Spurscast – Cold Shooting, Right Idea on Defense, and Belinelli’s Minutes

0
Spurscast

In episode 559, Spurscast host Paul Garcia is joined by Project Spurs writer John Diaz to discuss the following San Antonio Spurs topics:

  • The Spurs’ play in their last 4 games against the Clippers, Warriors, Lakers, and Hawks
  • The cold shooting from three
  • The right idea on defense
  • A look at Marco Belinelli’s minutes

Transcript:

Paul Garcia 0:17
You’re listening to The Spurscast Episode 559. My name is Paul Garcia and I am the host of the Spurscast. Joining me for this episode is Project Spurs’ John Diaz. John, how you doing, man?

John Diaz 0:29
I wish I was joining you under better circumstances, man.

Paul Garcia 0:33
Yeah, John and I are recording this podcast on Wednesday evening A day after the Spurs lost to the Atlanta Hawks it was the Spurs’ first loss where they were the favorite according to Vegas and ended up losing so yeah John as we know you know over on spurs Twitter, it’s it’s not so much good times right now. But let’s get into this episode. JOHN, we have a few topics you want to go through. First, let’s begin with the Spurs and how they’re doing when I last recorded a week ago, the Spurs were 3-0, everything was perfect. They had just beateb Portland so everything was looking really groovy for this new season. However, since then they’ve gone one in three, they go on losing against the Clippers on a back to back sequence and that was a tough game for them where they were kind of in it but then of course Kawhi just basically brings up the dagger in the fourth quarter and puts them away on his own. Then of course, they beat the Warriors which you know, the Warriors almost like a G league team at this point with how they’re playing and just the players that they have available. So they so they beat the Warriors for pretty comfortably. Then on Sunday was a big game where they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers, that was basically a battle for the one seed out west that night. And the Spurs ended up losing the Lakers came in into San Antonio and won that game. Then the one that you and I just are going to get into a little bit more detail about is their most recent loss against on what was it Tuesday evening against the Atlanta Hawks on the road, again the circumstance. You know, the Hawks barely got back Trae Young. They found out that morning that John Collins was going to be suspended for 25 games due to violating the NBA Drug Policy. He was taking some sort of substance that was on the banned list. Now we know that Derrick White was coming off a contusion injury in his right glute. So yeah, so the Spurs lose 108-100. You know it was a close game throughout with 32.9 seconds left. This is where a lot of fans are upset. The Spurs did lead by 10 points in the third quarter late third quarter. However, in the fourth, they just completely fell apart. Atlanta outscored them 38-22. Trae Young goes crazy goes for 16 points in the fourth quarter. Yeah, so what are your impressions right now over these last four games?

[bg_collapse view=”link” color=”#4a4949″ icon=”arrow” expand_text=”Show More” collapse_text=”Show Less” ]

John Diaz 2:33
I’m worn down. I’m in a dark place honestly. And I can understand where the frustration is from Spurs Twitter. There’s a lot of things I see with this team that I like and don’t like. And it’s easy to pick on on Marco and it’s easy to question Pop about minutes restrictions with Dejounte and stuff like that. But there’s a whole different energy between the first unit and the second unit that we’re seeing again from last year. And it’s just numbing at this point, the fact that  I’m sorry for picking on Bryn Forbes, I feel like I always pick on him when we come on the podcast, but we know who he is as a role player. And that’s exactly his job as a role player. And for him to be taking three more shot attempts per game compared to last year, and only playing one more minute and being in this range of where he’s just chucking up shots, because DeMarre he’s being too passive or not aggressive. I mean, DeMar, not not DeMarre. Yeah, DeMarre doesn’t play. Yeah. You know, like tomorrow. Yeah, the DeMarre You know, he just seems to be a little hesitant when LaMarcus doesn’t seem like himself. But when you look at the numbers, and you see these guys are just missing shots. And you talk about the mid-range jumpers. And if you look at like the project spurs premium database, like the guys that are hitting mid-range shots are Trey Lyles, and Rudy Gay, you can’t win games that way. Like, you know, it’s one of those things you can’t you can blame the system and say, Hey, Pop needs to adjust and do all these different things where this team needs to be more oriented in today’s game, but the playing their game. They’re playing their style the way they’ve done it for years. And the same style that wins you playoff games like we saw with Toronto and Golden State last year. It’s just none of the guys that you need to hit shots are hitting shots. And then the one guy who’s just supposed to be basically a three-point shooter is chucking up the ball more than anyone. And that’s not his fault. I’m glad he’s aggressive. And I’m glad pop is out there encouraging people like Derrick White and Bryn Forbes to say, Hey, tell me to go to hell and play your game. But at the end of the day, these guys that are supposed to be the two all-stars on your team need to play like all-stars. And at this point, they’re not. It’s shots. It’s effort. It’s a whole bunch of things, but we’re in year two with DeMar. He needs to get a lot more aggressive like we saw in that Lakers game. We’ve seen it in wins this year when he just goes off and he just becomes possessed. And you know, it’s frustrating the four and three. They’ve got some good wins and some Atlanta losses a bad loss in the first three quarters of the Golden State game was kind of hard to watch but I’ve got faith that they need to pull it together. But I also think they need to blend in different elements of the starting lineup and the bench unit to actually be a one cohesive team for once.

