The Blazers’ first win of the pre-season was sloppy but fun.
Both teams didn’t look like they had things together. Court movement wasn’t crisp; screens weren’t
set right; baskets came about because of luck more than planning.
When crunch time came and Jamal Crawford’s back to back to
back threes lit a fire under the Blazers, it wasn’t clear they could hold out
and hold off the challenge.
They did, beating the Clippers 119-114. But it seemed like it could well have gone
the other way around.
Still, it is only the preseason, and what the Blazers lacked
in rigor they made up for in sheer brilliance of improvisation which made for a
wonderful first broadcast.
This in turn testified to an exciting chemistry among this
group, between starters and non-starters, veterans and new additions.
The improbable shooting of the team summed up the tone of
the night. The Blazers went 17 for 25,
or making 68% of shots. These were not
pretty shots, often made in chance openings, in defenders faces, off balance, but
they all went in.
The effort was led by Wesley Matthews. Usually an extremely disciplined player, Matthews
looked carefree, wild even, and was rewarded for taking chances by going
lights-out. He shot 6 for 7 from beyond
the arc, and was the Blazers’ highest scorer.
McCollum was also full of flash, and had an amazing shooting
night. Starting instead of Lillard—kept
out another game with minor strain on his foot—McCollum looked a little out of
rhythm at first, but proceeded to go 7 for 12 and 5 for 8 from three-point
range—an effort that would have been the highlight of the night were it not for
Matthews’ golden touch. McCollum ended up with 19 points and had 6 assists.
Even Allen Crabbe made three out of four three point
attempts. This was a legendary night.
Steve Blake, after a solid effort last game, also showed his
utility. While not scoring much, he had
a plus-minus of +16, and could be seen swooping through the air to grab his 5
rebounds throughout the night. He also
had 7 assists. One of them was a
beautiful alley-oop to Will Barton at the beginning of the first quarter. Barton laid the thing in with grace.
It was all part of the fun of the game: the sheer
improvisatory brilliance that the Blazers are now displaying, however much they
may still have to tighten things up before the regular season.
When the Clips put the pressure on, and holes were exposed,
the Blazers didn’t respond as quickly as they might have. And yet, even then, they never let control of
the game pass into their opponent’s hands.
Aldridge is a rock, we know.
But in games like this, with the Blazers lacking Lillard, he showed that
he too was capable of the creativity the rest of the team displayed.
The Blazers often have used him as a last-ditch option for
baskets, when the rest of the play goes sour.
In this game, however, Aldridge showed he could take over the role of
facilitator when the primary point guard is absent. LaMarcus whipped passes around to cutters or
to spot shooters in the corners or on the wings throughout the contest, coming
away from the game with a remarkable 5 assists.
And it’s clear that now, besides Aldridge, there is another
steadying force who can come to rise to the occasion.
Chris Kaman again was amazing. He went four for 8 from the field with 12
points. Even better was the chemistry
between Aldridge and Kaman. Two of
Aldridge’s five assists went to Kaman cutting to the hoop with surprising
quickness and formidable force—and ended in two layups. On the second one, Kaman also finished with
remarkable deftness, moving to the side of the hoop to gain its protection.
The effort between the two, combined with the dazzling three
point shooting, left the Blazers able to stay in the lead for most of the game,
and not let the thing slip away when things got rough.
In many ways though, the Clippers were never going to win
the game, and the threat was hollow.
They were only coming back because of Crawford’s bizarre run.
Meanwhile, their supposed third-best player DeAndre Jordan
has 5 fouls with two to go in the third.
They were not in the game down the stretch, though they kept it close. The win would come through the Blazers giving
things up, rather than the Clippers posing a genuine challenge.
One of the reasons they almost fumbled was because of the
surprisingly poor performance of Robin Lopez. Lopez went 0 for 4 with a plus-minus
of -14, playing almost 19 minutes. He
managed to grab 6 rebounds, but looked generally unspectacular.
Nevertheless, Kaman had 9 boards, 7 defensive, and had a plus-minus
of +17—more than enough to make up for the effort.
This left fans with a pleasing takeaway: if the Blazers
bench makes up for a lack of stamina from some of their players, and sloppy
play generally—well, that’s just what a bench is supposed to do. The Blazers may finally have a bench. And this means they might be even more of a
contender in close contests this year.
No slumps, like those in the Spring of last season.
Meanwhile, what’s clear is that we are in for another amazing
season of basketball. The sheer fun of
watching this team is hard to equal, and they are doing more interesting, more
stylish, more creative work on the court than ever before.
All of Portland was excited. All day there were complaints that it was only being broadcast on the radio. In the frenzy people forgot how to get across the river or over from 205 and jammed up I-84 and nearly all the bridges. I stayed home with my roommate and we tuned into the game.
Wheels and Tone, back in action, back at Dr. Jack's, on site, on location. Then inside the stadium with Terry Stotts, who explained the last loss was due to what an informed fan would understand was typical preseason jitters. As usual never downplaying the problems, never dismissing them, he explained it had to do with anticipating the moves of one's teammates, rather than an opposing team one hasn't been scrimmaging with constantly.
Then the opening: a new intro with Wheels' call of the The Shot, his screechy BaaaAAANG! and the crowd loud and packing the Rose Garden. Big cheers as the lineups get called out. A generally friendly greeting for the Jazz--this is pre-season after all, we'll save the ire and insults for when our record is really on the line--and then the big video screen montage. Then roars as the Blazers hit the court.
Big cheers for Steve Blake--starting because Lillard's foot got stepped on in the first game and --big cheers for everyone. Huge cheers for Aldridge, and the train noise they play that rumbles the seats. The Blazers were back.
