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In 2014 the San Antonio Spurs, went out of the haze of 2013, not only succeeded in creating a model for the team’s style of play, but also found nirvana from the desperate situation and created their own The Beautiful Game.
when Spurs beat the Heat at the championship, even rival coach Erik Spoelstra can’t help but call the style of Spurs as 『The beautiful basketball』
“Sometimes I really wanted to say, “Wow, it’s fantastic! said by Spurs point guard Manu Ginobili. “I think we are playing at a really high level, and we’re playing with an unselfish style that we haven’t seen before.
The Spurs defeated the Heat which is lead by LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in 2014, stopping Miami’s triple-decker bid and allowing the Spurs to regain their champion gold cup since 2007. However, after the heartbreaking defeat a year ago, no one really believed that the Black Jackets, who are one year older, could done it.
2013 Painful defeat
For the past 15 years, the Spurs have been the most boring allied strength in the small city of South Texas, with a monotonous inside-out style of play and the ace who doesn’t like to talk or even avoid the media’s attention. After getting three championship in five years, this sliver black legion have fade away from the crowd site.
However, after losing to the Heat in 2013, this ambitious team gained more respect and attention amidst the sighs.
The 2013 Spurs were probably the closest runner-up to the championship in history, leading by five points in the final minute and by two points in the last 20 seconds, before…
Assistant coach Brett Brown memories, “I was like, ‘Can you believe it? We did it. We beat LeBron, Wade and the Bosh on their home court and won our fifth championship. With 28 seconds to go, we were up by five and there was a lockdown line on the sidelines, and I said to myself, ‘This is going to be the most incredible championship ever!
“And then, boom! The whole thing turned over!”
Ray Allen’s corner 3-pointer sent Game 6 into extended tournament play, and the Spurs went on to lose Game 7, and then the Spurs watched James and the Heat complete their winning streak.
“I think about that shot every day, without fail, four, five, six, even 10 times a day,” Spurs head coach Greg Popovich said. I just can’t stop thinking about it,” said Spurs head coach Greg Popovich. “I just can’t help but think about it.
Duncan’s partner Tony Parker said, “I’ve never seen our team fall apart like that. And Ginobili, who has always been a fighter, said, “That game really killed me from the inside.
Four days after the Heat sealed the title, veteran head coach Popovich found out the Duncan, Parker and Ginobili for a meeting.
They have cooperated together for the past 11 years, winning three championships for the Holy City. Popovich asked : Do we want to move forward? Or is this it? Are we done?
Duncan and Parker are still under contract, while Ginobili, 35, is a free agent, but he’s still trying to prove himself after playing poorly last season.
Every summer he will serve his country, but this time, he quit for prepare the new season. I wanted a chance to do better, and that series has been bothering me,” Ginobili said.
The new season began with a training camp at Popovich’s alma mater,at 6,000 feet above sea level, where the air was thin and the heart was overwhelmed as the team re-watched video of Game 6 of the 2013 championship. For Parker, who just a few months ago watched Allen shoot a corner 3-pointer in front of his eyes, it was even more of a torture.
The NEW STYLE
Even though the Spurs’ original team had faith in a comeback, the age of the three Aces didn’t look promising when the 2013-14 season began, with Duncan and Ginobili already 37 and 36, respectively, and the youngest of the three Aces was already 31 years old . The failure at 2013 makes the sport caster and the audience have more respect to the team.
The Spurs’ time is over, the crew is too old and the new blood is too young. But Duncan, the team’s oldest and most veteran captain, believes in fostering a culture of continuity and consistency that allows each team to better understand each other’s style of play and personalities, Our experience,” Duncan explained. “It’s one of our most valuable assets.
Although the Spurs seem like an old team, they are different from the old Silver and Black squad that have beaten the Lakers and battled the Pistons in seven games. When they last swept the James and Cavaliers for a title in 2007,
three of their four games saw both teams score less than 85 points,It’s a standard defensive slow-burning style of play.
With the new changing of the league, it cancel the hand-checking, and allow the zone defense, it makes the attacking player more out standing.The Sun’s Mike D’Antoni and Steve
Nash have created an entertaining and practical style of play and performance with their free flow and efficient offense, allowing the league to escape the slowness of the 90s and return to the faster 80s.
After being eliminated, the Spurs coaching staff went to Chicago for a closed-door meeting, where they watched the series on film and examined their plans to win four titles in the past.
In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, when Shaq O’Neal was killing it, the league was dominated by pass-first guards feeding the ball to long, back-to-the-basket playmakers in the low post and watching the giants slowly bang and push in the paint, a little ugly but very effective. And the Spurs also have Duncan in the lineup, he can score in the low post, but also high mid-range hit the board, but also good at distributing assists to curate, the Spurs only need to arrange shooters around Duncan, the offensive system is taken care of.
