with the Thunder havin a ruff time & the Pelicans coming hard maybe the whole SW Division will be in the playoffs. Has any other 5 team division done that?
You see the Spurs break you down quarter by quarter. Just when you think you have a lead early on. The Spurs insert their system and they just go to work.
Whats crazy is how much defensive pressure they apply without committing a foul or atleast being called for a foul. I watched us run an insanely dumb offense taking horrible shots, contested shots, rushed shots, long twos, josh smith shooting a hurried shot with the ball 13seconds to go and with the last possession while harden is wide open. They just made us play mentally r****ded. Our defense was also horrible especially in the paint.
The warriors are stacked...the Spurs are just well coached. Pop gets the absolute most out of every player. Guys like Marco Bellinelli and Boris Diaw were on their way to being NBA journeymen. Guys like Green, Parker, Manu...all of these guys are late picks in the draft. What Pop has done for this team is crazy. It's like whoever plays on that team does well.
sigh...this jerkoff fest claiming everything is due to Pops is worse than Phil Jackson's era. Green was not drafted by SAS. Ginobody was a flyer on someone locked into a Euro contract who didn't come for another 2yrs ... and that was more Buford than Pops Parker was a good pickup at 19yr old, and I give Pops credit for developing him, along with Duncan developing him Bellinelli is the same player as he has always been...you're just making a big deal now that he's on a team going deep into the playoffs. That's like saying Rudy is a genius for getting Matt Bullard Diaw has always been this good, a pest who knows how to pass. I guess you don't watch anything but the playoffs. Again, credit goes to Buford for getting him, if anyone. And they also have many bad pickup. Richard Jefferson. Went to the Finals twice as key starter. He had his worst years at SAS. But that wasn't Pops fault, 'eh, we can blame that on Jefferson, right?
I never said Green was drafted by SAS? I said that he's a late draft pick, period. Whether he's a late draft pick by SAS or Cleveland is irrelevant to him being a late draft pick. You are attacking this from the wrong angle, I am not taking ANYTHING away from Buford...but when Pops gets a hold of someone he makes them the best they can be. Manu was a flyer, true. But he's had a legendary career. You'd be lying if you predicted his career. Again, yes credit goes to Buford. I don't know why you are bringing him up though since I'm talking about coaching. Diaw came to the Spurs and was a very 'Alright' player. No one was breaking down his door to sign him. (He was waived...) His FG% immediately goes up on the Spurs. The main reason is he shoots less but also that Pops plays him to his strength and he never does more than he's capable of. The same for Marco, goes to the spurs and his FG% shoots up. Once again. Meanwhile we get a good 3 point shooter and for whatever reason they shoot worse most of the time. So what about guys like Splitter, Baines, Joseph, and oh yeah Kawhi Leonard who I'm sure everyone had pegged as a Finals MVP? They've been drafting at the end of the draft nearly every year now and continue to FIND and DEVELOP key players for their team. That's fine if you don't want to respect the 5 championships he's won and this over a decade of dominance and consistency. I never said it was all Pop, but he certainly gets the most out of his players. A Richard Jefferson doesn't negate that lol. Morey is known as a good drafter, a Marcus Morris doesn't negate all the good picks he's had. It just means he got one wrong.
All true. But what you really should be taking away is that the rwhl predictor was right yet again. .
rwhl looks good. We overtook MEM. MEM looks like a very shaky #2 right now with three more road games left. SAS is pretty much out of passing us if they don't beat us Friday. btw: I'm considering adding an advanced measure to this by doubling the rwhl +/- and compare to current wins. Double rwhl will equal wins at the end of the season. So what does it mean when your wins are out-performing your rwhl doubled, or underperforming? Is that a bad sign, or good? SAS's current wins have been underperforming to their rwhl +/- doubled for awhile. Rockets have been about neutral on that measure. Wins = doubled rwhl. My instinct is if your wins are less than your double rwhl, that is a good sign Think about it. I haven't run historical stats on that, yet. Hard to do midseason historical stats like that. Let's come back to this in the long summer months of nothing else to talk about. but then we get away from our love for rwhl in it's simplicity. Maybe we shouldn't try to advance it more.
This I saw Rockets players get blindsided by and literally bounce off Spurs players a few times. Manu taking that offensive charge in 1st half
Lulz. They get more things right than any other modern sports franchise and you pretend like it's all a coincidence. Hell, they even tank better than any other team when they need to.
The Spurs will slow down eventually, father time is undefeated. But Father Time sure as hell is taking his sweet time claiming this victory, the Spurs looked primed to storm through the playoffs yet again. They're robotic in their ability to simply flip the playoff switch.
Warriors owner recently said that when he bought team they quickly framed a pretty definite philosophy. They decided to go after big versatile players (leading to Thompson, Barnes, Green ..) , get a good center, and go after high character guys. With the Spurs too, it's not just that they are stacked in terms of talent or have a once in a generation Coach in Popovich. They have got a good system but they also have high character guys wiling to sacrifice to reach common goal. I'm a huge Morey fan but apart from his somewhat questionable loyalty to McHale the one thing that i wish he would change is his view that "character" is good but it is a luxury that Rockets can only go after once they have some building blocks in place. (He said this during the rebuild)
I'll be here laughing at everybody when the Spurs don't win the title and bumping Pop is a da gawd posts and "Kawhi is a top 10 player" . The Spurs won't win the title this year, they will fold quickly when they go down as well.
The issue is not with getting these guys - it's that the coach maximizes their value on the floor and uses those players to help win basketball games in conjunction with the core stars. And yes, Rudy gets credit for getting the most out of Matt Bullard and putting him in a position to be useful piece around Olajuwon and company.