The first preseason game at home went well for the Blazers, and much better than their previous game away in Salt Lake. Especially considering how no one on the Blazers' roster played more than 25 minutes--two of them, LaMarcus Aldridge and Nicholas Batum, held to 24 minutes exactly, just as Stotts said would happen.
However the Jazz, who left Gordon Hayward in for 34 minutes, Alec Burks in for 37, and Trey Burke in for 34, played slightly better, squeezing by with a 109-105 win--their second of the preseason and their second against the Blazers.
The highlight for them was Gordon Hayward's huge dunk over poor Joel Freeland: Hayward came around over a pick and drove to the hoop on the right side, then jumped real high and bounced off of Freeland. Freeland stumbled back, and Hayward ricocheted straight up and seemed almost to float. He slammed the ball in powerfully and came down and roared--an rare show of emotion for the rather straight-laced player.
They seemed to be determined to pull out the win, and kept the Blazers struggling to keep up the whole game. Any run by the home team was matched and overcome by subbing in the starters in interesting lineups. The Blazers weren't going to win it if they wouldn't break their rules, it was clear.
But more nuanced lineups from the Blazers and more solid performance from the bench players kept the Jazz struggling. Rarely was there an all-bench lineup from the Blazers--one starter was usually slipped in there somewhere. And the play of many of the bench players stepped up to the challenge the Jazz threw down.
Aldridge seemed to be back in the groove after a rocky start last game: he went 10 for 14 from the field in 24 minutes, scoring a total of 22 points. He also had a couple of assists and a block. That should scare the NBA, because that is a lot of output for a little amount of time.
Wes Matthews proved to be particularly helpful to the team, with 13 points and three sneaky steals (to add to his one from the previous game), as well as a 2/5 performance from beyond the arc.
The most impressive player in these early games however has to be Chris Kaman. Going 5-8, scoring 10 points, as well as grabbing 7 rebounds in the first game, last night Kaman scored went 4-8, scored 8, and grabbed 6. If he keeps producing at this rate, and rebounding at this rate, he will be every bit of the bench playing difference-maker that the Blazers have been seeking for the past couple years.
Of course, though, the highlight of the night was Meyers Leonard's baseline three. Barton drives to the hoop, Leonard leaks out to the corner, Barton shovels the ball over and Leonard didn't even think. He just caught the thing, went up with a tight, crisp shot, and drained it. If he can keep that shot up, and can hit it just like that, we may finally see Leonard get over the hump and actually become a producer this year.
Even more surprising, he had a shot to win the thing with another three and no one hesitated to give him the ball. Leonard made his way to the top of the key behind the line with under a minute to go and the Blazers down one--Barton again gave him the ball and he let it fly. The ball just managed to rim out and the game was effectively over. The crowd wanted it and let out a horrible noise when they saw it leave the hoop.
No one was indignant though, or even angry. Leonard proved he could make the shot, and Stotts has been promoting his new stretch-4/5 role, and it appears as if the shift might finally bring everyone on to Leonard's side. At the same time, giving Leonard the ball so much in crunch time could be another indication that Barton is developing an even greater conscientiousness as a facilitator.
Despite the loss, then, it was a close and tense game, with good play all around. A great home-opener. The only thing more you could ask for in this game was for Leonard to pull out the win--which would have been a magic start to the home-game season. Regardless, it's clear the Blazers are back, and Rip City is ready to stumble into the season with them for another shot at glory.
After a
breakdown of defense and some miscommunication on offense, the Knicks defeated
the Blazers yesterday afternoon in Summer League play, 71 to 69.
The
horrible sequence of events that ended the game—which led to the Knicks scoring a crucial field goal
in the last thirty seconds of the last quarter—contained much that was typical
of the Blazers’ performance.
The Knicks
had the ball to inbound with 51 seconds to go, the score tied 69-69. There was time for a good defensive effort
and a good push to take the lead. Just
then, however, Cleanthony Early inbounds the ball, Will Barton follows it with
his eyes, and his man makes a backcut behind him to the basket. Barton chases him down, forces a missed
layup, but no one is there to get the rebound.
New York grabs it, resets, swings the ball to the wing, and through a
strange poorly set screen ends up getting a floater.
After the
Blazers get the ball back, a great pass inside by Barton produces only a poor
attempt at a layup by Freeland. The
Knicks get the ball back, hurl it upcourt, have a chance to put the game away,
but mercifully miss the layup. Barton
grabs the ball and pushes downcourt as fast as he can, and rather than put up a
floater himself with four seconds to go kicks the ball out from the top of the
key to Bobby Brown on the wing. Brown’s
back leg, however, is out of bounds when he catches it, and with that last
turnover the game is effectively over once the Knicks inbound the ball.
Turnovers
aplenty, redeeming passing, bad defense, bad luck, good luck, poor
decisionmaking. It is a strange and
sloppy mix of all of these things that we saw throughout the game, and not getting them all more in order--or eliminating some of them entirely as game-determining factors--is
what cost the Blazers the win. One can’t
say that the Knicks distinguished themselves in any great way: the Blazers
handed the game to them as much as they achieved victory.
But there
were good signs in all this for Blazers fans nevertheless. Most of these things can be tightened up with
further play. The 20 turnovers that the
Blazers made throughout the game were devastating, but that is something we
might well expect in such an early game.
While these guys have been practicing continually, they haven’t been
playing against opponents for a few weeks, and that’s enough to get things out
of rhythm, even among the veteran starters.
