Three Left
2014 NBA Finals, Game 1
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 that is too broke to pay its bills. This is a story that is much more inspiring than that. This is a story about an NBA owner standing up on principle against one of the most sinister types of people that exists in our American democracy: the braggadocious, crass, smack talking Miami Heat fan. Let me explain. To put everything in context, I'll need to start with the NBA Finals Game 1 post game press conference; near the end of the story when San Antonio Spurs head coach and world renowned no-nonsense badass Gregg Popovich got involved by attempting to play peace-maker in a long running feud. Determined to help mediate a solution between Spurs Sports & Entertainment Chairman Peter Holt and CPS Energy President Doyle Beneby, late on Thursday night Coach Pop surmised, "Hopefully we can pay our bills." Rewind to the beginning and we discover that Holt has been suspicious of Beneby ever since the latter's arrival in San Antonio at CPS Energy in 2010. The reason for Holt's suspicion is that Beneby, who earned a masters degree at the University of Miami - School of Business in 1996, just so happens to be an unapologetic Miami Heat fan. Ever since The Decision, Beneby had been flaunting his love of LeBron James and the Heat to Holt every time that these two titans of industry crossed paths. To make matters worse, when Holt invited Beneby to a meeting to discuss San Antonio's energy future last summer (a few weeks after the 2013 NBA Finals), Beneby showed up for the meeting looking like this. When, during the meeting, Beneby made repeated references to the miracle working grace of Jesus Shuttlesworth's corner three point jumper, it was the final straw for Peter Holt. Since that day, he had vowed to never pay another dime to CPS Energy (regardless of how many bills he received for the power supplying the AT&T Center) until Beneby apologized.
Beneby never offered the desired apology so Holt began to rack up past due notices on his CPS Energy bill month after month. Even though CPS Energy has an outstanding reputation for giving its customers ample time to catch up on payments before cutting their power, Beneby had grown increasing leery of Holt's astronomical past due balance (which as of his June statement) had reached $3,274,895.65. The AT&T Center is a large building to power and Holt had not paid a bill since last July. Although Beneby would have been within his right to pull the plug on the AT&T Center power months ago, he decided to bide his time and wait for a great opportunity to do it when he could really embarrass Holt. On Thursday afternoon, Beneby knew he had just that type of opportunity and took action against Holt by cutting off the power supply for the AT&T Center's cooling system. Rather than cutting power to the entire building, Beneby thought he could stick it to Holt even more by just cutting the power supply to the air conditioning system so as to embarrass him on the biggest possible stage, the NBA Finals. By just cutting power to the AC supply, Beneby cunningly predicted that the NBA would not cancel the event (which they would obviously be forced to do if the entire building was without power). Cutting only the AC supply, therefore, allowed Beneby to pursue the objective of embarrassing Holt in front of a global audience. Ironically for the CPS Energy President, as it turns out, he did not think his sinister plan all the way through because the person most affected by the lack of air conditioning in the building on Thursday night was Beneby's beloved LeBron James. With James sidelined for the final four minutes due to heat exhaustion and muscle cramping, the San Antonio Spurs pulled away from the Miami Heat to take Game 1 of the NBA Finals 110-95. Having gotten the last laugh in the feud with Beneby (for now) and because he always makes it a point to heed the advice of Gregg Popovich (his most valued confidant), after the game Peter Holt found some spare change in his sofa cushions and paid his three and a quarter million dollar past due balance with CPS Energy. He also made a sizable donation to REAP. Now that his bill is current; CPS Energy has restored the electricity powering the air conditioning unit at the AT&T Center. theLeftAhead has reached out to Doyle Beneby for comment on his decision to cut AC power at the AT&T Center, but like any typical braggadocious, crass, smack talking Miami Heat fan, he was no where to be found and was not heard from after the loss. TMZ is reporting, however, that he has been spotted outside of LeBron James' hotel room apologizing profusely and offering James a CPS Energy tote bag along with flowers and candy as an apology for his blunder.
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All kidding aside, Game 1 of the 2014 NBA Finals produced an amazing story about heat for the basketball public to digest. Unfortunately, it is not the story about heat that is currently dominating the news. If you love basketball and haven't been living under a rock these past couple of days, you are already well aware that Game 1 is being dubbed The Cramp Game and most of the analyses in its aftermath is being focused on LeBron James. Is it unfortunate that the air conditioning was broken and that the temperature in the building reached 90 degrees during the game? Yes, it is unfortunate. But what is getting lost in all of the hysteria surrounding the incident that made #LeBronning go viral Thursday night is who the real victims were of the unfortunate conditions. The players surely weren't the real victims. They all played in the same conditions therefore the heat was not unfortunate for either team. The lack of air conditioning did not give one team an advantage over the other. As many of the players noted during postgame interviews, if you want to make it all the way to the NBA then at some point during your basketball development you are probably going to have to learn to play the game in heat. The lack of AC in the building did not cause LeBron's body to shut down. It is something in his genetic makeup that predisposes him to this recurring problem that is to blame for him being the only player in the game that was not able to finish. Sure, you could argue that San Antonio benefited indirectly from the heat in the building because we are a deeper team than Miami. But our depth in the series is an advantage that we have regardless of the playing conditions. Also, winning an NBA Championship is supposed to be hard and requires having the ability to overcome adversity in the NBA Finals (however it presents itself). Miami has proven to have that ability for the past two seasons in a row (they lost Game 1 of the Finals both times and came back to win the series). Game 1 is just one game. They are more than capable of overcoming adversity and a 0-1 series deficit again. No one should be feeling sorry for LeBron James and the Miami Heat. Having key players affected by injuries and ailments is part of basketball. The lack of air conditioning in the building was not unfortunate for the Miami Heat. On this particular night, they just got beat.
The people that the lack of AC was actually unfortunate for were the Spurs fans attending the game at the AT&T Center. NBA Finals tickets are obnoxiously expensive and many basketball fans dream of the opportunity to attend an NBA Finals game. For some die-hard fans of modest means this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I know that I enjoyed every second of the NBA Finals game that I attended (Game 1 of the 2003 NBA Finals) because I knew that I might never get a chance to have that experience again. The uncomfortable temperature in the building was unfortunate for Spurs fans, especially the ones who were fulfilling a dream to attend their first and possibly only NBA Finals game, because they had to spend what should have been a magical evening in prolonged discomfort. These fans in particular, who had been waiting a lifetime for this opportunity, are the unfortunate victims of the malfunctioning AT&T Center air conditioning system. I contemplated purchasing tickets for Game 1 when they went on sale on Tuesday, but decided against spending the money. In retrospect, I'm glad that I watched the happenings at the AT&T Center from the comfort of my temperature controlled living room.
But, of course, the media has spent the past couple of days fixated on how the heat affected the Heat. This is disappointing because they are depriving themselves and their audience of an opportunity to celebrate an actual amazing story about heat in Game 1 of the 2014 NBA Finals. What the media should be covering is he hottest thing that was in the building on Thursday night: the fourth quarter offensive attack of the San Antonio Spurs. Over the course of the final quarter of play in Game 1, the San Antonio Spurs took a positive step towards Revolution 1: the art of teamwork perfected. The Spurs put on a masterful performance in the fourth, outscoring the Heat 37-16 in the period while overcoming a four point deficit entering the final frame. San Antonio overpowered Miami with our ball movement and precision shooting to blitz the Heat with 14-16 from the field in the period and an astounding 12 of the made baskets coming off of an assist. When it was all said and done, we had blown open the four point deficit that we were facing with six minutes left in the game into another comfortable 15 point home victory. How did this happen? It seems that Miami has a short memory because for some reason they forgot that Danny Green loves animals and Danny Green gets buckets. In the course of three minutes of play, Danny turned a terrible performance through the first three quarters and a half quarter around by erupting for 11 points off of three triples and one vicious dunk. As spectacular as Danny's performance was in the final six minutes, it was not enough to put him into the running for player of the game honors. Here are some other Spurs players lines from Game 1 of the 2014 NBA Finals: Boris Diaw (2 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists), Tiago Splitter (14 points, 4 rebounds), Tony Parker (19 points, 8 assists), and Manu Ginobili (16 points, 11 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, and 1 block). This was a complete team effort with each of these players worthy of player of the game honors but none of them were able to quite outshine the indelible Tim Duncan, aka Time's Father. Timmy led the Spurs with 21 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 assists and he is now just one double double away from tying Magic Johnson for the most in NBA playoff history. At age 38, his performance the other night was simply stated: spectacular.