Paul Garcia 5:10
Yeah, so you know, I think one thing I do want to tackle there real quick about last night’s game was that you know, the fans were upset that Derrick White and Dejounte Murray didn’t play a lot, especially in the fourth quarter when Trae Young went off on his run. It was Patty Mills and you know, Bryn Forbes hard to guard him, the guy you just mentioned there and part of that was for Dejounte actually had a tough night he only plays 19 minutes finishes with three points, five rebounds, four assists, three turnovers and the thing was he had five fouls so he could just couldn’t get stay on the floor routinely and Pop had to basically keep taking him out because it was foul trouble then Derrick White as I said he’s coming off that confusion and the right glued which makes him questionable against okay so you know, Thursday and so you know, Pop saw that I guess maybe Pop saw something he just wasn’t feeling it that night so he didn’t even bring him into the fourth quarter. Obviously that upset some people when they see Trae Young o off. But you mentioned john the Spurs are just really cold right now. They went eight of 33 from three point line. I agree with you. I feel like there is some sort of it’s a process right now to try to figure out some cohesion between DeMar DeRozan with LaMarcus Aldridge and Dejounte Murray because I mean now all of a sudden.LaMarcus and DeMar I mean these are the go-to guys last year was somewhat It was so comfortable for them to play with Derrick White because Derrick was more of a passive player who kind of gets you set up in your offense. You know, if you want to take over for possession after possession, he’s gonna let you do that, you know, he’s gonna he’s basically your normal, you know, very calm point guard, whereas Dejounte can go to another level offensively where he can just get out on the break, he can he can just attack a person one on one and get to the rim get by multiple defenders and we saw the especially highlight in that Lakers game in that fourth quarter when he scored 14 points on his own. And right now, you know, I haven’t checked the usage as of this podcast, but before that game against the Hawks, he was actually number one in usage percentages, Dejounte, barely eclipsing DeMar, so again, these two guys that you said are your go to guys they’re having to adjust now and getting a new playmaker next to them who’s way more aggressive and who honestly I think you want to see Dejounte take the keys and do what he can because I mean like it’s like I said before this podcast his potential is so you know it’s it doesn’t have a ceiling right now because he’s so young he hasn’t you know matured on offense in terms of where he’s going to be one day whereas DeMar and LaMarcus we kind of know what their game is you know at its height and at its peak. Now DeMar, I have seen what the data shows that he’s been a little bit more aggressive and getting to getting you know, getting to the rim driving his mid-range jumpers you know, kind of on he’s making 45% of those shots which is still an inefficient shot but it’s but it’s pretty good. I think well LaMarcus, I’m going to give him the benefit of doubt because you know, last year I could have sworn like a year ago like just last year and October November he was almost like terrible he couldn’t make any shots. He just looked out of it and then we saw in December, his December, January, February really strong and ends up being in the all-star game so with LaMarcus I will give a little bit of benefit of the doubt, but I agree with you he just doesn’t look good right now. I think it was the Clippers game. One of the defenders basically said if we take away the middle when you post up on us, that he’s basically like, it’s really tough for him to score and when we seen that because his mid-range jumpers out there, his post up around the shoulder is not there right now. So I agree with that. But let’s real quick focus on this part about the ice-cold start to the year from three. So just like last year, like you said, John, the Spurs are not a high volume three-point shooting team they’re already 29th according to Cleaning the Glass, they’re number one in mid-range frequency. So the problem though is that last year even though they didn’t take a lot of attempts from three they were actually really you know, they were a really high accurate team. They were like one of the top five teams right now they’re 27th they’re only making 31% of their three-point shots. And they only have four high volume shooters. Now that Davis Bertans is gone. They have Bryn Forbes like you mentioned. They have Patty Mills, they have Rudy Gay and they have Marco Belinelli. Now three of those guys had their three-point shots just not there right now. Forbes is at 33%, Mills is shooting lights out 49% he’s basically holding the team together from three. Then you got Rudy Gay 25% and Marco Belinelli 18% you know, just look at the stats. According to the wide-open threes data, Rudy is 0 of 12 and Belinelli one of 10 I mean, they’re getting open looks and they just cannot knock them down. And, you know, where’s the health gonna come from? If this doesn’t end up regressing to the mean, I mean, the only two other guys they have it have a chance at a high volume three-point shooting is maybe DeMarre Carroll and Lonnie Walker IV. So what do you think about this coLD start to the three-point shooting aside from Patty Mills?