That’s of
course the disturbing thing: one would think that the passing would be crisp
and accurate among people who have played with each other now for a years and
then some. Defensively, we would expect
better communication than what was visible out there. In the first half the Blazers defense was
excellent, but it fell apart in the second, perhaps just because of
fatigue. This, though, as well as
turnovers, can mostly be explained by the nature of Summer League play in
general, which is fast-paced and hectic.
In the end they are disappointing to see, but not worrying really in the
long term.
The great
news, in other words, is that these errors were all things that were to be
expected, really, from a team in Summer League: the more important thing is
that the players individually looked very good.
Will Barton, first and foremost, looks excellent. He looks to be in great shape,
a bit more meaty, and--this is the most promising thing--quicker than ever. He's very, very fast, and isn't afraid, while he's running the point, to use this speed and push the offense. Most impressive however was
his three-point shooting: he dropped one on the Knicks in the first
half and went up confidently. He handles the ball well (of all the turnovers in the game, he was only responsible for two), and is
absolutely wonderful on the fast break.
His eye for passing seems to have improved: he was spotting holes in
defenses and passing lanes that better passers only usually see, and was great
at threading the needle to get the ball through to open cutters. The passes themselves weren’t always as
accurate as possible, but the court vision seems to have improved significantly. Defensively, he still seems to be
struggling. He still had difficulty
getting through screens, and would get tripped up either by not seeing them
coming or getting hammered too hard by them and being bounced around. Guarding the heavier Giannis Antetoukounmpo,
he nevertheless managed to neutralize him by staying in front of him well: he
didn’t get blown by at all when it was just one-on-one. In the end he had 11 points, 3 assists, and 7 rebounds.
Thomas
Robinson, despite some glaring errors that most of the press has focused upon—his
missed reverse jam in particular, which was just a mess—looked amazing. There is a great improvement in his shot and
in his confidence in taking it. He went 7 for 10 over the course of the game. It looks
very, very different, and he has obviously been working to change it up. Now it has a very, very high arc—like that of
Aldridge—something it didn’t have before.
The change is radical: he’s now able to get a shot off higher and put it
up with less fear of what will happen to it once it leaves his fingers. He took several long twos from the top of the
key and they all splashed in. It looks
like the Blazers will be putting him in as a sub for Aldridge and will have him
do similar things: this role was perhaps slated to be that of a bigger man—like
Hawes—but Robinson is showing himself worthy of it. Together with 5 freethrows (out of nine taken), he scored 19 points and pulled down seven rebounds.
C.J.
McCollum impressed in his sheer ability to get to the hoop and draw fouls:
something Damian Lillard did very successfully last year and something that the
Blazers are obviously hoping to replicate in their bench lineups. Usually someone who will settle for a three,
he took it to the basket repeatedly, almost every time he got the ball, and
showed a nimbleness getting around people in the paint that was wonderful to
see. On defense he is also quick:
nothing too impressive here or different, really, in his play than what we have
already seen. He went 4 for 11 shooting twos and was 1 for 4 in threes. He scored 16 points and had 2 assists.
So while
the team wasn’t quite playing well, individually there was a lot that was
promising in this first Summer League game.
The Blazers play the Rockets today at 5:30 PST. Meyers-Leonard will not play for the second
straight game with a shoulder injury, but it will be exciting to see whether
these lapses are tightened up and whether any of the rivalry that has developed
between the two teams over the last year carries over into these Vegas games.
Tony Parker drives inside and underneath, then slips the ball out
to Patty Mills, who has drifted down to the corner. Mills is open, his hands ready. Parker, under the basket and carried out of
bounds, sidles up near the hoopstand then skips a little to his left, out away
towards the wing he came from and far away from Parker, already leaking back
towards the fast break and opening up the lane.
In the lane is where Tim Duncan has been for the majority of
this possession. After slipping a screen
for Ginobili, who passed the ball to Mills, who swung it to Parker, who made
his drive—after this screen Duncan fell towards the baseline, moving between the
left elbow and the left block and opening up his body to show for the ball, and
then parked himself comfortably on the left block. But as soon as the ball crossed over to Mills
in the corner, Duncan turns his body in the opposite direction, pivoting around
and moving backwards square into the body of Bosh, who has gone over to block
Parker’s shot. It’s like Bosh had a
target on him. He’s the only player over
6’8 on the floor, and Duncan hits him right in the chest with his back, pins
his left arm behind him, and backs him out of the paint.
Space also opens up in the lane because Manu Ginobili, on
the other side, has darted in front of Dwayne Wade, after shoveling the ball to Mills, who swung it to Parker. As soon as Parker leaves his feet to sling
the ball back over to Mills, he slides in front of Wade and puts a body between him and the
basket at the left block.
There’s been much talk of how the Heat were lazy on this
play, watched the ball, didn’t box out.
But Kawhi Leonard, who speeds down through the open lane, grabs the
rebound for the most spectacular putback dunk of the playoffs and perhaps the
whole season, also found his way there because every single Spur was doing what
he needed to do, to a T, to make it happen.
If the Spurs win the Finals tonight, as they seem poised to
do, it is because of this sort of sheer determination by every single one of
the players to get the small things exactly right, all of the time. After every game, this has been their
refrain: we got to keep doing all the small things right. While Erik Spoelstra talks excellently and
eloquently to his team about focusing, about grinding, about executing, everything
we hear from Popovich—and while we do not hear much, really, but the difference
in what we do hear is telling—is about boxing out, about getting a loose ball, about
running towards the chest of the defender, about getting the next rebound,
about putting in five minutes of effort.
