Decent win against the Bobcats last night. The game had many of the positives and negatives of the young season on full display. We dominated for 3 quarters, but let them back in with one horrendous quarter. Tony Parker had 10 assists, but 7 TOs. Ginobili scored 20 in the first half, and 2 in the second. We shot 60% from the floor, but turned the ball over 28 times.
I’m happy to get the win and move to 11-9. We finally have our first road trip of the season, though it’s only a 3 game West Coast swing. The game Tuesday night in Phoenix will be the most critical (and the best gauge of the team).
Being 20 games in, I thought I’d take a look back at some of my pre-season thoughts and see where we are a quarter into the regular season.
1. Tim and Manu’s health: Tim is as great as ever, quietly having one of his most efficient seasons ever. But he started last season the same way. The real test of Tim’s health will be in the last quarter of the season, if his knees hold up. As for Manu, his ankles seem to be fine, but other parts of his body aren’t cooperating. He’s already missed time with hamstring and groin issues. Let’s hope that’s just early season rust (and rust from a long layoff) being worked out, and that he’ll stay healthy moving forward. Without him healthy, we have no shot.
2. Tony Parker’s offensive dominance: Tony is having a good season, but not a great one so far. I think all Spurs fans are a bit surprised at just how difficult the adjustment of so many new pieces has been. A lot of that falls on Tony. When you have such prodigious talent and an inane ability to score, yet are surrounded by amazing talent as well, it can be tough to negotiate when to do what. In the last few games, he seems to be getting a better handle on things, and his assist numbers are rising, as is the scoring output of Jefferson and Ginobili. Ultimately, I think it boils down to this: does Tony Parker care more about winning, or more about appearing to be a great player?
3. Return to defensive prowess: This has been up and down. Some games we’re defensive behemoths; some games, we have to outscore the Raps and the Kings because we can’t get stops to save our lives. In big games, our defense appears to be mostly there (and our offense lets us down). But I have yet to see a game in which we dominate tip to buzzer defensively.
4. The new pieces: So far, both Jefferson and McDyess have been varying degrees of disappointing. Jefferson, especially, seems to be struggling to fit in. Again, in the last two games, there have been signs of this turning around, as he is scoring more and in the flow of the offense. His growing comfort in our offense is of tantamount importance. McDyess has shown us flashes of what he can bring to the team, but he’s a slow starter. I’ll save total judgement on McDyess until the last half of the season. But I’m definitely expecting things from him that he hasn’t consistently delivered yet. For me, the biggest surprise so far has been the play of Keith Bogans. He is our best man defender, he plays hard, he has a good offensive game, and he seems to be figuring out the team’s schemes very well.
5. The Youth Movement: Well, we’ve gotten younger, but many of the young guys aren’t seeing much playing time. Finley is still dominating minutes over Hairston and Mason, Jr. Ratliff is often getting as much burn as Blair. It looks like Pop is still trusting his veterans. But Blair has definitely shown that he can be a huge contributor to a winning team. If he continues to play hard, I think he’ll earn Pop’s trust and see important minutes down the stretch of the season and into the playoffs.
6. George Hill: Timothy Varner wrote a great piece on George over at 48MoH. Hill has definitely improved, but not quite as much as many hoped or expected. He is finding playing time with Tony Parker, which I think is important. And his long range shooting stroke is reliable now. But I’d still like to see him be more aggressive on offense and defense. He makes some great defensive plays, but seems to get burned easily on basic defensive skills. But he’s still only a quarter into his second season; I believe he will continue to improve as the season wears on.
7. Chemistry and Rotation: At least we seem to have our starters set…for now. The rotation has been all over the place, as was to be expected early in the season. It seems like it’s beginning to wear on some players. Our depth is a strength right now, but one that can easily turn to weakness. Most playoff rotations are only 8 or 9 players deep, and we have at least 11 players that deserve and expect consistent playing time. Eventually, we need to settle into a consistent rotation and stick with it. As for chemistry, I have been surprised at how long it seems to be taking to find our rhythm on the court. Let’s hope it’s like most learning curves, where there is very little visible progress until it suddenly all just clicks and the results take a huge jump.
8. The other role players: Mason, Jr. seems to be on the verge of falling out of the rotation. I hope he can find his way back in, because I think he can be very valuable to us with his shooting and confidence. Finley has been removed from the starting line-up, but still gets plenty of minutes because Pop trusts him unconditionally. Bonner is the biggest surprise. He has been playing very well, and shooting extremely well. If he can continue to contribute 10+ points a night, make some hustle plays, and grab a few rebounds, he’ll be invaluable going forward.
9. The rest of the West: The Lakers are as dominant as most expected, and they look scary good. The Blazers have had some bad luck and bad chemistry, and seem to be stuck in first gear. The Nuggets look strong and already beat us at home (I did not see that game, so I have no feel for how we played them). The Mavs look better than most expected, and Dirk is having another strong season. The Hornets appear to be headed to the lottery. The Jazz seem to have turned things around a bit, and have our number, already beating us 3 times. But it’s still the Lakers; they look unstoppable.
10. The schedule: This may be the biggest cause for concern. We’ve had a really easy schedule so far, with tons of home games…and we’re still only 11-9. I thought that we really needed to jump on our early schedule and get some wins, even as we were building toward the playoffs. Well, that doesn’t seem to have happened. We still have a little stretch of very winnable games, so hopefully we can put together a nice little winning streak here and have some cushion heading into our very back-loaded schedule. I actually think a little road trip will be good for us, though. Teams always seem to come together on the road, and we haven’t had any road trips yet to really bring us together. It’s time to find that camaraderie and chemistry.
11. It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish: That better hold true, because we haven’t started well. And lots of people are writing us off, or not even talking about us. But that’s goo
d. I like to be out of the national talk, and be the team that sneaks up on everybody after the All-Star break.
Overall, it’s been a pretty frustrating first Quarter. There are some bright spots, but many more reasons for concern. The next 21 games (21 will take us to 41, the true halfway mark) will be a critical period. It’s true that we need to finish strong, but we also need to be in a position where a strong finish can mean something. If we come out of the next 21 games at 23-18, then I think we have some real problems. Ideally, we need to put together something more along the lines of a 17-4. Realistically, looking at the schedule, we have 16 games that we should win, and 5 that are up in the air: at Phoenix, Portland at home, Dallas at home, the Lakers at home, and the Jazz at home (our 41st game). These 5 games will be the real barometers of the next set of 21, and will give us the best window into what kind of team we actually have, and what we can actually do. If we can win 3 of those 5 games, I think we have a real shot of making a second half push. If we can go into the 42nd game with a record close to 26-15, I’ll be happy. Either way, it’ll be fun to watch.
Go Spurs Go.
