vulnerabilities and exploit them. Beal and 3s killed us tonight. And even when they were unraveling late and we brought it to within 3 points, we turned it over, we didn't pressure the ball enough, we didn't make FTs, and we frankly got the result that we deserved.

I'm going to pound on Beli again even though he scored 10 points tonight:

Something happens to our team when he gets into the game. It's like those recurring nightmares when you know that horrible thing is going to happen again and you can't stop it and you have to see yourself going through it over and over.

Our collective juju evaporates and it's like oh no, here we go again, and we lose the leads. It is patently clear that every time Beli goes in, it's like we fog over as a team and just... stop playing well. It's the weirdest thing. We pass to him, he gets a point or not, this is not consistent, but what is consistent is his terrible defense, and he gives up not only points but +1 opportunities as well. He played only 14 minutes tonight and was -16. I know +/- is a crap stat, and that I'm piling on him with it, but it does pass the eye test.

I see now the error of my DeMarre-as-starter call. He looks lost out there at times. I had to cringe-laugh when he hustled after a rebound and proceeded to insist on dribbling the ball up the court before being contested and passing to DJ. He just does these weird things that have no purpose whatsoever. We watched him dribble until he was forced to pass. It didn't technically cost us anything, but we could have pushed the ball up the court and maybe not allowed their D to set up. His shot in the key was a sort of strange contested heave that didn't make it over the rim. It feels like he's out of rhythm and so shocked when he gets the ball that he either holds on to it too much or gets rid of it too quickly. But I'm making too fine a point of it with him. He and Trey had the fewest minutes, so they didn't do anything to hurt the team. Just an observation that I get why people have said he looks lost out there and why the coaching staff isn't giving him meaningful minutes.

LMA. Some things are ongoing issue. He was better to start the game, and he had good synergy with Jakob who also gave us a solid performance in his first start tonight (5-7, though his FT struggles - 1-3 - continue). LMA was 5-6 inside the paint, but was 1-9 outside of it, including 0-2 from 3. He did grab 3 O rebounds (same with Rudy and Dejounte), but he got to the FT line ZERO times. He is not getting to the FT nearly enough, and part of it is a function of settling for outside shots too much. It's a balance, right? You take an open shot when you have it, but when it's not falling, don't shoot more from the outside when you're succeeding inside so much.

Patty and Jakob as starters balanced us and we had a much better O rhythm. Patty is a better facilitator at this point, and we did well in moving the ball and off the ball and getting nice looks from many places and for just about everyone.

DJ as energy bench PG did well in his drives and ball stopping plays. His defense was solid, and his scoring, too, though sometimes he was erratic, got ahead of himself, tried to do too much, and drove instead of recognizing that we would be better served in his setting up the team (ie/ after first scoring, he tried a second consecutive drive into defenders that they adjusted to and blocked him).

I know we are trying, I can see it. Except for the Boston blowout, we have had leads in all of the rest of the games. But something happens to lock us into bad patterns, and I consistently see our leads evaporate with Beli getting into the game. We lose confidence once we give up leads, and it affects our running back on D, and giving up consecutive points whether by not taking advantage of multiple possessions from hard work of getting O boards, or settling for outside shots.

Beli will play less, but not just yet...

I think we will get to that point of either accepting D responsibility and playing harder for the whole game on that end, or we will be handing the reins over to the younger guys once that December trade date (forget what it is) comes and we can make some moves. It's tough when you're top 5 in O and do what you need to win on that end. We put up more shots, got to the FT line almost twice as many times, grabbed more rebounds including 12-6 on O, had 5 fewer turnovers, shot 32 3s (making 12), but lost because we gave up 58.7% on their FGs and 60% on their 3s.

It's glaringly clear that we must stand firm by our defensive principles, and effort. Sometimes an opponent makes great shots and you tip your hat. But we did not respond with the defensive tenacity we had to and reward ourselves for our good O. The coaches put the players in a good position to win tonight. But we took our foot off the gas when we had a lead and settled for outside shots, did not run back on defense or pressure the ball handlers nearly enough, on top of not contesting 3s like our lives depended on it.

These are hard lessons to learn. I hope this game finally has us absorbing the message that defense will win us games, that we can't just outscore opponents, and that every play counts so taking plays off on either end will catch up to us. There's nobody else to look to but ourselves, and it's only going to be with a commitment to defense that we get better results.

As Rudy said in his post-game interview, "It's about discipline." Guys know what's wrong, and are owning up to it. These are important to turning things around.