After Rough Start, Spurs Need Offense and Defense To Come Together

"Come together, right now"

—The Beatles

So, San Antonio defended at a championship level in Dallas and still failed to capture its first road victory?

Jefferson was awful in the clutch again, and the offense looked at times like it belonged in New Jersey or Minnesota, not in the Alamo City.

Manu Ginobili re-joined Tony Parker on the injured list late in the first quarter. With Shawn Marion, Josh Howard and Erick Dampier out for Dallas, call it a fair fight.

The Mavericks edged the Spurs 99-94 in overtime in another classic that felt like a dud for San Antonio after a painful finish. After a clutch basket and block on Jason Terry, Tim Duncan missed two gimme layups in the extra minutes.

Oh yeah. The Spurs are the only team in the playoff hunt without a victory away from home.

Terry bricked 15 of 19 shots. Many of Dirk Nowitzki's 15 of 29 makes were as contested as possible. The Mavs shot 40 percent and drilled only three of 19 treys.

None of that matters after a tough-to-swallow loss.

Should I keep piling on the gloom?

Coach Gregg Popovich would prefer to not allow 46 points in the paint, but he can live with the stellar defensive effort.

The problem Wednesday night was the offense, which sputtered to a halt for more than seven minutes in the second quarter.

Traditionally a low turnover team, the Spurs coughed it up 18 times. Those miscues allowed the Mavs to win the fastbreak points battle 18-7.

Parker will fix some of that. Ginobili also provides proven insurance at the point.

The problem the pending All-Star returns cannot solve is Jefferson's tentativeness alongside Duncan.

Without No. 21, he averaged more than 22 points, including a 29-point outburst last week against the Mavs. With Duncan, Jefferson's averaging 13 points with few big fourth-quarter deliveries to add to his resume.

He looked better in stretches of Wednesday's slog, including back-to-back plays in which he drove for a reverse layup and bagged a wide open triple.

The Spurs have won four of five at the AT&T Center and lost all four on the road.

They are winning at home by double figures and losing on the road by a similar margin.

A few more buckets from someone in a black uniform in the second half would have sealed an important victory.

Instead, another agonizing defeat raised more questions about Owner Peter Holt's $80 million investment.

What's wrong with the Spurs?

After several weeks of sampling, it's clear the team boasts the parts to be as good as the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers.

Getting those various parts to fit has been a fruitless chore.

To debug themselves, the Spurs need to play, play, and play some more. Popovich should thank the schedulers for giving him a game tonight to wash out the bad taste from the depressing defeat in Big D.

Jefferson will never learn to attack with consistent ferocity in practice. Scoring on a teammate in a gym with no paid spectators cannot compare to doing it on the road in a sold out arena against a division foe.

With no idea who to start at off guard and the other big slot, or what rotations to use, Popovich must tinker with his talent until he finds the right combinations. He needs real games to do that.

When and for how many minutes should Dejuan Blair, leading all rookies in rebounding, play?

When should the coach dust off 36-year-old Theo Ratliff?

What is Roger Mason Jr.'s role? Starting might allow him to get in an early groove.

Or maybe Keith Bogans, already proving his value as a dedicated wing defender, should get more starts.

Will athletic big Marcus Haislip see any court time? He projects as an effective situational defender, rebounder and scorer. Haislip has played zero regular season minutes.

Malik Hairston was active in his single digit minutes on the court. He played only because of Ginobili's left groin strain.

Early in the fourth quarter, he finished an athletic cut to the rim with a layup. Two plays later, a traveling call on Hairston should have been ruled a three-point play. Maybe Pop needs to dig up a few minutes for Hairston and de-activate someone else.

Should Matt Bonner start over Antonio McDyess and Blair? Which of those players should finish games?

Blair swatted a Nowitzki drive at the end of the first half. Bonner scored in double figures again. McDyess came up big with a pair of fourth-quarter jumpers.

No team changed its roster makeup this summer more than the Spurs, and it shows now.

After another distressing end, the Spurs are running out of time to make this work. If the playoffs started today, they would not qualify.

The next and only recourse for the 4-5 Spurs is to whack the road-challenged Utah Jazz tonight.

Jerry Sloan's losing streak in San Antonio dates back to 1999, and the Jazz also played a tough game Wednesday.

If the Spurs cannot keep that stranglehold, maybe this expensive venture won't work.

In years past, the Spurs offense sunk when the talent surrounding Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili could not produce.

Now, Popovich has too much talent to know what to do with a lot of it. The added talent, especially Jefferson, doesn't know what to do, either.

The Spurs threw up 131 points in regulation on the Toronto Raptors without Parker and Duncan.

They can score.

The Spurs limited Dallas to 35-percent shooting and 40-percent shooting in two outings one week apart.

They can defend.

Can they do both in the same game?

After a bumpy start that can no longer be dismissed as minor turbulence, the Spurs must do two things.

With no several-day breaks between games for the foreseeable future, and some back-to-backs on the horizon, the league office took care of the first item.

Play a lot.

The Spurs will have to use these upcoming contests to learn how to do the second.

Come together. Win.