Also, Harris played a great 1st quarter, but did the classic "I only play good in the 1st and 3rd, but then become invisible in the 2nd and 4th."
imo hayward has had a poor series defensively. our guard play on the pick and rolls is as bad as jefferson and kanter.
The Spurs can take it easy. They have 10 players who can score and defend.
They have three players who can score (Parker, Ginobili, and Ducan) and seven guys who can make shots off what those guys do. Spurs play system basketball to perfection. Hopefully we can achieve that some day.
I'm still befuddled about how Diaw and Bonner can guard Millsap though.
I'll get all my Hayward thoughts out in one post: He played awful, he had a bad game. But the idea that Hayward is a good defender needs to get put to rest. He's OK. That's all he's ever going to be. Switching him on to Parker and Ginobili is never going to work. Hayward is just not quick enough for those types of guys. And he's terrible with screens. He gets beat on all of them, and then he's never sure whether he should stay with the guy who torched him or drop on the guy who's about to get the easy bucket.
Carroll actually played the best D on Ginobili tonight. And we were much better with Harris on Parker. Lastly, Burks should have never been taken out in the second half.
Another ****ty thing about this series is that you can tell Ginobili is just taking it easy.
I would put Hayward in the "good category". He does suck fighting through screens, but he didn't have to do that against Parker, he just went under everything, which is why it worked. Going under a screen takes little effort compared to going through a screen.
He's not taking it easy. He's beating every guy we throw at him, just missing shots when he shoots. And he's not even shooting aggressively because he's already broken down the defense and he sees how we're overplaying him. He makes the outlet, the outlet makes the next pass, and we're sunk.
Going under a screen doesn't mean giving the guy 8 feet. I'd say Parker missed at least 5 wide open jumpshots. Going under means you give the guy the stop and pop where he has to deal with his own guy clogging up the periscope. But you don't let him get 10 feet from the pick and shoot wide open.
Hayward executed the defensive plan on Parker nicely, but it's not like he did anything mind blowing. He slide under screens and made ok closeouts on his shots. It was more of Parker just settling for jumpers than great defense.
Howard also did better offensively than Hayward in about a 1 minute stretch where he hit a post up shot and a 3 pointer.
I didn't really feel Jefferson's defense was that bad today. I thought the going under the Parker screen really helped hide Jefferson's defense to a large extent. We held the Spurs under 50% shooting, I consider that a win.
I can't believe you said this. I was actually counting the number of pick-n-rolls Jefferson actually blew and led directly to points. I stopped counting at 16 points. Towards the end of the game, Al actually jumped to the wrong side of a screen, giving parker more than 10 feet of wide open space. Even the announcer said the bigs have to step up on that play. Jefferson wasn't guarding anyone. I stopped the DVR and ran the play for my wife three times to complain about his defense. I know you like Jefferson, I like him too against 90 percent of the league, but against the spurs he's a liability that should not play more than 15 minutes.
I use the laws of relativity when I said "I didn't really feel Jefferson's defense was that bad today".
Jefferson sucks at defense . I expect him to suck at defense. The team should expect him to suck at defense and compensate for it. I thought he sucked less today at defense than he normally does.