» Blog Archive » Game No. 49 — Spurs 115, Warriors 110: Complain about Manu Ginobili’s bailout call if you want, but that’s not why Golden State lost

Feb
3

Game No. 49 — Spurs 115, Warriors 110: Complain about Manu Ginobili’s bailout call if you want, but that’s not why Golden State lost

Filed under: News; Tagged as: Anthony Morrow, Bruce Bowen, C.J. Watson, Corey Maggette, Dick Bavetta, Don Nelson, Jamal Crawford, Kurt Thomas, Manu Ginobili, Marco Belinelli, Ronny Turiaf, Sean Wright, Stephen Jackson, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker

By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

It’s too bad that Spurs guard Manu Ginobili was afforded the courtesy whistle given to all visiting dignitaries in San Antonio’s 110-105 win over the Warriors on Monday.

Not too bad because it cost the Warriors a win. Too bad because it obscured the real reason why they lost.

“I have to be careful what I say because I don’t want to get fined,” Golden State coach Don Nelson said. “I thought we had the game won in regulation, but the late whistle (on Turiaf) cost us the game, really.”

All the grousing about Sean Wright’s personal Argentinean bailout plan is not without merit. (Fun fact: if you watch the play again on slo-mo, you can see that, at the disputed moment of impact between Ginobili and Ronny Turiaf, Wright’s line of sight from 30 feet out is completely blocked by the bodies of both Tim Duncan and Corey Maggette. That’s quite some vision Sean’s got there.)

But what cost Nelson and the Warriors the game wasn’t Wright’s call. It wasn’t even Stephen Jackson not getting a call when his last shot was defended tightly by Bruce Bowen.

What cost them the game was missing 10 shots (eight floor, two at the line) and committing three turnovers in the space of 5 1/2 minutes to piss away a 12-point lead and allow San Antonio to tie up the game at 89-all with 3:38 to go.

What exactly happened? Glad you asked:

7:47 – Jackson Jump Shot: Missed
Turiaf faces up off high screen-roll with Jamal Crawford and drives across the top of the key to the right elbow, where Jackson curls around from the outside and takes the handoff. Jackson launches himself from 12 feet out, but his runner bounces off the iron…

7:46 – Turiaf Tip Shot: Missed
… Turiaf’s tip is really less of a shot and more him battling with Tim Duncan over the rebound, which eventually squirts to Kurt Thomas.

7:13 – Team Turnover: Shot Clock Turnover
A sample chapter from “How To Kill Off 24 Seconds” by Watson, Charles Akeem Jr., et. al: Watson dribbles into the frontcourt after tracking down the long rebound, tools down the left wing and then doubles back to give it up to Crawford (19 seconds left). Crawford drives and is fouled on the move by Thomas (17, which means no shot-clock reset). Inbounds to Watson, who feeds Turiaf high post left (11). Handoff to Jackson (6), who 180s and uses a Turiaf pick to get into the lane before kicking out to Watson at the 3-point line on the left wing (3). Watson pump-fakes to elicit a Tony Parker fly-by, which was OK (1), but after taking an extra dribble and stepping in to 20 feet, the shot comes too late (0).

6:41 – Crawford Jump Shot: Missed
Crawford takes the ball from Ellis nearly at the halfcourt line, 40-plus feet from the hoop. He rubs Ginobili off on a Turiaf screen at the 3-point line, then pulls up over a backpedalling Duncan from 16 feet. Left iron and out.

6:20 – Jackson Driving Layup Shot: Missed Block: Ginobili (1 BLK)
Jackson uses a brush screen from Turiaf out top to gain a step on Ginobili, then comes down the left side of the lane. Ginobili blocks the shot from behind, which steals a block from Duncan, who’s got Jackson totally covered from the front side. It’s after this play that Jackson drew his technical foul, and while I first thought he was defending Turiaf (who had just been clocked by Thomas on the play), it’s obvious upon further review that he’s just pointlessly bitching out Dick Bavetta. Or, after Ginobili hits the FT, not-so-pointlessly, I guess.

