Game 4 Recap: 'Cause there wasn't one
by Joe deLarios on Apr 26, 2011 4:53 PM CDT
Email
Print
Going to make it quick although not painless
So, it was a great regular season for the first half. A lot to be proud of. We had a great record. Something happened after the All-Star break or maybe it was right before........something happened and I am not going to put forth my $.02 on this one. I will speak briefly about Game 4 last night but I am going to do it in straight stats. I will be dealing with the top six minute getters of both teams and their relation to one another.
Let's get started.
Box scores are a good quick glance at what happened to a game. Game flow charts are great too. I am not going to go into the solid first half we had or the third quarter collapse. I am not going to touch the 4th - what then will I go into? Well there are some bright spots, let's start there, shall we?
First off: Tony had a pretty good game. The game that we were looking for from him, minus the 7 turn overs. Other than that, it was a great game. He was very efficient. VERY EFFICIENT in his scoring. He had 23 points with only 3 misses! Pretty damned good. Although he did not have many assists, those assist attempts often resulted in one of those 7 turn overs. Lionel Hollins has his team playing great defense and a lot of that defense is shutting down passing lanes, resulting in opponent turnovers. In my rating system that favors points and possessions, Tony had the highest score of any player! He came in with a .77 ( a 1 is a perfect game). Tony, aside from his attempts to pass, was marvelous!
Second: YAY TIAGO! He got to play! I was so happy to see him play I really didn't care about what was going other than him playing. So many of us knew that he would be an asset for the Spurs and he delivered! He had 6 offensive rebounds which was the most of the game and one more than Gasol minus 14 minutes less than Gasol. Tiago is great! Sure he has some parts of the game to work on, namely FTs, but he is definetly something good! Tiago had a .71 rating for the game, the 2nd highest of all players.
Well, that was my good points, now of course for the bad.
Manu: With 14 points and 8 misses in 29 minutes, Manu was not an offensive threat para points but he did help distribute the ball with 4 assists. Other than that, he was pretty blah! He ranked in with a .55
Tim: Happy birthday but that was awful. He played 29 minutes and was highlighted by 7 defensive boards. Add that with 4 misses on 6 points, 2 turn overs and 0 offensive boards and you have a ugly rating of .36 yuck.
Hill: He hustled but was quietly sucking in the game. Sorry man, just stats, you can, and have done a lot better! For 29 minutes he had 10 points with 3 misses, 2 turn overs, 2 assists and 1 rebound. Rating: .37
Oh boy, the stinker of last night RJ. Wow, just wow. You really, really, really sucked last night. You played 26.5 minutes. You scored 0 points, missed 4 times. Shot 0 FTs. Had 0 assists. 0 steals. 0 blocks. Your only positive was 3 defensive rebounds. For your apologists out there, your counter part, Young, had a rating of .48. Your rating: .13. Ouch buddy, ouch.
Memphis played well as a team. Although we had two more efficient players (at least in my system) they had a much better around and higher scoring top 6 minute getters than we did.
Top: Tony Allen. He logged in 27 minutes, had 12 points with 5 misses but had 0 turnovers, 3 steals, 2 assists, 1 offensive rebound and 2 defensive rebounds. His rating: .64
Battier: coming off the bench, he had 24.6 minutes, with only 2 misses on 9 points, 1 turnover, 4 rebounds and 2 steals. Quietly efficient.
Randolph: 8 defensive rebounds, 2 steals and 11 points in 31 minutes. He lost the ball 3 times and had 4 misses. Rating: .6
Gasol: .54, Young: .48 and Conley: .46
Spurs top 6 minute getters total: 2.89
Grizz top 6 minute getters total: 3.33
Our top two outplayed their top two (TP and Tiago) but their next four killed our last four.
Team play was what the Spurs were all about this year. Somewhere they lost that. Somewhere it was up to one person to carry them. We heard a lot about the Big 3 but often times it was a Big 1 or 2 and then some role players. In these playoffs we have had a Big 1 --- Game 1: Tim, Game 2: Manu, Game 3: Manu, Game 4: Tony.
