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SPURS DISRESPECT THE BASKETBALL GODS, WINNING STREAK SNAPPED
Scott's Notes:
Scott's Notes:
- I think Mitch summed it up best... the Spurs "did not respect the basketball gods" last night, and for it the Gods smote them. Of course, Mitch deserves a large part of the blame for this. The Spurs were up 7 with 8:40 to play in the second quarter, after building a lead as large as 10, and at that point Mitch decided to insert Sochan and Lindy into the game. That's when everything turned around.
- I see a lot of people falsely stating that Mitch played CB, Sochan and Lindy together. This is not true. Sochan was inserted into the game for CB.
- But nonetheless, this is inexcusable, and the game completely fell apart at this exact moment. The Jazz went on a 12-3 run from this moment to take a 51-49 lead at 5:37. -9 in three minutes from the cute lineup once again biting Mitch squarely in the ass, and it's not the first time it has happened. Will he learn?
- I do want to comment briefly on what Mitch is doing here though, because the idea isn't wrong - it's just poorly executed AND we don't have the personnel for it. This is exactly the kind of game to work your deeper rotation guys into the game to give them some run and give some other guys rest. HOWEVER, you don't do it simultaneously AND the this is where the Spurs depth gets exposed. We are quite deep 1-9, in fact among the deepest in the league. But after that it falls apart completely. We have one fringe rotation player in Lunch Lady, one promising rookie in CB, and then we have guys who arguably shouldn't even be in the league. JMac is the best among them and probably fine as a deep bench PG, Lindy is barely an NBA player but is a project specialist and Sochan and Bismack should be playing in some Siberian Rec League. I hope the team pays a little more attention to the end of the roster going into next year, because games like this is where they are important. Allowing them to give your main players a night off is critical, but we don't have that luxury.
- I see a lot of people falsely stating that Mitch played CB, Sochan and Lindy together. This is not true. Sochan was inserted into the game for CB.
- The predictable wrist-slitting should thankfully be short-lived. I agree with those who have said this was a needed loss, a nice slap of reality for this team to ground them. "But good teams don't lose the games they're supposed to win..." - Yes they do. In 2013-14 the Beautiful Game Spurs lost to the 27-55 Lakers and the 29-53 Pistons, for example. NBA teams, no matter how bad, are still NBA teams. It's gonna be okay.
- With that said, on to the game. Keldon gets a 5. He game to play yesterday.
- It thankfully won't happen to frequently, but when it does we're in trouble: Dev, Champ and Barnes all had bad games. So long as one of them has a decent game, we'll be in pretty good shape, but we can't afford off games from all 3, especially without Fox.
- Offensively, this was the most I've seen us exploit Wemby's size inside and it was good to see. This will sound odd considering he had 5 blocks, but I thought this was one of Wemby's worst defensive performances I can remember. He was just camped out in the paint, giving zero effort on even feigning help on the perimeter. Maybe this was by design, but it came off on TV as lazy. He probably could have been called for a half dozen defensive 3-seconds calls if the refs wanted.
- Something I'm going to be watching going forward, the % of total TOV committed by Wemby and Castle. For a few games now I've noticed those two are over half of them. They MUST clean this up, as a lot of these TOV are stupid plays (having a baby giraffe driving straight into double teams) or lazy (soft cross court passes). Today, 64% of TOVs were created by these two. In the 6 official games since Wemby has returned plus the Cup Final (so 7 games), the team is averaging 13.7 TOV/gm, but Castle and Wemby are responsible for 6.7 of those (49%)!!! That's kind of nuts.
- Best game yet by CB. He was active and impactful on defense and wasn't completely clueless on offense other than a kind of embarrassing fast break lay up attempt. This guy needs to put some faith in his athleticism and use those tools to go strong to the rack.
- Dylan was fantastic in distribution, and it showed with a career high in assists. He also had some nice rebounding contributions and another 3 steals. Very nice.
- Got annoyed with Castle chucking up 3s (eight of them to be exact). It's not his game.
- @LeBowen - Embarrassing effort and embarrassing coaching. Disrespecting the opponent always backfires. Wemby and Castle were bad, Barnes and Champ were pathetic. Keldon and Harper the only positives.
- @Guru of Nothing - I only graded Mitch, an he gets a 1.
- @heyheymymy - If Mitch wants to play Sochan, it probably can't be alongside Waters and CB too. That costly lineup sparked the Jazz into a wildfire. Spurs played sluggish but credit Jazz for pushing effort and knocking down shots. Hats off to Clayton Jr and Key + Lauri looked great for the Jazz.
- @Robz4000 - This team goes as far as Fox takes them offensively, and the 3-point defense needs to be addressed sooner rather than later tbh. Also, if Mitch can't take all NBA teams seriously he has no business as an NBA head coach.
- @Fireball - Castle was a complete trainwreck. I wish the coaches would have kept him out after he seemed to have injured himself.
- @couchman - Numerous issues led to the loss, but the most troubling for me was the lack of defensive intensity. We also looked lost when playing zone with players regularly pointing at each other in confusion. It’s not surprising that we finally made a run when Bryant + Wemby played great defense. They were subbed out the moment we tied the game. That was one of several perplexing substitution and lineup decisions from Mitch. Keldon should have played more and what was he doing with those 2nd quarter lineups?
- @Area 51.247 -
- Dear
: My Christmas Gift is broken! My boxed set Spurs 2025 Special Version "Defend Threes, Make Threes, Pay Attention to Details to Beat the Best Teams" just fell apart against a tanking Jazz. Only three players could make over half their total baskets, much less threes. I put it in a big white bowl, hoping it rejuvenates before better teams come along this week. Maestro, et al., need to figure out this three dilemma before it becomes ingrained.
