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Imperfect

Season 49, Game 80
San Antonio 86, Golden State 92
65-15, 2nd in the West

The Golden State Warriors are the best team in the NBA, and it’s not nearly as close as we all hope it is.

They’re just a flat out much better team than the Spurs, which is scary, considering how good the Spurs are. But you have to play a nearly flawless game to beat them, or catch them unfocused. The problem is, they will never be unfocused against a team like San Antonio. So the Spurs have to be perfect to beat them.

It just might be too tall of a task. The Spurs’ defense has actually played the Warriors really well this season. It’s the offense that has let them down. The Spurs’ defense isn’t as good as the offense is bad.

Through 17 minutes of this game, the Spurs had held the Warriors to a ridiculous 20 points. The problem? The Spurs had only scored 25. To play that well on defense and hold this explosive offense down and not capitalize on it is demoralizing. The Warriors’ offense will break out eventually; you have to take advantage of the lulls.

Playing top-level defense, you’ll still probably need about 100 points to beat the Warriors, or 25 points per quarter. In 16 quarters this season, the Spurs have scored 25 or more points exactly 6 times. In Game 2 (the sole win), they won the 2nd quarter 26-19. In Game 3, they scored 25 in the 2nd quarter, 29 in the 3rd quarter, and 32 in the 4th quarter. Easily their best scoring game. The Warriors, however, scored 32, 35, and 25 points in those respective quarters. So the Spurs only ‘won’ one of those quarters, and that was in semi-garbage time.

In this final game, the Spurs scored 26 in the 3rd and 25 in the 4th. The Warriors? 27 in the 3rd and 30 in the 4th.

I think you’re seeing the pattern here. In the quarters that the Spurs have scored enough to beat the Warriors, they are actually being outscored 168-163. Take away the garbage time quarter and the quarter in the game they won and it’s 124-105.

Why take away the quarter in the game they won? Because that’s the only quarter (out of 16) that represents how the Spurs must beat the Warriors: control pace and score on the Warriors’ defense. In every other quarter when they’ve been able to score, it’s not because they ‘cracked’ the Warriors’ defense; it’s because they let the Warriors control the pace and allowed the game to get away from them.

Therein lies the problem with slowing the game down, the most critical step to actually beating the Warriors: their defense is really, really good, too. And its particularly suited to stifling the Spurs’ offense. We know the formula; it just has a 6% success rate. That’s not ideal.

Of course, one way to score points is to make wide open jump shots, especially of the 3-point variety. While the season-long numbers will show that the Spurs are near the top of the league in this regard, the eye test begs to differ. The reliability of shooters like Green and Mills and Manu is spotty, and our other wings (like Anderson and Simmons) don’t trust the shot yet, and prefer to dribble into the paint, often effectively resetting the offense. (NBA blogger Nate Duncan refers to these as ‘record scratches’ – a wonderfully descriptive term).

In the 4 games played in this regular season, the Spurs are 23-of-68 from 3, a respectable 34%. But ‘respectable’ won’t get it done against this Warriors team, especially when the 3-point shot is needed to loosen up the paint and the midrange. Take away the third meeting between these two teams (the one game San Antonio scored respectably), and the 3-point shooting drops to 31%.

To beat the Warriors, you also have to take advantage of the non-Curry minutes. Despite the Spurs’ bench being so dominant this season, they have not been able to do much against the Warriors bench. They often look uncharacteristically sloppy and out of sync against the opposing bench. In Sunday’s game, the Warriors were able to extend the lead in Curry’s absence, an absolute death knell to any chance of beating Golden State.

If these two teams meet in the Western Conference Finals, the Warriors would have to be heavily favored. The Spurs have shown very little evidence that they can keep up with the Warriors or that they have any significant advantages to exploit. While it seemed like the retooling in the off-season was in large part a reaction to this Warriors team, it appears that the Spurs aren’t any closer than the rest of the league to figuring them out and beating them. Forget 4 times in 7 games; I’d settle for twice, full stop.

(AP Photo/Darren Abate)

(AP Photo/Darren Abate)

It’s a bit disheartening to be so good, yet so far away from being the best. Thankfully, they still have to prove it on the court, in May and June.

It’s also disheartening to end the season on a losing skid, even if the games hold no meaning. Still, I’d like to get at least one more win this regular season. The Thunder come to town tonight. Like the Spurs, Oklahoma City is locked into their seed with nothing really to play for. With a huge potential second round match-up between these two teams looming, it will be interesting to see how both sides play this one. Oklahoma City played on Monday night, so I reckon they might rest a few key players.

Go Spurs Go.

Wasted Time

Season 49, Game 78
San Antonio 101, Golden State 112

Season 49, Game 79
San Antonio 98, Denver 102

65-14, 2nd in the West

Here at Spurs Dynasty, we’re following our rooting interest’s lead and embracing an unorthodox resting regimen as we head towards the playoffs. We want our thinkers, writers, and editors to be in top form heading into the playoffs. There are no records we’re trying to break; we just want to bring you the best insight and analysis about our favorite team that we can.