John Diaz 9:18
You know, it’s what happens exactly with like the slump. People want to point out Marco and you know, you’ve got to give a shooter the benefit of the doubt with saying that he’s going to be cold, he’s not always going to shoot 38% or higher, anything like that. He’s going to be terrible. That’s great. But that’s not an excuse to throw Lonnie Walker in there when Lonnie Walker is going to let someone blow past him while he’s flat-footed on defense or can’t box out. You know, if you’re going to let that happen, at least Marco can go out there and shoot up a prayer every once in a while and get fouled or make the three. We haven’t seen that from Lonnie yet. And yeah, granted, he needs the minutes to get there. But it’s just you’ve got to be comfortable with the system. You’ve got to let the shots fall are going to come eventually. But I think a big solution would be this doesn’t take away Dejounte Murray’s you know ability to be the Spurs future point guard but until he can prove the knockdown a shot consistently and win the game matters I don’t think you should be in the starting lineup. I think putting them out there even with the minutes restriction yeah that’s great and on the need his defense but I think if he’s probably more benefited by coming off the bench and closing out games and that’s where you get into a whole other thing with I guess strenuous minutes, but I’ll touch on that in a little bit. I think that Patty Mills should probably be starting. Especially we’ve seen Patty’s what two points per shot on corner threes? Yeah, let someone like DeMar Yeah, you let someone like tomorrow handle the ball Patty can post up in the corner provide that kind of spark and shooting so the offensive unit, maybe throw in DeMarre Carroll to actually shore up the defense a little bit and have Patty, you know DeMar, DeMarre, LaMarcus and Trey Lyles, and maybe that’s a little bit more of a formidable unit with Derrick White and Dejounte Murray coming off the bench with Bryn Forbes a little bit more floor spacing and you just play small. There’s just so many things that I feel like they’ve got to mix and match. But at the same time, if shots aren’t going to fall you’re going to lose and it doesn’t matter what the lineup is anyway. And I’m sure they don’t want to Dejounte out there in gaming clinching scenarios where there’s a thing with pictures where they call it stress pitches and stress innings that maybe a starting pitcher in baseball is out there. You know, he throws 20 pitches in one inning. But if it was an easy inning with no one on base, those 20 pitches didn’t really matter. But if he’s throwing 10-15 with a bunch of runners on, they see that as a stress on his on his arm, his elbow ligaments, maybe they don’t want that with Dejounte and his knee maybe they feel like if he’s out there closing out a game going really hard. They don’t want him to risk his knee getting tore up or getting kind of hurt in any other way. So it’s just easier to let him start a quarter. Do whatever he can do his limited minutes and then let Derek white take over.

