Season 49, Game 07
San Antonio 106, Sacramento 88
5-2
Stop me if this sounds familiar: the Spurs come out slowly in the first quarter, before building a bit of a lead in the 2nd. However, their opponent pulls even by halftime, and even pulls ahead in the third, before the Spurs pull away late.
If we very rudimentarily trace this out, it would be “starters = bad, bench = good.”
Again, that’s very simple. The starters are playing excellent defense to counteract their piddling offense, which keeps the games fairly even. The bench doesn’t play great defense overall, but their offense is so dominant that the net effect is often surging leads. The bench is also typically playing against other bench units, and the advantage Manu, Boris, and Patty have over competing benches is often significant.
In this early part of the season, Pop has set the rotations so that the first shift of the bench occurs with Aldridge and Leonard on the floor. A unit with Boris, Patty, Manu, Aldridge, and Kawhi is very good — starter or bench. Often, leads start with this unit on the floor.
All caveats aside, there’s still something missing with the starting unit. Even Duncan looks a little unsure out there.
Nothing is more illustrative than this: for the first 6 minutes of the game, Aldridge was completely absent from the offense. He didn’t take a single shot. Manu checked in, and LaMarcus scored 3 baskets on the next 3 possessions, all set up by ball and player movement in the offense.
There’s this thought that now that we have two excellent individual offensive players, that the offense should necessarily be more stagnant and isolation-heavy. Yes, it’s a luxury to have players like Aldridge and Kawhi, who can create offense on their own from a standstill.
But you know what also works? Using the offense to put these potent players in even better positions to score.
Aldridge is great in the low post. But he can also function very well in the gears of the ‘beautiful game’. Two examples from Sacramento: he received a pass under the basket on a fast break and could have easily gone up with the shot. Instead, he made a beautiful touch pass to Duncan on the weak side, who ended the play with a very easy lay-up. At another point in the game, Aldridge ran a simple pick-and-pop with Danny Green on the left wing. When his man sunk in to stop Green’s drive, Danny passed it out to Aldridge, who was waiting all alone at his favorite spot on the floor for an 18-footer. Swish.
I’d like to see Aldridge’s talents better incorporated into the flow of the offense. The pick-and-pop is the most obvious and simplest of possibilities. How on Earth would you defend Parker or Leonard working a pick-and-pop game with LaMarcus? You’d either give up a wide-open jumper from Aldridge, or the defense breaking down around Parker or Leonard driving to the rim, which would produce a lay-up, a foul, or a kick-out to a wide open 3-point shooter.
It would also be nice to see Aldridge filling the role usually filled by Duncan in the offense, most notably as the facilitator/fulcrum of the offense in the high post. I know why Duncan remains in this role, after playing it for 19 years. But Aldridge’s skill set provides a few opportunities that Duncan’s can’t at this point in their respective careers. All of those wide open Duncan jumpers could be Aldridge’s.
Just because Aldridge can get his own offense, doesn’t mean he should always have to.
It was a win, though, after all; so here are a few more happy thoughts from Monday night’s game:
• It was fun watching Marco play. He was such a great fit in the Spurs’ offense. He was necessary collateral damage to acquiring Aldridge, but it’d be great to see what he could do with this team. He was torching Green all night with his constant movement on offense. Amusingly, it was Manu who guarded him the best. He knows all of his tricks and tendencies, and cut them off well.
Marco went from one of the best situations in the NBA to one of the worst. I wish nothing but success for him; I hope it improves in Sacramento.
• Butler continues to be the biggest surprise of the young season. He is fitting in on both ends so well, and already seems quite comfortable in the system (something it can often take players months or years to achieve). His energy is tremendous, especially on defense. I’m shocked at how good he has been on defense as both a 3 and a small-ball 4. I trust him in the game more than I do Anderson at this point. Especially when he starts hitting 3s.
• West had another strong game. I love seeing him get more and more comfortable with the team.
• Duncan had a great game with the unenviable task of guarding DeMarcus Cousins. The box score will say that Cousins got the better of him. But Duncan defended him as well as you can. Related: Duncan is 39 years old.
The Spurs play in Portland tonight. I’m interested to see how Aldridge performs at his first game back, and how the Portland crowd reacts to him.
Go Spurs Go.
