PTR Quick Cap: Spurs Fail Band Camp
by Wayne Vore (ATS) on Jan 21, 2010 6:41 AM CST
in Game Previews
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PrintBack in my college days, I had a good friend who played in a metal band. It was thanks to him that I was introduced to this song. This was about the tamest thing he listened to, he was of the school that faster was better. At the time, his band was trying to make the jump from college band who played mostly covers at frat parties to doing real shows with their own songs. They had a few gigs in the smaller Bryan/College Station area that went well, and then were able to land a show at the Back Room in Austin. At the time, the Back Room was probably the preeminent metal club in Austin. This was a big deal.
My buddy looked a bit like Kim Thayill from the Soundgarden video linked above. He was a little introverted, very funny, pretty sharp, and a nasty good guitarist. He could flat out tear shit up. And like I said, he thought faster was better. Their band, Acid Bath, was your standard 5-man band. Singer, lead guitar, rhthym guitar, bass, and drums. My friend was the lead guitar. As part of their pre-show setup, they discussed their stage arrangement with the sound man. Who would be on which mic? You know, so the lead singer is the guy who's voice is featured instead of the guy who sings the "woo woo" backup vocals. And which side of the stage would be the lead guitar and which side would be the rhythm guitar.
I was at this show and it wasn't their best effort. I was mostly down on their sound because I didn't think the guitar was strong enough. As it turned out, my buddy told me that the sound guy had the rhythm and lead guitars switched on his soundboard for most of the show. During that pre-show discussion, they had said the lead guitar would be on the right. Well, they never talked about whether that was the soundman's right or the band's right.
So, for their big moment and 15 seconds of fame, they were not at their best. They weren't on the same page with the sound man. It came down to the details. Who's right? Your right or my right? Not being on the same page and not taking care of details pretty much sums up the Spurs efforts against the Jazz this year. In fact, I think it pretty much sums up this season.
Your Three Stars:
3. George Hill - George got the start and he was the only starter who was worth a damn. In fact, George's +2 is 14 better than the next closest guy, The Beast.
2. RAGE - He came off the bench for the first time this year and really provided a spark by hitting some 3's. Oh wait, he had ZERO rebounds and a ZERO +/- in 27 minutes? Scratch that.
2. McDyess - 9 rebounds in 22 minutes. That's good enough for me.
1. Manu - 22 points, 5 rebounds, and 8 assists. He was our one all-star caliber player tonight.
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Nah. If there’s one thing that we’ve seen so far this season, it’s that this year’s Spurs have none of the problems we’re used to. They’re not too old or too slow; they’ve got as much talent as any team in the league, there’s plenty of athleticism available, and we’re not missing any vital tools (I’d like a true big man next to Timmy, but until the ‘Blazers stop tearing up the league with Oden and Prscbyllqrx on IR I won’t complain).
It’s chemistry. Sometimes we’re absolutely unstoppable, but then we get out of sync and let teams go on crazy runs. That’s something we can fix. This team will hit its stride, and it’s obviously on its way in that direction, lapses or no. The Rodeo Road Trip is always a good bonding experience, maybe that will help. Regardless, we’re in no immediate danger of losing a playoff spot, and that means that if we can put this team together by the last day of the regular season, there’s no need to panic.
is there a montage anywhere of Duncan’s 6 fouls?
not sure if anyone said it in the game thread, but a good source told me that this was the first time in his entire career that Duncan got 6 fouls in 1 half…..I’m not saying we didn’t make mistakes, but there were a lot of questionable calls and no calls that were inconsistent with the other end
I hope that was Bogans’ worst effort of this year his career because it was super ugly
That was pretty ugly, I agree. He didn’t seem to be into the game, which I guess you could blame the whole team for with the way they started. Had they been 8-10, 10-10, 6-8, somewhere around that, THEN made that big run, they would have put the Jazz out of their misery early. The Spurs got complacent.
I have a question, I have only seen a couple of Spurs games this season, due to moving, buying a house, ect. Would it not behoove the Spurs to play Yawn or Haislip more against strong rebounding teams? It seems to me that this is going to be a problem against teams that crash the boards and are physical. What’s better than tossing in a couple of young bodies to bang with them? That being said, I haven’t seen either guy play and they may suck so bad it’s not worth the rebounds.
Anyway, I hate the Jazz, as I always have, and am glad to be done with them.
Right now we are 4th in the west and Utah is 8th (or tied for 7th with OKC). If we reveresed the season series, we would be at 29-12 for 2nd place and 1.5 games ahead of Dallas and 3 games behind the Lakers. Utah would be 20-22 for 11th, half a game ahead of the Clippers and 2.5 games behind Memphis and NO. Damn Boozer and Williams….
Thanks for the nice recap….I believe it was on the details like you said. We didn’t do a bad job in general just some mistakes here and there…
Still I have two messages for Blair and RJ (yes no kidding, they always read my posts)
Blair, you are missing so many dunks, I know you are having fun out there but that’s not what we pay you for, remember? The goal for the game is to win it, you know? so BLAIR STOP SMILING AND FUCKING GO OUT THERE AND PLAY. FOR GOD SAKE!!
RJ, I can’t stand your lack of penetration, we could get 3’s for a lot less money, learn from your underpaid teammate Manu that, by the way, he may not get a good contract because of you…so RJ…. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING?!!
Just needed to vent that…but otherwise it was on the details…
by spursfan_needs_counseling on Jan 21, 2010 9:48 AM CST reply actions
Manu would have had a few more assists easily if our others guys could convert dunks Missed open shots is alright. But more than two missed dunks, not good.
Too many easy buckets for them. Well, I will have to try and avoid the Jazz fan in my lab today. Ugh.