While San Antonio had a vintage performance in Game 1 that seemed reminiscent of the old Boston Celtics teams, in both the way we shared the basketball and also in that playing a game without the air conditioning was a notorious Red Auerbach trick (enter conspiracy theorists stage left), we cannot let our guard down for even a split second. Miami is the two-time defending World Champions and, as stated earlier, they have lost Game 1 of the NBA Finals two years in a row and stormed back to win the series. Last year, we were in an even greater position than we are now after the first game considering that we stole that one on the road. We all know how that series turned out for us. The good news is that there is plenty for us to concentrate on in order to keep our focus. In fact, there is one blatant aspect of our Game 1 performance that we must improve upon drastically in order for us to have any hope of winning Game 2. We committed 22 turnovers in Game 1 which is like playing with a hornets nest against the Miami Heat; we were just asking to be stung. San Antonio is extremely fortunate that Miami was unable to capitalize on our turnovers (most of which occurred in the first three quarters) to blow us out of our own gym before our fourth quarter blitz was even able to develop. If we give LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and company another crack at that many turnovers, they will certainly make us pay. On each and every possession of the game tomorrow night, if I were a Spurs player, I would be looking left, looking right, and starin' through my rear view before attempting each and every pass. I know that the ball has got to zip around the perimeter in order to capitalize on our precision offensive attack, but protecting the basketball against the Miami Heat is just as important. Their defense is built upon creating turnovers. If we do not turn the ball over, it will be extremely difficult for them to beat us, especially at home. We are the superior half court defensive team, we are the superior offensive team, and we are the deeper team. If the #BlackAndSilver protect the basketball tomorrow night like it is our essence then we can take another step towards Revolution 1: the art of teamwork perfected and our offense will remain the hottest thing in the AT&T Center.
Featured Image Source: Rolling Stone
Headline Image Source: SA Express-News
*The Peter Holt and Doyle Beneby depicted in this blog post are fictional.
Four Left
2014 NBA Western Conference Finals, Game 6
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 start sensing that you're closing in on the title is because if you're good enough to be in that position in the first place, it means that you're also good enough to make the right decisions, execute effectively, protect the lead, and closeout the game. By the time that you've gotten around to having a lead in the last minute of Game 6 of the NBA Finals, you've not only been through all of the possible late game scenarios over the course of a hundred game season, but you've established a proven track record that you can make the plays necessary to finish. In other words, a team that is good enough to make the NBA Finals is good enough to protect a lead during the last minute of a ball game nine times out of ten; perhaps even ninety five times out of a hundred. That is why it is so devastating when this happens. The question is, when you are that close and everything caves in around you, how do you respond? Do you grab on to a helping hand and live to fight another day or does your proximity to realizing your dream allow you to become so overcome with the moment that you plummet into the abyss?
Most teams would plummet into the abyss. You would more than likely be resigned to show up and get blown out in Game 7 after losing Game 6 of the NBA Finals on the road in devastating fashion. It is human nature if you are a player on a team in that situation to hang your head and feel sorry for yourself after squandering a golden opportunity to achieve your goal. Once that focus is broken and replaced by regret, it is an astronomical challenge to have the fortitude to prepare properly to turn around and bring the same energy and execution to match a team that is full of new life after enjoying some clutch plays but also a few breaks and perhaps a little luck to narrowly escape elimination. You see, the problem in this particular scenario is that your opponent has also proven over the course of a hundred game season to be good enough to be playing in the NBA Finals and now they have proven that they are also good enough to find life in the face of imminent death. All losses being equal and as the road team, you are probably better off in your pursuit of the ultimate goal of winning the title if you get blown out in Game 6 than you are losing in heartbreaking fashion when you should have won. You can chalk up a blowout defeat on the road to just having a bad night and then try to come back with better focus and energy in Game 7. If, however, you blow the lead in the last minute of Game 6, all you have is "what ifs" torturing and distracting you like an uninterrupted nightmare during the days leading up to Game 7. You've let your best opportunity slip through your fingers and the worst part is that your opponent also knows this. Considering that this Finals series is being played in the (now defunct) 2-3-2 format, regardless of whether the circumstances that led to your Game 6 demise were you choking or your opponent coming through in the clutch (or a combination of both), that other team is patiently sitting at home counting their blessings, enjoying life, and getting ready to wipe the floor with you in Game 7. As a team that is carrying all of the baggage of just having blown your shot to close out the NBA Finals on the road in Game 6, you are expected by everyone to "fold like a cheap hooker who got hit in the stomach by a fat guy with sores on his face" in Game 7.
Indeed, most teams facing those circumstances would be toast. The 1988 Detroit Pistons, however, were a team that refused to fold after coughing up Game 6 of the NBA Finals to the Los Angeles Lakers 103-102 at the Great Western Forum in LA. Game 6 was not only a devastating loss for the Pistons but it was one of the most heartbreaking beats in modern professional sports. Detroit led Los Angeles 3-2 in the series and 102 to 99 in the final minute of the game before Byron Scott scored with 45 seconds left to cut the Piston lead to two. On the ensuing possession, Isiah Thomas missed a a baseline jumper which set up one of the most infamous plays in NBA Finals history. With 14 seconds left in the game and Detroit still leading by one, Bill Laimbeer was guarding Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as he attempted his signature skyhook shot. Kareem missed and Dennis Rodman was in position to collect the rebound and more than likely the Pistons' first championship trophy. The problem was that one of the officials had the audacity to call a foul on the shot attempt. There was minimal contact on the play (especially by late 80's standards) and this series altering call has gone down in infamy in Detroit lore as the "phantom foul." Kareem sunk both free throws to give LA the lead. On the Pistons next possession, Joe Dumars missed badly on a desperate attempt. Byron Scott collected the rebound and was fouled immediately. Although he missed both free throws, the Pistons were out of timeouts and were forced to attempt a half court shot at the buzzer.
After being so close to winning the title just to have the game taken away by a ridiculous foul call, it was hard to imagine that Detroit would be able to regroup and compete in Game 7. Everyone assumed that the Pistons would get slaughtered by Magic Johnson and the "Showtime" Lakers. Against all odds and to almost everyone's surprise, this did not happen. It turned out that the 1988 Detroit Pistons were a special basketball team. Somehow, they found the mental strength and inner fortitude to compete in Game 7 in Los Angeles until the bitter end. Down four points with six seconds left, Bill Laimbeer drained a 28 foot three pointer to cut the Laker lead to one point. Detroit went for the steal which allowed LA to advance the ball to A.C. Green who was wide open for a layup with two seconds left. As Laimbeer looked to inbound the ball so the Pistons could attempt a game tying three pointer, it became quickly apparent that the Pistons not only faced the five Laker players in the game on their final attempt but also the defense of the Laker bench as well as several dozen Lakers fans who were already storming the court. It seems mind-boggling today, but the referees made no attempt to clear the court and allow Detroit a fair opportunity to tie the game. Laimbeer, given no other option, threw the ball to the front court to Isaiah Thomas who was promptly knocked down by Magic Johnson. Shockingly, no foul was called and the game ended. Lakers 108 - Pistons 105.
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After surrendering a lead in the last minute of the fourth quarter and eventually losing Game 6 of the NBA Finals on the road, it was hard to imagine that San Antonio would be able to regroup and compete in Game 7. Everyone assumed that the Spurs would get slaughtered by LeBron James and "The Heatles." Against all odds and to almost everyone's surprise, this did not happen. It turned out that the 2013 San Antonio Spurs were a special basketball team. Somehow they found the mental strength and inner fortitude to compete in Game 7 in Miami until the bitter end. Kawhi Leonard hit a three point shot with just over one minute left in the game to cut a five point Heat lead to two, 90-88. After Shane Battier missed a three point attempt, Manu Ginobili secured the rebound with exactly one minute left on the clock and the Spurs advanced the ball with an opportunity to tie or take the lead. San Antonio worked the ball in to Tim Duncan in the post. Noticing that he had the smaller Battier defending him, Timmy drove immediately towards the middle of the paint to attempt a point blank jump hook; a shot that he had made hundreds if not thousands of times before in his career. He shot it long off of the back rim but immediately responded by attempting to tip it back up and in (something he has also done hundreds of times in his career). The tip attempt failed and Chris Bosh secured the rebound. With 28 seconds left in the game and clinging to a two point lead, LeBron James drained a clutch 17 foot jump shot to put Miami up four. After Manu Ginboli missed a three pointer on the ensuing possession, the Heat closed out the game by hitting three out of four free throws. Heat 95 - Spurs 88.
