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Matt Bonner, ejections and more

Well, the Spurs 108-97 victory against the Indiana Pacers was a little strange. Matt Bonner played 25 minutes, actually entering the game in the first quarter. Pop was ejected in the second quarter. Tim Duncan had one of his worst offensive games ever, scoring six points on 3-of-11 shooting.

There was a purpose to all this madness. Over the next 24 days, the Spurs play 14 games, of which nine are against teams with winning records. Eight of them are on the road. Against the Pacers, who have the scary lineup of Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, Jeff Foster, Danny Granger and Travis Diener, the Spurs were able to rest key players. Nobody played more than 30 minutes, and eight different players played more than 20. Pop even decided to limit his time, arguing with a ref until ejection. It was like Pop did not care about the game. I don’t think he would have minded if the team lost. Seriously.

This season, more than ever, Pop has thrown strange lineups on the court, partly because of injuries, but partly because that’s who he is. Pop doesn’t stress about wins or losses in January or December, and it’s hard to blame him after the Spurs struggled throughout both months and still have the best record in the West. With Matt Bonner playing in the first quarter in a long time, it looked like a midseason game for Pop. I can’t blame him, considering that the next four games are against conference rivals.

Even with Duncan struggling from the field, the Spurs had no trouble with the Pacers, using runs of 14-4 and 12-5 in the third quarter to break it open. Manu Ginobili was the star against Indiana, scoring 28 points on 10-of-13 shooting, and Tony Parker added 19 on 6-of-8 shooting. In Bonner’s 25 minutes, he had 15 points and four rebounds, but also five fouls. Earlier in the season, it looked like Bonner would earn consistent minutes, but Pop has soured on his play. With Duncan, Fabricio Oberto, Kurt Thomas and Robert Horry ahead of him, I don’t expect Bonner to play much tonight against the Denver Nuggets or against other playoff teams.

Game Ball: Ginobili played efficient basketball, attacking the basket for his 28 points. While his perimeter game fueled his recent stretch of high-scoring games, this one came from driving to the basket.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 4:30 pm and is filed under San Antonio Spurs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.