San Antonio Spurs @ Houston Rockets, Sat, Nov 29 2008.

Scouting report - San Antonio Spurs

Offense:

• Tony Parker started the first time after coming back from ankle injury. His stat, 15 pts and 7 ast, is not bad but he seemed like half step slow. Instead of relentlessly driving the lane, he relied too much on outside jumpers. And when he did penetrate, he generated more missed shots and turnovers than points. His handle is not stable too. The Spurs need him to be 100% to compete.
• Duncan was aggressive posting up the Rockets early on but he was not effective as the Rockets played superb defense against him. He went 1-for-9 FG in 1H. The Spurs began to have better ball movement in 2H and TD was getting easy shots from passes, instead of working iso against the Rockets’ big men. But overall his production was severely hindered by the Rocket defense. He even committed a stupid hand-checking foul on Yao in Q3 after the ball being stripped by Yao. Popovich immediately sat him. That’s a cool act by Pop. TD finished 17 pts and 9 reb, clearly not his best.
• Manu Ginobili is the real energy guy. Early on, whenever he checked in, he would give a big boost to the team. He could always find some ways to score for the team, either by a penetration layup, a long range J, drawing fouls or a nice dime to teammate for an open shot. But the Rockets clamped him down in 2H, and their D was so good that Ginobili was ineffective in their pivotal Q4 run.
• Roger Mason is their most reliable shooter, hitting a few mid-range J.
• Matt Bonner is no white stiff. He is quite a smart player. He kept the game close in Q2 and Q3 by hitting a number of 3s.
• All of Michael Finley, George Hill, Fabricio Oberto, Kurt Thomas, Bruce Bowen, Ime Udoka and Anthony Tolliver were off and shot horribly. They combined to shoot 6-for-27 FG.
• Basically, no matter how Popovich changed their game plan, the Spurs could never get away with the Rockets’ suffocating defense.

Defense:

• Very bad perimeter defense by the Spurs. Just a couple of ball rotation or a simple screen and the Rockets got all the wide open looks they like. Alternatively, after a few crossovers or passes, the Rockets would get a clear path to the paint for easy scores. The Spurs’ perimeter defense was slowed in rotation, overreacted to penetration by collapsing to the paint, thereby leaving the perimeter wide open. Even Rafer Alston looked like a sharp shooter against them.
• At the front court, Oberto failed miserably to guard Luis Scola. Even Duncan was slow to rotate defensively, leaving Artest and Yao to fire and hit the mid range J.
• The Spurs later changed to more pressurized defense and really roughed up the Rockets in the paint. That’s at least more effective than the slow-footed, half-hearted defense rotation. And it has really disrupted the rhythm of the Rockets. They managed to cut the 19-point deficit to 7-points at the half.
• In the 2H, after the Spurs narrowed the deficit to just 5 pts, their defense relaxed a bit. The Rockets immediately took the opportunity to score. The Rockets were at least a step ahead of the Spurs, and the Spurs failed to stop them at all. Aaron Brooks and Battier took turn to score on easy baskets.
• Several defense breakdown, and a couple of TOs by the Spurs, and just like that, the game was blown open to 17-pt early in Q4. The game was over with over 6 mins left in the game when the Rockets was leading by 19 pts.

Conclusion:

• Overall, the Rockets took advantage of the pathethically poor perimeter defense of the Spurs by repeatedly scoring outside or penetrating inside. This is probably the worst defense I have ever seen the Spurs play in years. On the other hand the Rockets played terrific defense in the paint, in particular in both slowing down Duncan and creating TOs.
• TP is obviously not ready, and he relied too much on his J.
• Manu was ineffective tonight under the tough D of Artest and Battier. He was not able to take the ball to the rim.
• Bruce Bowen no longer can guard elite wing players like he used to be, and he’s absence in offense.
• George Hill is awful, at least for this game. He failed to make the open Js, forced shots and repeated got beaten by the opponent guards like Aaron Brooks and Luther Head.
• Finley was completely abused on the defensive end, as the Rockets guards took turn to blow past him and score. And he didn’t make enough baskets to justify his presence on court.
• Matt Bonner is a reliable big man who can hit 3s. He’s quite slow, but at least he set good screen and box out, and he can his 3s.
• Last but not least, Pop really looks like a fugitive, uncombed hair and long beard.
• To say the Spurs play worse defense than they should is an understatement. The Spurs used to own one of the best defense in the league. But right now, they were not even playing acceptable defense, their D is completely atrocious. Their offense was bad, fine. They have never been built on offense anyway, and we have seen some fearless scoring by the newcomers like George Hill and Roger Mason which should help to compensate the decreasing production from Finley and Bowen in the long run. But defense is their bread and butter. Unless and until they could play their top notch defense, there’s no way that the Spurs could get past the first round of the playoffs this year.