Spurs fan here. What I think you guys can do and hopefully wun. LMA when posting up, dun shoot long twos, just go for the dunk/up and under everytime. Splitter's "great" defense is basically to stop the jumper only. Lilliard should go all the way for layups whenever duncan is out. Look at monta. Free points everytime. No matter what everyone says, Spurs suck at defending the paint when Duncan is out. Let Duncan shoot. His jumper is unreliable at this point.
Wall of text incoming, sorry. Things I'd like to see in light of last night's game: 1) Stop showing them so much damn respect. Pin your ears back and attack more. Attack the rim aggressively, and take open shots confidently. Dame, as much as I love him, was guilty of this all season against top competition. At least I noticed it in several big match-ups. 2) We have to try something different against the pick and roll. We give Parker, and anyone else who wants it, too much room to operate uncontested. Probably won't happen because it is too late to change your scheme... although everyone should know how to guard the pick and roll at this stage of their careers... 3) Be more physical on defense, if the refs will let us. We missed a lot of easy shots that we should have made in the first half, but San Antonio's defense made us work to get them because they were more physical all over the floor (I'd argue we let them by avoiding the contact instead of playing through it and putting the pressure on the refs to call it). They were bumping and pushing past the 3 point line and just playing with a much higher level of intensity and focus than we were. We need to mimic that. 4) Show up ready to play! This is the playoffs, every single second needs to be treated like the closing seconds of a close game. TL;DR I think this is as much about our intensity and focus as it is X's and O's. The Spurs didn't have a genius scheme that we haven't seen before, they just manhandled us and made us look like boys. Time to fight back and show our heart.
I've been saying ALL SEASON that we need to go under the pick instead of fighting over. If Parker can make that Pick and roll 3, I'll live and die with it. We need to keep him out of the lane plain and simple. Lopez/LMA need to open up instead and let the ball defender go underneath the pick. Terry's pick and Roll Defense makes absolutely no sense.
Yeah I think we've all been complaining about our pick and roll defense. I know I have in literally every game thread I've posted in. Our big men don't need to open up any more, they are already standing 10 feet back! That is part of the problem. When our guards get caught up going over the pick, the man with the ball now has 10 feet of empty space to play with. They can take a wide open jumper, or get a running start at the big while their own big man rolls to the hoop. Easy 2 on 1. And we have done nothing to indicate we are going to change this, because teams have picked us apart all season. We just finally met a team that is willing to patiently run it all game. I'm hoping Stotts has been merely waiting for the right moment to change things up. I have faith.
Make Duncan and Parker work as much as humanly possible. When Parker tries to go around a screen, lay some Przybilla on him. Nothing dirty, just hard. And when Duncan sets a screen, try to go through him instead of fighting your way around him. Oh, and tie Mo Williams' shoelaces to his chair with multiple double-knots and give his first turn on the floor to Barton. Tell Barton that if Mo can untie the knots and get to the scorer's table before Will scores twice and rebounds once, then Mo gets to come back into the game. If Mo can't free himself by then, Will gets to finish the first half playing all Mo's minutes, and he gets a shot at taking Mo's second half minutes, too.
Replacing Terry with Rick Carlisle would probably be a good start. Carlisle or Pop would face rape their way through the WC with that roster, tbh.
It's as simple as the Guard going underneath. I see sometimes when we go underneath by accident and then we are in good defensive position. At those times I'm thinking "Why are you not seeing this during Video sessions????"
I really dont see a need to make many adjustments. The score was ugly, but that was due to the Spurs shooting out of their minds! They shot OVER 50% from the field and 44% from 3 as a TEAM! It wasn't even a bunch of easy layups or uncontested shots, everyone was just "on" last night. To compound that, the Blazers shot terrible and missed way to many layups, shot 38% from the field and 25% from 3, far below average and not due to the Spurs defense. TO further compound it, it seamed like every break and 50/50 ball went to the Spurs. That was a perfect storm for the Spurs. I don't see that happening again. If each team just reverts to near-average FG%'s, its a very close game. We prob still lose game 2, but it will be much more competative.
I think the Blazers are going to play much more motivated now after that game 1 defeat. Since the defeat, Portland has been pretty much classed as a non factor and are going to get swept or lose in 5 due to the blowout. I think Portland come out blazing and get the win tomorrow. And on the adjustments front, I would just let Parker shoot the three instead of get the easy wide open jump shot like others have stated.
It's late here in S.A. so I didn't really have time to read through the thread.... Having said that.... On Offense: LMA and Lillard need to become distributors early in the game and hope your other guys can contribute big time. My Spurs are going to stick to LMA and Lillard like glue and make your other guys beat us... If Rolo and the others can get some scoring going, that may force my Spurs to hedge off Lillard and LMA giving them room to work later in the game. Take time, work the clock to it's fullest EVERY possession, Blazers get sloppy and Spurs will capitalize. On defense: It is hard as a homer Spurs fan to see what your guys could do except pack the paint to close out Parker's driving lanes.... make our outside shooters win this for the Spurs.... It's a deadly gamble and might burn you guys, but I just don't see the Blazers all of the sudden becoming a proficient P&R defensive team against the likes of Parker or Mills, or even Green or anyone else on the Spurs.... All of them are pretty proficient (open) mid-range shooters which is what killed you guys in game 1.... Your team defense works on letting players shoot the mid range jumper because supposedly it is the statistical weak point of all shooters.... That only holds true on contested mid-range jumpers.... The Spurs are exploiting this with the P&R and our excellent mid range shooters, especially Parker and a lot of other Spurs players. I wouldn't doubt it if Stotts tries hedging your guys off the 3 point line to pack the middle when Parker starts a drive and dare us to shoot from long range. It has worked before. Pretty much, pick your poison. Parker torching your defense off the Pick and Roll.... or pack the paint and dare our shooters to win the game.... No way Blazers (Or any team for that matter) can have it both ways IMHO. You might get lucky with our outside shooters going into a slump for a few games.... and who knows what would happen then?
What if we just made more switches? If, say, Lamarcus stays on Parker on the P/R with Lillard on Duncan, assuming we also have Rolo to help on the cover, will it work?
`Start Robinson over Lopez, limit Lopez's minutes to as little as possible without having to get creamed in smallball
