Season 49, Game 10
San Antonio 93, Portland 80
8-2, 2nd in the West
2005 called. They need their game back.
Sometimes you wonder if it’s good defense or just poor shooting. Then you get a game like this, when both things are true, and you end up with a halftime score of 36-28. That’s an average quarter in most modern NBA games.
Yes, the Spurs continue to play suffocating defense. (Per Hollinger, the Spurs are currently the best defensive team in the NBA.) But the Blazers also had trouble finding the rim. With just a below average shooting night from the home team, the lead probably could have approached 20 by the end of the first half.
Instead, outside of a mini-burst from the bench unit, the Spurs played flat and lethargic offense, allowing the Blazers to hang around. While they are a young team, you never want to let a squad featuring Damian Lillard to stay in contact. Especially the Spurs, who have the ignominious honor of being the team against which Lillard has his highest career scoring average. (We all remember that 3OT game in San Antonio last year, yes?)
As I said when we played the Blazers last week, I’ll always be afraid when Lillard is on the floor. With a flurry in the 3rd quarter tonight, he validated my concerns.
All credit to the Blazers: they fought and hung around. But this is more about the Spurs, who look more lost than ever on offense. Even the second unit was having trouble producing “beautiful basketball.” If not for a superhero performance by Manu, the Spurs easily could have coughed up this game late in the 4th.
(Photo: Eric Gay/AP)
Aldridge had what was easily his worst game as a Spur. He disappeared for large chunks of the game, and seemed completely rattled on offense, unwilling to even look at the rim for his shot. He kept moving the ball, so it never stuck. But his reluctance to seek out his own offense completely clogged up the rest of the team’s ability to score efficiently. He played 34 minutes and scored a mere 6 points. More alarmingly, I can only remember one thing he did of impact, a big offensive rebound when the game was getting close.
I’m willing to write this game off as an anomaly, but poor performances born from passivity are a lot harder to forgive than mistakes of aggression. The Spurs’ system, more than anything else, depends upon full engagement from all five players. Aldridge can try and fail; what he cannot do is completely disappear.
A few more thoughts from tonight’s win:
• One of the bright spots of the victory was Danny’s jumper: his shot is starting to fall! His stroke looked a lot better tonight, and the more it falls, the more his confidence will start to come back.
• The Spurs played really solid defense at the rim tonight, scoring 11 blocks and limiting the Blazers to only 24 points in the paint. 8 Spurs registered at least one block.
• The Spurs also limited the Blazers to just 2 fast break points. Considering how many bricks there were that could have easily led to leak outs, that’s really impressive. Again, the defense wasn’t really the problem.
• Manu was a man possessed in the 4th quarter. In another throwback to 2005, he hit clutch shot after clutch shot down the stretch to salt the game away for the Spurs.
• Surprise, surprise: down the stretch of the game, Pop stuck Leonard on Lillard. What a luxury to have a defensive stopper like Kawhi, and a wing partner like Danny. Both players guard on the ball and off the ball extremely well, and also offer extraordinary rim protection for their size and position.
10 games in, and the Spurs are #2 in the West. They’re still struggling on offense, but they’ve taken full advantage of an easy schedule to bank some wins and continue to work on the offense. This is exactly how the first part of the season ended to play out.
The next 10 games feature some tougher teams, but a little easier travel schedule. Let’s see if the defense continues to hold up against stronger offenses, and if the offense can start to find a better rhythm.
Denver comes to town on Wednesday night.
Go Spurs Go.