I don’t know about missed open shots. One or two here and there, yes, as many as they missed in the second half? Unacceptable. I guess the law of averages came through after all those makes in the first half, but they needed to make some of those open shots since the defense was sub par.
I was not impressed with Dyess at all. Just recently somebody here pointed out he cannot take Manu’s passes. This game again, Manu threw something which looked like relatively easy pass to Dyess under the basket. Dyess pretended he had stubs instead of hands or was just thinking about something else (getting his 10th rebound may be). Pop should not play Dyess with Manu, it’s not a good match. There are enough guys on the team with good enough hands to handle Manu’s passes (think Blair …) After seeing Yawn couple of times I’d like to see him more often, at the expense of Dyess. As a minimum, he can give 6 good fouls to somebody like Boozer who was just killing Spurs this season. Overall 4 games against Juzz were the 4 worst games this season I ‘ve seen. Don’t know why Spurs cannot stop them at all, this is just ridiculous against such a sub par team.
The problem with Dice is that Tony doesn’t involve him in the offense at all. When Manu runs the offense, he can at least find him and give him good passes where he can shoot that 14-18ft jumper, where as TP is not very effective at this.
Xactly! Our veterans have played with Manu enough to expect unexpected passes from him, but Dice is more used to Tony who passes only in obvious passing situations. We need to play them together more, not less, so Dice gets used to it before the playoffs.
I am just afraid that Dice is not alert enough to play with Manu. He looks sleepwalking most of the time. May be somebody (Pop?) should remind Tony that he has couple of other valid options on offense (except Timmeh and himself). If Tony makes an effort of throwing ball to Dice once in a while, Dice could become a solid contributor with his mid-range J.
I watch Tony a lot this season, and I don’t see him involving anybody in the offense except for Timmeh. I remember several (6-7?) years ago he said in one interview that his job description was easy “throw ball to Timmy”. He would also throw pass for an open 3-pointer, but that’s about it. Both Rage and Dice suffer from it, but Rage can handle Manu’s passes and Dice cannot. So Dice can only get passes from George or Timmy, I guess. This makes it difficult for him to contribute offensively. He also cannot create his own shot like Bogans, for example.
We need to go 11-2 over the last 5 games of this home stretch and the 8 game RRT to be back on a 54 win pace with a record of 36-18. I know I need to be patient, but I’m tired of losing to decent teams. Yeah, the Jazz are over .500, but not on the road, and they beat us twice at home.
I’m beginning to question how badly our team even wants to win these games outside of Manu, Duncan, and Hill.
I was pretty unhappy about Pop benching Manu right when he was sizzling. We are down big. Manu comes in all fired up and just changes the game around, we go on a big big run with batman just on fire. Then, after the timeout, Pop sits Manu. What the, um, duck? Why why why. We lose momentum, get behind again, Manu comes back in. But now he has lost his flow. I bet that if he had come back the first time he would have stayed on fire and we would have built a better cushion. Or at least not gotten so far behind again.
Love Pop and his sarcasm, and he is a hall of fame coach while I am some nameless grunt, but at times….
by swgeek on Jan 21, 2010 2:25 PM CST reply actions 1 recs
agree. Manu’s benching lost the game. of course, Pop doesn’t want to overplay Manu before the playoffs. but still …
I had stats and facts as much as the next guy, but Manu played almost 36 minutes last night.
We specialize in misinformation around here. Facts and stats just get in the way.
by Wayne Vore (ATS) on Jan 21, 2010 3:31 PM CST up reply actions
He’d have only needed to play 30 if Pop wouldn’t have benched him early in the 2nd.
by doggydogworld on Jan 21, 2010 4:53 PM CST up reply actions
Thanks fearless leader. But I was complaining more about the timing of the first benching than the total time played. Think Pop realized right away he made a mistake (after losing the momentum) and played Manu a lot the rest of the game, but I really think that first benching right when he was on fire was a big mistake. WHy take out the hot hand and let him cool? I know, quit my whining.
This recap is exactly how I felt after the third quarter. I didn’t know what happened. I felt like I had changed the channel.
Another thing I thought the +/- in the box score were pretty reflective of play except in Tonys case. He was 26 even though I thought he played well. I’m going to start paying close attention to Tony’s +/, maybe he needs to take a week off.
"I will five all over this blog." - JRW
heard that soundgarden is getting back together…very cool. wish that the 2007 spurs could somehow manage the same.
He boss, when is your annual trek?
We specialize in misinformation around here. Facts and stats just get in the way.
by Wayne Vore (ATS) on Jan 21, 2010 3:32 PM CST up reply actions
funny that you should ask me today. me and the real boss (the lovely mrs. bones) pegged it down just this morning. we have a place to stay lined up for the week of March 28 thru April 4. i am wanting to come in a couple of days earlier and make the home game against the cavs on 3/26 – and so far she is buying it.
i will send you all the exact and boring details when i get the flight picked out and all. my trip will be that week for sure though.
I remember listening soundgarden in the background while the Spurs routinely toyed with mediocre teams in the foreground….good times.sigh
by spursfan_needs_counseling on Jan 21, 2010 3:50 PM CST up reply actions
here’s a quick funny story: my ex-wife once fell asleep at a soundgarden concert. they were one of the loudest live bands on the planet too. i just left her there when i needed another beer and she was still sleeping when i got back. crazy.
i used to be disgusted by that, but now i just look back on it and laugh out loud.
disclaimer: this is NOT the lovely mrs. bones to whom i am now married as discussed a few posts above. nobody is allowed to tell her that story should you ever meet her in person….but she may already know it. cant remember.
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