ClutchFans Game Thread: Spurs @ Rockets 5/5/2017 (Playoffs Round 2, Game 3)

I was meaning over the past few years - should've clarified.

Would love to get a few more players on this roster with some heart and fight in them like those teams of the 90s.

 

Nene needs bigger minutes. Everytime he was matched up on Aldridge he shut him down, but everytime we put Ariza or Anderson on Aldridge he scored at will.There is a reason why the Pelicans played Ryno off the bench.

 

And everyone says "Amen" ! I'd settle for a big that plays BOTH ends of the floor.

 

Please stop it!

I'm just sipping on this Southern Comfort and dreaming about a defense that doesn't rely on switching as their first, second and third option.

I can only fantasise so much.

 

Yeah, I mean....don't get me wrong, if he's not providing offense, he has no business playing. If the Spurs are taking him out of the game, then there's no reason for him to be playing. That's the fundamental flaw with Anderson, but I'm just willing to give him another game or two to see if he bounces back, since he was obviously effective in the previous two games.

 

I said it a long, long time ago during the regular season that his minutes need to be cut and Dekker given more time.

If Anderson isn't hitting his outside shot (apart from that one playoff game where he was rebounding like a madman in the first round, and one game he had a couple of put backs in this series) he isn't contributing anything positive to this team.

Dekker flat out makes winning plays. I'm not referring to game winning shots or things that regularly show up in the box score.

But watching games he does much more for this team 'behind the scenes' I guess you could say, than Anderson does.

Very annoyed he's not seeing minutes. There's absolutely no excuse - Dekker coming back from an injury or not - that Anderson is playing 30 minutes whilst getting beaten down low and only contributing a couple of points.

 

Choke city, they will take us in 5 as I expected. Cannot go into next year with just threes and lay-ups, short rotation, Ryno and just Ariza at SF.

 

this is what I hate about Mike Dantoni. you see how Greg Popovich plays multiple players? he played 10 guys, nine of which played good minutes. dantoni only played eight guys tonight.

Ariza played 46 minutes tonight, he was effective early on and disappeared later in the game. The highest played player for the spurs was Kawai Leonard with 41 minutes.

Popovich trusts players throughout the season and in the playoffs. Every Rockets coach we have is an idiot when it comes to this. The playoffs are a different animal and you need guys out there with energy and hustle. If Decker is still hurt than Harrell should be out there. Hes another animal that the Spurs have to waste energy on. you want to play faster? Then play more guys with more energy. You can control the tempo when you have the energy.

you have to play harrell at home who can dunk the rim of the backboard and get the fans riled up. that same dunk gets the team fired up and get them going. It gives them confidence.

instead, the Spurs blow the game wide open in the fourth

 

yeah two straight nights borgia has trotted out to turn one of the more innocuous and boring segments on nbatv (usually just borgia saying "yeah, refs made the right call again) to go at the rockets. literally the only time i've ever seen him disagree with a ref call was the harden/mills 3 from game 2. certainly didn't point out the 2 times harden got fouled on 3's and it wasn't called. certainly didn't care tonight that pau very obviously walked into harden. i mean i guess if you wanna call it a tie, then ok. but how do you get "pau walked into harden, offensive foul!" out of that play?

 

yeah, if they suddenly want to stop giving the rockets the fouls the rulebook say should be called just because it's not aesthetically pleasing, then you damn sure don't just start giving them to the spurs. especially when they don't even do it right. say what you want about harden and lou (or derozan, or the OG kevin martin), but knowing how to draw fouls is really hard and takes a lot of work and skill to pull off. you have to understand where you are, where the defender is, what he's about to do, whether you should go into your shooting motion anticipating the foul because if you are wrong it will be a stupid-looking shot. letting patty mills draw a foul, then dribble, bobble the ball, eat a sandwich, chat up some fans, then throw the ball at the rim and suddenly calling that a shooting foul is just ridiculous. mills had no anticipation or reactive ability on that play. but it's like the refs are just scared of pop and have decided the spurs have to get any call they want if it looks like one of the calls the rockets get, or should i say used to get, before this series.

the ginobili play last game was the same thing. he wasn't shooting, but then he told the ref he was shooting and they went oh ok, i guess you get free throws then, silly us. or kawhi on the break today when he was passing it and they just decided he was shooting so he gets 2 free throws. apparently the spurs are never not shooting these days.

right after the mills 3 today i think was when kawhi reached in on harden and harden thew it up but no shooting foul. was harden shooting? no. but it was certainly at least as close as patty was to shooting. we have been completely hosed these last 2 games. granted, the more "name" team tends to get the calls, but that doesn't mean it isn't frustrating.

 

All I'm saying is when Beverley was called for that offensive foul on the fast break (first few minutes of the game), everyone knew the Spurs were going to win this game. And when you saw Adan Silver in the stands to make sure the refs did their job to make that happen, you could simply just stop watching from that point on.

 

we're facing the 2nd or 3rd best team in the nba. by virtue of the conferences not being balanced, it happens to be in the second round. this isn't not having a legit system. it's facing a better team, with more talent and more playoff experience. there's a reason they won 61 with an 8+ point differential. they are damn good and have the #1 defense in the league. beating them would be a significant overachievement for a team pegged to win like 41-44 games before the season. only 1 team can win the title. we don't have that talent right now. and with a 73 win team and former mvp just stacking their team because they were scared of competition, no one really has the talent this year.

 

The discrepancy between Anderson's performance at home vs on the road is so mind numbing. I mean I thought at first the whole RoadRyan thing was cute, but holy **** is it a problem. He has been AWFUL at home this year. I just don't get it.

 

yeah i said it earlier in this thread, there's no other interpretation of that play than the refs wanting to favor the spurs. you don't make that call against anyone, much less against a team in a playoff game when the guy with the ball is 20 feet ahead of everyone. it's like calling holding on a guy 30 yards behind a breakaway touchdown as the guy crosses the goalline. it's just not done. they certainly aren't calling that on san antonio. you think they're interrupting a lebron dunk to call that on jr? come on now. that's an "i can technically call this so i'm going to to help the other team" type of call.

 

God that sucked....

 

Who is he?

Dejounte Murray.

 

Gordon play starter for next game.

 

Nothing to do with Pop Rockets just plained choked along with refs controlling pace of the game. Warriors will sweep this genius coach they ain't shat.

 

No s*** everyone can point out the flaws of this team but it really just comes down to a lack of talent. Morey went for Horford, Aldridge, Durant, Bosh, etc. and can't convince any of them to sign (some infamously didn't even bother returning a call).

This is still a star driven league and it really applies in the playoffs. Aldridge may have been struggling this year but he's still a legit all-star caliber player. LMA signing with the Spurs ensured that the Spurs would continue to be an elite team for some time. If he chose the Rockets, that would've been a total narrative shift.

 

A not so bold prediction: the refs will give the Rockets more calls and we'll win Game 4. They needed to make sure the Spurs stole one in Houston after the Game 1 massacre.