The thing about special basketball teams who have the fortitude to compete on the road in Game 7 of the NBA Finals after being less than a minute away from winning a championship in Game 6 is that they have a demonstrated ability to regroup. Sometimes 48 hours just isn't quite enough time to come all the way back from something so heartbreaking... but a year certainly is. After experiencing that and still having the fortitude to comeback and claim the best regular season record in the NBA the next season (1988-89 Detroit Pistons: league best record of 63-19, 2013-14 San Antonio Spurs: league best record 62-20), no amount of playoff adversity can seem to derail you from your quest for redemption. Last Saturday night, the San Antonio Spurs trotted out for the second half of Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals in Chesapeake Energy Arena (a building in which we had lost 9 straight times) trailing by 7 and with Cory Joseph in the game at the point guard position. It became quickly apparent that Tony Parker, our leading scorer, was out of the game due to injury. The TNT broadcasting team subsequently reported that Tony would not return. Despite this unfortunate turn of events, San Antonio (with Cory as our floor general) put together one of our most dominant quarters of the postseason. The Spurs outscored the Oklahoma City Thunder 37-20 in the period by picking the OKC defense apart with the type of precision ball movement that has been the team's trademark this season. Up ten points on the road with an opportunity to close out the Thunder heading into the fourth quarter, it seemed inevitable that league MVP Kevin Durant and his sidekick Russell Westbrook would make a run to save their season. Sure enough, they did exactly that. Oklahoma City kept chipping away at our lead throughout the fourth quarter and finally, with 32 seconds left in the period, Durant made a driving layup to give the Thunder a 99-97 lead. A year is a long time to think about redemption. On the ensuing possession, Manu Ginobili (who had missed a crucial three pointer in the last minute of Game 7 of last year's NBA Finals) came free off of a Tim Duncan pick and just buried the go-ahead three point dagger with 27 seconds left. Even still, after Kevin Durant turned the ball over and Manu split a pair of free throws, Russell Westbrook re-tied the game 101-101 by making a pair of free throws. Manu got a clean look at the buzzer to win the game, but back rimmed it.The two Western Conference heavy weights traded punches for most of the overtime period until Tim Duncan found himself in the low post with a smaller defender on him clinging to a one point lead (108-107) with less than 30 seconds left in the overtime period. A year is a long time to think about redemption. Timmy (who had missed his jump hook in the last minute of Game 7 of last year's NBA Finals with the smaller Shane Battier on him) noticing he had the much smaller Reggie Jackson on him turned to his left into a leaning jump hook with Russell Westbrook closing frantically to double team and rattled it home to earn player of the game honors. Trailing by three, Kevin Durant missed a good look at a three pointer to re-tie the game and Boris Diaw (who had a monster night with 26 points) made two out of four free throws down the stretch to secure the victory and send the #BlackAndSilver back to the NBA Finals. Spurs 112 - Thunder 107. A year is a long time to think about redemption.
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I was hanging out in the studio the weekend that Brian and Eric recorded this song in 2005. I remember that the three of us, along with our friend Matt, went to a Spurs game that Saturday night to break up the grind of a marathon recording session. I couldn't even tell you anymore who we played on that particular night, I just know that ever since then I have associated this song with Spurs playoff runs and I guess that is the reason. After Saturday night's epic closeout victory, I blasted this song on my living room stereo and basked at what the Spurs had just accomplished while also thinking about my best friend. Indeed, we are here now with the opportunity to secure ultimate redemption for our devastating Game 6 defeat to the Miami Heat in last year's NBA Finals. This is the first rematch in the Finals since Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls defeated Karl Malone's Utah Jazz in both 1997 and 1998. The time before that? That was 25 years ago in 1989 when the Detroit Pistons were able to regroup and overcome any and all playoff adversity on their quest for redemption to set up their opportunity for a rematch with the Los Angeles Lakers. In Game 7 of last year's Finals, I witnessed the same heart in the San Antonio Spurs that I remember witnessing from the 1988 Detroit Pistons in their Game 7 against the Lakers. The '88 Pistons weren't on my mind, necessarily, when I sent out my tweet immediately following San Antonio coming up just short in Game 7 last year but the rare inner fortitude that both team's shared was and that was what gave me the confidence a bold prediction and the faith that we would be exactly where we are tonight; on the eve of our opportunity to finish off some overdue business. A year is a long time to think about redemption. Tomorrow night, the San Antonio Spurs will embark on revolution 1: the art of teamwork perfected. There is something cyclical about this beautiful game that we call basketball. I've had this feeling for a while now that the 1988-1989 Detroit Pistons and the 2013-2014 San Antonio Spurs are kindred spirits. How did the '89 Pistons fare in reaching their ultimate goal of redemption? They swept the Los Angeles Lakers out of the 1989 NBA Finals four games to zero. I'm just saying.
Headline Image Source: ESPN
Five Left
2014 NBA Western Conference Finals, Game 5
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 stretch the court and pull Serge Ibaka away from the basket. While Bonner struggled from the field (0-4 for the game), the adjustment seemed to make a difference as Serge Ibaka's defensive presence was less disruptive (2 blocks in 27 minutes) and didn't lead to back-breaking Oklahoma City fast breaks. Also, Bonner's defense seemed to have an effect on Ibaka's shot, as well (Ibaka missed his first 5 shots with Bonner guarding him and finished the game 3-10). After a tense first quarter (the game was tied 32-32 after one) in which OKC came out looking poised to repeat Game 5 of the 2012 WCF and seemed to be carrying a great deal of confidence from having the Ibaka "Serge" momentum in the series, the Spurs calmly and systematically started imposing our will in the second quarter by moving the ball on offense and hustling on defense to build a 10 point half time lead. The flood gates opened in the second half as San Antonio put together a dominant performance on both sides of the basketball outscoring Oklahoma City 52-34 in the third and fourth quarter combined. The Spurs dominated every facet of the game last night out-rebounding OKC 48-35 and out-shooting them 51.3 percent to 43.2 percent. We more than doubled them up from behind the arc, as well, going 13-26 (50%) from downtown to their 6-24 (25%). Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were held to a manageable combined total of 46 points.
While the Spurs got big-time contributions across-the-board, Manu Ginobili's stood out as he had a memorable throwback performance scoring 19 points in 21 minutes on 7-9 shooting (3-4 from distance) with 6 assists and 4 rebounds. He even, albeit accidentally, bitch slapped the 2014 NBA MVP while going for a steal late in the third quarter. Not to be outdone in the "Throwback Thursday" department, Tim Duncan snatched player of the game honors away from Manu because he also had a vintage performance scoring 22 points on 8-13 shooting while hauling in 12 rebounds and adding one of the most emphatic blocks in recent memory against the no longer in our heads (thanks Cory Joseph) Serge Ibaka. While there was most definitely palpable tension in the air throughout the city of San Antonio over the last couple of days after our disappointing performances in Oklahoma City earlier in this week, the Spurs answered the call at home once again to put Spurs fans minds at ease. Although the circumstances of coming home with the series tied 2-2, in and of themselves, didn't necessarily warrant the panic Spurs fans were experiencing, it was the demons of the 2012 Western Conference Finals that caused a "here we go again" overreaction from late Tuesday night until the tip-off of Game 5. But last night those demons were fully exorcised as the Spurs proved that the Oklahoma City Thunder are still miles away from competing at a level that would allow them to win the game that they need in San Antonio in order to advance to the NBA Finals.
Now that Serge Ibaka has come back down to earth from the Hakeem Olajuwon perch he had played on in Oklahoma City after returning from vacation (err...I mean injury), the Spurs must capitalize on this opportunity to end this series in Oklahoma City and punch our ticket to the 2014 NBA Finals. San Antonio has lost 9 games in a row to the Thunder in that building. We are too good of a basketball team to lose to any team 10 times in a row in any building. We are due for a victory in the Chesapeake Energy Arena. Tomorrow night, I want to see that "the Starburys taste like Starburys" incarcerating 2003 on the road at American West Arena in Phoenix 87-85 swagger. You know what I'm talking about, right? I'm talking about that 2003 dynasty crushing, "Shaq and Kobe as a tandem" derailing, "Zen Master heart attack" inducing on the road at Staples Center in Los Angeles 110-82 "step on the champs' throats" swag. I mean, I want to see that "Dirk and Nash 'best buds'" separating, "dust off Steve Kerr to twist three point daggers into Mark Cuban's heart" executing 2003 on the road at American Airlines Center in Dallas 90-78 precision chutzpah. Am I making myself clear? I'm looking to see that "Jesus Shuttlesworth was only good enough to win rings as a third or fourth wheel" proving, "come and steal the SuperSonics and Kevin Durant away from Seattle" opportunity creating, "how did I not remember that Antonio Daniels played for the Sonics that year" memory questioning 2005 on the road at KeyArena in Seattle 98-96 swagalicious boisterousness. I know you're digging where I'm going with this, right? I know you know what I'm talking about right here. The San Antonio Spurs have gone on the road in Game 6 of a best of seven series four times and closed out an opponent en route to the NBA Championship. It only seems fitting that we should do it for the fifth time in pursuit of our fifth ring. We have finally put the "Serge Ibaka is in our heads" nonsense to rest (not only did we put it to rest, but we crammed so much Nyquil down its throat that it is practically in a coma) and we are overdue for a W in Oklahoma City. If the #BlackAndSilver play our game tomorrow evening in Chesapeake Energy Arena, no amount of athleticism on the other side of the ball can beat us. We are the better team. We here now. Let's get this done.