We talk about the Spurs as a machine, but the Heat use a vocabulary to
describe themselves that is more process-based, that emphasizes abstract and
vague mechanical workings. The Spurs
talk about concrete, definite, extremely small and extremely precise
objectives, and attaining them every single possession.
Playing on this level, in an almost uncanny state of
communion with the exact requirements of the moment, the instant, is indeed the
only way they could put on the spectacular display they do. So much work goes into every single use of
the ball, so much effort risks being wasted through extra cuts, extra screens,
extra passes which don’t go anywhere, that we begin to think that the question
the Spurs ask themselves continually is not, “what extra work do I need to do
to make the right move here,” but, “why would anyone ever do anything less than
the right move?”
And that is the question they leave us with, ultimately: why
would we ever want to do anything less than what is exactly demanded by the moment? Why would we respond with anything less than
full effort? The answer is supplied by
the Heat, who now have left themselves in the position of having to make
history to come back from their 3-1 deficit—something no one has done: namely,
to risk saving up that extra something for efforts that are more than what is
required, that are exceptional and great and frankly unbelievable. To not just respond, but to make a
statement. This, however, risks
dismissing the fact that responses to what the situation demands are statements
also, and that to be able to put in effort in the here and now, may be really
also the only way to achieve as much as the Spurs have in the long term, to
achieve something historic.
The Spurs last night were on some other, more ethereal plane
of basketball existence. It can’t be
described any other way.
During the game—during merely the first quarter—people in
the twitterverse were joking that we reached peak Spurs. But in a way we
reached peak basketball, as they think it may be best played.
The stuff they did in that first half was unbelievable, and
may have been just the most efficient, well executed basketball we will ever
see. Popovich after the game put it
frankly: he never expects to see anything like that again, ever. That’s how good it was.
And it’s not a coincidence that Tim Duncan, after the game,
when asked about their historic first half efficiency, said that at the time he
didn’t know how well they were shooting.
That he didn’t care. Because we
also saw last night a form of focus and concentration by the team that really
was like it was on a different sort of level.
At times, watching the Spurs looked like a kind of struggle simply to see
where this flow could take them—outscoring the other team was a kind of an
afterthought.
--
The most visible form of this, was simply in the fact that
they showed no signs of fear at all. There
are teams that don’t care too much about the Heat—the Bulls, the Nets. But on some level, there’s an awareness that
they pose a threat, an awareness that causes hesitation, causes lapses. And everyone fears LeBron James.
But here’s what Danny Green thinks of the Heat:
And here’s what he thinks of LeBron James:
This fearlessness of the Spurs, this unwillingness to
hesitate or to worry, was the most remarkable aspect of their effort last
night.
LeBron didn’t faze anyone, really. Every time he closed out on Kawhi, Kawhi didn’t
flinch:
And if Kawhi didn’t care about LeBron, he surely didn’t care
about Lewis:
In fact, he didn’t care about anything. This was evident on his most amazing possession of the night, which you can see at the beginning of this piece. Leonard makes a crazy cut to the corner, Danny Green throws him the ball. James closes out on Leonard, and Kawhi turns, spins and just goes up. Bosh is there, closing out on him as well, and Kawhi doesn’t
mind at all—he just spun LeBron.
This seems like something we haven’t seen Kawhi do in a
game. We may have seen video of him do
it in practice and in college. But this
is the sort of basketball that he has only explored under duress in the game,
in crazy finishes or in drawing fouls.
Here he simply turns and shoots, uses his athleticism and his balance
and just drains it.
This is a fearlessness, a level of focus and flow, that was
just unreal to watch. It was as if
nothing mattered on the court to Leonard, as if everything disappeared—and yet
precisely by everything being factored in and accounted for and given its due
weight.
--
Compare Mario Chalmers or Norris Cole’s scattershot focus
this game and you get a sense of just on what level he must be working, how it involves
a completely different direction of energy and effort. Kawhi doesn’t look like he’s trying to
command the situation, like Chalmers and Cole; he looks like he’s trying simply
to let any excess go. The situation on
the floor isn’t too full of things to manage, to count up and count in; it is
if anything too full of things to let go, remove. It is not a deep but a
shallow intensity, one that lets the occasion roll off of him, so that everything
needless fall away.
Kawhi also had a great quote at halftime: he said that one
of the most fortunate things of the first half was that “my teammates were able
to keep up with me.” And that’s really it: his performance set the tone for the
rest of the Spurs. They simply didn’t
mind. In particular, what this led to is
a sort of realization: namely that at any one time, three out of five people
that the Heat have on the court can’t play defense at a championship level anymore. Rashard Lewis, Ray Allen, Chris Andersen and,
yes, Dwayne Wade, simply can’t keep up. So
Boris Diaw has no problem when he finds himself backing down Lewis in the post.
The young guys aren’t that much better: Haslem might be
fine, but Chalmers too isn’t effective alone, and Norris Cole can get fazed
easily. It’s only Bosh and James out
there, really. Look for the Heat to try
and correct this in the next game. But
it was one thing that caused such a decimation and demoralization by the Spurs
in this one.
--
As Manu Ginobili pointed out in the post-game, however, the
Spurs could be almost as proud of their defense as their offense. That’s where the concentration really showed
up as a greater attention to detail.
Green has reached Patrick Beverley-levels of peskiness, something
we’ve never seen him really do before.
His five steals were all taken right from the defender in the most
ruthless way possible.
And then there is Kawhi’s defense of LeBron, which was just completely
on point continually.