The Big 3 are there but they are only facing the enemy one at a time instead of facing them together. Come on guys, win 1 for the hometown. Win 1 for your fans. Win 1 for your family. Win 1 for all the good times. Win 1 for the Black and Silver. Win 1 because, deep down, you can.
38 comments
|
7 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Ah, the Tiago Paradox.
I think Graydon has a brilliant take on the appearance of Tiago:
I am glad Splitter finally saw the court. Given both his play during the last third of the season, and the specific dynamics of this series, I thought he should have seen minutes in the first three games as well. But after choosing to hold him out, Popovich’s decision to play Splitter in Game 4 didn’t come as a welcome relief, although I may have falsely claimed so at the time. It was a harbinger of doom.
When Popovich starts buckling to the pressure to make major rotation changes part way through a series, it isn’t an example of the flexibility Spurs fans have long sought-after. (A flexibility which actually exists in spades and the absence of which has far more to do with our own blind spots than any stubbornness we perceive in Popovich.) It’s a sign that he no longer believes the players who have carried the team to this point have the ability to win on their own. It’s an act of desperation. It’s a decision made with the hope that an unexpected player will have a meteoric moment, and instead of falling prey to a Darrell Arthur or a Goran Dragic, the Spurs will miraculously possess one of their own.
However, if San Antonio does go on to lose, Gregg Popovich didn’t cost the Spurs this series when he pulled the starters in the fourth quarter. There were a number of decisive plays on the part of the Grizzlies, and Popovich let Duncan, Parker and Ginobili play on. The final straw came when Shane Battier, wide open in the corner, caught a pass from Mike Conley. He relaxed, set his feet, focused his eyes and calmly sank a three-pointer. He was completely unhurried. Not a single Spur moved in his direction, much less attempted to chase him off the line.
That’s the moment the Spurs went down by 20. That’s the first moment all game they looked like they had quit. And that’s the moment Popovich pulled the starters.
I have flying monkeys at my disposal, and I'm not afraid to use them.
It was very disturbing to see the Spurs quit like that. Sure the game was most likely out of reach at that point, but this is a playoff game…you never quit. You keep fighting and get the game close even if it is just to give your teammates a glimmer of hope for the next game.
What a shocking turn of events. This Spurs team went into its shell when Duncan was injured and they have yet to come out. The Spurs are 5-11 since March 23. Only 2 of those wins were against playoff teams (Atlanta and Memphis). Sure they threw a couple if those games (Portland and @LA) but that doesn’t change the fact that it has been over a month since the Spurs have looked like the Spurs team that earned the number 1 seed in the west.
What is it? Is this team so fragile that their collective psyche was damaged by the Duncanless losing streak? Are Manu, Duncan, and Dice just too old? Is this team lacking in fire and competitive spirit? Did Pop develop an offense that was just too finely crafted to stand up to the rigors of playoff basketball?
In my opinion, the latter two explanations are the most relevant. This team has alternated between being overly casual and pusillanimous this last month. Not once have the looked intimidating and they rarely seem fired up. I also think that there is something about this offense that makes it tougher to defend against in the regular season—when refs are calling things tighter, there is little urgency on part of the defense, and teams do not have time to scheme to defeat it—than in the playoffs—when refs allow tons of hand on arm contact, teams get scrappy, and coaches have days upon days to draw up defensive schemes.
"The evolution has been good, and I am much more tranquil now in the face of what comes next,"--Manu Ginobili
“pusillanimous” — nice.
gospursgo. hook 'em. metal rules. ganja rules.
by metalandganja on Apr 26, 2011 7:12 PM CDT up reply actions
@Artis – I applaud you taking this on. There is so much that can be said thus far about this series yet I have so little to say after last night. I’m still in shock and this is after not having the temperament to watch the 4Q.