Paul Garcia 11:48
Yeah, so so this is something that we should address because this is something I’ve been getting questions on Twitter, especially last night is the minutes restriction so yeah, so Pop basically told us that it is a very strict 5-5-5 deal where he’s only playing the first five minutes of each game. I mean, each quarter should I say and that’s kind of it. So Pop says he’s not he’s not going to risk him, you know, getting hurt to try to save him just for the close game like monitoring his minutes in a different way. So I think that’s where that’s where you just pointed out there. Why I don’t think that’s going to be the case. And until that limit minutes restriction gets lifted. We’re going to continue to see Dejounte have to get pulled out midway through the fourth quarter and not return to the game even if it ends up being a loss and a guy like Trae Young just goes off to go to another level. Real quick right now. You know, as you and I recording this the Spurs are 12th on offense and 21st in the half-court on offense. Does this kind of what you saw, you know with that kind of starting unit with no shooting basically outside of Bryn Forbes in the starting unit. Is that kind of what you saw them falling out of the top 10 early on?

Paul Garcia 12:44
Yeah, it just seems like the whole offense is clogged at this point. And no one really wants to I guess with Dejounte out there they’re trying to feel things out and trying to learn like where people need to be and stuff and it’s a learning process because honestly, if we think about it, Dejounte has played what half a season of a For half a season like we’re not giving them a lot of chance, even though this is his third year in the NBA is to actually get a feel for the game and play with these guys that he hasn’t seen on the court real game situations for a long time. But if they can get some sort of cohesiveness together with maybe letting LaMarcus be a more assertive, and also, a lot of these guys are playing out of position, like we’ve got Bryn playing the two, DeMar playing the three, LaMarcus is like this hybrid power forward-center with someone who can’t stretch the floor yet, and Trey Lyles, who’s also not really knocking down shots, but just rebounding his ass off and it’s just it’s going to take a lot longer than seven games to get a good grip. And kind of just feel on what this team really is.

Paul Garcia 13:42
Yeah, for sure. And you know, you actually if you look at DeMar he’s actually playing some backup four minutes at times Pop’s throwing out some weird lineups and I’ve been looking at that, like whoa, but yeah, so obviously, you know, it looks like the offense definitely needs some help and it’s not going to help when Bryn’s you know, Bryn’s their main three-point shooter in that starting unit and he’s shooting 33% right now. So that’s kind of tough for him. Let’s look real quick now the one benefit of having Murray back and you can really see in the numbers is the defense has already you know it’s not it’s not top 10 level but hey, it’s league average now this is better than where they were last year when they were in the in the 20s to like 30 range for most of the year. So we already see that impact defensively where they are league average overall defensively, they’re 15th in the half-court or 13th I think that is and you know, what I wrote here in this note is they have the right idea on defense they’re doing the right things right now they are keeping opponents off the offensive boards are fit there. They are not letting opponents get to the free-throw line their fourth there, they’re on their six and frequency at the rim for opponents in terms of limiting shots at the rim so that’s a good thing. Their second and making teams take mid-range jumpers, which is what you want to do for your really good defense and their forte and limiting corner threes and not corner three from the opponent. So again, the game plan is there they’re executing the game plan, which is to make teams take these kinds of shots and not give them these easy points like at the free-throw line. Like I’m saying the problem though is that when they do get to the rim to shooting really well they’re making 67% of their shots which is 26 so so obviously that the rim protection is still an issue even though it’s not a high frequency of teams attacking the rim when they get there I’m thinking like Anthony Davis getting alley-oop of dunks I’m thinking like hawks had multiple cutters get in and get wide-open dunks against the Spurs defense so so the problem is that when the Spurs do allow teams to get next to the rim they’re actually scoring really well. The three-point shots they’ve actually played them pretty well outside of that the corner three is probably the one that you want to watch but aside from that, I think that what do you think about their defense The foundation is actually looking a lot better and you just look at the numbers you know, it’s either like league average or even like close to a lead a lot of them aren’t read anymore are just like terrible, like last year.

