I blame pop
 

I've been silent about this but now that it's over....you know it was a given that the mavs were going to hit shots, and the whole point of having more guards in the lineup was to matchup,because you don't want rasho guarding devin harris.....but what about the million times parker ended up on dirk???!! Dallas strength was their offensive flexibillty and ours was our defense.....so by matching up we were taking away from our own strength......why not make them hit shots, which they did anyways but atleast clog the lane and have an advantage on rebounds?????

Spurs lost this series when they decided to go away from what won them 3 championships. My goodness, giving up 110 points per game in this series. Spurs have never won playing small and he thinks they are winning against the Mavs that way.

If there was a worthy coach like a Phil Jackson out there, It wouldn't break my heart to replace him but theres not, so he should stay and we should live with his panic moves.

Pop did some really crazy things. But in the end, if Duncan or Manu had hit the game winner everyone would have thought he was a genius.

On the other hand, there are many who think the series would not have been as close as it was had the bigs been inside (like Dallas' were) playing D.

Late in Game 7, Dallas did the same thing San Antonio had been doing the whole time- played small- and the game nearly got away from them.

The "no bigs" move will be debated for years to come.

I know what I ann most of you feel... Frustration.

But in the end, win or lose, glory or gutter it does fall on the coach.

I couldnt agree with you more.It wouldnt have hurt to have Nazr or Rasho in there to get rebounds.

everyone needs to accept this... Rasho and Nazr sucks... it's sad, but it's true

:up

been waitin' for it...thanks for cheering me up.

I was thinking we should have "danced w/ who brung ya." The whole series we didn't play OUR game.

Oh well, still a great season. All this proves is that Pop's model works: see AJ and the Mavs. They still did it w/ D. And the Mavs have some former Spurs over on that bench w/ AJ too.

Pop will reload.

GO SPURS GO!

I don't know if we have the money to reload. Not to mention we lost our draft pick this year because of the Nazr trade.

this years draft sucks anyways and the spurs knew it

lets not overreact. Pop did have something to do with SA winning three titles so after one series that goes to a game 7 where SA was one shot from winning...you would be open to getting RID of Pop? Come on now......

A shot goes down and no one is even mentioning Pop tonight

I definitely won't. That's such a big mistake even if we won this series I'd have criticized Pop to no end. If we won it would be because we beat the Mavs even with our hands tied, that only mean we're way better than the Mavs, not because Pop's any good by playing small ball.

Pop's small lineup gave them a chance to win in games 3 to 7- they won two, lost two in overtime, and lost the other one by one. So I thought he did a better job with his adjustments than in 2001 when he rode 4 down to a Laker sweep.

The Spurs need some adjustments...not some tear down or anything. They wont sit pat in the summer

Pop's not to blame. He's as good as there is. He didn't have the horses to deal with the Mavs athleticism.

Please, let us not start the "fire pop" threads, that would be ridiculous. it sux that we have been eliminated, but those are the breaks. Fire pop, you might as well get rid of tim. This series was way to close, and it probably should have never gotten to a 7th game the way the spurs have been playing. I think that what pop was doing was try to make up for the uselessness that is nazr and rasho that we ALL know would not have stayed with the mavs players. It almost worked, we just came up a little short in the end.

again, the man got us to THREE CHAMPIONSHIPS. We should not be talking about Firing POP

I've *****ed about no bigs. I realize the logic Pop must have been noodling with --- Mavs speed, blah, blah, blah.

But what I was waiting for was a twist. When the Mavs weren't expecting it, bring in the protypical Spurs line up and freak the Mavs out for just a few minutes ---- like at the end of regulation or at the beginning of overtime.

You knew the Mavs would start hitting again --- so why not a little twist to see if we could turn the tide even further? Like someone else said in this thread --- even with our Mavs lineup, we still couldn't stop them.

Whatever Pop was thinking dosen't matter anymore. What truly bothers me though is his unwillingness to tweak. I mean c'mon . . . if Barry is the tweak . . . .

Blaming Pop is just ridiculous. He made the right decision ultimately. Our smalls are just not as quick or athletic as Dallas' smalls. They made the plays, got the rebounds that we didn't.

Pop made the best choices out there. I stand by him.

