Spurs Serve Up Yucky Stew

I agree, that fourth quarter was yucky, but a little vignette from my years in the classroom about “yucky”. A special education student was placed in my classroom for socialization. A delightful young man, he stayed after class the first day and wanted to talk about his dog. I asked him what his dog’s name was; he replied, “Yucky.” I said, “You really have a dog named Yucky?” " No, Ms. Craig. His name is “Yucky.” I asked again, “Are you sure?” He became insistent: " Yes, YUCKY!" I finally figured it out: he could not pronounce the letter L – the dog’s name was LUCKY. The difference in YUCK and LUCK is very small – maybe the Spurs will serve up some LUCKY stew against the Lakers. Take heart, PTR-YAND!

Wonderful recap, Wayne. It’s time for us to start raising our game when we play the good teams.

We saw replays of Pop’s ejection, but the replays didn’t show the whole thing. Had Pop been agitated before the final explosion? I’m assuming so, but I’m curious to hear your impressions.

Remind me not to change his Yucky sheets for you next time you stay in SA. From our discussion last night, the stats on Dirk was most telling. 2 of 9 in the first have and end the game 10 of 28. Going into the game knowing that, you’d think we’d win. The tendency of a great offensive quarter, and then hanging on to then end doesn’t work with good teams, especially when we meet their great offensive quarter in the 4th.

—Chris
Who is talk to you

We should totally bring back the illusion crushing thread. It’s kinda sad scrolling through and seeing all the usernames that aren’t around anymore.

It hurt us not to have him there for adjusting the defense in the 4th, and also when it came to subbing for players and managing minutes.

This game was a hard one to lose, but the early parts of it give me hope that the Spurs will pervail in June.

Wayne, this recap is up there with the “pick and roll” Johnny Cash song post you did. I really dig the anecdotal stuff you do.

About the game. It’s gotten to the point where I am getting less and less upset about losses to good teams, like I’m conditioned to thinking we’ll lose.

There was a poll some time ago about when should the Spurs push the panic button.

I would like to know where that poll stands after losses at home to the Blazers B team, OKC, the Mavs after giving up 42pt qtr and 3 losses to the JAZZ.

The truth is: We are good enough to make the playoffs.

But if the goal is to win a championship, I think it’s time to panic.

As Wayne said, 6 years ago we played defense, our identity was a defensive team. Now what is our identity? Does anyone know? Do the Spurs even know?

I don’t think they do.

But I do know this about this group of Spurs. They are the most mentally weak group that I have seen this decade.

To be a defense team you have to be mentally strong. You have to be willing to dive, scratch, claw, elbow, and fight for everyball. Who on this group of Spurs is willing to get down like that. Who is willing to play defense until the rebound is secured. NONE of them.

At this point, I don’t even think we could pull off a blockbuster trade and win the Championship. Simply because if you don’t have an identity, how would you know what players to trade, so you would have the look you are going for.

This group of Spurs can’t defend. Lets not fool ourselves into thinking they can because they can’t. There are no longer any 1st or 2nd team ALL defensive caliber players on this roster.

NONE.

If our identity is a defensive team, we are doomed and might as well bow out of the playoffs in the 1st round.

However if we are truly saying our identity is a defensive team. Then we need to trade some of these offensive players and get some defenders in here.

We have seen improvements (especially on the defensive end). It depends how patient we want to be though. The season is going to be a tough one (in terms of expectations). In the end, the only real test is in the post season, so it really doesn’t matter what they do now (except hopefully win enough games overall to get into the post season and show the constant improvement).

The Lakers game will provide another close look at where the Spurs are since one game is tough to look at, especially with an in state rival. Losing Pop didn’t help either, since Coach B had some weird rotations that took out key players at times.

Gasol may be back. Besides we shouldn’t be banking our success against another team by their lack of personnel. If nothing else, Portland should have taught us that lesson.

Many times there have been situations where the Spurs didn’t match up but still won.

Are you talking about this year? We only won 2 games against above .500 teams and on paper we are better than both of those teams. So I don’t see the evidence to your claim that we have won games that we don’t match up well.

A true center solves many of our problems. I would go so far to say all of them.

Yes he has to be good. But he only needs to be good at defending the paint and rebounding. Like one of the Lopez brothers. We don’t need them to score a point. But if they guard the paint and rebound it would be hard for us to lose.

Are you even paying attention to how the Spurs are losing these games? We can’t stop ANYONE. WE NEED SOME SIZE. All the coaching in the world is not going to change that, you can’t coach Size or Speed.

In order to understand why we struggle against good teams, I don’t think you need to do any more than go to this page and look at minutes played by game. This is the best player for the team that is second in the league in scoring margin. Then you might do the same for other players.

Then go to this page. We have somebody at ALMOST 32 for crying out loud. 32. We have 10 guys averaging over 20 minutes per game.