Scattershotting:
The Clippers killed us with high screens and double screens. We didn't hedge with the big because the Clippers roll is so dangerous. Unfortunately, Tiago is our best high pick and roll defender, so that will be a tough adjustment to make unless he can fully recover in the next couple days.
I wouldn't mind seeing more Bonner. He's a better defender than he gets credit for and plenty good enough to cover DeAndre one-on-one. He may be quick enough to hedge those screens, and more importantly he'll pull whoever is covering him out of the paint. The Clippers have obviously decided to live with Diaw's three point shooting and it paid off for them, but I doubt they do the same with Bonner. Everyone was too scared of DeAndre in the second half, we need CoJo or Leonard to dunk on him so everyone knows he's not invincible. The ball was moving really well with Tiago in, he just wimped out at the rim against DeAndre and wasn't terribly spry getting to the opposite side of the rim for reverse layups. Hopefully three more days off will help. 1 Bonner/Duncan and 2 Splitter/Diaw might be our best rotations, with Baynes getting fewer minutes. He's a good player but man he got annihilated three times. A little too far behind the play against the Clippers, but at least he's not afraid to throw down.
When TP plays like this, the Spurs are better off with Mills. Mills is a better on-ball defender, he makes Chris Paul work really hard on both ends (and Paul was tired by the end of the game), and he spaces the floor better with his range and extremely quick release... you can recover to Parker's three point shot, but if Patti gets a sliver of daylight the shot is gone (and for the last 3-4 games, everything he throws up goes in). If Parker isn't collapsing the defense, there's not much reason to keep him out there the way he's getting wiped out on screens. Mills even has a little more range on the midrange pullup jumper that was basically Parker's only weapon.
In general though, our offensive problems were basically missing good shots. Danny Green missed at least 5 wide open threes that are normally layups for him. Diaw missed a bunch of open threes that he will knock down about half the time. When they doubled Kawhi, we needed the big to fill the middle; Kawhi was looking for that pass, but our bigs were consistently on the perimeter trying to draw DeAndre out of the paint. Kawhi then had to dribble out which let the defense reset. That's an easy adjustment, but probably something that Pop and Doc adjust back and forth all series.
Transition defense was occasionally good, but for the most part we were collapsing everyone to the paint instead of recognizing that the first wave of defenders had already shut down the middle and we needed to get to the wings. There were several possessions that could have easily turned into turnovers or at least forced the Clippers to pull up and go into a half court set, but the third and fourth players down were collapsing on Griffin who was already looking to pass while a wing set up for a wide open three.