5:41 – Jackson Step Back Jump shot: Missed
Jackson gets an iso matchup against Duncan at the top of the key, but fatigue, one presumes, keeps him from being able to exploit the situation. He settles for a fading 18-footer off the front iron.

5:09 – Turiaf Turnover: Bad Pass (3 TO)
After a foul on the perimeter, Watson inbounds to Turiaf, roughly 30 feet out. Turiaf takes one dribble in, then picks up the ball with the intent of passing to Corey Maggette. But Thomas fronts Maggette, throwing Turiaf’s timing off. This is where Jackson, stationed on the right wing, needed to come over and take the ball. Instead, Turiaf is abandoned, and he grows progressively more antsy until he tries to throw a backdoor lob to Maggette but leads him by about 5 feet too many.

4:44 – Maggette Free Throw 1 of 2 missed / Maggette Free Throw 2 of 2 missed
Turiaf had blocked Parker’s driving attempt, and Watson alertly pushed the ball forward and found Maggette floating on the wing. Maggette drove baseline to force contact with Thomas, but can’t convert either shot.

4:15 – Ellis Turnover: Bad Pass (3 TO)
The rustiness of Ellis comes into play; Watson comes to Ellis but breaks for the lane when he sees an opening there, except Ellis has already thrown the pass to the sideline where he thought Watson would be.

3:44 – Watson Fade Away Jumper Shot: Missed
Watson brings the ball downcourt. He has a Turiaf pick on his right at the top of the key, but decides to switch it up on Parker and goes left instead. Parker is not fooled in the least, and forces Watson (who hasn’t looked to pass once on this possession) into a twisting, sideways-fading 10-foot baseline jumper that, unsurprisingly, comes up short.

3:21 – Maggette 3pt Shot: Missed
Jackson takes the ball on a screen/pop with Ellis on the right wing. He cycles it to the top of the key, where Maggette – perhaps left open by virtue of the fact that he’s shooting 18.8 percent on 3s this season – clanks yet another one.

3:15 – Jackson 3pt Shot: Missed
After Ellis skies over Michael Finley for the offensive board, Jackson takes a wide-open trey from the right wing and comes up short. Another sign of fatigue.

If you include the second-chance jumpers in the same possession as the first miss, that’s 10 possessions total, with only one drive-and-kick pass the entire time: Jackson’s dish out to Watson as the shot clock expired.

Marco Belinelli engenders extreme reactions from the Warriors’ fan base, if the comments on here are any indication, but it seems obvious that his absence — combined with Ellis’ return — are the two largest reasons why the Warriors’ drive-and-kick offense has gone by the wayside.

And without the drive-and-kick in effect, there’s no reason for Anthony Morrow to get any time. Which, in turn, affords Nelson the justification to play Jackson for 53 minutes.

What’s really funny is that one last drive-and-kick to the wide-open Ellis – left all alone in the right corner when Parker went to double Jackson on the last play – could have forestalled all this talk.

Instead, we get to ask Nelson more questions today about why his team has reverted back to its form of the first month of the season. This ought to be a hoot.

Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

15 Responses to “Game No. 49 — Spurs 115, Warriors 110: Complain about Manu Ginobili’s bailout call if you want, but that’s not why Golden State lost”

ryder February 3rd, 2009 at 10:58 am

So Nellie says Randolph needs to do what he’s being told to do in order to get minutes and no one thought to ask what those specific things are? And we’ve got Nellie complaining about columnists and bloggers misrepresenting what he’s saying, running away with conspiracy theories–yet he’s giving us another cryptic answer?

And can you please go and ask Mark Grabow about Wright’s body’s development, training regimen, etc.? We’ve been talking for two years about Wright’s slightness and no one has thought to ask about how and when that’s going to change?

