SPURS GAME DAY! GAME 59: SPURS AT BULLS, 14-2-2022, 7PM (CT)

[G R E Y]

GREAT OUT OF TIMEOUT PLAY CALL BY POP AND EXECUTION BY DJ TO LONNIE CROSS COURT PASS TO RIGHT CORNER 3.

[G R E Y]

LONNIE JESUS CHRIST LOOKING TO MURDER THE RIM. AND HE DID!!!

[G R E Y]

AND LONNIE WITH THE SUBSEQUENT ONE AND DONE J MISS RIGHT AFTER A GREAT PLAY LMAO...

[G R E Y]

3RD Q: SPURS 89

BULLS 83

Middle two Qs won on 30+ points. Excellent. And we raised our level of play from starters to bench to push the pace at them and increase pressure on D.

Lonnie is scoring well except when he's taking one and done Js too early in the clock. I love his intensity and willingness to just bulldoze his way through a slump.

We need Devin to try the same.

Much better driving and getting to the FT line.

We need a final clean strong push on both ends to get D stops, make god to great shots form our movement. May our 3s aim be true so we at least double our output of six so far. Good to great on both ends.

[G R E Y]

Well a 7-2 start on an angry push by them and some erratic finishes and misses at the rim for us. They've picked up the pace and our reserves are on their heels.

Good timeout by Pop to settle us down.

[G R E Y]

12 points half way through the 4TH Q...

[G R E Y]

DJ with some great D plays but made a couple of bad contested one-on-too many shots and drives for misses.

Good timeout by Pop to settle us down. And hopefully get Primo out of the game. Development is great but it's also a bitch when a young guy doesn't do what you want him to.

[G R E Y]

Another bad one and done DJ J miss...

[G R E Y]

OOF Doug giveth, Doug taketh away...

[imagump1313]

Just have to find the right mix. 4th was just too much Walker and McDermott. I know we were shorthanded a bit but IDK why we have both of them playing down the stretch at the same time. Then the other guys wind up taking bad shots because they don't want to see anymore bricks from them.

[jc23]

Is this the Demar you guys watched last season?

[G R E Y]

Is this the Demar you guys watched last season?

Yep. Except he averaged like 7 assists per game, too. That's why leaving him out of the AS game over Conley last season was such a travesty. GG, and good luck this season. Hopefully you guys are healthy by the time POs start.

[G R E Y]

4TH Q: SPURS 109

BULLS 120

Apparently Pop is having a Valentine film session right after the game LMAO what a GOAT. More on this game later, but yeah there were a lot of mistakes and wasted opportunities in the 4TH Q that we need to clean up.

Overall it was a case of us needing to get more out of more players to try and offset their go-to scorer and we didn't for the reasons in the sentence above.

Ok, so a quicker write up of this game. We did well through three Qs but that upward trajectory was upturned in the 4TH Q when we once again ran into old patterns of having trouble scoring and then TOing the ball, giving up points on both ends.

There were harbingers along the way, though. Devin not being able to score (5 on 2-10, 0-4 from 4) along with Tre not scoring at all and Primo with just 2 points was enough of a dearth to contribute to the slide. Pop has said several times that we're a team whose strength is the collective, and in that there is also its weakness - the stronger the individual scoring opponent is, the more we must rely on the group to overcome it, and when even three smaller parts aren't able to score, it is hard to compensate. Such is the challenge of a rebuilding team still figuring out its roles and rotations as players develop and new faces arrive.

But it was also our defensive work that needed tweaking. Their downhill game bothered us but the damage was particularly when facing an experienced scorer. We tried doubling up high, down low, first single coverage then a hard sneak double from behind, sandwiching him with a fronting player and one behind, and it just didn't work. It doesn't help that DD knows our schemes, but we didn't do ourselves any favours by not only over-committing with too many players in the key as if to compensate for the times that D was doubled but still made the pass or scored, but we got caught out of position and ball watching an awful lot, too.

Too often we had players sag into the key for reasons that remain a mystery and that left the players they were to guard with far too much space to operate. Combined with watching the ball more and opponent movement less, we were late to a lot of weak side swings for their far too open shots.

And while DD did the bulk of the damage, they also had two other players who scored 24 and 25 points. So credit where it's due in terms of facing a quality scorer, but we also didn't do what we needed to defensively to stop scoring elsewhere, too. Part of what stood out defensively as well was some poor man D coverage, particularly by Keldon on DD. It's probably unfair to pick this match up as any player guarding DD would have and did have a hard time, but this match up only magnified what Keldon needs to work on. He got torched by giving up too much space, by not angling a player away from the key, by not always having his arms up, and by not contesting well. Those defensive possessions where he has his arms at his sides like a T-Rex rather than up and out to the side as Pop often motions on the sidelines. If he can make even half the strides on defense that he's made on O, he'll become a formidable force.