This series was lost in the offseason when we got older instead of younger and didn't get a good enough backup point, to lame blame at Pop's feet is wrong. He played the hand he was dealt and came up short. Simple as that ! There was nobody in this series for Rasho or Nazr to guard unless people would have wanted to see our best offensive player(Duncan) in foul trouble by guarding Dirk.

In my eyes we didn't lose in overtime. We lost at the start of this series when the Spurs choose to go small and never go back. Going small and scoring is fools gold. It gets you exciting wins and teases you but doesn't win championships. He built this team by winning 3 titles with rebounding, and a defense that filters guards to bigs. Tim with his bad feet and all gutted it out and was asked to do everything. Then people blame him for getting tired in the Overtime.

My list of Panic Moves:
Horry being wasted in the first series when he was overplayed and asked to rebound, defend, and even create some of his own shots. He shot 20% in this series

7 starting lineup changes, I just don't ever recall this happening to a championship team

Going small... What else did we expect? Asking players to do things they have never done all season. Asking Bowen and guards to get rebounds from Dirk and Damp, Asking defenders to just scramble like mad when they didnt' do that all of the regulear season, Not giving a starting Center even one chance to start or more than 1 minute to get in the game and get settle into the pace. Rasho and Nazr might have played like 5 total minutes off the bench when they hadn't been coming off the bench all season.

Pop's a future hall of fame coach but still doesn't mean he didn't make the right adjustments or make the wrong ones....no rasho or narz??? Our whole defense that has been practiced year in and year out is making the ball handler go baseline to our bigs and cover the wing shooters, but since there were no other bigs besides Duncan, the wing guards had to help out and leave wide open shooters, give up an easy layup or be out of position for a rebound.....

I've complained about not riding the Spurs horse and trying to ride side saddle like the Mavs do --- but conversation about replacing Pop is gacho and shouldn't be a part of these conversations.

Thanks Pop. A bottle of the house's best Boones Farm on me.

We came within one Ginobili foul of winning this series. It wasn't the small lineup.

Our bigs are NOT offensive players, so if they're a liability on defense, what's the use of them on offense? It would've been 4 on 5 out there.

Fire BS???? That's absolute BS. You don't win 3 titles by being an average coach. Yes, I agree he made some mistakes in this series but come on...You don't fire a top level coach who's not been paid along the lines of LB or PJ. I thought Avery took more risks in the series and he outcoached Pop in the series. Pop has a tendency not to take too many risks. but that's beside the point. Firing pop would be ridiculous.

Problem is our bigs can't play for S**T against this Dallas team. They are too athletic of a team that they only rely on their bigs for rebounds. We needed to cover their shooters, as they could afford to have shooters at every position. and even if it was dampier or diop, they don't have to shoot they just need to be smart enough to get it to terry, howard or dirk.

Admit it, even though he went small, it almost gave us the series. I think the thing that killed us was mental mistakes. Think about it, an inbounds pass missed, fouls that did not need to be taken, wide-open misses, not taking the ball inside and instead trying to finesse the ball into the hoop. I know we want to blame the refs, but bottom line is we were right there and just missed it.

Let us not revert to the foolishness of 2001 and 2002. we won 3 championships in 7 years, lets act like it.
:rockon

that's right... you fire someone like Adelman... not Pop... :nope

I would say going small against Dallas was a risk.

i agree with you, pop has to take some blame for losing this series. they beat dallas twice during the regular season with the big lineup, so why change the lineup for this series. what ill remember the most with this series, is all the damm layups down the middle.

Exactly and what gave us those championships???? Small lineups?? :lol ....we used to crush teams that used small lineups like the Suns and now all of a sudden one series and we change all that...piss poor

I agree. Bring in Scola if we do nothing else. He has offensive punch, decent defense, and athleticism. Could have used him in this series.
Keep Oberto too. He is a very smart player.
Keep Barry and Finley.
And for God sakes keep POP.

:word

Spurs have so much work to do in the offseason, but i have no clue what Pop is thinking. Is he going to go small again against Dallas in the playoffs.

Nazr Mohammed DOES NOT equal David Robinson

too many times, their guards were blowing past our guards and getting to the basket. You think our bigs would have stopped that?

As much as I hate to say it, Barry needs to go. He helped us win our 3rd title, he didn't do much this year. We need to get younger, faster and stronger. Finley needs to stay, he still has a lot of game left.