John Diaz 15:51
Yeah, and it’s one of those things where we saw a lot of, you know, Jakob Poeltl tried to take the anchor on defense last year and they’re trying to adjust to maybe Trey Lyles and Dejounte being the anchor on defense this year. And honestly, I think it’s going to take Trey Lyles a lot longer to get situated and know where he’s supposed to be. Even though coming from Quin Snyder’s system who was another guest one of the Pop disciples. It’s just a thing where these guys are kind of like trying to figure out where they are in the floor witness switch. And when they’re not one of the guys from PTR, I forget his name, how to highlight where DJ just doesn’t switch off a dribble handoff, and he just looks lost out there. It’s just a mental lapse where one second, he just probably forgot, hey, this is where I switch. That’s probably not something he’s been used to in the last year where he’s missed, and at least our league average, but it doesn’t feel like it because we’re still having the same issues with the offense and letting people like Dwight Howard have this renaissance and go perfect from the field. You know, it’s just frustrating.

Paul Garcia 16:36
Yeah, I forgot about Dwight. I forgot about that. Like I said, like that Hawks game last night, it looked good for three quarters, you know, they’re holding them like 22, 22, 26 and all of a sudden, boom, 38 I’m like, Whoa, that’s probably the worst quarter of the season. And of course, you know, you look at who ended the game on defense. It was, it was a trio of Patty Mills, Bryn Forbes, and I forgot I think DeRozan was the other wing. So I mean, you don’t have your two top defenders. I think that the defensive numbers are going to get a lot better once they do once Pop does take Lonnie off I mean not Lonnie, Dejounte off this minutes restriction

John Diaz 17:05
Don’t get them started

Paul Garcia 17:09
Because pop’s even said I mean he does plan on eventually playing Dejounte and Derrick White some submitted together and that’s gonna be a really good defensive back cord that’s going to help out a lot but again, they can’t do it quite yet because of this whole Dejounte Murray minister restriction that’s kind of where it’s at. It’s like, it’s really hard to evaluate his team because of this restriction like you mentioned, you know, it takes a lot of close games right now, maybe by the end of the year when he’s off minutes restriction, you know, he should be there. So that’s gonna change the whole crunch timeline of kind of thing. So there’s a lot going on. The last question like I mentioned, last episode, I’m gonna start ending with like a frequently asked question on Twitter that I’m getting a lot and just like the most, and we kind of touched on it a little bit. And this is the Marco Belinelli a question. Now, you know, for the Belinelli, non-fans, the ones that aren’t fans of his of his game right now. He’s not helping that camp. I mean, he’s not helping him. The ones that do support Belinelli knowing those fans, he’s not helping them out right now with his performance. four through seven games. He say please play in 16 minutes a night shooting 3.1 threes only making 18% of those 1.3 rebounds. 1.1 point 0.7 turnovers and four points. Now we have already seen john Pop start to say you know if he helped throw Belinelli out there and then if Belinelli has a tough stretch he’s actually giving either Lonnie Walker some minutes or DeMarre Carroll some minutes so so we are starting to see pop even himself, you know starting to cut, you know, mess around with Belinelli’s minutes and and if Hey, if Marco is not performing I think the reason he’s and he’s missing all his defense assignments. I’m going to give Lonnie a shot or DeMarre. Now Lonnie’s gotten more shots. He’s played in four games now. Whereas Carroll’s only played two. But we have saw that Pop’s much more critical of Lonnie that if he doesn’t execute on defense and his few minutes out there, he’s not going to see the quarter game for a while. So I guess my question is, how much does Belinelli need to struggle like how many games do you think before it might actually become a permanent switch where either Carroll becomes a new backup small forward or Walker.