And together the team simply did this if he drove to the
hoop:
This absolute command of the floorspace produced all sorts
of mistakes on the part of the Heat. You
can’t win a Finals series if you do this:
That’s Danny Green successfully guarding Chris Bosh in the post, forcing an entry pass way too far baseline, which Bosh can’t catch. What should have been a matchup nightmare for the Spurs becomes for them an opportunity to force a Heat turnover. That’s quite simply the level of efficiency that they are working
at now, and it’s nearly frightening in its sheer indifference to the will of
their opponent. Danny Green, like Kawhi,
doesn’t act at all here like he cares that his opponent is bigger than him, longer
than him, has more experience in the post than him.
--
People have been calling for the Spurs to be more aggressive,
to take it to the paint more often, to not let the ball to swing around
endlessly outside. This was the lesson
they learned, supposedly, against the Thunder: that they can be a physical team
if they want to.
But it may have been Cory Joseph’s example during that game
that actually gave the Spurs the key to what they needed to win a
championship. He simply didn’t care that
Serge Ibaka was in front of him: he would dunk on the man anyway. Serge Ibaka was, essentially, nothing to
him. Efficiency as a result of effort is
one thing. Efficiency as a result of indifference
to obstacles, is another. And the latter has brought the Spurs into another sphere altogether.
Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker became the winningest teammate trio in NBA playoff history last night, with the San Antonio Spurs' 112 to 77 defeat of the Oklahoma City Thunder. San Antonio's "Big Three" surpassed the 110 total playoff victories shared between Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Michael Cooper from 1980 to 1988. Parker led the group with 22 points and 5 assists, Duncan followed with 14 points and 12 rebounds, and Ginobili contributed with 11 points and 4 assists coming off the bench.
Much of the scoring that led to the win came from a different, but equally impressive component in the Spurs offense: guard Danny Green, who shot 7-10 from the three point line, and eventually put up 21 points. Green was quick to attribute much of the credit for his impressive performance to his teammates and the longtime center of the Spurs triad, Tim Duncan. "When I'm running down the court," Green says, "I'll hear Tim yell 'Light it!' or something similar...and that gives me a little more confidence to take the shot, because I already know he's behind me."
Green hit one three in the first quarter pulling up out of a fast break. It would set the dominant tone the Spurs would have all night, and was followed, in the second quarter, by two more.
Crucial to the continuous pressure San Antonio put upon the Oklahoma city was their defense of the Thunder's Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, who were held to a meager combined total of 30 points. Westbrook was 7-24 shooting for 15 points, while Durant went 6-16, and 0-4 from the 3 point line.
Their struggles, however, may have come less from their inability to do the work of scoring themselves, than the complete lack of scoring by anyone else on the team. This was no more evident than in the second and third quarters, in which Durant and Westbrook scored every single one the team's baskets from 8:04 in the second, to 4:29 in the third: that is, for over 12 straight minutes. This ensured Oklahoma City would fail to mount anything similar to the comeback they had in the last game in this period of time.
The only other figure to score in double figures for the Thunder was Jeremy Lamb, who (except for a minute-long contribution in the first quarter) was brought in along with many of the other Thunder bench players for most of the fourth quarter to finish out the game. He scored 13 points, going 6-8 from the field, and came up with two steals.
The Thunder will now travel back to Oklahoma City for Games 3 and 4 of the series, though going down 0-2 makes their situation much more dire. At the same time, they face a Spurs team that is looking like one of the most cooperative teams in NBA history. Looking ahead to Game 3, Durant pointed out the very different situation his own team now faced, which would seem to require something of their opponent's unbreakable integrity. "With a big loss, like that, and two games in a row, it's hard to stay positive. It's hard to stay together," Durant said.
So after watching Game 1 between OKC and San Antonio live, I went back to it and looked at the tape. I was confused, I was befuddled. Overall it was a simple standard Spurs-dismantle-whatever-opponent-they-are-facing night. But there were some twists to it that led to some questions as to how it happened and what kind of domination it was.
First, was it the general effectivity of the Spurs offense (ball movement, spacing) or the individual matchups (Kawhi and Baynes, say) that produced this result? What led to the Spurs’ domination in the paint in the beginning of the game besides the lack of an Ibaka on the court? What was OKC actually trying to do this game—what was their game plan? Why were there so many OKC lineups that we saw? Were the Spurs more destructive in the first or the second quarter? What caused that run by OKC in the third quarter? How did Pop stop the bleeding (not Collison’s, but the Spurs’). Why couldn’t OKC make a run in the fourth? Were the Thunder really as rattled as they looked? Were the Spurs as in control as they looked?
In particular what was bothering me was whatever the hell the Thunder were doing for just about the entire first quarter. They looked completely out of sorts. The score (which was Spurs 30, OKC 27 at the end of the quarter) gave no indication as to just how wild OKC seemed, and how consistent and efficient the Spurs looked. This continued into the second quarter, really, even as they stayed close: when Derek Fisher is keeping you in the game with his strange random threes, you’re in trouble. Watching every possession for OKC gave me a queasy feeling: it was like watching water torture. You were just waiting for something to break—and when it didn’t, you weren’t relieved so much as amazed that the inevitable was held back a little. …Not that I’ve ever seen any water torture before. Just… well… you get what I mean.
A look back revealed this:
That’s Kevin Durant getting a high screen to space the top of the key and get Leonard off of him. Two people are deep in the corners—Collison and Sefalosha—and Westbrook is at the wing there to mess up the coverage by forcing Parker to either commit to help or to cover him and give up the pass to the corner. What Durant does next is dribble the ball with his patented trans-continental crossover, fakes to get the recovering Leonard into the air and neutralize his threat to the upcoming pass, and dishes the ball to Collison for the three.
