Remember back in the glory days of the San Antonio Spurs?
You recall that era don’t you? Back when “The Twin Towers” of David Robinson and Tim Duncan made shooting a nightmare for Spurs opponents.
Even after Robinson retired, the Spurs found serviceable replacements like Rasho Nesterovic, Nazr Mohammed, Francisco Elson and Fabricio Oberto to make it tough inside.
And Bruce Bowen, of course, flashed the kind of legendary skills that enabled him to harrass the leading scorers of his era as one of the best on-ball defenders in NBA history.
Those days have never appeared farther away than over the last 20 games or so as the Spurs have evolved into their new order.
They are winning as much as any team in the NBA this season. But the defense had taken a big step back along the way.
In Monday’s 100-92 loss to Portland, Portland shot 52.3 percent from the field. It marked the third time in the Spurs’ four-game losing streak that opponents have topped 50 percent. Opponents have topped 50 percent in four of six games and six of eight contests.
The strong recent shooting has been bad enough. But a more telling statistic can be found in the minimums that opponents have shot during the recent games. Since limiting Cleveland to 39.6 percent on March 2, the Spurs have allowed every opponent to shot at least 45.2 percent from the field — a span of 13 games.
For the month of March, Spurs opponents are hitting 48.3 percent from the field. It’s a trend that a distinct retreat from most Gregg Popovich teams that traditionally improve defensively after the All-Star break.
It’s a vexing problem as the playoffs near, particularly as no jump-shooting team has been able to win an NBA title in recent history.
The Spurs will have to pick up their defense if they want to make a long playoff run this season.
Here are a few other notes and tidbits from the first game where either Duncan, Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili wasn’t in the starting lineup since the final regular season game last season.
- George Hill led the team in scoring for the second straight game, scoring 27 points. His two-game, 57-point scoring binge over the last two games is the largest two-game production in his career. He’s hitting 62.5 percent from the field and 76.2 percent from the line during that span.
- Tiago Splitter had a strong game again, notching 14 points and nine rebounds in 28:21 — his longest playing stint of his career. It was his third-highest scoring game and tied for his second-highest rebounding game. During his last six games, he’s averaging 9.0 points and 8.0 rebounds while shooting 60 percent from the field.
- Some nights shooters have the kind of game that Gary Neal struggled through Monday night. His 3-for-14 shooting effort — including 2-for-10 in the fourth quarter — represented one of his 10 worst shooting nights of the season.
- The team could have used more of Neal after he hit two of his first three shots to start the fourth quarter. From there, he missed his final seven shots. Neal matched his career high with two steals. And his shooting effort ended a recent spree where he’s hit 58.6 percent from the field, shot 62.5 percent from beyond the 3-point line and averaged 15 points in his last three games.
- Danny Green showed some of the talent that made him one of the top players on North Carolina’s 2009 national championship team as he produced two dunks and a 3-pointer in his 3-for-3 shooting effort. His seven points and 20:15 in playing time both were career highs.
- DeJuan Blair was limited to three points and five rebounds. His three points were his smallest scoring effort since scoring two points on March 18. Blair has failed to score in double figures for the last seven games. It’s his longest streak of non-double figure scoring games since starting the season with seven games without double figures. But most significantly, his minutes played are up over last season, but his scoring, rebounding and shooting all have dipped from his rookie season.
- The Spurs did show some defensive improvement during stages of the Portland game. After allowing 58 points in the paint against Memphis Sunday night, they permitted only 34 against Portland. And they limited the Trail Blazers to nine points in the third quarter — lowest production in any quarter by an opponent this season. But they then allowed the Trail Blazers to score 33 points — tied for second-most by an opponent this season — in the pivotal fourth quarter.
- San Antonio had only three players with positive plus-minus scores with James Anderson at plus-7, Chris Quinn at plus-3 and Steve Novak at plus-2. Neal had the worst score at minus-16, Matt Bonner was at minus-10, Splitter was at minus-8 and Richard Jefferson was at minus-8.