theLeftAhead

A Sky Full of Stars – Give hime credit. Chris Paul hit the shot of his life. The ball left his hand and passed by Tim Duncan’s finger tips (as the greatest active basketball player on the planet was closing quickly to block it) by the width of a piece of paper, but somehow it got by. The rejection of not only a basketball shot but also of Chris Paul…

Over – I’m living life right now, man, and this what I’mma do ’til it’s over…’til it’s over. It’s far from over. In One Back (my first blog post of these 2015 playoffs), I predicted that “there are going to be moments of panic and moments of doubt for Spurs fans” during this title defense journey. Man, I wasn’t lying. Last night was intense. I have never been to Disneyland,…

Ready or Not – Whew. Let me catch my breath. It’s been almost 48 hours, but I’m still feeling the effects of all the nervous energy it took to watch the most entertaining game of the 2015 NBA Playoffs thus far. That was big. On the verge of falling into a disastrous 0-2 hole on Wednesday night in Los Angeles at the Staples Center, the defending champion San Antonio Spurs…

Wish You Were Here – I clutched the rose on my necklace and peered blankly at the television screen. Moments earlier, I had been standing with my wife, Jenn, in the center of the living room. After screaming, receiving a spectacular hug and then exhaling when it finally happened, I subsequently retreated to the couch and sat down utterly exhausted. I couldn’t move. I quickly realized that my momentary euphoria…

Starin’ Through My Rear View – The Miami Heat lead the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals five to four after coming into the AT&T Center last night and stealing Game 2 of this year’s series 98-96 in front of 18,581 properly cooled off Spurs fans. My fear coming into last night was that the Heat were capable of stealing Game 2 by forcing the Spurs into committing an…

Revolution 1 – “You say you got a real solution, well you know, we’d all love to see…” the fan. “You ask me for a contribution, well you know, we’re all doing what we can.” It is true. The San Antonio Spurs had not paid the electric bill for the power used at the AT&T Center in almost a year. However, this is not a story about a sports franchise…

Here Now – It was a devastating way to lose the NBA Finals. When you’re up three games to two and you have a lead on the road in the last minute of the fourth quarter of Game 6, you have the trophy so close within reach that you can almost scape a fingernail on it. Even though no lead is ever safe in the NBA, the reason why you…

C.R.E.A.M. – Championships rule everything around me, C.R.E.A.M., get the trophy. Baller, baller skill y’all. For the seventh consecutive home playoff game, the San Antonio Spurs blew out our opponent last night defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder 117-89 at the AT&T Center to take a 3-2 lead in the 2014 Western Conference Finals. In a surprising tactical adjustment, Coach Pop started Matt Bonner instead of Tiago Splitter in order to…

Around the Block – Legend has it that there is a gunslinger who resides out west with a draw that is so fast that it defies the physical laws of time and space. They say that he is so quick that he can do what takes the fastest of shooters almost a second to do (namely catch, TURN, and shoot) in just a fraction of that time. Yes, rumor has…

B.O.B. – When the hip hop duo, OutKast, released their debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, on April 26, 1994, Tim Duncan had just wrapped up his freshman season at Wake Forest. Fast forward twenty years and OutKast is the most buzzed about act on this year’s summer music festival circuit and Tim Duncan is making his twentieth appearance in the NCAA or NBA postseason. In the past 20 years, OutKast has sold…

Wild International – The San Antonio Spurs organization should strongly consider sending a case of HEB salsas to Paul Pierce of the Brooklyn Nets, as a small token of our appreciation. Pierce provided a valuable assist in the effort to save the Spurs season yesterday afternoon when he blocked Kyle Lowry’s driving layup attempt at a series clinching game winner for the Toronto Raptors in their first round match up…

Free Bird – On the evening of Thursday, April 3rd, I turned the television off after having watched the San Antonio Spurs’ 19 game winning streak come to an end on the road and at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder. My good friend, Ryan, called me almost immediately after the game ended but I didn’t answer the call because, given the fact that he is not a Spurs…