San Antonio Spurs: Player Grades in Loss to Brooklyn Nets

C-. It still looks like Tony Parker is being affected by his rib injury. The point guard was not very aggressive offensively, only contributing nine points and six assists. Defensively, Parker was burned by Deron Williams and his 17 points and nine assists. Even Gregg Popovich was miffed about his guard’s performance, saying that Parker should have said he was injured so that other Spurs could sub in his place and be more effective. Luckily for Parker, Williams has not been quite the same player he was in Utah. If he was, this could have gone a lot worse for the French guard.. PG. San Antonio Spurs. TONY PARKER

SG. San Antonio Spurs. DANNY GREEN. A+. Danny Green rebounded well, pun intended, from his awful 1-of-9 performance on Monday against the 76ers. Green picked up a nice 20 point, 10 rebound double-double against the Nets. He also played great defense, finishing the game with two steals and three blocks. Although those stats were great, we would have liked to see Green do a slightly better job in containing the Nets’ guards. Still, that double-double and six three’s made including the one to send the game into overtime, not much to complain about.

SF. San Antonio Spurs. KAWHI LEONARD. C+. It looked like Kawhi Leonard was in a game of copycat tonight with his shooting. Leonard has a horrendous 4-of-16 night more the field, similar to his matchup Joe Johnson who also shot 4-of-16 for the game. The good news though is that Leonard bettered Johnson in most of the other categories. The 23-year-old finished the game with a 12 point, 13 rebound double-double which helped to hide his awful shooting night. Yes we would like to see Kawhi take more shots but not if he’s going to shoot 25% from the field.

C+. Much like other Spurs in this one, Tim Duncan also struggled from the field, finishing the game on 5-of-18 shooting. Duncan was in the same boat as Leonard, however, having his big numbers hide his poor shooting night. Duncan picked up another double-double, 14 points and 17 rebounds. He also recorded three blocks, making for a nice final stat line. It would have been nice to see Duncan play a little more defense on his matchup Mirza Teletovic though. The Nets forward Teletovic finished the game with 26 points and 15 rebounds.. PF. San Antonio Spurs. TIM DUNCAN

F. If the San Antonio Spurs had won, this grade would probably have been a “D-“. However, that was not the case and here we are sitting with Boris Diaw and his “F”. Where to start? Diaw was atrocious offensively, failing to register in the scoring column thanks to his 0-of-6 night from the floor. His all-around game was missing too as he only recorded two rebounds and three assists. What’s even worse is that work was basically offset with his two turnovers, Defensively, Diaw was completely outmatched by Brook Lopez, who finished the night with 16 points and 15 rebounds. Diaw could not have picked a worse time to have a bad game. The Spurs struggled on shooting the whole night and needed some sort of production from him. I guess all we can hope for is a better outing next time.. C. San Antonio Spurs. BORIS DIAW

In a game of all bad, the San Antonio Spurs bench was actually somewhat of a bright spot for the team. The Spurs reserves accounted for 38 of the teams 93 points. The effort off the bench was led by Manu Ginobili, who finished the game with 15 points, six rebounds, and five assists. Cory Joseph also played solid, recording seven points, three rebounds, and three assists. All Spurs who received playing time off the bench ended up in the scoring column, another positive for the reserves. Now if only Manu Ginobili’s buzzer beating three for the win would have fallen.. . . SAN ANTONIO SPURS BENCH. B+