San Antonio Spurs, Dejounte Murray close out 4th quarter; 3 takeaways

3. Primary scorer needed, but role players are going to do their job

Last season, it was very clear who needed to be looked at when the San Antonio Spurs needed a bucket. If the offense went cold, LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan could use their versatile skills to will the team back together. Stretches of the game could be defined by either of the Spurs’ duo in any quarter.

In the season opener, it was a little shaky. DeRozan was relatively cold from the field, with only one point in the first half on just four field goal attempts. Aldridge was able to get going, but mainly off the offensive glass where he notched a few boards and some second-chance points. In terms of creating their own shots though, the shop seemed to be closed.

The earliest offense came from Bryn Forbes, the Spurs’ best 3-point shooter. He was finding his spots and hitting very wide-open 3s. Not only did his 3s get the Spurs to an early big lead, but they also kept the crowd pumped and forced New York coach David Fizdale to use timeouts.

Yet there were points where the offense was not at its top quality and points were hard to come by. That is when the Knicks got themselves back into the game by halftime. There was a stretch where the Spurs could not get anything going offensively and all of their looks were starting to be too similar.

DeRozan was slowed in the first half and wasn’t getting any shots up. The Spurs thankfully had Forbes, Rudy Gay and Dejounte Murray to get the game moving. Players other than their top duo were able to provide a bulk of the offense. This, of course, is a very welcome scenario for San Antonio. And the game ended up swinging in their favor because of their role players’ tenacity.

One has to wonder, do they need a primary scorer? I don’t believe that anyone is going to score 30 a night on this team. That isn’t the Spurs brand of basketball. Someone needs to step up in specific situations, not necessarily throughout the whole game. When the offense gets cold, one guy needs to be able to be looked to in order to start creating.

That guy might be Murray, as he doesn’t need to have the ball in his hands in isolation positions or post-ups. He can make plays on defense and turn that into quality offense. Besides, a three-point play in transition, what gets a crowd going more than that?