Summer Spurs defeat Blazers, plus Coach Pop on the broadcast

The Summer Spurs won their first Vegas game against Portland, and Coach Pop was on the broadcast, where he answered questions about some of the new Spurs players.

The San Antonio Spurs’ Summer League team won their first game in the Las Vegas Summer League Saturday, defeating Donovan Clingan and the Portland Trail Blazers by 6 points.

There’s a lot to get into, so here are the topics that will be presented:

• Coach Pop on the broadcast

• Stephon Castle gets more P&R reps

• Sidy Cissoko and Jamaree Bouyea vs Portland

• Mamu was at the game

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Coach Pop on the broadcast

During the third quarter of the game, San Antonio Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich joined the ESPN broadcast alongside Doris Burke and Mark Jones.

Popovich answered a ton of questions in a different setting than the usual media scrums he participates in during the regular season. I typed up some of his quotes regarding Chris Paul, Harrison Barnes, Stephon Castle, and Sidy Cissoko.

Coach Pop when asked about having Chris Paul on the team, and how he’ll teach the other players to throw lobs to Wemby:

I think he’s going to teach everybody a whole lot better than I did, how to get the ball, not just how to do it, but when and where.

Coach Pop on Paul and Harrison Barnes joining the team:

Having he and Harrison come into the fold at this stage of their careers is really wonderful for the youth that we have. You know, I can say things 54 times, over and over again. But when a player that you respect says the same stuff that we’re saying, to player, that’s a lot more valuable. So having them around, that’s going to be super.

Coach Pop on Stephon Castle:

I love his seriousness for such a young kid. I love his pace. You see his expression never changes, and he doesn’t go too fast, he doesn’t go too slow. He reads the situations and the more minutes he gets, the better he’s going to be. He seeks contact. He’s an excellent defender and he makes wonderful decisions, so, he’s going to be a quick study I think and get to play on the court pretty quickly.

Coach Pop on Sidy Cissoko:

He’s the dream in the back of my head. When I look at his body, I look at his strength, his length, his quickness, his explosiveness. He has a natural inclination to be a great passer, things that we can’t really teach. He is really a great passer. He’s got to work on his shot obviously, but the explosiveness, the foot speed he has to play D with that body at the 3 position, I think he’s going to be a special player.

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Stephon Castle gets more P&R reps

Castle played 29 minutes in the game and he finished with 22 points (leading scorer), 5 rebounds, 4 assists to 5 turnovers, 1 steal, and 1 foul. He shot 6-of-15 on 2s, 2-of-6 on 3s, and 4-of-5 from the free throw line.

In the first quarter, Castle played a bit more off the ball. But as the game progressed, he played much more as the point guard, and Summer League Head Coach Kenny Trevino said that was by design. Here was Trevino after the game:

I thought he was good. We put him in a ton of pick-and-roll. He’s probably been in more pick-and-rolls than he’s been in the previous two games in Sacramento. He was solid. I still don’t think he’s getting enough calls. He’s getting to the rim, he’s keeping guys in jail, he’ll get those calls as Summer League goes on, because he’s getting to the hole.

Castle continued to showcase his point guard skill set, bringing the ball up the court against pressure and still getting the team into their sets. As Trevino mentioned, he ran a lot more P&Rs, from different angles and areas on the floor. On multiple occasions, maybe since he knew his former teammate Donovan Clingan likes to drop - Castle ran P&Rs from high up near the mid-court logo, to give himself more space to either put up jump shots when the defense went under, or have more room to drive to either put up a shot or feed a big.

Castle was much more aggressive putting up shots. He made shots from all three levels in this one, whether that was at the rim with contact, from mid-range when the defense went under, or, he even pulled up from three a few times with the bigs dropping back.

Castle was asked after the game about being able to take more jumpers now at the NBA level, when coming in, outside shooting had been the area of concern for his game:

I have a lot of confidence in myself that way and I feel like our team, our coaching staff does too, so, just to have the ability to go out here and play my game, it’s been a luxury for me.

One play that shows the type of vision Castle has was when he had the ball up top at the left wing arc, he was casually dribbling with one hand, then he zipped a pass to the right corner shooter, and his teammate made the shot.

On one play in the open court, Castle had Clingan under the rim 1-on-1 and he attacked him to try to get the layup over his former UConn teammate. Clingan blocked the layup, but Castle said going up against bigs like Clingan at the rim will be a good learning experience for him: