Season 48, Games 25 and 27
Portland 108, San Antonio 95
Portland 129, San Antonio 119 (3OT)
17-10, 7th in the West
I don’t think I’m emotionally prepared to talk about back-to-back devastating triple overtime losses at home. It is unprecedented. Literally. The Spurs are the first team in NBA history to ever lose back-to-back triple overtime games.
Instead, let’s turn our gaze back a few days to the first time these two teams met this week, way back on Monday, when life was simpler and the notion of playing two triple overtime games was laughable at best.
The biggest news to come out of this game was Manu’s decision to go full buzz cut with the full beard, emulating the hipster-lumberjack look that is so popular up here in Portland. I’m sure he was easily disguised at whatever dive bar he ended up in later that evening.
On the court, the game went about as expected. Sitting a full 1/3 of the team, the outcome was more or less a foregone conclusion. I was impressed with and proud of how competitive the team was and how close they kept the game throughout. They were never able to get over the hump or get enough defensive stops (hard, that, without Tim or Tiago patrolling the paint). Every player that played performed well and mostly hit or exceeded expectations.
Kyle Anderson was particularly impressive in the second half, showing some aggression in running the offense. For the first few months of the season, he played very deferentially, which makes sense considering that when this core won their first championship he was 8 or so, and Duncan and Pop have been the backbone of the team as long as he has been a fully-aware human being. So yeah, he’s probably going to defer.
Over the last few games, though, he’s started to let loose, and the early returns are positive. He is already a more useful player than Austin Daye, and a more important part of the rotation. Let’s just get that out there now. (Pop may have even figured this out in the second half of tonight’s game, but we’re not ready to talk about that yet.) He defends better, passes better, handles the ball better, shoots better, rebounds better, has better body language, and doesn’t force me to hit my desk in anger.
Beyond that, I really like the intelligence and patience of his game. “SloMo” fits well. It’s not that he’s slow, he’s just not in a hurry. Much like Boris, his game has a grace to it, a sense of marching to the beat of his own drummer. Also like Boris, he has a knack for somehow getting uncontested shots at the rim. He needs to learn to finish better (use the glass!!), but that will come. He also uses his intelligence well defensively to make up for a slower foot speed. He’s tall and has long arms and has natural instincts in disrupting passing lanes and bothering ball handlers, a la Kawhi.
He showed similar attributes in Friday’s game.
But now we’re just stalling. I think we have to discuss the 3OT loss. No, I mean it; I think I’m obligated to “recap” the game in some fashion for this site.
So let’s start here: can we all agree that Tim Duncan is some sort of basketball demigod sent from the future to lay the groundwork for the coming basketball revolution? Yes? That the level he is playing at both offensively and defensively at his age is beyond impressive and moves into territory that we don’t have adequate words for? Good. Moving on.
Can we also just agree that sports, like so many things in life, is fickle and unjust, and we’re probably foolish for putting so much emotional and mental investment in it; yet the reasons we do transcend all logical discourse? The Spurs were 2 fingertips and 0.2 combined seconds away from winning this game twice, and possibly one clear line of sight of LaMarcus Aldridge’s foot away from winning it a third time. If Green or Duncan’s fingers are a centimeter shorter, those two baskets probably aren’t overturned (correctly, mind you) and the Spurs win going away.
Or if Wes Mathews’–one of the better 3-point shooters in the league–game-tying 3-point attempt hits the rim instead of Aldridge’s chest off an air ball, the Spurs most likely recover the rebound and win the game. He just has to shoot a bad shot instead of a completely horrible shot for the Spurs to win. How many 3-pointers has he shot in his career that didn’t even hit the rim?
Next, is there any way to really talk about Manu any more? I feel like his swings from “good” Manu to “bad” Manu are happening more frequently and with larger distances between the peaks and the nadirs. Honestly, my thoughts about Manu at this point are more like a jumble of color and sound. “Look at that pass!” “What a steal!” “Why are you shooting that?” “What in the holy hell are you–aaaarrrghghgh!!” I can’t decide if we lost the game because of him, or if we’re only still in the game because of him. And that’s kind of the eternal question of Manu at this point in the season.
Whatever the answer, it’s clear that Manu ran out of gas somewhere in the first OT, and Pop wisely pulled him for the second OT. (Duncan, the futuristic demigod, did not run out of anything.) He just had nothing left. It’s hard to fault him for that, especially considering the game prior.
I don’t have any meaningful analysis from this game. I could talk about the line changes–which were cool–but that seems like half a year ago. Having Tiago back is really nice. Let’s hope he stays healthy. Damian Lillard is a badass and I’m convinced every 3 he takes is going in.
The worst part of this game is that it will most likely end up being two losses, as Saturday’s game in Dallas will be tough to win. Once the game went to OT and Pop was committed to going for the win, the Dallas game started inching more and more to the “L” column.
It’s hard to be too logical when a team loses four overtime games in the span of less than a month. By nature and the law of averages, given four overtime games, a team should win at least one. Since an overtime game suggests that the two teams playing are equals on that night, the end result of the game should be a coin toss. To lose 4 coin tosses in a row (8 if you want to add up all of the OTs) is pretty remarkable. That’s just bad luck and bad timing.
And bad injuries. This team needs Tony, Kawhi, and Patty. The players playing are doing so admirably, but this team only gets special with its full roster. Injuries are a part of the NBA, and let’s hope all of this bad luck early will portend better luck later.
It’s too early to really start worrying. The West is tough and the Spurs aren’t playing great. But they’re still competitive every night. They just don’t have the horses to get over the finish line every night. The good news: those horses are in the stable.
As the season progresses, most every team in the West is going to hit a rough patch, and all of this will balance out. It’s impossible for 7 teams in the West to all win 60 games. Eventually they’ll all start beating up on each other. Injuries will derail a team for a few weeks. The scheduling monster surely gets all teams at least a couple of times a year. The Spurs are fine. Of any team in the league, they know themselves the best. That is solid gold in the postseason.
Still, back-to-back 3OT losses…. I mean, come on.
