Another strong win for the Spurs. This felt a lot like last night’s game, building a big first half lead mostly on the strength of some unusually good 3-point shooting, then fighting off every little run in the second half before pulling away for good late. I’ll take these wins any day.
The real bright spots of the game for me were Matt Bonner and Richard Jefferson. Bonner kept up his hot shooting and even played some strong, pesky, and physical defense against Zach Randolph. His shooting is so important to the team, and when he’s making his shots, our entire offense opens up. He has even added a reliable (if wholly uncreative) driving game to his repertoire. While he’s rarely a danger to full down a tomahawk dunk, just having the second weapon available to him gives him (and our offense) that much more flexibility.
Jefferson continues his improved play of the last few weeks. Coming off the bench seems to be suiting him well. He scored well tonight, but for me his biggest improvement and biggest asset to the team is in his defense and his energy. He is starting to really play with passion and intensity and with a will on defense. He pulled down some crucial rebounds (something that was hard to come by tonight) and played some stifling man defense. It’s nice to see him playing well.
I’m still concerned about our over-reliance on our bench. That’s a nice way to win some regular season games, but can really hurt you come playoff time. Of course, at this point, we’re just fighting to make the playoffs and to secure a decent seed, so I suppose we shouldn’t worry about the playoffs until April 16th.
Tonight’s win may be tempered by the injury to Tony Parker, who reportedly broke a bone in the ring finger of his right hand. There’s no definitive reports yet, but if Matt Bonner is any indication, Parker could possibly miss 4-6 weeks, which would be the rest of the regular season. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Looking Forward:
We play Monday night in Cleveland. After a slow start (people forget that they lost their first 2 games and every analyst in the country was losing their shit), the Cavs have clearly been the best team in the league over the last several weeks, with LeBron clearly being the best player in the league all season. This game should be a great test for us. We’ve won 4 straight games against quality opponents, but nothing of Cleveland’s caliber. A win would be outstanding, but I’m more concerned about how well we play. If we can hang with them and play like we belong on the court with them, that will be a very good sign for us.