Featured Image Source: Ruth Gwily Illustrations
Headline Image Source: Concord Monitor
Six Right
2014 NBA Western Conference Finals, Game 4
Californication - Last night, an irrationally unsettled Scott Brooks played Russell Westbrook 45 minutes in the Oklahoma City Thunder's 105-92 victory over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals. Midway through the third quarter, with the Spurs down by 20 points, Gregg Popovich pulled his top six players and let his third string play the remaining 18 minutes of the game. After the Spurs bench started playing the way the Spurs starters had failed to play for the second straight contest (moving the basketball on offense, hustling on defense), Scottie Brooks, in his infinite paranoia, countered by playing his Big Three (Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka) a combined 121 minutes in order to prevent the Spurs C Team from stealing the game. Even when the #BlackAndSilver bench cut the lead to 10 points, Coach Pop did what no other coach in the world has the stones to do in such an important game: he stuck with the unit that had showed the desire to compete. In the end, the superstar forces of Durant and Westbrook were too much for the Austin Toros reunion team to overcome. Congratulations, OKC on winning the battle. By the way, Russ, you may have won said battle last night, but when you feel compelled to stare down the opposing team's third string point guard when you are ahead by 27 points, are you really winning? Sometimes when an All-NBA point guard acts like a bully, the kid whose lunch money was just stolen dusts himself off and fights back. The greatest advantage that the Thunder had going for them in trying to pull off yet another come from behind series win against the Spurs was that Serge Ibaka's defensive presence was in our heads. Thanks to player of the game Cory Joseph, that is no longer the case. Get some rest, OKC. See you tomorrow night in San Antonio.
“France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war.” - Charles de Gaulle
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C.R.E.A.M.
Here we go again.
Another late spring collapse?
Nope. This is our year.
Written May 2014 in San Antonio, Texas
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C.R.E.A.M. (Championships Rule Everything Around Me)
Featured Image Source: Rant Sports
Headline Image Source: Avenue Six Left
Five Right
2014 NBA Western Conference Finals, Game 3
Hot - The writing was on the wall from the first Oklahoma City shot attempt of the ball game. When Serge Ibaka calmly drained the first bucket with his lethal mid-range jumper and the crowd exploded as if Jesus had taken the stage at a Pat Robertson led evangelical revival, it was more than clear that the Thunder had meticulously planned for Game 3. This meticulous planning, however, did not take place on the practice court. No, the organization did not focus its energies during the extended break between Games 2 and 3 working through offensive or defensive adjustments that could give them a reasonable shot at slowing down a Spurs unit that had used machine-like precision to annihilate OKC in San Antonio. Considering that the Thunder had lost the first two contests in "taken out behind the woodshed" blowout fashion, OKC seemed to have come to grips with the reality that they could not compete in that chess match. Rather, the Thunder had meticulously planned to counter the Spurs through the mind games that they had been waging from their front office. Oklahoma City wagered that their best hope was to manufacture every single last droplet of drama that they could muster out of the return of Serge Ibaka, ratcheting the intrigue up to Willis Reed like proportions, with the hope that the 'chesapeake' energy this sideshow would ignite from the OKC crowd would carry the Thunder players somewhere that they seemed incapable of getting to on their own, namely - the winners circle in the conference finals. To their credit, the dog and pony show worked. The Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the San Antonio Spurs last night 106-97 in a victory that saved the Thunder's season (at least temporarily) and showed just how valuable that Serge Ibaka is to that organization.
While NBA MVP Kevin Durant is a once in a generation offensive talent, after seeing the impact that Ibaka's presence had on the defensive side of the basketball in Game 3, it is hard to imagine that had KD been the Thunder player injured for Games 1 & 2 of the series (instead of Serge) that the Thunder would have lost those two games by a combined 52 points. Of course I wouldn't argue that Ibaka is more valuable to OKC than Durant, but Serge is the Thunder's defensive MVP and it was on that side of the ball that they failed to show up in San Antonio. Even with a miraculously healthy Ibaka disrupting the Spurs offensive rhythm, the Spurs could have probably made the necessary adjustments over the course of 48 minutes to put ourselves in a position to win Game 3 in the fourth quarter if it were simply Ibaka's physical presence on the court that we were trying to overcome. But his emotional presence (which was fueled by the ridiculous spectacle that the organization put on in disclosing information on his injury status over the course of the past two weeks) proved to be too much for San Antonio in Game 3. The Thunder, led by Durant and Russell Westbrook, were almost certainly too good to get swept anyway. So even if Serge had remained sidelined, San Antonio dropping at least one game in Oklahoma City was probably bound to happen. The question now is can the Spurs toss this game out the window by chalking it up as OKC's 'pride' game and start refocusing for Game 4, or are we going to allow the ghosts of 2012 (which have been hovering around in the backdrop of this series) to really begin to haunt our psychological mindset moving forward into one of the most important Spurs playoff games in recent memory.
Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals has now become a must win for the San Antonio Spurs. We cannot allow the Thunder to parlay the life jacket that Serge Ibaka's return from injury provided them into a perfectly executed home stand that evens this series at two games apiece. While I would still consider the Spurs heavy favorites to win the West in that scenario (with home court advantage over the final three games), the ghosts of 2012 could morph into fully functioning demons at that point. Demons are an extremely dangerous malady to have to deal with in the playoffs. Demons spread a dangerous disease and are extremely contagious since they can move unabated through an NBA locker room. The disease that demons spread seems to cripple some of the highest functioning NBA title contenders each and every year and can infect an entire roster in devastatingly modest amounts of time. What is the disease of which I speak? Doubt. If the Oklahoma City Thunder are able to win tomorrow night and even this series at two games a piece, there is a chance that (even though I would still consider the Spurs heavy favorites to win the series) the Thunder would take advantage of whatever doubt these 2012 demons infect the 2014 Spurs with to obtain a psychological advantage beginning in Game 5. However, if San Antonio can get back to crisp ball movement and if each player can show up to match the focus demonstrated by player of the game, Manu Ginobili in Game 3 (in other words, the type of focus that made us the best road team in the NBA this season), the Spurs will have a good shot a beginning the process of squeezing the life out of the Thunder's season with a prototypical #BlackAndSilver road playoff win in Game 4.
The 2012 OKC Thunder flipped the script on the 2012 SA Spurs by elevating their overall play as a team and matching the Spurs offensive ball movement in a 'student becomes the teacher' dominating way. That is not what transpired last night. The Thunder's offense was still stagnant for big stretches and they still turned the ball over more times than the Spurs (18-16) over the course of the ball game. Last night, OKC relied on the manufactured energy of the courageous return of Serge Ibaka to make a few more plays than the Spurs in key stretches of the game. San Antonio lost the game because we were not quite mentally ready enough to absorb the blows and get right back to playing our style of basketball. OKC showed nothing, however, last night to indicate that they had flipped a switch to become the better overall basketball team as they did in the 2012 series. This looked, more than anything, like a sloppy road performance by the Spurs where we had an off-shooting night and couldn't establish enough of our own pace to deal with the crazy, delusional crowd energy generated by the heroic return of 'Willis' Ibaka from the toil and suffering of an entire week on the injured list. Gimmicks and manufactured energy might get you a playoff win agains the 2014 San Antonio Spurs, but it is going to take something more sustainable than that to beat us four out of five times. Even though the Spurs now face our first legitimate 'must win' game since Game 7 of our first round series with the Dallas Mavericks, I fully expect the Spurs to be ready for the Game 4 challenge and to put ourselves in a position to put the Thunder up against he brink. Sure, the Hollywood scripted triumphant Ibaka return to the lineup has made the task at hand exponentially more difficult and yes, I'm sure that for the betterment of the californication of the NBA, the league has high hopes that the Ibaka storyline will continue to prove fruitful and help propel league MVP, Kevin Durant and Oklahoma City into the Finals to face LeBron James in another ratings bonanza, but the Spurs have worked too hard and come way too far to allow the inferior Thunder to derail our bullet train journey back to the finish line. Hollywood gimmicks are fun for a night, even for a night in a place as different from Hollywood as Oklahoma City, but real story telling takes hard work and a tenacious ability to overcome adversity, which in the end is the essence of the Willis Reed story. There is, however, a real Pulitzer Prize worthy story being written during these 2014 NBA playoffs. And it is a tale about redemption.
