Spurs Breakdown: San Antonio Still Features Championship Resolve

It’s only fitting that a game with the magnitude of San Antonio Spurs-Los Angeles Lakers would turn into one of the season’s instant classics. After all, the two teams have combined for nine of the last ten Western Conference Championships.

However, while the Lakers have already established themselves as an elite championship-level team, San Antonio sent the message, with their 112-111 victory, that they too are capable of winning the season’s final game. In fact, by the time the end of the year comes around, it won’t be a stretch to declare the Spurs, not the Lakers, Western Conference favorites.

Why The Spurs Won

When the Spurs are hitting their jump shots, they’re as good as any team in the league offensively. This is because teams must double team Tim Duncan in the post, meaning that most Spurs teammates will be fed with wide open perimeter looks.

Against the Lakers, the Spurs hit 25 of their 47 jump shots, good for 53 percent, an impressive percentage. Here’s the player-breakdown of those 47 jump shot attempts:

• Manu Ginobili—5-11
• Roger Mason—7-10
• Matt Bonner—3-6
• Tim Duncan—2-5
• Tony Parker—2-5
• Michael Finley—1-4
• George Hill—3-3
• Kurt Thomas—2-2
• Bruce Bowen—0-1

Tim Duncan is the best passing big man in the history of the game. Whether he was in the high post and saw a back-door cut opening up, or whether he was doubled in the low block and saw a defender cheating off his man to try and intercept a kick out, Duncan made impeccable decisions throughout.

And if he rarely caught the ball in deep post position and had modest trouble navigating Pau Gasol’s length, Duncan hit two critical baskets with under 1:15 remaining to set up Roger Mason’s endgame heroics. Duncan’s near triple-double stat line indicates how he controlled the game with 20 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, a steal, and two blocks to lead San Antonio.

Speaking of Roger Mason, he is the biggest variable as to why the Spurs are a championship contender and not simply a Western Conference Finals team. He’s the defensive player the Spurs wanted Ime Udoka to be, and the offensive player Michael Finley used to be. And he’s developing a reputation of having glacier water in his veins.

In fact, Mason is the two-way role player the Spurs have lacked since Robert Horry’s final productive season in 2007.

Last season, the Lakers were able to effectively shut Manu Ginobili down because of Ginobili’s high left ankle sprain. Now fully healthy, Ginobili had his way around screens, dazzling with an array of dizzying layups and spectacular jumpers, including a third quarter buzzer-beater from 40 feet out. With Mason, Ginobili gives the Spurs two creative scorers who can get to the basket and knock down the three—which is two more than the Spurs had in last year's Western Conference Finals.

Tony Parker consistently got to the rim and put pressure on the Lakers defense from inside their wombs.

Bonner, Thomas, and Duncan all set textbook screens allowing San Antonio’s guards to pop wide open, and its offense to run very efficiently.

Roger Mason showed that he can be a very good defensive player by going toe-to-toe with Kobe and living to talk about it. And Manu Ginobili’s help defense, and timely swipes of Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant frustrated the Lakers’ offensive playmakers to no end. It was Ginobili’s judicious traps late in the game that got the ball out of Kobe’s hands and forced the Lakers to live—and ultimately die—with Derek Fisher and Trevor Ariza.

If the Spurs rotations were surprisingly faulty all game long, they turned in a beautiful sequence with a minute left by trapping a Kobe ball-screen, and scrambling to all their designated covers, resulting in Derek Fisher’s missed jumper.

More than anything, the Spurs showed that they have as much firepower as anybody in the Western Conference and can outscore opponents to win games. In the past, when San Antonio’s defense struggled, so did the Spurs.

Still, San Antonio does have major question marks as well.

Why The Spurs Almost Lost

The Spurs shot the lights out, and only won on a spectacular shot late in the fourth. While the Spurs are a much better shooting ball club than in years past, they are becoming a team that absolutely needs to hit their jumpers to win games. Anything less than effective shooting will doom the Spurs.

The Spurs defensive rotations were surprisingly faulty, especially Hill’s. On one play, Hill failed to rotate off his man, resulting in a Trevor Ariza three-pointer. After calling a timeout to address the matter, Hill overhelped off his man onto Ariza when Kurt Thomas was already closing out. Since the initial pass to Ariza came out of a double-teamed Pau Gasol in the post, the Spurs effectively had four defenders guarding two players. Naturally, Derek Fisher was wide open and sank a three.

Furthermore, with less than three minutes and the Spurs up one and in a zone, Lamar Odom moved right to left behind the zone and set up on the left side of the basket. Bonner saw it and indicated Duncan to pick him up, Duncan tried to get Bonner to switch, and in the end, nobody guarded Odom who took a feed from Kobe and slammed it in.

Those mistakes are very un-Spurs like mistakes and are indicators that the Spurs defense is prone to letdowns. Fortunately, for a team as wise as San Antonio, the mistakes are easily correctable come playoff time.

Tony Parker had trouble with Trevor Ariza’s quickness and wingspan, and was completely neutralized when trying to isolate him.

Bruce Bowen no longer has the lateral quickness to play consistent championship-caliber defense.

While Duncan is one of the best interior rotators in the game, it’s a myth that he’s a spectacular one-on-one defender. Gasol and Andrew Bynum had success operating on him, and Duncan was helpless on a Josh Powell pull-up.

Duncan, Thomas, and Bonner all had trouble defending the Lakers’ length and San Antonio may need to acquire a longer defender to match up in a playoff series.

Michael Finley has been ready for the glue factory for months, and did nothing to change that fact against the Lakers.

Regardless of which team won or lost though, the battle was an absolute joy to behold with so many big players making so many big plays.

And lost in the moments: Tony Parker sharing a joke with Fisher after drawing a foul. Kobe Bryant and Bruce Bowen chatting at the scorers table. Tim Duncan laying Trevor Ariza out when contesting a layup, and then quickly helping him back up.

So often, coaches, players, and fans get caught up in the ruthlessness of NBA competition, the necessity to be the best, the refusal to yield an inch, the unwillingness to lend a hand, lest it be seen a sign of weakness. How rare to see players the caliber of Bryant, Duncan, Fisher, and Parker—all multiple-time champions and ruthless cutthroats between the whistles—genuine enough not to put themselves above their opponents or the game, especially compared to some of the childish histrionics that accompany some of the NBA’s other marquee stars (read: Garnett, Kevin, and Martin, Kenyon for starters).

In the grand scheme of things, basketball is just a bunch of guys playing a game. The above competitors realize that, the reason why they are always comfortable and always play their best basketball under the brightest of spotlights.

The reason why nobody (except fans of New Orleans, Dallas, Utah, etc) should be upset at the prospect of another Spurs-Lakers rematch with a Finals trip on the line.