“We’re not as good as we used to be on the defensive end, so if we’re down in that area, we’ll have to come back on the other end and shore it up,” Popovich said. Popovich said. “We’ve got to get up to speed and make changes on the offensive end to make up for what we’ve lost on the defensive end, and that’s the bottom line.
The change in the Silver and Black has been slow, and many fans haven’t even realized that the Spurs are no longer the slow team they once were.
For a long time, the Spurs have been recognized as a successful team, but they have not been widely praised for their small market, low cost, sometimes charming, sometimes cranky coaching, and the fact that the Silver and Black don’t care about entertainment,they care more about winning championships than they do about playing cool. Now they are changing their flag just because that is the only way to win.
The old ballclub but embracing the new speed is the way to revitalize the Spurs. Instead of knocking off the whole re-practice, the Spurs are re-shaping the material at hand. The first is to release Parker, after winning the championship in 2007, Popovich decided to let the new FMVP point guard dominate more dominant, then let Duncan do not have to be based in the paint, the two responsibilities are switched, by Parker to lead the blocking, after the cover Duncan also has excellent coordination ability, the Spurs are filled with a large number of shooters as usual, the core remains the same, but the positioning changes The core remains the same, but the positioning has changed.
All those years on the sidelines, Popovich always yelled this during timeouts: “Speed! Speed! Speed!” And the Spurs have improved from 20th in offense per 48 minutes (Pace) in the 09-10 season to seventh in the league two years later.
Diaw, who spent three seasons with the Sun in the vaunted seven-second offense, said the Spurs offense is slightly different “it’s a 10-second offense.
The Blackshirts don’t play the fast break very often, but will play in the half court with a variety of quick coverages off the high block, dribble hands, quick passes, and then look for easy layups or bottom corner 3-pointers.
No one thinks the Spurs are boring anymore, the Spurs offense has evolved into something wonderful, and its long-standing evergreen strength has attracted more admiration, when Wizards center Marcin Gortat likened the Spurs offense to “listening to Mozart music.
From a dull, hard-hitting style of play that looked for the twin towers as soon as they got past half court, to a team that still relied on Duncan but occasionally improvised with Parker and Ginobili at guard; as Duncan began to age and the backcourt duo matured, Popovich loosened his grip. The veteran coach also found it vital to extend his career by reducing minutes in the routine, and the Spurs became a model team team that cared more about creating shots than about who was going to shoot them.
“That’s the beauty of Coach Pop, Timmy and everyone in this group: we try to adjust to each other,” Parker said. Parker said. “And I think we’ve been able to play both offensively and defensively, and we’ve been able to play a variety of styles.
“The most efficient offense is to break down the defense and then keep attacking. It helps Manu and Tony. “It helps Manu and Tony, Pop wants them to be one with the whole team, so he has to give up some freedom.
Ginobili’s aggressive and intuitive style of play often drives Popovich crazy, and when Popovich tries to correct him, Ginobili gives the classic response: “That’s how I play. But Popovich admits that delegating more power to the players has helped the team, and Ginoibili says, “It makes everyone feel better and more a part of the team, we all touch the ball, it’s more fun, more unpredictable.
Popovich joked that there are some things he still can’t accept. “Timmy said he wanted to play ball control and he thought I was stopping him, and I’m not kidding,” Popovich said. I’m not kidding,” Popovich said. “He thinks he’s a point guard.”
On a team that enjoys passing the ball, Duncan does enjoy making split decisions in the middle of the court, and the Spurs are not just looking to find the open teammate, they are looking to find the oversized open teammate.
Despite Popovich’s admitted hatred of the three-point shot, the Blackshirts lead the league in offensive efficiency and the importance of the three-point shot from the corner. “It’s not basketball to me, but you have to take advantage of that, and if you don’t, you’re going to get in trouble, but it just feels like a little bit of cheating.
In the four seasons prior to 2013-14, the Spurs led the league in three-point field goal percentage in three seasons and were in the top six in the league in scoring average in all four seasons. It’s hard to imagine that in 08-09 the Spurs were the slow offensive team that was in the bottom eight in the league in scoring average.
Such a new team, in fact, as early as the end of the 2011-12 season, including the playoffs, the wave of 20 consecutive wins, and the 2013 championship game, the world was shocked by the new look of the old Spurs. Can the Spurs go any further in the playoffs than they did in 2013? One more win than the 15 wins in the 2013 playoffs?
READ MORE : San Antonio Spurs 2014(2): thirst for victory