Featured Image Source: AllHipHop.com
Headline Image Source: 3 Man Weave
Six Left
2014 NBA Western Conference Finals, Game 2
All Along The Watchtower - There are two things that you need to know about Danny Green. The first is that Danny Green loves animals. And the second? Danny Green lives downtown and apparently his property is conveniently located near a KFC with a great lunch special because if you give him an ounce of daylight, Danny Green gets buckets. The Oklahoma City Thunder are quickly learning that the San Antonio Spurs' high powered offensive attack is extremely potent and in order to take something away, you are going to be forced to give something else up. Right now, Danny has his three point jumper locked in which means that his is not a poison that you want to pick. Green obliterated OKC's undermanned roster on Wednesday night dropping three point dagger after three point dagger over the Thunder's scrambling perimeter defenders. When it was all said and done, he had put a brutally efficient 21 points on the scoreboard on 7-10 from downtown. Through the first two games of the Western Conference Finals, Danny Green is now 11-15 from the arc and is currently making Scottie Brooks' already difficult task of disarming weapons in San Antonio's offensive arsenal virtually impossible. Oh my goodness, my apologies. There is actually one more thing that you need to know about Danny Green. Besides loving animals and living downtown, Danny also enjoys dabbling in public relations during his free time. His passion for the sanctity of the written word was undeniable earlier this week because Danny, who earned player of the game honors, was able to find some time in his busy schedule to serve as the head writer of the emphatic 112-72 Game 2 statement that the Spurs authored Wednesday at the AT&T Center.
If the 2-0 cushion that the Spurs have laid out for ourselves in the 2014 WCF seems familiar, that is because we have now put ourselves in this position for the third straight season. If this familiarity somehow seems eery this time around, it is probably because we blew the first of these 2-0 WCF leads two years ago against this very same franchise. However, while the skeletons of that terrible collapse (the Spurs lost 4 straight to relinquish the 2012 Western Conference championship to the Thunder) are souring what is otherwise quite a joyous time to be a Spurs fan, it is important to remember that while this is the same franchise that turned the tables on us two years ago, it is not the same team. James Harden is not walking through the door to lace 'em up for OKC alongside Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant tomorrow night at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Serge Ibaka is not walking through the door to lace 'em up for OKC alongside...wait (Jon Stewart Daily Show-esque pause to listen to the voice in my earpiece)...I'm being told that Serge Ibaka is probably walking through that door. In a stunning development that could also be labeled as the least surprising news to come out of the 2014 NBA playoffs, the Oklahoma City Thunder have announced that Ibaka's status has been upgraded from 'out for the remainder of the playoffs' to 'day-to-day.' While the return of Serge Ibaka will certainly galvanize a Thunder team that needs just such a jolt to rebound from the shellacking they took in San Antonio, we should also keep it in mind that Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs are carrying the same skeletons from the 2012 series (which are currently clouding over the Alamo City's otherwise jubilant demeanor) up to Oklahoma City with the team this weekend. The Spurs will arrive up there ready to play basketball with the 'appropriate fear.' The core unit of the team that blew that 2-0 series lead in 2012 is walking into Chesapeake Energy Arena tomorrow night, not only playing as a superior unit to the 2012 squad, but also focused on not repeating the mistakes of the past. So, yes, this Spurs fan hopes that the Thunder are at full strength for tomorrow night's contest and that Serge Ibaka is able to add something to that team that was clearly missing here in San Antonio. I am confident that even with the defensive presence of Ibaka on the other side of the basketball, the Spurs will show the Thunder that their trouble in keeping pace with us has had less to do with their injury woes and more to do with the fact that we are simply too hot. If the #BlackAndSilver continue to play our game, our good neighbors to the north will receive the press release soon enough that there is a man from San Antonio who lives downtown, loves animals, and gets buckets.
Featured Image Source: Home Waters
Headline Image Source: Lifestyle Mirror
Seven Left
2014 NBA Western Conference Finals, Game 1
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 it that this man is so speedy that he stopped training with Usain Bolt during his off-season in the summer because he was tired of being held up. This gunslinger, who spent the better part of the last decade searching for precious metals out in California, is so freaking speed of light shattering velocious that he has already had the iPhone 6 for a month but has decided to stop using it because he finds its processing speed too cumbersome to keep up with the Tianhe-2 velocity that his fingers type text message responses like "No Kobe, I still think you're better than Kevin" or "Hey Phil, I'm sorry but it's over...It's not you, it's me." By around 2011, people were starting to think that tales of this mythical gunslinger might just be made-up fables that parents in Los Angeles have their nannies tell their children as bedtime stories at night while they are out on the town networking to land their next reality television audition. But then a couple of years ago, as if out of nowhere, Derick Fisher turned up down in Oklahoma. Apparently, Kobe Bryant's coattails had just become so worn and tattered that he thought he might give Kevin Durant's a try. Last night, 'Point Four' Fisher returned to Texas and the AT&T Center, the scene of his most infamous robbery, to once again face the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference playoffs.
The old gunslinger came out firing in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, scoring 16 points on 4-6 shooting (all three point attempts) and helped keep his Oklahoma City Thunder within striking distance during the first half of a game that could have very easily gotten away from them early. Fisher, seemingly was the only player that was able to remain calm and help Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook attempt to deal with the dangerous proposition that the Spurs are coming. The grizzled veteran was OKC's third leading scorer on the night but, in the end, it was an exercise in futility as the Spurs indeed were coming and coming in waves. Tim Duncan, on his way to player of the game honors, led 5 Spurs players in double figures with 27 points on 11-19 shooting and was able to score at will in the paint in the absence of Serge Ibaka. As a team, San Antonio shot 31-43 down in the interior (72.1 percent) for 62 points in the paint. While league MVP, Kevin Durant, and his all-star teammate, Russel Westbrook, played well in stretches, Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard led the Spurs' perimeter defense to contain the electric duo to a manageable 53 points on 19-40 shooting. Oh, Kawhi also did this last night.
Considering that OKC's superstars received next to no help on the offensive end, other than Fisher and Reggie Jackson (who chipped in 13 points), they were hard-pressed to have a realistic chance to keep pace with the Spurs offense (and the easy shots it was creating) for 48 minutes. The Thunder were forced to experiment with unconventional lineups and were never able to get into a sustained offensive rhythm as a team. In the end, the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder 122-105 last night to strike first in the 2014 Western Conference Finals. While the victory seemed to come almost as easily as we have been generating wins since Game 7 of the series with the Mavericks, Spurs fans should continue to remain cautiously optimistic. As long as Durant and Westbrook are on the court, no lead in a game or in the series is ever secure and we need to continue to bring the same focused teamwork tomorrow night for Game 2 that we had last night in order to beat them again. And even if we are able to win tomorrow and protect home court advantage, the KD led Oklahoma City Thunder are one of only two teams that have forced the Spurs to surrender a 2-0 advantage in a seven game series during the Tim Duncan era (2012 Western Conference Finals). The 2004 Los Angeles Lakers were the other team to force the Spurs to blow a 2-0 series lead and Derick Fisher was one of the biggest contributors to that comeback series win. While I will go to my grave believing that if it is impossible to catch and shoot in three tenths of a second, then it must also be impossible to catch, TURN, and shoot in four tenths of a second, the Spurs have plenty to be focused on in the here and now. The Oklahoma City Thunder, even without Ibaka, are one of the most dangerous opponents that the Spurs have faced in recent playoff runs and we must be locked in for 48 minutes in order to beat them. The old gunslinger, Derick Fisher, will be trying to round up a posse that can keep the game close tomorrow night and put him in the position to have a shot to rob the AT&T Center blind one last time. But as long as the #BlackAndSilver play as a team and look out for each other by keeping our eyes on the fastest draw in the west from all along the watchtower, San Antonio will put ourselves in a position to show Oklahoma City how insurmountable a 2-0 series lead might be in 2014.
