Why are we double teaming Duncan?

[uberzev]

He's a shell of his former self. All those threes we're giving up are killing us.
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Lakers Gonna Lake

[lakez34]

I thought it was only me who was thinking that. I totally agree.

First quarter, we didn't. Second half of the second qtr onward, we kept doubling him up. Especially when Kwame was guarding him, there was no need to double up on him. Kwame was doing fine and it helps that Duncan's much less of a player with his injury this year than he has been in year's past. By doubling up, and with the Spurs' great ball movement, we were shooting ourselves in the foot.

[aiel]

Ya. Kwame defended duncan well. The man is a rock, duncan struggle to get quality shots off brown. My guess is players still remember thats duncan and reflexively double him.

[Michlake]

[AboveTheRim]

I was saying the exact same thing, there was not one time where kwame flat out gave up an easy basket to Duncan. He was doing a good job again, if I were Kwame i'd be pretty ticked off.

[Intensity]

I was thinking that exact same thing. Kwame was doing a great job on Tim Duncan. There was no need to double team him. We should of just stayed at home and played straight up.

[LAKERLVR]

Tim Duncan almost had a triple double, he missed the entire second half of the 4th quarter.

18 pts, 7 rebs, 9 ast.

I agree, Tim is a really good passer, but Kwame still wasn't stopping him and you can't expect them to shoot that kind of percentage from 3 point range all the time.

[lakez34]

Cook on the other hand. Does the guy not know how to use his body to box out, put his hand up or body up on defense? All of those functions seem to magically come back on offense.

Defensively, other than him sliding in for the charges from time to time, he's almost a liability against some of the league's stronger front courts. Frustrating to watch. I'm hoping it's something he works on during the offseason. He did a great job last offseason working on some post moves, which he's displayed in a few games and have worked out for him nicely.

[aiel]

If memory serves correctly, kwame was able to body up duncan well, crowd him, and at times use his strength to get under duncan's legs and force him into positions on the court where he is not comfortable. I doubt most of those 18 pts came against kwame, the likely suspect is cook.

[KwamesMyGuy]

wtf was we doing doubling the invisible man?

[Sister Golden Hair]

In the past, what has worked against Duncan is to play him honestly one-on-one most of the night, and to use the double opportunistically, when you need a stop, particularly in the fourth. You can't let him get in a rhythm off the doubles because, although slightly robotic with his reactions, he eventually does catch on and start passing well off the doubles. That's why you have to vary who the doubler will be. But I've always felt that the key to beating them is to let TD get his. This year especially, he is less effective scoring. Play the others close and do the best you can with your one-one-one defense with TD. SA is built to kill you if you double the inside. Finley, Van Exel, Barry, Manu and even Parker these days are all proficient at hitting wide open threes. It's suicidal to collapse your defense against this team. When they weren't hitting thier thres three years ago, you could take that gamble. But since then they;ve added Finely and Van Exel. Like I said: suicidal to double or collapse off the perimeter.

SGH

[CorkyTomjanovich]

[aiel]

If kwame can continue to play good post defense, set solid screens and board on both ends, then he will have proven his worth to the team.

[BraveHeartII]

[DocK36]

Time and time again they insist on doing this. They keep doubling and leaving shooters wide open. Sometimes it's against some scrubs and they still go and double and keep giving up the wide open jumper. Kobe is as guilty as the rest. How many times have we seen this? After you get burn the 2nd time? The third straight time? How stupid do you have to be?
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Ringo "You retired too?"
Doc "Not me, I'm in my prime."

[angrypuppy]

I just didn't get it either, especially with Kwame gaining confidence as a defender. It's not like the Spurs don't have the shooters to make you pay for doubling Duncan... stupid, stupid strategy.

[Sage_10]

He was double teamed b/c Cookie can't handle any bigs on his own.

[lakers0505]

I have never question phil, but i will now. Dunan had scored over 20 for the first time in 13 games coming into tonight, all he had was 21. His is begining his downard spiral i believe, pretty early too, good for the lakers , and he can barely jump higher the oliver miller right now probably , and we double teaming him ...excuse me when i say huh?

[CBaller8]

Phil was a (bleep) moron for even allowing Cook to play in this game. Kwame should have played the entire game. Make Tim Duncan score 50+ on single coverage. If he does and they win oh well then great game Timmy. But as far as I kno this has never happend.

[BraveHeartII]

Well, to be fair, it's not like they were hard double-teaming Duncan and were leaving the shooters to pass the ball around and choose which guys to take the shot(which I would call a real double-team, which happens a lot in the pre-zone era.) They thought they could recover, or didn't expect Ginobilli to take the shot. Ginobilli, I guess proved them wrong.

[KB8@LG]

first 3 minutes or 4 Duncan scored 3-4 baskets on Cook and Lakers paniced.
It was inexcusable to start Cook and send the lamb to the slaughter. Cook was abused like a 10 dollar prositute

[Wannabeer]

Guess we'll see on friday just how great Kwame's Allstar post D really is...No double teams and we'll see TD get a double double in the first quarter. The dude is rounding into shape looking healther the last few games...

[angrypuppy]

[jim155]

[Wannabeer]