For now, all I can add is: if the series is lost, it was not lost last night. We’ve seen successful playoff series from the Spurs and other teams where a road game gets away from you and the momentum avalanches into a blowout loss. C’est la vie. This series will have been lost in game 1, much as the Nuggets, Knicks & Pacers pissed away their best chance in the first game. I expected our guys to be better than those squads, mentally tough and sharp enough to overcome one game error to an inferior opponent.
Playoffs are about momentum and pressure as much as they are match-ups & health. Spurs & Grizz have some match-ups that counter each other’s weaknesses. Spurs don’t have great health due to Manu’s arm. But they’ve have very little momentum, even fewer leads, and have never put the Grizz under pressure. The Grizz have not trailed in the series, rarely trailed in games, and for a young team that means everything is coming easy and in droves.
Our guys, starting and ending with out guard play, has made life harder on ourselves, and thus easy on Memphis. The confidence pendulum may have swung so far out of balance that there is nothing the Spurs can do to get it back on their side, much less slow down the Grizz for more than one game at most. I hope that is not the case. I’d love to see how the Grizz respond to actual playoff pressure, and more importantly would like to see our guys play well enough to supply some.
- Thank you SF Giants for an incredible 2010 season and painting the City orange & black!
You gotta bring ass to get ass.
Hits the point on the head, since the start of the series i dont think they’ve felt any pressure. it also seems that our guys are the ones rattled and ppl liek vasquez on their team are playing liek they own us. we neeeeeeed a blowout, not just a W if were going to win game 6.
by forrestgump52 on Apr 26, 2011 7:28 PM CDT up reply actions
This series will have been lost in game 1, much as the Nuggets, Knicks & Pacers pissed away their best chance in the first game.
Agreed. Last night was a bad loss, and lays a lot of pressure on the Spurs, but the Game 1 loss started the snowball rolling. This series is not over yet. Tonight the Magic are clobbering the Hawks. If the Spurs are able to win Game 5, I still think anything can happen.
All these GIFs are breaking my browser.
if. Last year I couldn’t believe until the very end that we won’t be able to turn the series against Suns around. I hate to say it, but this team tends to quit under the pressure, when things don’t go our way. This is probably the biggest difference in the playoffs between the Spurs and Lakers.
"I don’t think anything I just wrote makes any sense." - by quincyscott on Apr 1
You’re a good man, AG. Thanks for taking on the recap.
"A life, Jimmy, you know what that is? It’s what happens while you wait for moments that will never come." - Lester Freamon, The Wire
by silverandblack_davis on Apr 26, 2011 7:06 PM CDT reply actions
thanks SB_Davis ’preciate it
"Everybody thought he was going to be gone forever, including me, and the foie gras and truffle treatment worked really well." Pop on Tony's Injury 3/4/11
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gilmoar01.html
by Joe deLarios on Apr 27, 2011 12:07 PM CDT up reply actions
well that was embarrassing, everyone is acting like we’ve lost, but for whatever reason I still have some hope. Not hope that were on our way to win our 5th championship, but that we can save ourselves the embarrassment reserved for mavs fans.
the more i think of it the more i see our team resembling last year’s in term of who we have. We have the same big 3, with tim duncan with a decreased role. George Hill/RJ are still inconsistent while showing glimpses of brilliance. Blair has vanished from the rotation and Bonner is still the same. The only real difference i see is the addition of gary neal. The 50 wins last year would have probably been around this year’s win total if tony parker didn’t miss 26 games. With that being said, our offensive system did change this year, but it hasnt worked so far in the playoffs.
If we are gonig to win this series, i think its IMPERATIVE we blow the sh!t out of them in game 5, not liek they did, but where tim duncan says GAME OVER at the end of the first quarter (this probably won’t happen) but i’ll settle for any blowout. We need to take away their confidence and make them doubt themselves. Game 6 will obv be tough and we better come to play and be up early to put some pressure on them. So far we haven’t put any pressure on them which has allowed them to play their A+ game.