Oberto can go. He's not really going to help us and that's the truth. I don't care if he's from Argentina.

While true that Nazr or Rasho might have been able to affect some of those shots, that's just a symptom of the greater problem, that being that so many guys were getting past our perimeter defenders in the first place. This series came down to 1 on 1 basketball, and the Mavs had more guys who could score than the Spurs had who could defend them.

oh and btw if Tony Parker actually had a jump shot....damn we'd be good........but we can't expect miracles in a year.....this one just hurts so bad because all these pieces aren't getting any younger and our window is closing every year....

I think he did go small and we lost the series in 7. If we used Rasho or Nazr we lose the series in 4 or 5.

Think about it. Who does Rasho or Nazr guard?

they only blew past our guards when the Spurs were in scramble mode trying to recover from double teams way out on the perimeter. The Defense is built to funnel guards into the paint and in position to at least challange and alter the shot.

Now there is where I agree with you 817. Our window is getting shorter, but at least 2-4 years left. I think we could get a couple more, which is more that we can say for a lot of teams out there

no but that not their job they would be giving up jump shots, which we did anyways with our guards, but atleast their would be another 7 footer in the lane for a rebound or prevent an EASY layup...and what about parker on Dirk ....AJ played that pick and roll beautifully knowing that every time parker ended up on Dirk Terry would have bowen or duncan on him and they couldn't leave him therefore getting help defense from the other side leaving TWO...COUNT THEM TWO SHOOTERS OPEN while the spurs scrambled to make rotations...it happened time and time again tonight and we couldn't do squat about it....

The Mavs are a good passing team and any one of their players can take a shot. All the offensive player has to do is jump into the defensive player and the foul will be called. doesn't work in a series like this. I would take manu/tony/and bowen going one on one with their players, and it almost worked. sometimes we had them, and sometimes we didn't. overall i think the idea to go small worked, but our execution was not always there.

...also it must be said spurs came out with ZERO intensity in the first half....just pathetic I almost wish this game had been on the road cuz atleast they would of been focused.....they couldn't do anything right that first half and that's just pathetic win you think of the stakes and the experience on this team.....

becuase of the "no big" lineup, we are outrebounded by 10 defensive rebounds...

sayang!

could not agree with you more. It's game 7, your A** is on the line WIN OR GO HOME and you go down by 20? You let them run all over your A**?? I was mortified!! Yes, I know that they came out swinging in the 2nd half, but why are they going to put themselves in a position to have to play from behind the whole game?

I don't accept it.

The Spurs won the most games in franchise history with Rasho/Nazr at the center. The Spurs played at a 53% winning percentage in the playoffs by going away from what worked for them.

Rasho and Nazr may not be superstars but they fit well into the team concept.

I think you make the point of those not happy with the Spurs strategy. Thank you. :rolleyes

and still....we made it to a game 7. what the spurs were doing was working it is just at key moments our execution broke down, and usually in the last two minutes. Teams make adjustments from the regular season, they learn from what worked and what didn't. Don't you think the mavs could have "adjusted" to force the spurs out of what they normally do?

I would agree with you if we played 82 games against the Mavs. Bottom line is the Mavs are a great perimeter/slashing team. Rasho and Nazr are NOT THE PLAYERS to guard perimeter players and putting TD on Dirk would've been suicide.

Pop made the right choice. I will sink or swim with his decisions.

Wonder why this is?

Didn't Pop say something like they are professionals...they know how important this game is...they don't need any speeches from me....

Bet they got a "speech" during halftime... What do you think?

Hell yes they got a "speech" during halftime, and they should have come out with more. They should have expected the Mavs to come out smokin' and they either could not or did not match said intensity. It is up to the players to execute their plan and to get their heads in the game. It sux that they did not come out ready to attack, and they should have been ready to do that. That was very disappointing to me, and yet, they were still right there. had they come to play from the tipoff, this would have been a different game.

it was an inevitable let down...you could tell btw they were talking up to the game confident saying well we still have to win but...almost like it's was a done deal.....and the mavs played lose like they had nothing to lose and we came out tight

I know it's a frustrating time for us Spurs Fans.
But where were you Pop Bashers when we won game 5-6 ?

I know Pop could've handled things differently, but Bottom line is that we had a 3 point lead we gave up in the final seconds, and that's all that it came down to. It happens.