Four Right
2014 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 4
Santeria - It was just one of those things. On the way to the Moda Center for Game 4 of the Western Conference Semifinals, a Portland TriMet bus came out of no where to inappropriately violate the space of one of the Spurs' team buses. Or maybe the driver of the Spurs' bus simply swerved after seeing that a snake was suspiciously slivering right smack dab down the center of the road. Either way, a minor accident caused a delay in the arrival of some of the Spurs players to the arena. While we have no way to substantiate it, it has been brought to our attention that the following conversation was overheard between Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard on the bus during the delay as they attempted to kill time waiting to arrive for the game.
Danny: Hey Whi, this is crazy. I can't believe we're stuck here just waiting to get to the game. I'm bored. What are you reading?"
Kawhi: Man, I'm reading that Black & Silver blog. It's good.
Danny: Nice. I love reading that Black & Silver, our team gets mad karma when people share those blog posts online. Someone should start sharing the Black & Silver blog series on the Spurs' reddit page and we will mos def get the karma we need to close out the Blazers tonight.
Kawhi: I don't know, D. The good people that are over there running our page on that website seem to care way more about "karma" points than they care about real karma for our squad.
Danny: That's too bad. Hopefully that type of nonsense doesn't mess up our karma tonight and we can still go out there and get this sweep.
* * *
After finally arriving at the arena, the San Antonio Spurs gave away a magnificent opportunity to punch our ticket to the Western Conference Finals last night by allowing the Portland Trail Blazers to get loose for a massive third quarter. The Blazers outscored the Spurs 35-20 in the third which provided them with the cushion that they needed to keep our reserves at bay in the fourth and defeat the Spurs by a final score of 103-92 in Game 4 of this Western Conference Semifinal series. Player of the game, Boris Diaw, had 12 points on 6-8 shooting but that was the one bright spot for a Spurs squad who collectively had an abysmal shooting night, going 39-88 from the field including 3-18 from downtown while also balancing out Game 3's perfect free throw shooting performance by shooting an inadequate 11-19 last night. While LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard clearly looked more comfortable and had their best combined shooting night of the series thus far as a duo (a combined 19-37 from the field), it was an all-around team effort by the Blazers that made Spurs fans' hopes for a sweep fall apart quicker than a Donald Sterling damage control interview. The Blazers supporting cast combined for 59 points and were instrumental in turning a close ballgame into a blowout during the third quarter. While the floodgates opened when Nicolas Batum converted a four point play that doubled the Blazer lead from four to eight, the overall second half catalyst for the Blazers was little-used Will Barton who filled the Moe Williams' role of Spur-killer who comes off the bench to torch our squad. With Williams out for the second straight game due to injury, Barton scored 17 points on 7-13 shooting and capped off his night by beating on his chest while hanging on the rim after converting an alley-oop dunk against the Spurs' third stringers in garbage time. While there is certainly no need to panic yet down here in South Texas, the #BlackAndSilver need to regroup after a bad shooting night and come out refocused and re-energized so that we can play Game 5 back here at home tomorrow night as if it were another Game 7 and we are facing elimination again. Portland will be itching to capitalize on their newly found rhythm and, with nothing to lose, they will be ready to hoop free and loose at the AT&T Center; and playing with that type of swagger is potentially when they are at their most dangerous. The longer that this series drags out, the more confident the young Blazers will become and the last thing that we need is to have to scratch and claw our way into the conference finals. We need our sharp shooters to get back to being comfortable so that we can get the Portland defense back on their heals and in a constant bob and weave as they scramble to defend our three point bombs over Broadway. If the Spurs get back to playing our game, we can and should turn the lights out on a fine Portland Trail Blazers season tomorrow.
* * *
Danny: Man, Whi. Now we have to go back home and try to close out the Blazers on Wednesday night. You really got me thinking about this Black & Silver blog before the game and how much karma our team gets when people show love and share the Black & Silver series in pursuit of the greater goal of working together as a community to try to win this chip.
Kawhi: It is good.
Nine Left
2014 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 3
Time Is The Enemy - At the St. Mary's University graduation ceremony yesterday, one of the graduates ripped off his robe after walking the stage to reveal that he had written "Go Spurs Go" on his chest. Now, besides being hilarious, that was just about as #BlackAndSilver...#playoffs as it gets and, as it turns out, it was also just about the most dramatic thing that happened yesterday with regards to the San Antonio Spurs Western Conference Semifinal match up with the Portland Trail Blazers. For the third time in a row in this second round series, the Spurs did our best to mimic the performance that we had in Game 7 of our first round series with the Dallas Mavericks by pummeling Portland 118-103; this time on their home turf in front of more than 20,000 desperate Blazers fans at the Moda Center. Tony Parker continued to set the tone by jumping on the Blazers early, scoring 8 points on 4-5 shooting in the first few minutes of the game. Because of Tony's hot shooting at the start, Portland was unable to use the energy of the crowd to establish an offensive rhythm for the game that might have allowed them the opportunity to play from ahead for the first time in the series. While the Blazers led briefly in the first quarter, the Spurs didn't seem to have a problem reestablishing a lead and once again were able to blow the game open in the second quarter. When it was all said and done, Tony Parker (who was once again the player of the game) had put together another MVP caliber stat line with 29 points on 12-20 shooting and 6 assists.
Even though Portland was able to once again play measurably better in the second half, they were never able to really put the outcome of the game in jeopardy. One of the reasons that the Blazers were never able to turn the corner is that, while they took a page of the Mavericks defensive playbook and used committing a lot of hard fouls as a tactic in trying to slow down the Spurs offense, San Antonio uncharacteristically caught fire from the charity stripe. The Spurs tallied a perfect 25-25 from the free throw line last night which allowed us to fend off the runs that the Blazers were able to put together and maintain a comfortable lead on the score board throughout the second half. In the post game press conference, a befuddled Tony remarked in reference to the Spurs' perfect free throw shooting, "That's not going to happen again. We're one of the worst teams in free throws, ya know?" Whether or not the Spurs might be able to repeat that free throw shooting performance later on during this year's playoff run, it certainly helped San Antonio put Portland on the brink of elimination heading into tomorrow night's Game 4. While Portland is capable of putting together a performance tomorrow that would allow them to avoid the embarrassment of a sweep, I'm sure most Spurs fans are well aware of the statistics that the Blazers are facing having dug themselves a 0-3 hole in the series. Even though pretty much every San Antonio fan probably believes that this series is over because no NBA team has ever comeback from down 0-3 in an NBA playoff series, we can also rest assured that these statistics do not comfort Coach Pop and his players one bit and that they are going to show up tomorrow evening focused and determined to go ahead and take care of business in Game 4 so that we don't have to risk any possibility that we might become the first team to blow a 3-0 lead in an NBA playoff series. Hopefully the Spurs will continue to remain locked into this spiritual plane of basketball Santeria that we have channeled in order to play our best basketball of the season over the course of the last week. After the grueling demands of a seven game war with the Mavericks in the first round, and given that the match up on the other side of the bracket between the Thunder and the Clippers could produce a long, hard fought series, it would benefit the Spurs a great deal to take care of business tomorrow and give ourselves some much needed time of to recuperate and prepare for the Western Conference Finals. With Coach Pop serving as our Babaaláwo, or father who knows the secrets, there is no reason to think that the San Antonio Spurs can't continue down our path of righteousness and find one more dominant performance tomorrow night to put this series to rest and give ourselves some in the process.
Featured Image Source: The Music Pool
Headline Image Source: News 4 San Antonio on Facebook
Ten Left
2014 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 2
Heirplanes - In another brilliant performance, two-time NBA all-star and first-time MVP candidate Kawhi Leonard took the air out of the Staples Center last night with a suffocating all-around display of his versatile skills as a basketball player. The Los Angeles Lakers seemed flabbergasted with their inability to contain Leonard on either end of the court as Kawhi, who is this generation's closest attempt at reincarnating the talents of Scottie Pippen, went for 24 points on 8-12 shooting, 14 rebounds, 7 assists, 6 steals, and 5 blocked shots in 38 minutes of play. The San Antonio Spurs now have a commanding 3-1 lead in this Western Conference Semifinal series, defeating the Lakers 107-89, and Kobe Bryant's hopes of having one more opportunity to return to the NBA Finals (before his impending retirement at the end of this season) with newly acquired teammates Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook seem to be slipping away. The Spurs, on the other hand, are rounding into playoff form once again and, thanks to the emergence of Leonard, have an excellent opportunity to make what most experts six months ago would have dismissed as another improbable run at capturing the 2016 NBA Championship.
