Beautiful Game Spurs<\/a> and think the current ball movement is enough. In 2014, they passed the ball 44 more times than the current squad, which makes them a completely different team.<\/p>\nThink of the swift first step De\u2019Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper have. Putting them in a system with more ball movement could make their jobs easier with more catch-and-go moves, ensuring they see less help defenders.<\/p>\n
One of the reasons the 2024-25 Indiana Pacers ripped through the East was because they averaged 318 passes per game, which was 49.4 more than the next East team (Orlando Magic), and 70.7 more than the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Finals. The Pacers lost in the finale, but who knows what happens if Tyrese Haliburton doesn\u2019t pop his Achilles tendon? (Count yourself lucky, Chet Holmgren.)<\/p>\n
With the right buy in and coaching, this adjustment can be done without the players sacrificing much of their identities.<\/p>\n
2. Covering the 3-point line <\/p>\n
The paint will always be the heart of the defense, but the importance of the 3-point line increases each year as the average attempts rise. On top of that, with respect to past eras, this one is the hardest to guard in since lots of carrying violations never get called, which is a ridiculously unfair advantage, and there are more areas of the half-court to cover.<\/p>\n
Coach Johnson explained to me at All-Star weekend in the scrum that some of the reasons for so many open to wide-open 3-point attempts come from offensive rebounds, transition and unscripted plays. Some stuff is almost impossible to help unless the team is going to be perfect in other areas.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, teams can save themselves about 10 points per game by defending in the half-court with more attention to detail, and the Spurs are no different. One of the big mistakes made league wide is the corner defender standing in no man\u2019s land. When the pass is made to his man, most times either an open shot is taken, or the hard close out causes a breakdown. This can be avoided by letting the backline defender, in a lot of cases Wembanyama, take care of it.<\/p>\n
Additionally, drop coverage should be used only on players who aren\u2019t threats outside of 10 feet from the rim. The second defender has to play at the level of the screen against dynamic scorers in case a switch has to be made on the perimeter.<\/p>\n
Better corner and screen-roll defense plus staying home at important moments, like the last five seconds of Game 4 of the Finals, are about trust. Being out of position doesn\u2019t just lead to an open jumper for the other side as it can cause a straight line to the hoop, too. Doubles can\u2019t happen in the last four-to-five minutes when it\u2019s a tight game or they are trying to preserve a lead.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s the cardinal sin: fouling 3-point shooters. One of the Spurs\u2019 goals next season should be to commit the least amount of these. It\u2019s such a serious concern that every player should be fined $1,000 every time they do it and double that in the playoffs. Those three 3-point fouls Harper, Castle and Fox committed on Brunson in the second half of Game 5 probably brought Spurs fans somewhere to their knees.<\/p>\n
The Spurs will solve a great deal of the fouling part by staying down and keeping their arms vertical.<\/p>\n
3. More close range action for Wemby<\/p>\n
Ok, fine. I\u2019ve been spoiled by tapes of David Robinson and saw Tim Duncan. How can you blame me, especially when they have a real successor?<\/p>\n
Wembanyama had big-time moments in the playoffs, but there is still work to be done. He shot 42.5 percent in the paint non-restricted area in the playoffs and made 28.3 percent of attempts outside of the lane in the Finals. He naturally plays like a taller Kevin Durant but some of the outside shots happened because his body isn\u2019t strong enough yet to take advantage of guys like Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson.<\/p>\n
Preferably, the strategy would be more post play when his body is ready, but to be clear, he doesn\u2019t need to turn into Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Yet, he should some day be good enough to where he can go to it as an adjustment and score a bucket every time.<\/p>\n
This could positively affect the teams passing because he\u2019d be such a mismatch that he would unfasten coverages as soon as he catches it close, and then hit the open man on the move. Having this in the arsenal would help take him from a great player today to one for the ages.<\/p>\n
Great post players are usually more dangerous on the second catch, and with his size advantage passing over the top, imagine Wembanyama getting the ball back while his defender isn\u2019t looking. Shaquille O\u2019Neal thrived in those moments created by the triangle offense.<\/p>\n
This year, the Spurs\u2019 post-up frequency was 1.7 percent in the playoffs. Unfortunately, the NBA\u2019s tracking data for post-ups only goes as far back as 2015-16, but interestingly, the Spurs were first in frequency that season at 14.5 percent. They fell in round two to the Oklahoma City Thunder that year, but made the Western Conference Finals in 2016-17 against the overkill Golden State Warriors, while running nearly a third less post-ups. So, there are other avenues aside from the post to get Wemby more looks at close range, like getting him involved more at the elbow and nail, or using him at the dunker spot.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter how it happens. He needs to impose his size more inside the arc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Antonio Spurs came up short in the Finals, but it\u2019s unfair to call the season a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85,53291],"class_list":["post-744895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-spurs-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}