So with a back-to-back starting in Oakland and ending in Denver, late in the season with nothing to play for, much like the Spurs, you can see some dereliction of duty here. The Spurs started Duncan, West, Miller, Anderson, and Simmons on Friday night in Denver. I’m willing to bet that group of players had logged exactly zero minutes together prior to the game in Denver.

There was zero expectation to win this game. Some might have been surprised to see Duncan playing, but it speaks to the primary purpose of the game: conditioning. With another bout with Golden State looming on Sunday, Duncan is likely to not play very much in that game. So Denver’s game becomes his condition and reps game.

And Duncan played great. He had his highest scoring output of the season, netting 21 points. He was active and engaged, clearly wanting the win.

When you rest six core players, though, you can hang tough for only so long before the cracks start to show. The Spurs had a real chance to win this game. They held a 4-point lead with about 4 minutes left. They had so many opportunities to extend that lead, as the Nuggets failed to score over the next 2+ minutes. The problem, of course, was that the Spurs also failed to score.

It comes down to execution. With so many unfamiliar player combinations, there is a palpable lack of chemistry, leading to a lack of execution. The Spurs could just not execute to get that critical basket. This was most evident with the score knotted at 98 and Spurs inbounding with under a minute left. Pop drew up a play he has gone to hundreds of time: a wing throws it into Duncan in the post; meanwhile, a guard cuts towards the basket, turns to cut back out, then quickly back cuts back towards the rim, leaving his defender behind him as Duncan hits him for an easy layup. You’ve seen Duncan run this with Parker or Ginobili too many times to count.

On this night, however, he was trying to run the play with Kevin Martin. The timing was way off, the pass was never made, and the Spurs eventually turned the ball over.

The players got their individual conditioning and reps in, but the team itself had no cohesion, dropping what would have been a pretty easy win under most circumstances.

The night before in Oakland the entire squad played. However, the results weren’t much different. Lack of cohesion and execution once again cost a game against the Warriors in Oakland. On this game, though, it wasn’t for lack of chemistry.

I don’t know what it is about the Warriors that so flusters the Spurs. The offense is almost unrecognizable from what we’ve grown accustomed to. The Warriors make the Spurs play quick and out of sorts. They stop passing the ball, stop trusting the system, and everybody tries to do too much and play outside of their abilities.

Frankly, they look outmatched. This is doubly frustrating watching teams like Minnesota, Boston, and Memphis all play the Warriors so tough. Then the Spurs – the second best team in the league and perhaps a top-ten team all-time – come to town and look like a D-League team.

The Warriors expose a dirty little secret about the Spurs offense: it is not elite. It has two elite players, but that ‘beautiful game’ we all love really only exists in memory and shadow. The Spurs’ current offense is built almost entirely on one principle: we can make the shots you want us to take. Not coincidentally, this is what Aldridge and Leonard excel at. It’s also what players like West and Anderson are good at. Throw in Green and Mills’ ability to shoot the 3, and the roster is full of shooters.

But if the shots aren’t falling, things go south pretty quickly. The Warriors, to their credit, work their butts off on defense to make sure those open shots that most defenses are happy to give up are even difficult for the Spurs. With those shots gone, the warts of the offense come to the fore.

So for the Spurs to beat the Warriors, two things must be true: the pace must be slow and the defense must be perfect. This happened in the game in San Antonio, but hasn’t even been close to occurring in Oakland. One tiny defensive mistake and the Warriors kill you with a backdoor cut; one sloppy turnover, and the Warriors are down the court and scoring in the blink of an eye.

You have to play near-perfect basketball to beat a Warriors team that is locked in. (Ironically, the reason they tend to lose more easily to inferior teams is they tend to get mentally sloppy.) The Spurs have only done that once. They have one more crack at it tonight.

Did the Spurs play it wrong resting against Denver (a more assured win at full strength) and playing a full squad in Oakland, a game they had little chance to win? The fan in me says ‘yes’, but I also selfishly want that win total to get as high as possible, this being the best Spurs regular season of all-time and all.

But really, no individual game has any significant post-season bearing anymore. In Pop’s mind, the remaining games are all about process, not results. I doubt he cares a lick if this team ends the season on a 5-game losing streak, because it’s not really a 5-game losing streak. Considering Aldridge’s finger injury against Golden State, to shoot for wins and ignore any extraneous costs would be penny wise and pound foolish.

I want that number to get as close to 70 as possible; Pop wants to enter the playoffs healthy and his players rested and ready for the second season. I think Pop is probably right.

The Spurs face the Warriors at home tonight in a game with zero playoff implication but tons of historic implication.

Go Spurs Go.

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