The No Excuses Denver Nuggets Lose to the San Antonio Spurs 121-97
Knowing Your Team, Knowing Your Competition
The average points a player scores largely determines the net value of that player in today’s NBA game. Other aspects like rebounds, blocks, assists and more sophisticated data such as PER and +/- are also important, but not as much as points.
So even though players are told to be contributors first, in reality, it’s the points that deliver their paychecks. This is a balance a mature player learns how to balance.
Maybe that’s why Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic is such a prize. He says he would rather make a good pass than score a point. And he can carry the entire team.
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When you watch a team like San Antonio play, ultimately points are the most important issue. But they are the result of when other key aspects of the game are considered and addressed.
For example, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli, the two veteran guards for San Antonio, knew who they were playing and under what conditions.
The Nuggets had smaller or less experienced guards who had to be tired due to 4 games in 5 nights, arriving at 3:30 in the morning, and on a back-to-back. They knew how they had beaten the Nuggets before. They were playing the Nuggets with 9 out of 10 rotation players injured and the main scorer out.
So we keep hearing that the Nuggets cannot use injuries or over exertion as an excuse. But our competition did use these factors in their game plan.
Ginobli, 39, in his post-game interview, stated specifically that Denver was injured and tired and that they were going to take advantage.
San Antonio knew how to exploit Denver’s weaknesses. Ginobli got 18 points in 10 minutes; Parker, 18 points in 23 minutes. These ‘old men’ ate our youth up. Their bigs then closed the middle, and corralled Nikola Jokic to ineffectiveness. End of game.
Did the Nuggets try to compensate for this obvious weakness in their condition by playing San Antonio differently? Perhaps pulling the starters out after a five minute stint and letting the fresh legs confuse San Antonio? Jusuf Nurkic had a good game because he had fresh legs.
This is why coaches are paid very well. Sometimes a coach can only do so much. But a coach has to be very smart and understand the reality of his team. These are humans, not machines.