Hornets-Spurs Game 3: Adjust, Readjust, Readjust to the Readjustment

Couple of things I can't get into over at the Five Things at FanHouse about tonight's game...

Through this series, I've noticed an awful lot of Secret Formula To Stop The Hornets Of The Day. First it was, "Let Duncan work and we'll have no problem!" Then it was "Put Duncan on West and they're sunk!" Now it's "Put Bowen on Peja! Please?!" I get the idea here. Bowen is your best man on man defender, but he's physically limited at this point, and it's especially horrific against Paul. Peja burned us in Game 2, so let's stem the bleeding with Bowen on Peja. Here's the issue. The Spurs know that putting West one on one against Duncan is not a good idea. West's offensive versatility is just too wide for Duncan, who can't commit to the jumper without leaving the basket vulnerable to the drive. He can't commit to the drive without giving West the jumper which he's deadly at. So the Spurs in Game 2 committed Duncan to stopping the jumper by playing him tight, and brought the double from Bowen. And it was effective. I mean, they limited West to "only" 10 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists. So that's not bad. I mean, they still got blown out, but they held West down. But look at the Hornets' spacing. West and Peja are almost never on the same side of the floor. The generally send Peja to the other side of the floor. Which means that the double on West, if they stick with it, is either coming from Parker off of Paul (read: suicide), Manu off of Peterson (read: more acceptable, but Manu's help defense isn't as good and Peterson was 5 of 5 last game, so you may end up getting burned on both ends), or sending the weak side paint defender, Oberto/KT/Horry to help (read: Tyson Chandler dunks all day). The point I'm trying to make is that right now, the Spurs are frantically moving 8 fingers around, trying to plug 10 holes. more...