I’m not sure exactly how we’re going to this…the best thing I could think off is ask tim to carry us these next few games, with tony parker completly out of sorts and gino not 100% and put tiago in and forget about offensive spacing cause obv that hasnt done anything. hopefully coach pop and coach b will come with a game plan. anyway, all is not over yet, if we can force a game 7 its a whole dift game
by forrestgump52 on Apr 26, 2011 7:14 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs
I think the main reason many think we are done is not the fact we lost, but how we lost. The last time I saw the Spurs give up was in game 4 of the Phoenix sweep last season.
A man gets the eye of a Tiger, but a Tiger gets the eye of a Manu.
Here’s the thing…
When they lost to the Suns, the typical excuse was that the Suns presented the worst possible matchup for the Spurs.
They’re now losing to a team that is the polar opposite of those Suns in both style and substance.
It was never a matchup problem, the Spurs just can’t get it done anymore. Tim and Manu(especially Manu) are too old to anchor a championship defense anymore, and there’s no Bruce Bowen or second defensive big man to bail them out. Their age has also slowed them down sufficiently that they aren’t commanding double-teams on offense, either. The exasperated look on Pop’s face last night during the third quarter said everything to me.
Do not anger the Timmeh, but free Tiago!
Yep. And it doesnt hurt that the Grizz are playing really well, neither. I honestly expect them to give OKC all they can handle.
They have it all, they really do. Defense, interior presence, good point guard play, athletic/defensive wings. Sounds alot like how the Spurs used to be.
A man gets the eye of a Tiger, but a Tiger gets the eye of a Manu.
If the grizzlies get past the Spurs, OKC will destroy them. The grizzlies have benefited from terrible (wide open) shooting by the Spurs, and ridiculous three stooges turnovers as much as anything else. This Spurs team has played tight and timid. They are scared to shoot the ball. OKC will not be scared. I realize Memphis won the season series against OKC, but the playoffs are a different animal.
Zach Randolph is nothing like the Duncan of yore on D. He is the worst defender on the court most of the time, and that includes when Bonner and Blair are in the game. This Memphis team is no way near as good as the past Spurs team.
"The evolution has been good, and I am much more tranquil now in the face of what comes next,"--Manu Ginobili
OKC has the defensive bigs to neutralize the Grizz frontcourt. Then, out on the perimeter, they have the clear advantage. But enough about hypotheticals that will never be.
Do not anger the Timmeh, but free Tiago!
by Tim C. on Apr 27, 2011 12:56 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
I think that they need a pass first point guard more now than ever. Tony was a good fit for a long time, but now they need someone who can get all those aging veterans some easy shots. Everything has turned into one-on-one play. It sucks to watch.
A man gets the eye of a Tiger, but a Tiger gets the eye of a Manu.
you know the spurs really lost their legs/youth/atleticism in comparison to the NBA elite a few years back. they had been able to offset a lot of that in the past couple of year by toughness, smarts and guile. it seems now that the spurs have lost that in the first 4 games of this series in addition to everything else.
we knew they were old – they’ve been old. but now they are looking much less composed on top of being old and that’s not a good combination.
still ball to be played, so there is still time to right the ship.
The Spurs need to get pissed off. Manu commented on the lack of fire in the players eyes. I’m pissed, shouldn’t they be? Come on, guys, get mean.
Tiago Splitter > Matt Bonner
looking at their post game interviews, I dont see them getting mad, i see them sad and moping around. they have no fire in their eyes as far as i can see ( they did come out playing in the firtst half and when they relaized the grizzlies were too, they lost that fire). in general spurs bball is not one that fires you up, very few dunks that can quiet a crowd, and hardly any 3 poitners to now. while the grizzlies are racking up swag points with steals, cuts, dunks we just dont seem to have that flair.
by forrestgump52 on Apr 27, 2011 12:16 AM CDT up reply actions
Nice ’cap AG. I think you hit the problem on the head. Our best three players have yet to all have a decent game together. As much as we want to complain about role players those three must play well for this team to win in the playoffs.
