GAME DAY, BALA! GAME 24: SPURS VS. CAVS, 12-12-2019, 7:30PM (CT)

[G R E Y]

Well that was some break! Five consecutive days off is rare, but deeply needed. The hope is that we find the right balance between proper rest and readiness. Having the chance to practice the last couple of days should have shaken off any rust and refocused our execution. We must be mindful to take every opponent seriously, start strong, and stay competitive throughout. Let's get after it!

WHERE: AT&T Center, San Antonio, TX

WHEN: Thursday, December 12, 2019, 7:30pm (CT)



GO SPURS GO!!!

[ducler]

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[OGLife]

Why does Jakob not get any post ups? Solid defense

[G R E Y]

Got in half way through the 1st Q. Not exactly the energetic take it to them start.

No idea why we're settling for outside shots and have a Sunday pace, but we better shake it off and wake up and get it the **** into higher gears.

[G R E Y]

Why does Jakob not get any post ups? Solid defense

Pop's been wondering the same thing.

But his pop-a-shot has been inconsistent and tends to get his points in transition more.

[G R E Y]

Yes. Let's keep settling for outside shots. Solid choice.

[OGLife]

Why does Jakob not get any post ups? Solid defense

Pop's been wondering the same thing.

But his pop-a-shot has been inconsistent and tends to get his points in transition more.

LA has been terrible thus far yet still gets the ball in the paint. I'd like to see some pnr plays with Mills and Jak

[G R E Y]

Why does Jakob not get any post ups? Solid defense

Pop's been wondering the same thing.

But his pop-a-shot has been inconsistent and tends to get his points in transition more.

LA has been terrible thus far yet still gets the ball in the paint. I'd like to see some pnr plays with Mills and Jak

Well, it's hard to defend that other than he's more experienced and when in Spurs run it through him on the left block. He is settling for outside shots way too much. Agree about the Jakob / Patty P&R. They're both good at it. Derrick and Jakob, too.

[imagump1313]

Im soo sick and tired of this team. Cavs are awful and quit on their coach this week and are out-hustling us all over the place. We are the team that looks like it quit. I've had it. You dont have to be good to at least try. We are just going through the motions, taking bad, lazy shots. Walking around defensively letting them do whatever they want.

[G R E Y]

We look like it's our first game back after a long summer break without any practice.

WAYYYY too tentative and our of sync on O. We may be getting D stops, but they're running everything through Love who keeps finding the open man. The simplest of O schemes and we are getting torched by him.

Outside of Patty, Derrick, and Lonnie, and maybe DD, everyone else is ice cold and settling for outside shots.

Respect our opponents and ourselves and just play in a way that shows it. I hope Pop lights a fire under their collective arses.

[G R E Y]

STOP. SETTLING. FOR. OUTSIDE. SHOTS, SPURS!

[GooniousMaximus]

random ? does tim duncan not asst coach every spurs game? haven’t followed all the games yet this year

[G R E Y]

random ? does tim duncan not asst coach every spurs game? haven’t followed all the games yet this year

He's been in every one. Actually didn't notice whether he was there tonight, but I do know that the assistant coaches rotate where they sit, sometimes beside Pop, sometimes not.

If he was not there tonight, it was a first.

[G R E Y]

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[imagump1313]

Im officially finished with this team. Not only do they suck, they are the most unlikable team I have seen in awhile. As much as I dislike the Pistons I dislike this team more.
I HATE this team!

Murray is overrated as F###. His offense is laughable. If its not an uncontested dunk or layup he cant score. Everyone raves about his defense and rebounding. I dont see it at all. Cleveland's guards were walking right past him every possession. The only rebounds he gets are uncontested garbage defensive rebounds that the opposition doesn't try for. He is weak in traffic and turns the ball over if someone looks at him.

Walker should be in Austin. He cant guard anyone, he can only go to his right. He is a turnover machine if anyone touches him.

Mills is the only guy who looks like he actually cares but he cant play more than 15 minutes or he becomes a liability.

Aldridge just is soft and settles for way too many fade aways and has even worse hands than Pau Gasol did. No one including coaches want to make him accountable for anything.

DeRozan doesn't know how to win and it seems everyone on this team including coaches are afraid to confront him or make him accountable.

Gay has turned into a bit player.

Belenelli is what he is.

White has regressed immensely to the point he needs to go back to Austin.

Forbes is not a starter and a turnover machine. Plus he couldn't guard my grandmother.

Lyles does nothing but good for this team when he plays and he barely sees the floor but we have lifeless turnover machines and bad shot takers play all night.