In addition to Devin, Keldon struggled with efficiency even as he still managed to chip in 13 on 4-12, an uncharacteristic 0-2 from 3 (both numbers too low), but team high 5-5FTs. He also contributed 3 boards (1 on O), 2 assists, and 1 steal, and because he got a big load of guarding DD duties, he was also second lowest -16.

Doug was -17 despite tying DJ for 19 points on stellar 7-11, 3-5 from 3, 2-2FTs, along with 4 boards and 1 assist. Again, the D effect was real. You can't fault for trying, but he couldn't body up on their bigs posting up, and got beaten bu first steps a lot.

He was, however, one of only two Spurs to make at least two 3s, so our 6-20 from the arc output was a let down, especially after the previous two games. While we have less control over whether the shots go in, we have more control over whether or not we take them, and so 20 was a poor effort in terms of the shots we created from there.

Lonnie was the other Spur who scored at least two 3s, connecting on 2-4 along with 9-17, 1-4FTs for a team high 21 points. He also had a team high 2 O boards (5 in total), 2 assists and a steal, which shows both his good effort and our poor team-wide effort on the boards.

We were down a whopping 53-33 in total rebounding and 10-4 on the O boards, meaning Lonnie grabbed HALF of them. Yikes. He has done well to be far more assertive with the number and physicality of his drives, and kept at it despite missing from the outside. I still cringe at his shot selection and at his habit of needing to over dribble, pull back out, survey the scene which allows defenses to set, and then end up driving or shooting more often than making the right pass anyway. That balance of time, situation, and vision of what's best for the moment eludes him still, but credit where it's due with his physical drives, incredible display of athleticism on the dunks, and coming through to find ways to score for a second night in a row. That he was active and connected defensively, using his physicality and effort to get stops stood out well, too.

On the one hand, this is a good improvement from Lonnie:

Read on Twitter

On the other, his overall trajectory compared to his contemporaries over the longer pattern also stands out:

Read on Twitter

He's getting more than enough minutes to prove himself, but the types of games the last two games show have been too far and few in between a lot of no-shows, even with the first tweet's improvements.

DJ's consistency has risen to a level that is probably surprising to most fans but for the diehards. Scoring 19 on 7-16, 0-1 from 3, 5-7FTs, along with 6 boards, 11 assists, and 2 steals is an average night from him. He picked his scoring and passing spots well, his take over moments well, but he does need to take more 3s (and make them) and he did at times get beaten by his counterpart's first step to the basket. You never have to worry about DJ and defense so he'll make the right adjustments, but we need better than 0-5 from 3 form our starting back court. It just puts too much pressure on other ways of scoring, on those couple of players who are making 3s, and not enough pressure on opponent defense as they don't need to guard as much space.

We won the points in the paint battle convincingly 70-52 through a lot of drives team wide which helped our bigs who combined for 22 points. Considering their starting C scored 25 alone, we needed the extra help. Jakob scored 13 on 6-9, 1-2FTs along with 8 boards (1 on O) and 4 assists. We haven't been involving him in the O as much the last handful of games and we need to make a more concerted effort to run more plays with him. Zach chipped in 9 points on 4-6, 1-3 from 3, along with 2 boards, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block in 18 minutes. He did well to contribute all over as he did especially since he looked like he didn't have much lift and looked sort of awkwardly crossed up and uncoordinated with his footwork. Hopefully both will come in time. I liked that we utilized some high low passes more.

That we had 3 more assists than our opponent shows more of our team-oriented game and their ISO game, but ours relies on everyone contributing as I've said before. While we did well in PITP, and we got a 20-8 points advantage off of their TOs, it just goes to show how important the 3 is, as is an overall team-wide consistency with efficiency. Look we're not always going score well in every game. But we can control the kinds of chances we create and given that only 20% of them were from the arc after taking above our average previously, that's obviously one area we can improve. Getting our bigs more involved on O as well as Devin starting with drives rather than outside shots should help get more of our O game going, too.

Some things we did do well included the 28 assists (good movement and cutting), only 7TOs and leveling out the trips to the FT line. Our bench also outscored theirs 40-12 (including 8 points from Diop on on 4-7, along with 3 boards, 1 assist, and 1 steal) but it was their starters we couldn't stop. Where we mucked it up is making 15-21FTs (only 71.4%) and turning the ball over in crucial moments which resulted in several 4-6 point swings considering we couldn't score for a long stretch.

We just lost focus, let up on D and ball protection, and didn't respond well to their O push. It happens, but what happens with our response is what matters now. Let's see what we took in from the post-game film session and how we apply it.

[ShouldaPaidBG]

Murray's dekes are some of the quickest I've seen. Amazing handle and pace control. He looks like a glitch out there sometimes. His wingspan+handle combo is Jamal Crawford-esque

[G R E Y]

Murray's dekes are some of the quickest I've seen. Amazing handle and pace control. He looks like a glitch out there sometimes. His wingspan+handle combo is Jamal Crawford-esque

Yeah his game's really taken off this season. He and Jamal are very close, too. Thanks, best of luck to your team.