Maybe one of the assistants will be more forthcoming…

thanks
Nigel Tufnel February 3rd, 2009 at 11:15 am

Your “Read the rest of this article” link is broken for me (not a problem because you get the full article with the comments, but just so you know).
Chris Cohan February 3rd, 2009 at 11:29 am

BOOM goes the Lepper.
SJ Jim February 3rd, 2009 at 12:16 pm

Good stuff, Geoff. Even with all the mistakes and missed shots down the stretch to point to, I keep thinking about the play (2nd quarter?) where Maggette drove into the lane against Ginobli and just obliterated him. Not only an obvious charging call AND a violent elbow thrown, but pretty clearly intentional, apparently (according to Fitz) a message he wanted to send in protest to a non-call at the other end of the floor. A bizarre gift of a foul/turnover, basically as obvious as if he’d just put the ball down and kicked Ginobli in the nuts. Not exactly part of Barnett’s “keys to the game” plan…
Geoff Lepper February 3rd, 2009 at 1:03 pm

Nigel: Thanks for the heads up. It’s been fixed.
Nuck Chorris- Dr. Fegan February 3rd, 2009 at 6:33 pm

Big fan of both you and MS, but your analysis of the game blew his out of the water. Why? Because you didn’t say that complaining about the refs is the lament of losers. You showed it.
Nuck Chorris- Dr. Fegan February 3rd, 2009 at 6:35 pm

and you still got to take all the appropriate shots at the officials.

Fear the Lepper.
commish February 3rd, 2009 at 10:47 pm

Geoff, you’re an analytical guy and I’m old and lazy. But do you think any coach has a worst record in the fourth quarter when we are leading with just a few minutes to play? Every home game seems the same to me whether we are playing the Spurs or Okl City. I mean it is (sick) joke. You can’t ever leave a game early because no lead is safe and no team ever out of it against the Dubs.

Is there a worse coach than Nelson. That is not a question. The reason we lost, and I knew we’d lose even when we were “comfortably” ahead, is because the Spurs were just messing with us until they wanted to take over the game with intense defence that forced the Dubs into what they do best: volume shooting with at least 15 secs left on the 24 sec clock. They just manned up and shut an inferior team down. And Nelson just lets it happen without trying to change the chemistry by bringing in bench players with fresh legs and energy. Anyway, we didn’t lose because of aruguably bad calls; we lost because the Spurs are much better and have a far superior coach on (Duncan) and off the floor.
RCG February 4th, 2009 at 1:36 am

There was every reason to play Morrow. Jackson was tired and Crawford was terrible. Surely there were some minutes there for AM. But no. So there is one clear reason the W’s lost this game: poor substitution pattern by Nelson.
Chris Cohan February 4th, 2009 at 9:33 am

Nelson knew the record on close games by heart when we lost our second or third one this year due to “defensive errors.” He says we did great last year, not great this year. The Closer BD? Nope, Jackson was playing WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY over his head last year. And don’t say because BD got him the ball– numbers say BD kept that ball more often than not. JAck, by the numbers, was the lest pass-happy “clutch” guy in the league last year. Look it all up. Like I said, it was all an overachieving mirage and now it’s done and we have the ugly crappy rotten pumpkin to deal with. The Crystal Carriage done left the building.

That guy has li’l Stephen Silas crunching and Big Dumb compiling numbers for one reason and one reason alone: Talk point defenses for his drunken idiocy.
commish February 4th, 2009 at 10:14 am

Very sadly, that “mirage” loaded us down with Nelson and Jax for two more years. Rowell must be the laughing stock of the NBA and the bane to our existence. It is sickening.
Luke February 4th, 2009 at 1:47 pm

It has nothing to do with Marco being out or Monta returning the problem is Jax .Ive been saying this for over a week now.We have gone back to isolating Jax and Mags and and turned away from the pick and roll offense we used with much success..This guy is selfish he talks a good game but no other team in the league would be giving Jax the freedom he has with the warriors and he is abusing it. . the play down the stretch the other night was ridiculous and I knew we were in trouble when he took Crawford out because he went with 4 shot makers instead of the unit who could work for quality shot the best. We proceeded to chuck and chuck and chuck and why ? because the ball stopped everytime it touched jackson or Magshands .everytime and they only pass when they are in trouble which is why they have so many to’s .
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