John Diaz 18:59
You can It just depends on I think for me it depends on record. Okay like it right now they’re four and three they’re still in you know, I guess the top of the west to whatever you want to call it because it’s just gonna be brutal all year long. It doesn’t really matter what the record is right now. Um, but it’s the shot doesn’t start falling. I think you’ll start hearing rumblings probably you know, early December I would say when when other contracts when other contracts we come tradable and that’s when you start to hear it’s like okay, maybe and now we’ve got the G League season about to start it’s not gonna surprise me one bit if Lonnie ends up in Austin starting just to stay fresh and keep this minutes because we’ve seen Pop do in the past, and Lonnie still in only his what third year second year, where he can still go to Austin and you know, they don’t have to, with his permission or without his permission, you can just go over there and get his minutes in. But it I feel like if if he keeps struggling like it’s going to be it’s not hard to trade him But the thing is what do you think the Spurs are going to get for him because I sort of looking out there I don’t think there’s any trade that solves any issues at this team.

Paul Garcia 20:09
No no and most it would be more of draft asset like a like a second-round pick or even like a future second like that kind.

John Diaz 20:14
Yeah and then hope like there’s a buyout come You know, later in the spring, like maybe like a Michael Kidd Gilchrist for defense but even then he can’t shoot so that doesn’t solve anything. If you try to treat him like a Garret Temple, I think you have to throw in Metu to make the salaries match or maybe Doug McDermott and just have them ride the bench. But just to free up those minutes for DeMarre or Lonnie, but I don’t know it’s just there’s so much of a redundancy on this roster where especially with Bryn and Marco where you want to give Lonnie that chance because he’s got the athleticism. If he can just keep himself in the game mentally on defense. That’s all they need of him, especially if he’s on the court with Derrick White. And he’s just not doing that and people want to get frustrated with Pop over it and call for his head for no reason. He’s been doing it the same way for years. You don’t need to coddle Lonnie and hopes that he stays are turns into the superstar he’s not going to do his job he’s not gonna do it here he’s not going to do it anywhere it doesn’t matter he can just ride the bench or go to Austin or whatever he wants to do

Paul Garcia 21:08
Yeah no no and and you know you brought up some good points there and so I would you know, I would say maybe about like game 15 if we start to still see a Marco not making his threes you know, still slipping on offense. I mean, we know on defense he’s going to slip and you can see what that new defensive matchup data and putting up on Project Spurs you can see that he and Bryn Forbes are the two players that get targeted the most every night against the opponents so I mean they purposely go at them those opposed to and then you know if Marco does lose a spot well then he is a tradable asset because there are teams like Philly who need some shooting there’s teams out there that need shooting and they would it’s weird because Marco he’s not this year he’s not as valuable to the Spurs with his role because again they have so much redundancy with that spot whereas another team you know a playoff-bound team they would like to have Marco because they can immediately give him minutes to be one of their prime shooters and so it yeah so that’s kind of where he just stuck in and that’s kind of where this rosters at. What have you thought about Carol though, you know pop had an interesting comment The other night where he basically said the only reason why Carroll’s really not playing right now is because it’s just clogged right there at the four he kind of wants it more as a four than a three. He wants him it’s because, you know, Trey Lyles is starting in then you got Rudy Gay. So the only time we saw Carroll get some really good minutes was that game where Dante was out because you know, everybody kind of shifted down for from a spot. So what have you thought about him just only playing in two games so far three out of seven?

