Fourteen Ahead
2016 NBA Western Conference First Round, Game 2
Idioteque - Ice age coming, ice age coming. Let me play both sides, let me play both sides. The NBA has been put on notice. The Spurs are coming. Not only are we coming, but (over this past season) our starting small forward completed his mutation from an ordinary White Walker into the best two-way player in the game. It has been quite a transformation for the quiet, humble kid from Riverside, California. To put it mildly, The Klaw is a beast. It's safe to say that Kawhi Leonard is now grown. During the 2015-16 season, his game undoubtedly demonstrated most of its growth on the offensive side of the ball where he averaged 21.2 points per game to lead the Spurs in scoring for the second consecutive season (a 4.7 points per game improvement, however, over the 16.5 he averaged during the 2014-15 season). Boasting one of the most complete offensive games in the NBA is what's new. What we already knew was reaffirmed this past Monday as Kawhi solidified his reputation as the best defensive player in the world by earning his second consecutive Defensive Player of the Year award. Congratulations are in order to Kawhi. With a NBA Finals MVP, two DPOY awards, and having made his first All-Star team this past February, Mr. Leonard seems to be locking down awards these days with the same ferocity that he puts on display while locking down the likes of LeBron James and Kevin Durant. Kawhi's transcendence from a player chosen outside of the lottery to the franchise player of the most successful NBA team to lace 'em up over the past 20 years is one of the biggest reasons the Spurs were able to post a franchise best 67 wins this season. If asked about why he put in all of the extra work it must have taken to transform from quiet Riverside kid into Kawhi Leonard: NBA Superstar, I can only speculate that his answer would probably be, Manu made me do it.
On Tuesday, Kawhi, Manu, and the rest of the Spurs had the challenge of not allowing complacency to set in after a dominating Game 1 performance over a depleted First Round opponent. Luckily, the Spurs have an anti-complacency device that is omnipresent in the locker room and its name is Gregg Popovich. True to form, the #BlackAndSilver responded to whatever crotchety pre-game message Coach Pop delivered and eliminated any possibility that we would fall victim to complacency by playing suffocating defense once again against the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday night at the AT&T Center. By all objective accounts, we Grit & Grinded our poor challengers down to sawdust and when all was said and done and the dust had cleared, the Spurs had once again defeated the Grizzlies. This time, by a score of 94-68 in front of 18,418 raucous fans. In Game 1, San Antonio held Memphis to 39.2 percent shooting. In Game 2, we ratcheted the defensive intensity up another notch to hold the Grizzlies to a torturous 32.6 percent shooting. So far in this series, the Grizz are so overmatched that it just doesn't seem fair. Nonetheless, the Spurs must continue to resist complacency's temptation and go into Game 3 in Memphis tonight with the appropriate fear necessary to take a 3-0 series lead. While a sweep is never easy against any playoff opponent, if the Spurs can find a way to pull one off against the undermanned Grizzlies, we could give ourselves an added rest advantage over potential future playoff opponents Oklahoma City and Golden State (who have both already lost one game in their First Round series). Our Game 2 player of the game is Patty Mills. Patty was throwing mad shrimp on the barbie Tuesday night, shooting a blistering 4-6 from deep en route to 16 points off the bench. Good on ya, mate. That type of shooting from our back-up point guard is a critical ingredient to the formula necessary for the Spurs to make the type of deep playoff run we're all hoping for this season.
