Are you aware Gasol shot 54% from three this year? He only shoots wide open ones where he otherwise doesn't have a pass option.
I would not try "Kawhi-solation" if Leonard is on Harden. Harden's the best decision maker on the team and I'd trust the franchise player over a role player like Bev or Lou Williams running the offense. It doesn't matter if Leonard is on Harden, a good solid screen should give Harden all the room he needs to operate. Play the same way we've played all year and maintain our defense focus.
Make wide open shots. And pray that they don't. I am not sure strategies matter a whole lot between these two teams. It comes down to who's making shots. I thought Pop putting Gasol in was a good move, improving their rebounding. Other than that, I don't know.
I dont know why I never used the ignore button before. I took your advice and these threads and this clutchfans experience just got a hell of a lot better!
Harden had a good 3rd quarter. MDA needs to expand his bench. With the type of style we play and our players being smaller, MDA is wearing them down. The Spurs are playing a 10-man rotation, we are playing 8 and we are smaller Expand the bench, get them more rest and keep playing at a fast pace
I love our offense. Literally James has to find a way to score 30 and get 10+ assists even in game 1 he had 20 points. We need him to score in the 4th. I think we need to come out aggressive to start 1st and 4th.
If Tony Brothers is officiating, make sure he misses his flight. If Aldridge was Dwight, that elbow would have gotten him ejected, suspended, and sent to the d league.
Kind of a small sample size. Barely over 1 taken per game. At least make him prove it's not going to be a total shank. They haven't been close.
1.6 isn't barely over 1 Per game. He also shot 50% in the MEM series....on 5-10. Just like his brother, he was told to prepare to shoot more 3s. Trust me, he is not a total shank. Solid shot. You don't make 54% on 1.6 attempts with bad mechanics.. I'll take it you just didn't know and haven't seen him shoot wide open threes enough. I'm sure with D'Antoni he'd be told to shoot more, and probably pretty well. I wouldn't test it as a game plan to leave him wide, wide open like you are suggesting. But you're free to say we should gamble on 54% being a fluke.
Only 2 other seasons with a percentage above 30% (did shoot 50% in 2009 after taking a whopping 2 the entire season). Maybe he found a stroke but I just haven't seen it...though I don't really care about him nor do I watch the spurs unless they're playing the Rockets.
All previous seasons don't matter...as those truly are very small samples and probably by dominated desperation threes, shot clock threes,etc. This is common for a big nowadays to be told to practice range shooting in the summer, and responding. Same thing happened to Marc Gasol....to a bigger extreme. He went from never shooting 3s to shooting a lot. He has a stroke. I've seen it plenty this year. I think you're working off a very small sample size of 4 shots in last two games, and just didn't know he's at 54% at 1.6 attempts for Pops. Pops won't let you shoot 3s if he doesn't think you can make them. He'll pull you out of the game if you even try. If we look, I'll bet you we can find quotes of Pops, as I'd be shocked to find the Spurs beat reporter hasn't done a story on that 54% on double the attempts ever, like they did Marc Gasol this year.
Mike Dan Tony has to figure out if elbows to the face are common fouls. If they are, we need to elbow people in the face.
What MDA has to adjust to, which it going to be slightly easier w/Parker injury, is SA playing Leonard and Gasol to start the 2nd when Harden is out. Spurs went to a lineup of: Mills Green Manu Leonard Gasol Gasol's length bothered Pat and Lou on drives. Ego was strong enough to make the layups through contact. But having Leonard and Gasol in there during this time helped negate the run we usually make with the bench in. They gambled playing Leonard nearly all of the first two quarters to try and neutralize our bench. This is when Leonard did most of his damage offensively in the first half. Ariza contained him very well, he only got spot up makes. When Ariza was out, he really went to work. The thing they are really losing with Parker is having a secondary creator. Mills was virtually useless making anything beyond a rudimentary pass. Parker had done a great job getting into the lane and working the ball out to Leonard/Green. They also took away almost all of LMA's touches when Kawhi was on the floor in the 1st Q. LMA was restricted to working the glass and getting the ball after offensive rebounds. When Leonard/Parker went out, that's when LMA got some post up/face up touches.
This is exactly right. Our offense is not going to improve much if we can't get stops and get the ball back. The Spurs ground us down into hamburger last night, playing their style, chewing up shot clock, moving the ball all over the place, and then ending up with multiple shots in the paint that they hit at 73% (27/37) and when they missed they got the ball back with the offensive rebound and stuck it back down our throat. Spurs offensive rating was over 138 and our DRB% was barely above 60%. That's an automatic loss, especially in the playoffs. So any talk of adjustments should begin on the defensive end. You can talk all day about the offense needs to do this, that, and the other. But if you're gonna let a team just carve you up defensively in slow, methodical fashion, forcing you to expend loads of energy for fifteen to twenty seconds every possession before they get exactly the shot that they want over and over again then the dam will finally break against us when we reach exhaustion and our shots will go flat, our offense will go flat, and we're dead, just like last night. Defensively, I don't think we've got much choice. This roster is simply not constructed to leave us very many options defensively. Because we are overloaded with one-dimensional offensive players like Anderson, Lou, and Capela that give us nothing on the defensive end. So this isn't on Bzdelik. He's doing the best possible with what he's got to work with and within the confines of Harden once again not being anything defensively besides a wandering roamer. It appears to me we need to try some zone or maybe even some box and one. We have to deny the paint and control the defensive boards better. And that's not going to happen without actually crowding the paint and gang rebounding because we are not good enough in space, on islands, and on switches to keep the Spurs from getting great looks in the paint. With Parker gone there is a sliver of daylight defensively. You can give Simmons the three ball and make him beat you. Help more on Kawhi and make Simmons beat you with the long ball. Rotationally, as I said before the playoffs started, we're going to need Nene to play more minutes, and Capela less minutes. And we have to eliminate the Anderson and four non-big line-up. It's not going to work. Anderson, for all his shooting and spacing he gave us last night, gave it all back on the defensive end. We simply couldn't get any stops. And no stops means no transition offense. Transition offense is more critical to our success than Anderson's spacing in the half-court. So if we can't get stops because they're beating Anderson, then he needs to sit down in favor of more.....defense.
A couple of things we can do to counter the Gasol move. 1) Play small, Ryan at the 5, to pull Gasol away from the basket. 2) Gasol's man has to set the pick and pull his old lanky ass away from the rim. 3) Use Spain PnR (back pick) against Gasol. btw... the warriors with KD would kill this Gasol starting move because KD (at the 5) can put it on the floor. we don't have a big that can put it on the floor though
