Kyle Anderson schools Spurs fans in a Twitter debate about defense

Josh Paredes

Kyle Anderson (Photo by Ronald Cortes/Getty Images)

After feeling good about themselves following wins against Boston and Denver, the San Antonio Spurs were given a two-game beatdown by the Memphis Grizzlies this week. The games left the team and its fans scratching their heads about how things went so wrong against a depleted squad twice in a row.

The poor performances sparked several questions and debates on Twitter. One, in particular, originated Tuesday night by Twitter user @spursDJLW.

At the center of the question posed was something that Spurs did time and time again in all three games against the Grizzlies: left them wide-open for 3-pointers. The flawed defense allowed Memphis to shoot 42-of-92 from downtown in the series, a 45.6 average. For reference, the number-one shooting team, the Clippers, is currently at 41.6 percent.

In the tweet, the question was posed: “Whose fault is this for Morant’s wide-open three?”

https://videos.nba.com/nba/pbp/media/2021/01/30/0022000304/21/3eb6caf6-8418-e543-3ca1-6c96c4976d87_1280x720.mp4

*Note: The tweet itself has a longer clip of this play that you can find in the above link, but NBA rules don’t allow embedding of that clip.

The majority of the comments blamed DeMar DeRozan for losing the switch and rotating to the corner. Some also blamed Keldon Johnson for sticking to his man when everyone else was rotating. Others hedged their bets and just said the entire team was to blame.

A former San Antonio Spurs forward weighs in

Wednesday morning, Kyle Anderson himself weighed in on the debate with two simple sentences. “So many wrong answers. It’s Lonnie’s job to x out back to Ja after he cracked back on the big lol,” said Anderson.

Lonnie Walker was widely left out of the blame pool before Anderson’s tweet, which he promptly deleted soon after posting. Anderson is one of the more active Twitter users in the league, engaging with fans and other players alike in his free time. I’m unsure why Anderson deleted his tweet so fast: it seemed innocent enough and was just educating fans about what broke down in that particular play.

Either way, it’s safe to say Spurs Twitter got their answer from a respected source. Keep being you, Kyle.

Josh Paredes

Josh Paredes is the NBA Content Director for FanSided. He has been overseeing all NBA sites in the network since achieving that position in August 2022. His specialty lies with his hometown San Antonio Spurs, but he has written extensively about the Philadelphia 76ers and Houston Rockets in the past. His social media content has been featured on outlets like ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, and Sports Illustrated. He's been closely following the San Antonio Spurs since 1997. In his spare time, he enjoys laughing at bad movies with his wife over a bottle of red wine.