We are phantoms of the futureOrdinaries from the super but we are highSing your anthems to your rulersDisconnect from their medullas and be alive
Ladies and gentleman, I've just been afforded the rare opportunity to peer into the future and what I have seen could shake the foundation of the conventional wisdom that the NBA Analyst Industrial Complex was built upon. What I have seen could very well threaten the very existence of any future relationship between the two concepts "NBA Expert" and "Credibility." What I have seen, ladies and gentlemen, which could potentially burst the entire NBA 'talking heads' bubble which has been expanding year after year to allow more and more participants to amass huge piles of cash simply by regurgitating the lazy and baseless argument that the San Antonio Spurs are too old, is that THE FUTURE IS NOW. In another brilliant performance, future NBA all-star and future MVP candidate Kawhi Leonard electrified the AT&T Center crowd last night with a breathtaking all-around display of his versatile skills as a basketball player. The Portland Trail Blazers, who opted to try to contain Tony Parker by guarding San Antonio's all-world point guard with the bigger Wesley Mathews, were punished for the decision by Leonard who punched the clock to collect 20 points on 8-9 shooting (4-4 from downtown), 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 blocked shots, and player of the game honors in only 28 minutes of play. In large part because of the performance of the third-year future superstar, our old-as-dirt Spurs (who most experts predicted would run into problems with Portland's youth and athleticism) recorded our third blowout victory in a row defeating the Blazers 114-97 to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the Western Conference Semifinal series.
While this series is far from over, and the Blazers are perfectly capable of using the energy from their own frantic crowd and their imposing home court advantage at the Moda Center to return the favor by winning both of their home games, could we at least please pass a law that bans NBA analysts from continued employment if they keep insisting on regurgitating this tired argument that the Spurs are old? It is simply not true. Yes, Tim Duncan (a.k.a. Time's Father) and Manu Ginobili (a.k.a. Time's batshit crazy uncle) are "old" by NBA standards but they are both playing exceptionally well during this playoff run and are extremely energetic right now because they just finished their fifth regular season in a row where they were provided with measured rest. Tony Parker is still in his prime at age 32 and The Big Three is surrounded by young talent. Of the other Spurs who are playing major minutes in the playoffs, Boris Diaw is 32, Tiago Splitter is 29, Marco Belinelli is 28, Danny Green is 26, Patty Mills is 25, and Kawhi Leonard is freaking 22 years old. The San Antonio Spurs are not an old basketball team. The average age of the Spurs is 28.5 which, by comparison, makes a Miami Heat team practice (with the Heat's average team age of 30.3) look like an AARP convention. Combine that with the fact that the Spurs rotation players played the fewest minutes of any team in the league in 2013-14 with no player on the squad averaging even 30 minutes a game and you have yourself a situation where the vast majority of the national media members who cover the NBA professionally have exactly no idea what they are talking about with regards to this squad when factoring age into our title prospects.
As stated above, the Blazers are a talented group that have the physical talent to get right back in this series over the next few days. However, if the #BlackAndSilver can weather the initial burst that Portland will come out with tomorrow night from the urgency of playing with their back up against the wall and because they will be fueled with extra adrenaline from the energy of their home crowd, the best road team in the NBA will have a reasonable opportunity to impose our will over the course of the 48 minute game and put ourselves in the position to erase any of our opponent's belief that they can still win the series by taking a commanding 3-0 lead. The future is now and if Kawhi Leonard can spend the next few days continuing to take positive steps in his inevitable development into becoming an NBA superstar, the Spurs will simply put one too many weapons onto the court for the Blazers to have the ability to stop. Sure, in the end, the NBA analysts are right; time is the enemy. But it works both ways. The Portland Trail Blazers may just be too inexperienced to be ready for a moment that they might very well be ready to thrive in after a couple more trips to the playoffs and a couple more years down the road. So sure, time is the enemy and one day time will catch up to Tim Duncan and the Spurs, too. But for right now, during the 2014 NBA playoffs, I think that it is much more the enemy of the good folks who are getting ready to host their first Western Conference Semifinal game in 14 years tomorrow evening up in the Pacific Northwest than it is for those of us who will be down here sipping margaritas on the River Walk in preparation for the game. Time is certainly more the enemy, this season, of our good friends who will be slamming Jager Bombs on South Beach this weekend than it us for those of us over here in South Texas who know a little secret; when that inevitable day does come that time finally starts tapping Timmy on the shoulder, it will simultaneously be getting left in Kawhi's perennial all-star dust. Sure, time is the enemy. But for the 2013-14 San Antonio Spurs, perhaps this time it is our greatest ally.
Featured Image Source: Loyal K.N.G.
Headline Image Source: The Fan Manifesto
Eleven Left
2014 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 1
Public Service Announcement - "Allow me to reintroduce myself, my name is..." Marc - O, B to the Elinell - E, I used to move them J's by the O-Z. I guess even back then you could call me, CEO of the T-R-E. When Marco Belinelli hit two long jumpers curling off of screens to score five points during the fourth quarter of the San Antonio Spurs blowout Game 7 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday, I remember making a mental note that, even though these buckets came during garbage time, they could prove huge moving forward through the playoffs. Marco had been largely absent from the Spurs' first round series and I knew that in order for us to compete for a championship, we are going to need him performing at a high level off of the bench moving forward. Two days later, San Antonio got exactly what I was hoping for coming off of Marco's confidence boosting garbage time buckets in Game 7 against Dallas. A rejuvenated and confident Belinelli, after seeing the ball go in the basket on Sunday, came off the bench last night to play 28 minutes and score 19 points on 7-9 shooting and earn player of the game honors in the San Antonio Spurs 116-92 blowout victory over the Portland Trail Blazers in Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals. Tony Parker also picked up where he left off on Sunday with another dominant performance last night while squaring off against one of the league's up and coming star point guards in Damian Lillard. Tony amassed 33 points on 13-24 shooting and added 9 assists to boot. In comparison, Lillard was only able to put together 17 points on 6-15 shooting and compiled most of those points after the game was already out of reach. While it is only one game, and Lillard remains one of the most dangerous weapons left in the 2014 playoffs, Tony Parker (whether intentionally or not) made an emphatic statement last night on how the two players should currently be compared in regards to the pecking order of the NBA's elite point guards.
For the first time since our 19 game winning streak was snapped at the beginning of April by the Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio has put together two dominant performances in which we have played Spurs basketball on both offense and defense for 48 minutes each night. For fear of jinxing our newly found momentum, there is not a whole lot to add about the performance that the Spurs put together last night. It was a complete team effort in which our bench was a decided advantage outscoring the Blazer's bench 50-18 and we even received an impressive contribution from an unlikely source in Aron Baynes who came up with 10 points and 7 rebounds in 15 minutes of action. Portland, who had not played in a Western Conference Semifinal game in 14 years until last night, will come back with a much better effort in Game 2 after taking one on the chin for, seemingly, not being ready for the intensity of second round playoff basketball. Lillard and Texas native, LeMarcus Aldridge, are one of the most talented tandems in the NBA and we should fully expect them to respond as if their backs are against the wall tomorrow evening at the AT&T Center. The Trail Blazers are fully capable of making the adjustments to steal Game 2, and also home court advantage in the series, if we let our guard down in the slightest. But if the Spurs come to the arena tomorrow to play together with the same purpose and intensity as we did last night, it seems that regardless of the talent on the other side and the adjustments that the Blazers make, the #BlackAndSilver will put ourselves in a strong position to enjoy our time spent over the weekend on heirplanes flying above the Pacific Northwest en route to Portland, Oregon with a commanding 2-0 lead in the series.