John Diaz 22:21
It’s confusing, because, you know, he’s got a really good reputation as pretty much of the Spurs need in terms of defense and toughness and rebounding and putting them in there with you know, letting trail owls take his minutes. I get it, Trey has been unbelievable. And it seems like they’ve gotten really good value off that signing, which I don’t think any of us would have actually predicted. But that’s where I go back to like maybe switching up the starting lineup and saying hey, until Dejounte’s knee’s fully good and he’s off the minutes restriction slide. DeMar back down to the two maybe tried to mark it to three so that way, there’s still a little bit of life with Trey Lyles on the floor. You don’t need him to be this, you know, stretch for anything. He’s not going to stretch the floor regard. If he’s going to be playing the three spot, at least you’ve got some extra links with Trey Lyles out there, patties you’re shooting and DeMar’s and his primary role as a two and ball hit and handling the ball. I think trying to say that, hey, it’s a little bit log jam there with Rudy. In route, he’s not going to play the three ever route. He doesn’t have that athleticism anymore. Yeah. And if he’s not hitting his shots, he’s not a stretch for either. So what does it matter if it’s him or DeMarre out there? So I think, obviously Pops’ going to tinker with the lineup. So maybe we’ll get surprised one day maybe we won’t. But I feel like it’s a really bad excuse to keep plugging in these players and positions they don’t belong and letting the system just do its thing. At some point. DeMarre you can go into the three spot and be just fine. Over Marco Bellineli know, if Marco is not going to hit the shots DeMarre, he’s going to do just fine in the three spot and let him get his minutes and let them prove his worth. That’s what you signed them. And that’s why he’s here for three years like he’d let them get his run now.

Paul Garcia 23:54
Yeah, I know for sure. So so we’ll kind of see what happens there. You know, as a game, I think I think the biggest takeaway too is that it’s seven games. I know it feels like it’s so funny. It’s just we’re only really two weeks into the season. You know, I remember around this time last year, I think it was already or might have been too early, but when Dante Cunningham was starting and now that guy’s out of the league, like, it’s just like, you know, it’s just, it’s really early in the season, you know, seven games, like I said, I think when he gets like 15, you have a pretty good sample size and by like, 20 sure you have a good sample size of who your team is. And we’ll kind of see where the Spurs are at that point. Right now, you know, at four and three though, they’re making a lot of the math models at predicting the very lowest and they’re making those kind of accurate so a lot of people are frustrated with that, especially after that early start with it when they started the year off with the foreign one or doing one or something like that. So

Paul Garcia 24:36
So yeah, thanks john for joining me on this Spurscast Episode 559. Spurscast listeners if you are on Twitter, please follow john @ByJohnDiaz is again if you’re on Twitter, follow him @ByJohnDiaz one of the best Twitter handles that I know because I wanted to steal that once. Anyway, so yeah, so let’s just do a quick a few quick promotional items before we get out of here. Over on Project Spurs, we have the Spurs video takeover after different games. Hosted by Joe Garcia you can check that out. After every spurs game Stephen Anderson is providing you with his three thoughts analysis pieces, so make sure you check it out Stephen’s work, Ben Ben Bornstein still getting ready for the draft with the Spurs prospect watches. He has his latest his latest piece of this week. Collin Reid read his back to his latest piece to start this year is called the Spurs is rebounding is filling their faster pace and that’s kind of goes into Dejounte’s impact on the offensive end for the Spurs and how they’re kind of running more often. And they’re like actually, as of today that John and I recorded they’re actually 3rd and fast-break points. And then also as John mentioned this and I did too during our conversation again if you want to see some of the stats that we’re talking about go to go sign up for Project Spurs premium, I’ve added some more databases there. You know, in the shot creation area, I added some drives and post up numbers for it for you to see like how does Shaun T is doing it and drives Derrick White to DeMar DeRozan and then on post-ups how efficient is the LaMarcus Aldridge. I’ve also looked at added a team defensive drive, team defense on Drive that’s a dribble penetration database where you can kind of see you know how much our defenses getting into The Spurs’ – the teeth of the Spurs’ defense and being effective or not. And the last thing I have a database where there were tracking of the opponent shooting on wide-open threes basically saying how much of this of the opponent’s shots were wide open or not. So again, go over and check out Project Spurs premium signup, if you’d like it will really help us out and again, it’s just really, really useful information that I’m glad that John you’re actually looking at it ready and using it

John Diaz 26:30
Of course Yeah, it’s awesome

Paul Garcia 26:32
Yea me too. You know, I like to look at the numbers. I got some really good positive feedback. So go and check that out. And then lastly, thank you to Michael De Leon for mixing and producing this episode for so for John Diaz, my name is Paul Garcia. Thank you Have a great day.

[/bg_collapse]

Download | Subscribe in Apple Podcasts | Subscribe in Overcast | Support the podcast

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here