What happened next has to be symbolic in some way, though I’m not quite sure how yet. Collison takes forever to get his shot off, Splitter dashes to the corner and gets a hand near him, and Collison misses by five miles, hitting the side of the backboard. The ball floats down gently after chilling in the sofa-like backboard pads for a moment and lands in Danny Green’s hands and the Spurs return to offense. (That’s what it felt like: the Spurs didn’t “go back on” offense, they simply “returned” to it, as if it was something that the distraction of OKC’s offense just kept them from doing for a couple seconds.)
They did this on about four or five possessions in the first quarter until Westbrook got impatient with it not working and began calling plays pick-and-roll with himself involved—a good strategy too but one that would have worked better had the previous one succeeded. The aim seems to have been to spread the floor and open the paint, as well as to hold onto the ball—that is, not give the Spurs any chance to pick off passes or bother any excess dribbling.
Unfortunately that is still exactly what happened. It was more pronounced in the second half, when they made more baseline cuts and Leonard swatted a few balls away and then ran the fast break. But this was already happening in the first quarter too:
Essentially the Spurs countered everything about this strategy by challenging passes well and forcing people like Collison and Butler and Fisher to freeze when they got the ball and just put up long shots.
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Now, to everyone who said, after seeing all this, that the Thunder are done without Ibaka, and that Brooks doesn’t know what to do now—I include myself in that overzealous category—that’s not a horrible strategy to come out with, given the setback. It gives up offensive rebounds entirely (which they weren’t going to get without Ibaka anyway) and lets everyone get back on defense. The alternative—having Durant or Westbrook go to the basket, or depend on baseline cuts, as OKC is wont to do—would lead to Tony Parker absolutely destroying them possession after possession on the fast break (it also probably would have forced OKC to start Adams instead of Perkins, which they have been reluctant to do for some reason).
Granted, it’s a little odd, given that the Spurs are one of the best teams at three-point defense, and have a defensive scheme and policy that very effectively deals with the corner-three. But the Spurs are good at everything defensively and the point is just to try and get something going against them, not find any hole in their schemes—since they don’t exist. If they can get something, anything like what happens here, involving some ball movement, they may have a chance to keep the floor spread:
In short, it was not a horrible thing to start with, and shows we slightly underestimate Scott Brooks here. As Matt Moore recently pointed out, he’s a great on-the-ground strategist, rather than a big-game planner or a micromanaging play-drawer. He works well on the middle scale of things. This is exactly the sort of thing we should have expected him to do, and it wasn’t horrible. It just wasn’t effective.
And it was entirely typical of Brooks to do what he then did, and which was equally ineffective: instead of abandoning the strategy he changed lineups. This initially seemed to be because of defense, but the lineup that came out seemed to favor a smaller offensive threat as well. Which brings us to the question of small-ball. What’s easy to forget about this is that it doesn’t actually get around the Ibaka-problem at all, really, so much as plunge one directly into it. Everyone seems to be talking as if going small will help the Thunder since they can’t get anything with Ibaka going. But in truth Ibaka was essential to their small ball at the center. In many ways, they have to find some other way of running this offense as well.
Out of the first timeout Westbrook simply ran a pick and roll with KD, and this might be their best strategy, in the end: that’s an entirely unguardable pick-and-roll in itself, and if the Spurs are anywhere near late on the help in the middle, it’s two quick points for Westbrook. Of course, again, they are amazing at that particular help: people have been pointing to just how many points the Spurs made in the paint (over 60), but what’s also remarkable is just how few they gave away to the Thunder.
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This brings us to the other amazing thing I saw last night: the Spurs defense. It wasn’t as crushing as it has been in other games, but it came through big more than enough to shut down the Thunder when it counted. Everyone talks about how great and efficient the Spurs are on offense, but on defense is where they really shine. If you do not execute perfectly, they make you pay. Any slip-up and you’ll find yourself watching them kiss the ball gently off the backboard at the other end of the court from the turnover they just forced from you. Everyone talks about how they pass the ball—what is almost more impressive is how they force you to pass the ball where they want it to be passed, and where it will be easily taken away from you.
Above all, what was interesting was the physicality. This is an OKC team that prides itself on its physical presence on the court, and yet continually San Antonio was playing with a defensive intensity that they actually ended up winning that battle. Watching them, what I realized is that there are simply more kinds of "physicality" than we like to admit. While the Spurs may not be physical in the sense of being aggressive, they simply know how to endure and keep up the pressure. Diaw gets hit in the eye by Adams. He goes and sees the doctor, then just gets back on the court and plays big minutes. Then later he goes to the hoop and gets hit on the back of the head by Westbrook. He gets up and takes the free throws. Then Kawhi gets up in Durant’s grill and takes an elbow from him right to the temple. This doesn’t faze him. He literally doesn't step back but in fact gets closer on defense. This is not agressiveness, but it is physical nonetheless. While they don’t dominate, they slowly constrict around you with their physical pressure and squeeze the life out of you, like one of Danny Green’s snakes:
The answer to the question of why exactly the Thunder were able to make a third quarter run lies somewhere around here, however. The only time the Spurs distinctly let up this brand of physicality was in the third quarter. The lack of anything that would physically stop Westbrook or anyone who came into the paint was thoroughly apparent. While the Spurs continued to cover the three point line well, they simply just let too many drives to the basket through. For their part, OKC started playing good in the middle here, using a bigger lineup, and they started making stops. Most importantly, Westbrook played brilliantly. As soon as he got the ball, he would look downcourt to find Tony Parker there. And as soon as he spotted him, you could nearly see Parker turn into a big juicy T-bone steak before his eyes. Over and over again neither Diaw nor Baynes could get quite the angle they needed to help, and so Parker was left alone facing Westbrook on several possessions when what Westbrook needed to be facing was the usual wall of San Antonio arms that they put in his face. Credit Westbrook for this—who is a genius at getting to the basket: he got a good enough angle consistently to just pressure the defense enough that they couldn’t get enough of a physical presence in front of him in transition. But what it also did is restore the effectiveness of KD, who needs a physical team to create enough space and fatigue for him to have room to shoot. KD is a physical player indirectly speaking: he himself may not totally play the most physical style of ball, but surrounding him there will sprout up a huge network of bruisers that make him absolutely deadly. Take that away, and it becomes harder for him to do his thing.
