Season 49, Game 51
San Antonio 106, Los Angeles Lakers 102
43-8, 2nd in the West

Sometimes going through the motions is just good enough. Against most NBA teams, the Spurs would have lost Saturday night playing with the energy and focus that they did. Thankfully, the Lakers just don’t have enough to beat a team like the Spurs, and Kobe had no more miracles in his final appearance in San Antonio.

It wasn’t an impressive game. On its face, the Spurs’ performance is understandable. Second night of a back to back playing a fresher Lakers team; down two key players; last home game for over a month, with a week’s vacation looming for most involved. None of this inspires playoff-level performances.

What concerns me is the recurrence of several issues that I’ve seen way too often this season, long-term problems that could ultimately doom this team. I try not to overreact to individual games, but it’s time to at least recognize the issues:

• Since losing Duncan, the defense is pretty average, which, for the Spurs, is terrible. The two main issues I’ve seen is a drop in defensive rebounding and a lack of attention in transition defense. What’s most troubling about this is that these are Pop’s two biggest defensive principles.

Offensive rebounds and second chance points might be my biggest basketball pet peeve, so I might suffer from confirmation bias and notice it disproportionately to how often it’s actually happening. Hell, the Spurs had 2 more offensive rebounds than the Lakers did in this game. It just seems like, without Duncan, the rest of the team hasn’t picked up the slack. West and Diaw seem to be below average rebounders for their size, and the wings and guards aren’t digging back enough to help with rebounding. (One exception is Green, who continues to earn his playing time with energy and effort).

In transition, I can’t remember the Spurs ever being more disorganized. It feels like teams can run from rebound to rim without the ball ever being stopped. If the first break is stopped, the secondary transition points tend to be easily found. And the team doesn’t seem to seek out the proper match-ups quickly, resulting in too many mismatches for the other team to exploit if the initial break is stifled.

I know Duncan is still a defensive ace, even at 39. But is he worth that much to the Spurs? The last few weeks seem to suggest an answer, which is scary. I love Duncan, but it’s tough to depend on a 39 year old (40 during the first round of the playoffs) when the other top teams in the league rely on 25 year olds.

• Another tenet of Pop’s defense is: Do not foul. There have been too many games this season with way too much fouling. Too much fouling, coincidentally, is often an indicator of the defense being out of position and a step behind. Draw your own conclusions.

• What’s most concerning about the defense is how inconsistent it is within games. The team goes stretches holding opponents to absurd numbers, then gives up back to back 30-point quarters to the Lakers. Then, in the final 6 minutes of this game, the Lakers only managed a mere 9 points.

The team held Dallas to 26 points in the first half, then gave up 34 points in the 3rd quarter. Again, holding a near 40-point lead at halftime allows a certain letdown. Inconsistent effort on defense, though, is troubling.

• The point guard play has been intermittently great and poor. Parker showed great energy early in the season, but he throws in enough stinker games to not let you trust him fully. I thought he played poorly at the start of each of the last two second halves. Against Dallas it obviously wasn’t a huge issue, but against the Lakers I thought Parker’s poor play on both ends helped the Lakers seize control of the game. (That, and Bryant’s crazy barrage of 3s. But it never should have been that close.)

Usually you can rely on Patty when Parker’s not going well, but Patty has had a pretty up and down season, too. When his shooting is on, the Spurs are pretty unbeatable because that second unit is humming and can really outpace most any other team’s second unit. But when his shot is off, it stalls everything out, particularly in the absence of Manu. Patty was 5-15 (and 3-11 from 3) against L.A., and it really held back the second unit, a time when they should have been handily beating the Laker’s second unit.

• As bad as the transition defense is, the transition offense might be worse. It’s amazing how many times the team runs itself out of fast break points. This is surprising on a team with Parker, Leonard, and Simmons, not to mention Manu and Patty.

The larger point is that the offense, while still efficient, often seems to work itself out of good opportunities. There’s still a learning curve, and plenty has changed with the focus shifting to Aldridge and Leonard (mostly working out of the post); but more often than not, the offense just seems off. It doesn’t all fit into place just yet. There’s enough talent to beat most teams most nights. But we’ve already seen a few examples of what can happen when the D is off, the O is off, and the opponent is quality.

• Kawhi is a stud and I’d want no other player as my cornerstone player, but he still hasn’t fully arrived. This is a good thing, as there is still so much more left in his development. However, he does seem a bit worn down right now, and he has slipped just a tiny bit on both sides of the ball. He’s still an elite player, but he’s not where he was in the first part of the season.

Ultimately, this will be a good thing. But it’s hard to see him not be assertive and dominant every night. He should have been taking it to Kobe, possession after possession, but instead settled too much. (He started attacking more in the second half, but had a pretty rough night finishing at the rim. That we can live with.)

• We all love Boban, but we need to pump the brakes a little bit on him being a key role player in high level games. He’s still learning the team and the game, and against ‘normal’ NBA competition, his limitations really show. He loses the ball easily under pressure, and he really gums up the offense when it’s not garbage time. He played extended minutes in the second quarter against the Lakers, and a 13-point lead completely disappeared. It’s not all him, of course, but the team was noticeably disjointed during this stretch.

The larger issue is that the big man rotation is really 4 players, with Duncan being the most indispensable defensive player. Again, the team is still quite reliant on somebody older than me.

So as not to be a complete killjoy, there have been a few positive developments over the last few games:

• Namely, Aldridge is really coming into his own on this team, playing the most aggressive and consistent basketball I’ve seen from his this year. His shot is looking super comfortable, but he’s also playing really strong in the post (and is not afraid to go down there). He’s drawing a lot of fouls and shooting over 90% in the last several weeks. He’s really allowing the team to stay afloat as it struggles with injuries and other issues.

More importantly, he’s finding his niche without Duncan, but not in a way that will exclude Duncan. Once Tim comes back, I think he’ll be able to shore up the defense (the two work really well together defensively), while LaMarcus will be more comfortable and assertive offensively.

Another side benefit: LaMarcus is starting to get more comfortable also running Duncan’s role on offense, facilitating from the high post and passing over the top to cutting guards. In a critical after-timeout play against L.A., the Spurs ran a typical set where Parker swings it to Leonard at the elbow, who then swings it to Aldridge along the baseline. Meanwhile, Parker cuts to the rim, then back out, then quickly back cuts back to the rim as Aldridge delivers the pass for an easy layup. This is a play that Tony, Manu, and Tim have run for years, and it’s great to see Kawhi and LaMarcus working well in the action.

It’s a unique season. The Spurs are historically great… and not the best team in the league. They are better than the majority of the league. There are really only 2 or 3 teams that can honestly threaten them, and it’s only against these teams that these issues can hurt the team.

Yet, we have to start thinking about and planning for the inevitable series against Golden State and Oklahoma City. Because they’re coming, and the rest of the regular season is preparation for those 4-14 games in May.

The rodeo road trip starts Tuesday in Miami.

Go Spurs Go.