Spurs-Grizzlies Game 2 - Part 2

Today we finish up the first rotation of the game. Everyone is still in the same place they were yesterday. Same exact players. Zach Randolph is no wider; Tim Duncan no thinner. Richard Jefferson no taller; Manu no less tenacious.

9:02 4-6

I was watching the Spurs-Knicks series a few weeks ago, and there were a couple hilarious Spurs possessions where no one was doing anything on offense, so much so that the announcers were vocally complaining before the possession was over. And then, with just seconds left on the shot clock, Tim Duncan still managed to drive to the basket or hit a high-arcing shot over his defender. It was really funny until I remembered this series, in which Zach Randolph did the exact same thing over and over. And his defender - usually that pinnacle of class (and legitimately skilled as a man defender) Antonio McDyess - could do nothing.

Spurs-Grizzlies Game 2 - Part 1

Introduction

As part of Pearls of Mystery's ongoing commitment to "stretch the game out; etch your [own] name out," we're going to be deconstructing the heck out of the Spurs-Grizzlies series.  The goals here are several, most of them federal:

1. Improve my ability to analyze basketball on a strategic level
2. Improve my knowledge of various star players and their actual contributions to basketball games, and 
3. Improve my communication and research apparatus of the above

So we're going to do look at every single possession of Game 2.  Some of these are going to be forgettable, especially in garbage time (after one rotation I eminently understand how the old saw "right way to play the game" has quite a bit of evidence), but even when a possession itself is broken or boring, oftentimes a string of possessions will be interesting and coherent.  So part of the challenge for me is to break it up into "possessions" at some times and "flows" at other times.  Will it drag on?  Yes, but after the first game or two like this, I'm going to switch this mode of analysis into 3-8 minute sequences deconstructing incredible runs or incredible breakdowns, or just basketball at its starkest and most stylistically interesting (for example, the Miami collapse in Game 2).

12:00, First Quarter, 0-0

The first possession of Game 2 is a startlingly elegant set play by the Spurs. Sebastian Pruiti shows perfectly a more extreme (and decisive) example of this play, but this more workaday possession is still a beaut.

After Duncan wins the tip, the Spurs and Grizzlies start with an insultingly simple defensive and offensive set-up reminiscent of a tic-tac-toe game gone wrong. I am insulted by this simplicity, Tim! Antonio McDyess stands in the high post (guarded by Zach Randolph) while Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Richard Jefferson, and Manu Ginobili stand around the perimeter. This is straightforward in every sense except that Tim Duncan has the ball.

As a Royal Guru once said...

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

-T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think about it.

-A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Okay, I've dissed Richard Jefferson enough. This is a mistake, and, as per my motto*, I would like to fix this mistake. As ridiculous as he is, we cannot prey on phantoms just because we are hungry. RJ 2.0 (as some Spurs fans first enthusiastically, than mockingly, titled his promising 2010-11) didn't exactly bring us to the promised land; in fact, he looked lost in the Memphis series, and indeed, the whole time after the All-Star break, he was a less efficient, less influential part of the Spurs on both ends. Sure, he had his place in the starting lineup, but after Tim's injury (and doubly so after Manu's at the end) he just did not have a place on the team. The reasons for this are several, most of them federal: List while I list.

*-"Never make mistakes, always come correct."