Mark Daigneault | San Antonio Spurs | Mar. 16, 2022
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00:00Yeah, I thought it was a great game, obviously, a fun game to play and be a part of, a good
00:21experience for us, you know, just having to manage a lot of different things.
00:26I thought we did a great job coming out of halftime.
00:29You know, they had a little momentum going into the half, and I thought it was really
00:32important that we stabilize the game coming out of there.
00:34I thought the starting group did a great job there, and then our bench in the start of
00:39the fourth quarter, we were down by seven, and our bench came all the way back and took
00:42a lead and handed the game back to the first group, and I thought we showed great poise
00:47and, you know, played really well, and obviously, we're one play away.
00:54Yeah, I thought it was really impressive, some of the physical plays that we made down
01:08the stretch of that game.
01:09You know, I thought Bazley did a great job on Murray down the stretch, contesting him
01:13and making him earn everything and handling him at the point of attack.
01:18Trey Mann had a loose ball where he ripped it, I think, from Purtle.
01:21Poku had that play.
01:22It was a huge play, and Sar, I thought, was really physical down the stretch.
01:25I thought we made the right plays physically at the basket, you know, and like I said,
01:30we were one play away, but put ourselves in a really good position.
01:37Yeah, you know, I thought we were pretty good, you know, first quarter wasn't great, and
01:47the end of the second wasn't great, but I thought, you know, we've obviously struggled
01:51defensively for a little stretch here and thought the start of the second quarter, end
01:56of the first and start of the second quarter, we really got the thing right defensively
02:00and showed some progress on that on the floor, and then same thing in the third and fourth.
02:05I thought we defended pretty well, you know, for pretty much, you know, two and a half,
02:08three quarters of the game, did a good enough job and gave ourselves a chance.
02:12I thought there was physicality and attention to detail, certainly things we can improve
02:16on, but I thought we took a step forward on that on the floor tonight.
02:26Yeah, I mean, the shot making was obviously loud, you know, he just had it cooking in
02:31the mid-range and, you know, they played a box and won the rest of the game on him,
02:35which put our other guys at advantages, and he continues to be mature in most of those
02:42situations where teams are trying to take him out, he's willing to give it up and put
02:45the other guys in advantage situations, I thought he did that for much of the fourth
02:49quarter tonight and, you know, played obviously a really good game.
03:01Yeah, and I thought, you know, most of the guys graded out, I thought the execution was
03:16really good, you know, down the stretch fourth quarter of the game, I mean, I thought we
03:19played really well, executed on both ends, play with great intensity and connectedness,
03:25it wasn't perfect, but I thought those guys did a really good job, I thought the bench
03:29in particular tonight, when you look at the game, the individual games, those guys had
03:32beat made some big plays for us, Poco was outstanding, Maladon had eight assists, probably
03:36season high, if I guess he was really good. You know, Lindy, I thought gave us quality
03:41minutes and Sar, like I said, you know, we went with him on part of late. And I thought
03:45he just brought a physical presence to the game. It was pretty impressive.
03:48I don't think he did. I think if he realized that he definitely wouldn't have made that
04:11play. You can ask him. But I mean, you know, it's good to be in these situations, you know,
04:15and then a lot of those, you know, down the stretch of the game in the last three minutes,
04:20you only have two timeouts. And a lot of the game comes down to the player's ability to
04:24manage the game and the clock and the team. And you know, these are situations he's been
04:29in quite a bit. But you know, the more you're in them, the better you become. He was saying
04:34something he was frustrated with the shot. He was saying something coming off the court.
04:37So he definitely wasn't happy with it. He realized something after the fact. I'm not
04:41sure what it was, you can ask him. But you know, we trust him. He's obviously a really
04:45good player. And it's really good for him to be in those situations.
04:48Yeah, I thought I mean, I didn't end up calling a lot of plays tonight, because I just thought
05:08our floor game was like, really reliable and connected. You know, I thought the guys
05:13just did a really good job of playing together, keeping the ball moving. We've just made so
05:17much progress in that area of the game. And I thought Trey was more decisive tonight,
05:20he was really good. I thought basically, you know, he had another loud game, and I think
05:24he's doing so in a very sustainable way with the way that he's playing stylistically. And
05:29top to bottom. And I just thought we played tonight with, you know, we played a particular
05:34style of basketball that's scalable. You know, and that's a good thing. You know, we're
05:40making progress on that end.
05:50Coach will just about the level of aggressiveness of Pokemon, the level of maturity that he
05:55brought, especially in Grand Slam tonight.
06:01I mean, he just continues to get better. I mean, this is really ever since he got back
06:05from his stint with the blue, I think his first game was that game at Sacramento. He's
06:10had a couple games where he's taken small steps backwards, but for the most part, he's
06:14played with great force and confidence, but he's played a simpler, more reliable game.
06:19And then defensively, you know, he's finding himself competing, you know, the the block
06:24he had late in the game was just such a big time play, and show so much progress. And
06:28he's all over the place on that end of the floor tonight, make clutch free throws coming
06:32out of that timeout under three minutes. You know, I give him a lot of credit because,
06:37you know, we've really like I said, earlier in the season, we've really tested him and
06:41challenged him and held him to a really high standard. And you learn a lot about somebody
06:45when you do that. And to his credit, he's kind of risen to that and has continued to
06:50make progress and get better. And you know, we've got X amount of games left in the season
06:54for him to continue to do that. But he's he's clearly shown a lot of growth.
07:01Thanks, guys.