Let me conclude my thoughts by mentioning that it was hard to write yesterday after hearing the news about Prince. I was hoping to complete this post and check it off my to do list yesterday, but after hearing the news I knew that that would be a futile endeavor. I find as an artist, when the light of one of the greats is extinguished in its physical form, rather than create, I'm drawn to basking in the light of the art itself, at least at first. Prince was a genius. Yesterday was not a day for creating. Yesterday was a day for walking outside and submitting to the showers of majestic purple that were lighting up skies around the world and allowing them to rain down upon you. In the inaugural installment of the Black & Silver blog series, the genius of Prince inspired to serve as the theme for one of my 2013 Finals posts. Funny that the 1999 themed Fourteen Down just so happened to be the most creative post of the series to date. I encourage you to go back and read the delightfully hilarious fictitious account of what led the Spurs to achieve one of the greatest three point shooting performances in NBA Finals history during Game 3 of the 2013 Finals. For the life of me, I don't know what possessed me to write that post. It was a total deviation from everything that I had written prior in the blog series. Perhaps the mere act of choosing a Prince song as the theme of the post and then listening to it a few times in preparation played a role in the spectacular down pouring of creativity that washed over me that night when I sat down at my computer to write. After hearing yesterday's heartbreaking news, at least I'd like to think so. That's one of the magical things about the few among us who fall into the category of creative genius. Their creativity is infectious. Without question, Prince infected millions upon millions of people with his creativity for the better part of 40 years and the world is a better place because of the music he showered us with. Tonight, purple rain will continue to pour down from above. Also tonight, a band of black and silver outlaws will enter the FedEx forum in Memphis and attempt to steal a victory like thieves in the temple. Rest in peace, sweet prince.
Two Right
2014 NBA Western Conference First Round, Game 3
The National Anthem - Apparently, Two Right makes a wrong and it is now apparent that something is noticeably wrong with the San Antonio Spurs since I'm having TO WRITE this only three games into the 2014 NBA Playoffs. In contrast, last year, we didn't lose our second game of the playoffs until Game 4 of our second round match-up with the Golden State Warriors. Call it a miracle, lucky prayer or call it one of the more clutch, cold-blooded daggers in recent playoff memory; either way the Dallas Mavericks have a 2-1 lead on the Spurs after Vince Carter sank a game-winning three pointer from the corner, with only 1.7 seconds with which to get the shot off, to beat San Antonio in Game 3, 109-108. I don't remember a game that the Spurs had lost on a buzzer beater the entire 2013-14 season, so (if my memory is serving me correctly) I guess you could say that we were due. Yet this brings me no solace because that was potentially about as painful a scenario through which to lose a playoff game as someone could draw up. If the Spurs don't regain our dominant form, and continue to struggle to get the upper hand in this series, then that shot could get added to The List (.4, Dirk's drive, Zach Randolph, James Harden, Ray Allen) that is too terrible to be accompanied by links. But this is not the time to start to panic. I fully expect that the #BlackAndSilver will do what they are supposed to do and bounce back to regain control of this series. When that happens, then the Vince Carter three pointer will get remembered in Spurs lore as the sequel to this.
The San Antonio Spurs will regroup and will put forth an effort that will put them in a position to regain control of this series on Monday evening. But in order to ensure that that is exactly whats happens, we need to start playing like the Spurs again on offense. For the most part, barring a few lapses here and there, we have played reasonably well on defense. Once again, Dirk going bananas was not the reason that we lost Game 3. Dirk mustered only 18 points on 7-13 shooting. The reason that we are behind in this series is because we have yet to consistently move the ball on offense. We have shown glimpses of it, and the Spurs played better on offense in Game 3 than they had in the first two games in San Antonio (particularly player of the game, Tiago Splitter, who tallied an impressive 14 points and 13 rebounds), but in order to start comfortably winning these games against the Mavs (and not allow them to be in a position at the end where prayers can be answered) the Spurs need to move the basketball in Game 4 with so much precision that the Dallas defense begins to bend and then finally breaks. San Antonio, as a team, needs to put on the type of 'assists' clinic in Game 4 that gives Cliff Paul an orgasm. Being the most unselfish and offensively dynamic team in the NBA is who the Spurs are. It is the reason that we have the best record in the league. When we move the ball for 22 seconds, wearing the defense out in the process, and still end up getting a wide open three pointer that we proceed to bury before running back on defense so that we can get the ball back and do it again; it is demoralizing for an opponent. We can obliterate all of the Mavericks' newly found confidence and remind them that we are the one seed for a reason with one dominant offensive performance for 48 minutes tomorrow evening. One Spur is not going to will this team to a first round victory over Dallas, much less a championship. To a man, each player needs to approach the rest of this series and the rest of the 2014 playoffs with the mentality that I am going to do my part better to play winning basketball if I do it with a little help from my friends.
One more thing. Mark Cuban…
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Headline Image Source: Right Right Wrong