Appropriately, as soon as the Spurs came back physically--through a combination of making more shots and taking more time with the ball, bullying and tiring out OKC on offense through tough pick and rolls using Baynes, and basically slowing the game down so that the fast break became more high-risk to push—OKC was shut down. By the fourth quarter, we were seeing a half-court game again and actually a quite imposing physical presence on the court from San Antonio.
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So what can we expect from the Game tonight? It's hard to say. Judging from everything here we've seen in the last game, more crazy lineups from Brooks, more physicality to counter the physical nature of the Spurs--expect much more Collison bleeding, but also expect more of that big lineup--and also more of that KD-Russ pick and roll, I think, whenever the going gets tough. Expect too, I think, more shots from Westbrook. He is willing this team into competition with a better opponent, and I don't see any reason for him to stop pushing the intensity and become suddenly more of a distributor. And expect more Adams, because Perkins had a horrible game, got too many fouls, looked winded and out of shape, and couldn't do anything more than his role required to try and help compensate for Ibaka. And from the Spurs, well, I think you will see more of Baynes and Manu doing this:
Once the Spurs began running these pick and rolls, control shifted back into the hands of the Spurs: Manu got involved, the load could shift off of Parker, and everything began to flow. Also, strategically, it just means death for OKC: the Baynes-Ginobili pick and roll is a particularly beautiful pick and roll to watch because there are just so many options that come out of it. Because OKC lacks Ibaka, Ginobili can let his passing genius take over, and effectively turn Baynes from someone making a mere roll into a crafty cutter, as in the above. Or he can do his Manu stuff and take the ball to the hoop himself with Baynes taking Adams out of the middle and using his body to slow up any help:
Baynes’ screens in general are a thing of beauty: he always makes a cut in some other direction to get the defender off of him even before he runs to set the screen.
Another thing I think we might see is even more of this:
There's no incentive for San Antonio to push the ball, but I feel like Green is due for an even bigger game and the OKC defense is going to try and stop bleeding points in the paint like they did last game--at least early on. This means many threes will be open, and the clip above shows just how quick he can get them up. The man's balance is an amazing thing--however much OKC will pressure him, he will be able to get a good shot off.
Above all, I think we'll see an even more physical game from San Antonio. People will be diving for balls, sticking arms out, and especially making sure the paint is absolutely covered. Any time there is small ball from OKC, they will--as they did in the last game--simply go at Reggie Jackson on the block and destroy him (Diaw and Kawhi both ended up being posted up by him and absolutely taking away anything he could do to counter). Look at that gif at the beginning of this article: that's the kind of hustle, concentration, focus you're going to be seeing much more of tonight.
I'll have an analysis and look back at the game after watching it again tomorrow morning, but for now I'll just let this serve as a recap of how it all went:
The Blazers' season ended last night with a 82-104 loss to the Spurs. The Spurs advance again to the Western Conference Finals, where they will play the winner of the OKC vs LA series.
But this series loss to the best team in the NBA shouldn't discourage Blazer fans, surely: this was simply the most successful season, on the whole, that Portland has had in a decade, and it has the building blocks and the money to do big, big things next year.
Meanwhile, the Spurs are nearly operating at peak efficiency, and, though they have often had trouble with OKC (who now has a chance to make it to the finals), will have an excellent shot now at winning a title.
I'll be looking back at Game 5 soon more in detail, their playoff success soon after that, and their season as a whole in the time that follows. I'll also be looking back at players' individual performances. And throughout the Blazers' offseason I'll be revisiting many of their excellent games over the course of this year.
I think the fans in general know this was a truly great time to be a part of RipCity; I'll be very much looking forward to everything that's to come.
So it looks as if
Portland has turned up the heat and figured out some things that will
work. This despite setbacks--including,
but not limited to, snakes.
They will play
Matthews on Parker. They will go fierce at the hoop through the middle with Lillard, and if
they don't do that they will run everything through Aldridge and get the
guards on the wings involved--even if there is no doubleteam coming. Most significantly--and what I think is a very smart move they should stick with, though it was occasioned by an injury--they will adjust the offense to do without Mo Williams. That is, instead
of bringing constantly, without reprieve, the threat of three knockdown
three-point shooters, they will instead play long and lanky, and bring in with
Barton and Robinson and encourage them with Nic to take long twos out of little picks and penetrations.
Most important though, it simply seems like they resolved to work
harder. The intensity Portland brought
to this game was absolutely wonderful to see.
They moved the ball quicker. They
simply ran the court faster. They also
seemed more desperate in the way they did it, but desperation is perhaps also
what this Portland team needs to reach another level.
And the Spurs are
having to work. They seem genuinely
afraid of Portland--no game in the Dallas series looked like this. They brought this game the long three threat
of Kawhi, Manu and Parker, the lanky guys.
Let no one say Portland got beat in the first half. They put up 51 points. The Spurs just put up more--many more
(namely, 70).