Featured Image Source: MTV
Headline Image Source: Marco Belinelli (the real) on Facebook
Three Right
2014 NBA Western Conference First Round, Game 6
Free Fallin' - At the precipice of climbing all the way out of the eleven point first half hole that San Antonio had dug for ourselves, and clinching a hard fought first round series in the process, the Spurs defense fell off the cliff with 11 minutes left in Game 6 against the Mavericks last night. Ahead by seven, and on the verge of pushing the lead to double digits, San Antonio relaxed for a split second and that was all that Dallas needed. A pair of three pointers by Vince Carter and Jose Calderon later, the Mavericks had shredded the lead down to one and the Spurs were in a dog fight the rest of the night to try and outscore the Mavs because our defense, in a free fall, was no longer capable of stopping anybody. Ultimately, the best road team in the NBA came up just short, falling in Dallas 113-111; but not before putting the fear of God into the American Airlines Center crowd as Patty Mills attempted a potential series ending three pointer at the buzzer. After Patty's shot was waved off (and came up short anyway) Mark Cuban and former Spur, DeJuan Blair, embraced and enjoyed in each other's contempt for the team that had nearly ended their season on what would have been (on the Mav's part) one of the biggest collapses in the final 20 seconds of a playoff game in NBA history (which sadly is a topic that we know something about from last season and on the biggest stage) as the Spurs trailed by six with 20 seconds left before Danny Green and Patty both drilled threes in a furious attempt to steal the game. While his tragic turn to the dark side as one of Mark Cuban's sith apprentices is heartbreaking, DeJuan was able to channel the energy from his red light saber to have another strong performance amassing 10 points and 12 rebounds off of the bench in 29 minutes of play. That and an avalanche of one-sided foul calls that need to be mentioned (but I will refrain from complaining about) notwithstanding, credit needs to be given to Monta Ellis for dismantling the Spurs defense in the fourth quarter. Ellis scored 12 of his 29 points in the fourth and, while the Mavs have played above expectations as a unit, Monta has been the Dallas franchise's most consistent weapon throughout this series and is probably the biggest reason why Mark Cuban is refueling the team jet for a return trip to the Alamo city in order to play a rematch of the 2006 Western Conference Semi-Final classic Game 7 that I'm sure Tim, Tony, Coach Pop, and especially Manu would love nothing more than to take advantage of the opportunity to redeem tomorrow afternoon.
While we relinquished a golden opportunity last night to finally rid ourselves of this pesky little team from Dallas, there are more than enough reasons for Spurs fans to refrain from panicking about the uncertainty associated with tomorrow afternoon's festivities. First, the Spurs are at home and the home team is at a huge advantage in Game 7's. The second thing to keep in mind is that we were one miraculous Vince Carter shot away from having had this series wrapped up in five games. Thirdly, this series has been played extremely close with the one exception being Game 2 in which Dallas defeated San Antonio 113-92. While I still contend that the Spurs are a superior ball club that has underperformed in this series while the Mavs have consistently over-performed; tied at 3-3, at worst, one could make the argument that, at this point in the season, the two teams are evenly matched. Usually, in a tightly contested series like this where most of the games are extremely close, each team has at least one game that they are able to win comfortably. The Mavericks had their blowout win in Game 2. The Spurs are still due. Based on the law of averages for a seven games series between two evenly matched teams, the Spurs could be getting set up for our turn to enjoy a blowout victory in this series in Game 7. While I won't expect this to happen, it will not surprise me in the least. Fourthly, Game 6's are fun, but Game 7's are for firemen. In other words, Game 7's usually come down to which team can summon the defensive fortitude to consistently get stops throughout the game. Both the Spurs and the Mavericks offenses were on fire in Game 6. I am very confident in the Spurs chances to be the team that is able to show up at the AT&T Center tomorrow afternoon, put on our hard hats, and proceed to finally extinguish the flames from Dirk, Monta, Vince, and companies offensive attack, which has been sizzling for most of this series. In contrast, our offense (which started the series ice cold) has been slowly lighting a spark under more and more of its weapons with each passing game, as evidenced by player of the game Danny Green's decision to finally join the party with 17 points on an amazing 7-7 from the field. If the pattern continues, I would expect the Big Three to be the Big Three and for Kawhi, Danny, Tiago, Boris, and Patty to all play extremely well, but also for Marco Belinelli (who has been close to a no-show so far in this series) to break out and have a huge impact on the outcome of the game.
Finally, the last reason that Spurs fans should refrain from panicking about our prospects for closing this series out at home tomorrow afternoon is that, as documented in the photo above, my friend Matt presented me with an amazing gift last night that should prove helpful for just this type of situation: a lucky Spurs charm! It should stand to reason that if I keep this charm on my person throughout Game 7, the good karma that is generated will manifest into energy that shoots off at the speed of light over to the AT&T Center to protect the #BlackAndSilver from bad calls, unlucky bounces, miraculous shot making by opponents, and all the other calamities that have plagued us in our last 8 playoff games. Tomorrow, it is time for the San Antonio Spurs to set aside all of the bizarre voodoo curses that have snake bitten us in these last two playoff series and get back on track by playing dominating basketball en route to finally completing this long journey we have been on over the past few years. While another classic playoff series between Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki has been special to watch, tomorrow it will end and we need to be the team still standing having avenged Game 7 against Dallas in 2006 and having shaken away some of the heartbreak and misery from the 2013 NBA Finals in the process. Tomorrow afternoon, the San Antonio Spurs are hosting a wild international basketball party and (if I'm not mistaken) Dirk's invitation might just have gotten lost in the mail. This is our year. We've got next.
Featured Image Source: ESPN
Thirteen Left
2014 NBA Western Conference First Round, Game 5
The OtherSide - Within 24 hours of the birth of his first child, son Josh, and on little to no sleep, Tony Parker came up aces in Game 5 of the Western Conference, First Round series with Dallas. The Spurs defeated the Mavericks 109-103 last night at home in front of a fiery crowd at the AT&T Center to take a three games to two lead over our in-state rivals. Congratulations are in order for Tony on becoming a father and on being awarded last night's player of the game honors. While responding to a question in the post-game press conference about Tony's whirlwind day, Coach Pop observed, "I think his child was a little more important than the game, but he managed to do 'em both." Thankfully, for Spurs fans, Coach Pop was right about Parker's ability to multitask as TP led the Spurs with 23 points and added 5 assists in his strongest performance in the series so far. With 1:52 left in the game, and San Antonio clinging to a four point lead, Tony drained a cold blooded 25 foot three pointer that inevitably put the margin of the Maverick's seemingly wire to wire deficit too far out of reach for them to pull off a spirited fourth quarter comeback attempt. While Dallas was able to tie the game on a few occasions, they were never able to break through and establish a lead despite the fact that Dirk Nowitzski and Vince Carter shot lights out in the second half. On that note, Vince Carter (a half man - half old as dirt former NBA superstar) has been 100 percent amazing in this series. He has turned back the clock to be, at times, the most dangerous weapon on the court for the Mavericks and is the only reason that this series is not over and the Spurs aren't enjoying a little rest whilst preparing for a second round opponent. Carter had 28 points on 10-16 shooting last night and went an unbelievable 7-9 from downtown. His shot-making ability has been ridiculous in this series and unfortunately for San Antonio, because of it, we still have to fight to get one more victory against one of the best 8th-seeded teams that the NBA has ever fielded.
Indeed, tomorrow night's Game 6 and the opportunity to close out the series is shaping up to potentially be a massive challenge for San Antonio. Not only did Dirk find his rhythm for the first time in the series in the second half of Game 5, but couple that with the undeniable fact that Vince Carter's playoff confidence is currently at an all-time high. Then, add to the equation that DeJuan Blair will be jacked up and will bring an extra little something to the American Airlines Center (energy-wise) in order to give himself another shot at revenge against his former teammates after having served a one game suspension in Game 5 for his dubious impression of Pele on Tiago Splitter's head during Game 4. Lastly, we must factor in that those loveable Dallas Mavericks fans will be lathered up and foaming at the mouth to do what they can to help their team even up the series and give the Mavs an opportunity to return to San Antonio for Game 7 where they could potentially steal this series. The arena which is housed in a city that is so corporate that it doesn't even have the originality to come up with its own corporate sponsorship so it shares one with Miami is shaping up to be the epitome of a hostile environment tomorrow evening. But the San Antonio Spurs didn't amass the best road record in the NBA this season by cratering under the pressure of performing in hostile environments. I fully expect us to have a razor sharp performance tomorrow and put ourselves in a position to win the game and send Mark Cuban fishing. I expect the Spurs sharp shooters to finally find their collective rhythm and for #BlackAndSilver three-point bombs to be free fallin' from the sky all night long over the city of Dallas. The Mavericks have put up a valiant effort to make the sixth installment of this playoff rivalry another classic confrontation of wills, but despite all of the pageantry that this series has had to offer, I expect it to have become just another playoff battle for future NBA Hall-Of-Famers Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki to add to the memory bank, so they can nostalgically reflect back upon someday, come Saturday morning.
Featured Image Source: Rap Genius
Headline Image Source: USA Today
Fourteen Left
2014 NBA Western Conference First Round, Game 4
With a Little Help From My Friends - "What would you think if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me?" