Season 49, Game 01
Oklahoma City 112, San Antonio 106
0-1
Full disclosure: when the schedule was released, I winced a little bit when I saw the first game. Opening the season in Oklahoma City is a tough ask. Opening the season in OKC with a new coach, a (finally) fully healthy roster (including a rejuvenated Kevin Durant), and something to prove is near impossible. Factor in the expected growing pains for the Spurs, and I penciled this in as a loss.
The Spurs played very well and had a chance to win this game. The team showed its lack of familiarity and comfort after an offseason of upheaval, and gave the game away late. These are two great teams, and look to get even better as the season progresses. Either of these teams would have handily beaten 27 other teams in the league tonight. As such, the Spurs took the loss. Get the first one out of the way quickly.
Let’s start with the good news, though:
Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press
Kawhi Leonard. Holy cow, welcome to superstardom, young man. My biggest source of excitement coming into this season was getting to watch the continued maturation of Kawhi, to see if he could take that “next step.” He might have taken that step and a few more tonight. He was easily the best player on the floor, completely devouring Kevin Durant on both ends of the court. He had one or two blocks on Durant that shouldn’t be physically possible on this plane of reality. More impressively, he really took it to him on the offensive end, drawing fouls on him and generally getting whatever offense he wanted.
He really seemed incredibly comfortable being the lead offensive and defensive player, and is no longer deferring. This is his team. Even Aldridge seemed to implicitly acknowledge this fact and defer to Leonard. We get 81 more games of this.
LaMarcus, on the other hand, didn’t have a great first game as a Spur. His game wasn’t nearly as bad as some will probably say, though. He looked tentative finding his spots in the offense, and probably deferred a few times he shouldn’t have and forced it a few times he should have passed. He missed a few shots that were his shots and he should take. I don’t worry about that: he’ll make those shots, and he’ll figure out his spot in the offense. The rest of the team also needs to work to find him in the offense. There were a few times he was open and didn’t get the ball. It’s a learning curve for everybody.
What was really nice to see was the few times LMA was able to get offense out of isolation or when the set had broken down. I know it’s not the “Spurs beautiful game,” but it’s really nice to have a player who can create a high-efficiency shot out of essentially nothing.
I thought Aldridge played well on the defensive end… better than most would expect. The first part of the season will be a huge learning curve for him, and tonight was a good start.
As for the defense in general, the Spurs had tremendous individual defense and pretty average-to-poor team defense. Leonard was great; Duncan was great. The Spurs were active and had nice deflections and turnovers. But they were getting roasted in basic pick and roll action, particularly when Westbrook was playing with the second unit. They couldn’t get any important stops as a team when they needed them. The second unit had a terrible time rebounding: West and Diaw will be an interesting pairing. Offensively they work, and against a lot of team’s second units, should be able to manage fine. But the Thunder bigs just destroyed them.
But now we’re just avoiding talking about the real problem: PG play. I would say “Tony Parker,” but that diminishes how poor Mills was, too. In a lot of ways, it’s not fair to judge those two going against Westbrook, who is a complete maniac and athletic freak. Nobody can stop him. But when DJ Augustin, the back-up PG playing on his 6th team in 8 years, is destroying you? There are real problems. It doesn’t matter how great the defense is behind them if the point of attack is that bad. It can be kind of bad, but not as atrocious as it was tonight. Both guards were just living in the lane and doing whatever they wanted after getting by Parker or Mills.
(Interesting side note: Westbrook has now become a more terrifying player to face than Durant. I never thought that would happen. Maybe that’s more Kawhi than anything else.)
Both PGs also looked spotty on offense. As we’ve discussed, Parker can still be successful with a diminished role at PG, more a shooter and caretaker. Particularly with the ascension of Kawhi. But too many times he held the ball way too long, tried to force his offense, and gummed up the offense. He’s holding back the starting unit’s offensive efficiency.
Mills wasn’t much better. He was aggressive, but lacked the tenacious pestering on defense and sound decision making on offense. He seemed to force his shot a little. When it came to him in the flow of the offense, it looked much better. I assume he’ll settle down and settle in a bit.
In the end game, though, my main thought was: can the Spurs run a PG-less line-up? Can Manu effectively be the PG to get Mills and Parker’s liability off the floor. That’s a bad thing to see.
Still, the Spurs were right there until the end. They had shitty offense in the last three minutes, unable to get anything flowing and producing zero good shots. I don’t even know what happened on that last play when Danny put up the ugliest shot of the night at the top of the arc. These are growing pains we’re not used to seeing as Spurs’ fans. That’s the price of adding individual greatness: it will take time for the whole to catch up. But it will.
A few more thoughts from tonight’s game:
• Danny had a tough outing. It’s really hard to see where his offense will come from in this starting unit, as there just aren’t a lot of open shots for him. When he did get an open shot, he seemed to be rushing it and forcing it a bit, which makes sense.
• Manu looked really good, but was a little sloppy with the ball. Such is life with Gino. His shot looks better than it has in at least 5 years. That’s very encouraging.
• The second unit was great playing with Kawhi, horrible when not. Some of that is the downgrade from Kawhi to Kyle Anderson. I expect to see Kawhi get more minutes with the second unit. I think Pop was carefully matching his minutes to Durant’s. That won’t always be the case.
• Diaw had a really great game. We need this spry and engaged BoBo.
• I discussed the hidden efficiency of midrange shots recently. A companion idea to that is post-ups. The league has really gone away from post-ups, but the Spurs now have 5 players who are really good in the low block: Aldridge, Duncan, West, Diaw, and Leonard. Hell, Duncan, perhaps the last great low post big man, might be the worst of those 5 at this point in his career. It might be frustrating to watch after years of the drive-and-kick ball movement, but a lot of great stuff can come out of starting possessions in the post with those players who can all score efficiently from there and break down defenses with passing out of it.
The most important note: basketball is back! How we’ve missed our Spurs. With this new look (by Spurs’ standards) team, each early season game will offer plenty of discovery and excitement.
Brooklyn comes to town Friday night for the home opener. I expect the Spurs to crush them.
Go Spurs Go.
