SPURS GAME DAY! RRT EDITION GAME 58: SPURS AT JAZZ, 25-2-2024, 7PM (CT)

[G R E Y]

We push in transition. Frankly the passes ahead were .5 behind .5. Devin missed a bunny. Fouled.

[G R E Y]

WTF HAPPENED TO COLLINS??!

HE'S AN UNCOORDINATED, NO LIFT IN HIS LEGS, NO D EFFORT PLAYER NOW.

[G R E Y]

Collins. Occupying no man's land space on D to do nothing.

Gets blocked again on a dunk attempt.

Brutal.

[G R E Y]

Collins nice dish to Mamu who drives, fakes, finishes.

[G R E Y]

Collins 3.

[G R E Y]

Mamu push shot. Nice.

We TO it in transition lmao

Bucket against.

[G R E Y]

3RD Q: SPURS 74 JAZZ 93

Well we won this Q 35-30 so that's something.

Better effort and cohesion in the non-Collins minutes. Yes he made some shots late in the Q but he's a **** walking two-left footed giant for the most part.

We've given up 24 points on 15TOs. There's the game.

At least Wemby will hopefully get a double double to go along with his 5 blocks.

**** liabilities all over the place. Looking for some light.

[G R E Y]

Wemby saw the green light.

**** dribble cross for the THUNDER DUNK.

[G R E Y]

We just got it to within 11 on a 10-2 run. Then we TO it. Then we get hit with a 3. But Devin gets the 3 right back.

[G R E Y]

We steal. Devin quick pass ahead to Branham, good layup. Down only 9 now...

[G R E Y]

We have Branham, Wemby, Tre, Mamu, Devin in now.

[G R E Y]

Tre nice fake, drive, teardrop.

[G R E Y]

TO.

Bucket against.

Rinse. Repeat.

[G R E Y]

Mamu tunnel vision.

Could and should have passed out after getting into jail down low, but took the shot and got blocked.

3 against.

We don't score again.

3 against.

11-0 run against from NOT DOING BASIC FUNDAMENTAL THINGS.

[G R E Y]

SPURS COLLINS WATCHES AS UTAH COLLINS DRIVES RIGHT BY HIM AND LAYS IT IN. ZERO CONTESTING. ARMS AT HIS SIDES. LITERALLY BEST POSITION IN THE ARENA FOR THAT BASKET.

WHY DON'T WE JUST PUT A GO-PRO CAM ON HIM TO GET **** CLOSE UPS OF THESE.

**** OFF.

[G R E Y]

Pop has Blake, Branham, Julian, Mamu, Collins in for the final 2+ minutes.

[imagump1313]

Ok, i'll say something nice.

At least Bill Land was there tonight.....

[G R E Y]

4TH Q: SPURS 109 JAZZ 128

The good early starts, the breakdowns of things in our control leading to the mounting TOs, the resulting transition and paint points against, and the stunted O by too many players to not be able to make up for the mistakes had us one foot on the gas, one on the brake most of the night.

Some good energy to start with running down blocks – we had 7 in the 1ST Q alone – was countered with 8TOs.

Those TOs where the O initiator got caught over dribbling rather than passing ahead sooner happened again, as did those from bad inbounds. I know we’re young but these are focus not inexperience errors.

And even the experienced players made uncharacteristic errors - Tre got caught from behind as mentioned earlier – to flat out bad errors – Keldon barrelled through a screener and pushed through to knock into the 3s shooter for a 4-point play against.

It’s clear the weariness of the RRT has gotten to many. Players have to learn to play through fatigue. In times like these, they revert to their habits, for better or worse. One of the knocks on Keldon’s D has been his inability to fight through screens. He too often either gets stuck on them or barrels through. He’s not improved the anticipation and side stepping of them and this one was glaring and costly. For us and for him. That was his last moment in the game as Pop benched him.

In terms of patterns, this one was half a game of effort. We won the second half 70-65, this after scoring a mere 39 points the entire first half.

This visual sums it up:



We shot 46/42/63, doing a better job in the second half of getting to the FT line (0-2 in the entire first half!) even if we didn’t make them well enough. Only about a third of our shots came from the arc and we made these at a good rate. But that meant the rest of the shots didn’t have enough driving and cutting.

Then there was the not enough of running back hard on D after all the TOs which made for a lot of 2 points for, 5 points against exchanges. Twenty TOs cost us 34 points against. THIRTY-FOUR. So despite doing some good things (we won rebounds 46-38 and 10-5 on O) the 30-16 fast break points and PITP 56-48 against hurt, as did the 17 3s dropped on us, a 12-point disadvantage.

If we’re not defending the paint and arc well, if we’re not protecting the ball well, then we have to score, but a 108-point output is less than even our 23rd ranked 112.3PPG average.

Wemby (22/10/2 assists /1 steal /5 blocks) and Devin (27/9/5 assists /3 blocks) showed up start to finish, and Tre bounced back from a 2-point first half to finish with 15/3/9 assists /1 steal but the trio also combined for 13TOs.

Sochan (0-5) and Julian (1-6) combined for 3 points (including 0-5 from 3 and 1-2FTs). I mean... it’s just a head scratcher. A frustrating one. Yes Julian had 6 boards (2 on O), 4 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block and yes Sochan had 4 boards, 3 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block, but the former played 20 minutes with his back up benched for the game and the latter was a team low -21 in 29 minutes. We need more and better from both on O. There’s just no other way to put it.

Good scoring can also be deceptive. Collins, for example, led the bench with 17 (7-17, 2-3 from 3, 1-5FTs), 8 boards (2 on O), 3 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 2TOs in 21 minutes but was also a bench low -17. I guess he’s finding his game one end at a time, or more specifically, only focusing on the O end. He’s basically a body on D – no contesting, hands at his sides watching drivers and jump shooters, no boxing out, occupying space purposelessly. Hugely disappointing and puzzling.

Cedi was -15 in 15 minutes with just 1-2 from 3 and bench high 4TOs.

Blake was only 0-2 but led the bench with 5 assists.

Branham stepped up with 14 (5-12, 2-6 from 3, 2-2FTs) with 2 boards, 2 assists. He put forth consistent effort throughout the game. It was far and few between too many poor O games, however.

Even with stellar D, knowing that Keldon was out meant next man up. Fewer players scoring well meant we had almost no room for mistakes. The pressure of misses and mistakes and fatigue added up to a lot of frustration.

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And who could blame him. Stomach churning to watch some players regress, particularly the more experienced ones. Assistant Coach Mitch Johnson has a good breakdown of the game. He was fair in his assessment – diplomatic and honest. I like how he explains things.

Fatigue only goes so far as a reason. Wemby is a rookie and fought his way to 20-10-5, through inefficiency, to a competitive two-way game. Devin did, too.

Branham has responded well to getting benched for several games. We’ll see how Keldon does. If Pop has to resort to cutting minutes to get the right level of play so be it. The standards don’t change because the schedule is hard or an opponent is or we aren’t clicking at one part of our game or another. It’s easy to say, of course, but that’s job, its difficulties magnified though they may be by the challenges of the RRT.

[G R E Y]

NOTEWORTHY ACHIEVEMENTS

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[G R E Y]

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