San Antonio Spurs: The good, bad and unknown from win over Memphis
By Ethan Becker
The Bad: Spurs defense still needs improvement
As nice as a commanding win over a division rival is, the Spurs still showed some big gaps in that game, and the one that needs filling urgently is their defense.
Though it got better after the first quarter, there were times in this game where San Antonio seemed to be on their heels defensively: walking to matchups, not closing out for key rebounds, slow on switches during pick-and-rolls, etc.
Now, though they allowed Ja Morant to score a career-high 44 points while also letting Memphis take a 10-point lead at one point, San Antonio was able to ride the waves and come back for a victory. But that won’t always happen. Not against top Western Conference teams, hell, maybe not even against a healthy Grizzlies team.
San Antonio finished this game with a 109.2 defensive rating, which while that’s not a horrible number (the best defensive rating 88.4 by the Brooklyn Nets), the Spurs are going to be facing much tougher teams who aren’t going to allow San Antonio to make up for early mistakes.
The Spurs also need to address their problems both on the fast break and in the paint. Memphis scored 66 points in the paint against the Spurs and recorded 19 fast-break points.
Again, while not being worst in the league-level numbers, San Antonio is going to be facing teams that will not allow them to come back from their early defensive mistakes. As difficult as it can be for a young team to do, the Spurs need to be able to come out hot offensively, and then turn back on defense and get a few key early stops.