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Since February 1st, Wemby has only finished a game with a negative plus/minus three times. Once was in game five of the West Finals against OKC, and the other two times were both against the Knicks, including Wednesday night.
It’s undeniable that New York has a matchup advantage against the Spurs, and it all starts with KAT. Big Purr was undoubtedly the best player in game 1, but San Antonio also made some head-scratching mistakes when guarding him, which should be easily correctable moving forward.
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Give the KAT some space!
KAT’s one of the best big man shooters ever, but he still shouldn’t be guarded like Steph Curry.
There were a handful of possessions in game 1 where Wemby or Kornet were glued to his hip, which made it easy for him to drive or pass to cutters.
The Spurs should not sag off KAT, but rather stay close enough to contest shots without giving him the ability to easily blow by on drives. This would also give San Antonio’s bigs an easier time navigating screens, as they would have more room to operate.
Lastly, it’s crucial that the Spurs keep their bigs on KAT, for now. Sure, they can always have them sag off of Hart, but KAT proved in game 1 that his size is too much for any other player to handle, which resulted in a number of offensive rebounds and lobs for New York.
Even in this play, Wemby overplayed the pass from Hart when he should’ve been in a deep drop. This is a very easy mistake to fix, and once Wemby understands his assignments better, the Spurs should bounce back nicely moving forward.
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The 3-guard lineup and other rotation changes
Even though Harper played too few minutes and Fox was bad, the answer is not to replace the veteran with the rook, but rather to play them together. This accomplishes several things at once: it decreases the erratic minutes from Bryant and Barnesy, limits Brunson’s opportunities to hunt Champagnie, and gives the Spurs more chances to run actions with another ballhandler on the floor. Most importantly, it allows the Spurs to play arguably their second-best player more, who should be fresh given that he’s a 20-year-old who has…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/spurs-vs-knicks-game-1-224318394.html
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Publish date : 2026-06-04 22:43:00
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