The coaching staff (Pop included) seems to have no idea what its doing. Either that, or they are just going through the motions until we make a trade.

I myself NEVER expected to win a title with this team but in my lifetime I have never seen a Spurs team that didn't even look like it wanted to win games before. This is ridiculous.

If we do not make any trades I am out on this team. I HATE it. I now want them to lose every game they play until something changes.

I am not a spoiled Spurs fan who isnt used to losing. We have lost plenty in the past but at least we competed. We always had likeable guys who competed. I can't root for anyone in this hot mess of a team. They can all go.

[G R E Y]

Huge missed opportunity. There's just no sugarcoating it. We were rusty, sure, and it accounts for some things like looking out of sync on O at times, but there's no way that ought to have lasted as long as it did.

We played with the mindset that we could turn it on at some point and our opponents on the second night of a back to back, one which they had to travel to, would just fold. Well we kept playing with lack of commitment to effort on every play, we kept playing with lack of precision in our execution, we kept playing without the proper respect for ourselves and our opponents and it finally caught us.

I can't say I'm glad it did, but I hope this one stings because it should, because we fought back once again, and didn't do all the little things late - a carry-over habit from throughout the game - and it caught up to us.

We had it. We gave it away. Where to start? At the start, just settling for outside shot after outside shot. It's not like we were low on energy. What were we saving it for?? We didn't really move off the ball well, passed flat footed making these easier to read and steal, missed bunnies when we did drive; at the 3 line, where we put up a healthy 30+ shots in the previous two games, but an anemic 16 shots and connected on only 5 (they made 15, so guarding the 3 was somehow a problem for us even though many of these were generated on ISOing Love and his finding the open man. You let a team keep shooting, you risk their rhythm catching on and it did); on the boards - WE DID NOT GET A SINGLE OFFENSIVE REBOUND IN REGULATION and our two O boards came in OT - as they outrebounded us 50-39 this with 11 O boards and the multiple additional possessions which resulted in 10 more shots and of course more points for them; we had more points in the paint but these came on later in the game after they had driven into and through us time and again; we had more steals and blocks but did not convert into points as often as we could have with strange shot selection, either too early or too outside or hot potato passing for contested shots.

At the half, Bryn was 0-3, LMA 0-5, Rudy 1-4, DJ 1-4 yet the majority of those shots were outside Js. This when better movement could have generated more open looks, like it did in the second half.

Sure LMA eventually scored 18, but he's been the leader, so settling for outside shots, passing flat footed, not getting any O boards until OT, all this accumulation of non-competitive play, but picking spots late while we play desperate catch up is just a terrible example. Maybe age is part of it, but he just isn't willing to shoulder the team this season in terms of initiating an offensive push, and it is a noticeable difference from the previous two years. Less physicality down low less consistently, and picking his spots of when to do so. It's not all on him, of course, but even when other guys drove he still settled for outside shots too much and didn't follow through as much as he ought to have. On defense, he kept getting driven on, and scored on with hooks and baby Js in the paint, and he was flat footed a lot of the time. He used to play to at least his 6'11" height, but now he more often than not plays below it if you know what I mean. To his credit he did lead the team with 10 boards, but it's still a noticeable lift drop off, and what looks like conserving energy on the other end is all I'm saying.

DeMar drove, to his credit, but man do those two missed FTs in regulation sting now. Every play counts, so the game is as much on all the whiffed plays that led up to this situation, but we played ourselves into the game, then he almost got a steal but couldn't hold on to the ball and they hit a game-tying 3, and took it to us in OT.

Bryn's shot disappeared again, Beli's thankfully reappeared and we frankly need it to. He was terrific off the ball, made great cuts (LOVED that set play Sean talked about that we used to run for Manu where Beli fakes running out and when LMA got the ball on the right side, Beli made a hard cut back down the middle to get a LMA pass for an open layup. Simple, smart basketball). Derrick stepped up with physical drives and assertive overall play, but we needed more guys to keep doing that. DJ was great defensively though his shot was not there today, and his drives were either too much flair on the missed finishes or contested. Just sticking to fundamentals would greatly address our missed bunnies, many of which we had. Jakob tends to not finish strong at the rim and needs to get all Hulk! Smash! with the ball to make sure it goes in.

Jakob was terrific defensively for us and bailed us out frankly. We did not recognize the timing of doubling and kept getting caught giving up open passes and shots and drives. We also kept getting mismatched with smaller guards on Love and were taken advantage of. We did better switching in the second half, I think, so bigger guys made it harder for him to score, and when they hit contested shots all you can do is tip your hat, but that effort ought to have started from the beginning of the game.

