Two Buzzer Beaters and Me Doing Some Talking
I resent that remark... Last night's Portland-Indiana thriller was certainly the evening's main event, but we also had a triple OT "thriller" and a Tim Duncan game winner that threaten to get lost in the shuffle. So I wanted to quickly breakdown each end of game play. San Antonio's relatively simple pindown, and New Orleans' gorgeous running pick-and-pop backscreeny thing that is probably the single best thing Monty Williams has ever done as a coach.
Spurs-Hawks
Of the two winners, the Spurs were less flashy, but as usual the solid execution and attention to detail put Duncan in a position to make the game winner with the slightest of mistakes from Atlanta's defense.
Perfect execution by the Spurs, nearly perfectly defended by the Hawks, and as my man Doug likes to say, make or miss league.
Pellies-Bulls
Triple OT for these two teams the day after the Pellies' season died and the Bulls still reeling from Rose's injury seems a little unfair. Luol Deng doesn't have enough to do without playing 56 minutes on a random Monday night? In any event, we looked like we were heading for OT #4 until Monty Williams (or was it our old pal Jrue Holiday) drew up this gem:
Just spectacular, the one minor quibble is the play is even more effective if Morrow is in the game instead of Aminu as Gibson would have more reason to leave the paint than he already had. Not sure I've ever seen the sprint the guy from the backcourt play used quite this way before.
I got tired of waiting for him to do it, so I uploaded the PPP podcast that Rob and I recorded last week. It might be mildly dated and my audio is choppy for the first 2 or 3 minutes, but some good stuff in there as we talk about the enigma of Demarcus Cousins, Greg Monroe's status as a sub-optimal building block, and "empty stats guys".
| ppp_podcast_11-23-13.mp3 |
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