This happened mainly
because Portland just looks simply outmatched on defense. The Spurs move the ball too quick for an
average defense--which is what Portland has--to be effective against them. An average defense is specifically what San
Antonio is crafted to annihilate.
Usually an average defense produces one thing, which is some sort of
trade off on the offense… that's all you have to produce, that's what makes it
better than mediocre, and it allows then some opportunity for stoppage. But San Antonio eliminates all
tradeoffs. They come at you from every
angle--it is a beautiful thing to see.
The spurs just have so many options they can use of offense. If you try to stop them one way, they come at
you another way, and another way, and another way.
The main problem
however continues to be Lillard on defense.
They are bringing everything they have at him. Putting Matthews on Parker doesn't
significantly cut into the true problem, though it stops Parker and makes them
have to set up the offense slightly more than if Parker had the option of weaving around inside. They just take the 2-guard Lillard is
guarding and run him through several screens or all around the court, and run plays
for him.
Guarding Marco Belinelli in the third quarter, Lillard had to keep up
with him as he threatened to perform first one, then two, then three backcuts from the corner along the
baseline. This meant jumping in front of
Belinelli one, two, three times, on one possession. And all this doesn't quite get at the nub of
the issue, which is simply that Lillard just has problems fighting through
screens, and the Spurs are probably the most prolific screeners in the
NBA. Coming over them, he more often
than not gets tripped up, and trying to sell a foul is not a gamble you want to
take (though he attempted to in this game on occasion, with no luck) when it
means your man will have a clear path to the basket; if he goes under and gives
space, that simply is death: every two- and three-guard on the Spurs is so good
at catching and shooting (just like Parker too is) that any space is a
threat. Let's be clear: it's not the
roll really that is the problem, it is simply Lillard's trouble dealing with the
screen and staying on his man, which he needs to do, since Lillard is also (it
turns out), one of the easiest post-ups for any mismatch the Spurs roster will
produce and therefore switching is not an option.
Nevertheless,
Lillard offensively is looking better than ever. What was most impressive was his
ability to get to the basket. Stopped up
by all the bodies in the paint in the first game, he was not able to make a
move to the basket. His solution this
game was just to harder at them. Lillard
is truly good at this, and it's actually an underrated aspect of his game which
should be emphasized. Over the course of
the year he has shown himself able to bring himself into the same category as
John Wall and even Russell Westbrook in terms of the intensity with which he
goes to the basket. I've seen him
throughout the year explode, slip through two men, clutch the ball, and roll it
up off the glass, more times than I can actually remember. But tonight, Lillard was going at three men on occasion, all collapsing on
him--something I don't think I've witnessed him do except in transition. This is a truly interesting development,
because the Spurs genuinely have to change their defensive priorities to react
to it, and can't rely simply on their manipulation of spacing to do the work
for them--and if that occurs, this will open up shooters on the wings. For all the talk we heard after the first
game about how Lillard could thrive and bring Portland back into the series if
they would only stop playing team basketball and let him go off from the three
point line, I think that the more he looks like Russell Westbrook in this
series and puts up twos driving to the basket, the better the Blazers will
fare.
Aldridge, too, looks
like he is reaching deeper and deeper within himself and discovering new
reserves of power and energy. The
Blazers seemed to have come to the conclusion--one they seemed not to have
fully reached in the first game--that dumping the ball to Aldridge has to be an option on every possession, or
else they are simply out of the series, done, kaput. This I think squares with the reality of the
situation. But it requires Aldridge simply
to get more physical than he has ever quite been, and in a particular way that
he is not as comfortable as other big men with doing. Aldridge typically seeks out precision
contact with other big men. He does not
bang around in the post like Robin Lopez, say: the physical fight for position
simply is not a challenge he quite wants to put up. This is not to say he is not physical, by any
means: he is absolutely more physical than Dirk, say, who he often gets
compared to--wrongly. It is just that
Aldridge plays like he enjoys the intellectual aspects of working upon
opponents, and would rather turn over one or another shoulder or face up and
dribble at a man than back a guy down.
In this game, however, we saw him shift priorities. He fought for space on nearly every
possession before he got the ball. I
mean, like, he banged around for it. He
properly posted up. And he did similar
things in getting rebounds and working on the inside too on defense. Overall there seemed a shift in his game from
the intellectual to the physical aspects of dealing with opponents, and it
seemed to work: the dump to him was there, and Portland could run things
through him. Not surprisingly, Matthews
and Batum put up many more points this game than in Game 1.
In the end though,
the Spurs are simply a beast. What is
great to see is them bringing it into another gear. After watching the Heat sloppily struggle to
contain Brooklyn, this was not only a relief to watch: it brought up the
question of whether in fact the Spurs are better. Everyone is fascinated with the Heat's
"extra playoff gear," their ability to step up their game in crunch
time. But no one talks of the Spurs
having something of the same sort of gear.
But we shouldn't take the consistency of their excellence to imply that
they lack fierceness. Their performance
in these two games began to hint that they are capable of reaching levels of
ferocity in precision execution that I genuinely suspect the Heat may not
actually possess. That is to say, after
watching the Heat stumble through games against a mediocre East, and watching
the Spurs (who may in fact, despite all the talk of how well the Heat are
rested, be actually even better rested than them, with everyone on their roster
averaging numbers less than 35 minutes a game) finding more and more ways to
rip through the best Western Conference ever, in a Heat vs. Spurs matchup, at
this point I have no hesitation going all in with the Spurs. The Western conference--and specifically here
the Blazers, who brought it to them this game and nearly made a run to lead in
the fourth--are simply challenging them to reach new levels of ruthlessness,
and they are responding.