I’ll take one of the having a great night. Other stars have, whether it be Rose, Rondo, Allen, Wade, Howard, Randolph, Kobe, Paul, Dirk, Roy, or Westbrook. That’s a long list of playoff vets, old guys, injured guys, guards, forwards, a center, former champs, and players that have never been out of the first round. Every one of those guys has given their respective teams at least one “I’m carrying us to victory” game. Where are our guys?
- Thank you SF Giants for an incredible 2010 season and painting the City orange & black!
You gotta bring ass to get ass.
Well Manu seems to be at least attempting a “I’m carrying us to victory” attitude, the thing is that is just not enough. The rest of team also has to at least share in that attitude and help one another out. The thing I am seeing in this series is Parker and Manu trying to do everything themselves which unfortunately results in forced turnovers and generally bad moves.
spurs are in trouble
spurs cant control the paint and are shooting a bad percentage. check out my recap
http://mizzousportswriters.com/2011/04/26/nba-playoff-recap-san-antonio-spurs-vs-memphis-grizzlies-game-4/
The thing about the Spurs isn’t that their “too old” it’s that they keep trying to play one-on-one basketball instead of as a team. I mean I don’t know how many times I’ve seen players like Neal and Hill open for a 3-pt. shot or have an open lane to the basket, but instead Parker (and at times Ginobili) decide to attempt to run straight down the middle towards the basket where all the Memphis big men are waiting. Then there’s the defense which has proven to be incredibly shoddy the past two games, one particular example is Jefferson who tends to leave the person he is supposed to be guarding wide open.
Overall these past few games have been a nightmare and resemble nothing of the Spurs team I have been watching during the regular season. While we may win the game at home unless Pop decides to make some differences in the lineup and the mentality of the players I don’t feel so good about our chances in a Game 6 at Memphis.
Nonetheless I still have some hope in the Silver and Black. Maybe they’ll get over this postseason funk and get it together to scrape out a series win.
very nice recap. rec’d
"I don’t think anything I just wrote makes any sense." - by quincyscott on Apr 1
Tanks!
"Everybody thought he was going to be gone forever, including me, and the foie gras and truffle treatment worked really well." Pop on Tony's Injury 3/4/11
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gilmoar01.html
by Joe deLarios on Apr 27, 2011 12:09 PM CDT up reply actions
Ty for your decency & sweetness in the good points & the mildness in the bad. ahh Last night the spurs, tonight the blackhawks. :^{ Tomorrow: hump day, so its got to get better. I think the beach weather is here & calling me. ciao.
by cojones2thewall on Apr 27, 2011 12:28 AM CDT reply actions
Thank you for a good one AG.
"Entropy isn't what it used to be."
by oldtimeyspurfan on Apr 27, 2011 1:08 AM CDT reply actions
hopefully a salve for our wounds……although a small one
"Everybody thought he was going to be gone forever, including me, and the foie gras and truffle treatment worked really well." Pop on Tony's Injury 3/4/11
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gilmoar01.html
by Joe deLarios on Apr 27, 2011 12:09 PM CDT up reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
NBA Playoffs Content Module
Related FanPosts on Pounding The Rock
Related FanShots on Pounding The Rock
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
FanShots
Quick hits of video, photos, quotes, chats, links and lists that you find around the web.
Recommended FanShots
Recent FanShots
Featured Stories
In Association With
Ball Don't Lie - NBA - Yahoo! Sport
- ‘Deep Thoughts’ and Cheap Thoughts: San Antonio Spurs vs. Oklahoma City Thunder
- C-a-C: This is probably as close to LeBron James working with John Waters as we’ll ever get
- Dwyane Wade’s hot pink pants: The kind of thing you can get away with when you drop 41
- Lamar Odom to New York? Dwight Howard on the move? For now, it’s all talk
- David West hilariously denies each and every one of his young fans a high-five (VIDEO)