Lonnie was largely terrific with his fast drives and steady enough defensively to for the most part stay in front of his man to contest shots. He bobbled the ball on drives at times which still happens to our two fastest guys, him and JD, but you take that effort over allowing the D to settle in while we try to get the ball moving.

Our O was not crisp today, and we laboured getting shots, or we created shots that weirdly were the right ones but the wrong guy took them. LMA settling for a 3 is ok as a heat check when he's hot from outside and we have a lead, not when he's not hot from the outside and we have guys hitting the 3 at a better rate tonight not getting the ball.

Pop rode DeMar and LMA a lot, each playing a team-high 39 minutes with Derrick being the only other player over 30 minutes at 32. DeMar had it going more than LMA did, and though he's a guy who needs a lot of touches to get his rhythm going, it's how LMA's doing it and not getting results early versus later in games that stands out (this is going back to picking his spots of when to be more bouncy and energetic). If he has to get his touches, then he has to give the team something for them. Can we get him the ball closer? Sure, ok, but he's good at posting up and getting into the key and has to do that more than settling for outside shots.

I thought the bench minutes distribution was great, the rotations were balanced with the half time adjustment of going with Jakob instead of Rudy in the starting line-up paying dividends defensively which led to some good O transitions for us. Rudy (21 minutes) and Bryn (17) reflected their lower output, and while I think Bryn's consistency needs to improve, it's a rhythm thing, so I believe his shot will return. Rudy is in that LMA zone where his physicality is a strength, but he settles for outside shots too much (at least in this game) and even when he gets into the key, he stops and pops rather than taking it aggressively to the basket.

It's sort of maddening how we keep giving up shots and possessions with missed bunnies, palming, traveling, driving and then dishing or kicking out when we have the lane to the basket, not holding on to the ball, etc. Lots of lost possessions and points.

To be honest I mentally penciled in a win here, and I think our players did, too. There was a lot of discussion in this week's practices about bringing the same intensity we do against the better teams in all games rather than playing to what we think the level of the competition is on any given night. We resorted to the latter too long in this game. Just a disappointing effort that I can only hope results in a wake up call about bringing some nastiness and respecting the game by imposing ours from start to finish.

[imagump1313]

https://streamable.com/r5py6

THIS is what we lost to! A team that isn't even trying and imploding itself. And we look entirely stupid in the process. What was Murray doing?

[G R E Y]

https://streamable.com/r5py6

THIS is what we lost to! A team that isn't even trying and imploding itself. And we look entirely stupid in the process. What was Murray doing?

Yeah that was a brain cramp play. I think the Cavs played it simple and kept going to what worked because we let them. To their credit they hit their shots, but they were, weirdly, the more cohesive and energized team. Anyway, about Murray, he's got a lot to learn but I think he has an upward trajectory overall.

He's been playing with Lonnie more and their athleticism is an intriguing pairing. I do think that if / when DJ and Derrick play more together, perhaps DJ can be the 2 guard as he shows more of that in his game right now. Derrick is the better facilitator right now. Still, DJ needs to learn and improve what he's less good at, so I can see the case for keeping him at the one. But it would be interesting to see him at the 1 or 2 depending on the pairing. Overall, I think it's too early to close the book on him. He hasn't put it all together yet, but there are many good parts to his game to weave together.

I'm far more frustrated with LMA. Reading a post-game interview in SA Express News did little to mitigate it. Asked to explain his slow starts he went on about how he's not perfect and everyone on the team made mistakes and it's on everyone to do better. Words to that effect. Sure, that's true, but it dodged the central question of HIS slow starts, and while DeMar's anti-clutchness in the 4th Q after he helps get us back in it is fully acknowledged by him, LMA talks about just missing good looks.

Well how about not being so passive to start games and settling for outside shots? How about more P&R and less pick and pop? He does that later in games, why not start with it? He did it well enough in the previous two seasons when we needed a central cog, and this season it seems it's still about him getting his touches in his spots but he's nowhere near as assertive and content to be one of the group or somewhat blending / hiding within it. Trouble is, we've seen what he's capable of, and he even brings it later, so the unspoken conclusion we're left with is he's just not putting that effort out there to start games. I frankly expect more from him because we know he's capable of it, so to pick his spots and dodge the question is doubly irritating. Just not near the same level of accountability and leadership we've seen from him in the past.

I'll say it again: any guy who doesn't want to compete here can ply his trade elsewhere.