Spurs open the season by squeaking out two close wins vs the T-Blazers and Grizz. Which means they are going to tease the league and win in crunch time when needed. Genobli had one of those games where they left him open to hit the three ball and then he got those non-touch phantom calls when he drove to the hoop for 13 FTA. Same old spurs...
NBA.com added +/- to the boxscores. In looking at the Spurs game last night, their starters got killed and their bench made up for it. That is where having a guy like Ginobili, who is willing to come off the bench, helps. Duncan = -12 for the game NBA.com: Spurs at Grizzlies Game Info
He's pretty much an all-star coming in off the bench. Way better than Stack. 13-14 FT's last night for Manu. Nobody does that off the bench.
duncan got owned by darko defensively. he just simply couldn't score on darko. darko also made top plays on sportscenter when he dunked on duncan. darko also got robbed of some blocks in the boxscore. it makes me mad every time i see darko defend duncan. if lb would have let him we would have won another championship. ginobli is a flopper.
Except, Duncan did manage to make the game winner over Darko one on one. I just think it is awesome that the Spurs have a guy who scored 30 points and is willing to come off the bench. They have a very unique culture.
it wasn't the game winner but i know what you mean. duncan got it done when it counted. yeah. the mavs, nuggets, suns all have 30 point scorers coming off the bench. i think that may be something you need to be a contender. who do that pistons have coming off the bench that can score 20 points??
Flips likes all of his high scorers starting and each play to many minutes for any bench player to be in there long enough to get 20 points on a given night.
There is something to be said for spreading out your talent. When you have your 5 best players in there together, there just isn't enough shots to go around. You end up turning great players into role players. The ideal model might be to have at least 1 of your premier players coming off the bench and then playing them at the end of the game with the other 4 best players. They would still get starter's minutes, but the distribution would be different. This is why bringing Maxiell off the bench isn't the worst idea. He can be his natural scoring machine self and not feel guilty about shooting the ball on 80% of his touches. Same with Ben Gordon on the Bulls. It works in hockey.
We haven't had anyone coming off the bench since Flip has been coach who could score 20 points in a game unless they played 45 minutes, except for once or twice in a season Murray can. Now we have Hayes and Hot Rod who can fill it up as good as any of our starters. You will see a lot more scoring from our bench. The lack of bench scoring has not been a Flip Saunders problem but a lack of scoring talent problem.
BSA you haven't post in almost 6 months...we miss you...let us know you're still kicking. P.S. I truck through S.A. alot and think of you. I heard this college radio station playing this weird yet wonderful music, Spanish artist on 90.3 or 93.3, weak signal and all. l8r
Amazon.com: San Antonio Spurs - 2006-2007 NBA Champions Special Edition: DVD: Tony Parker,Tim Duncan,Gregg Popovich,Manu Ginobli,LeBron James
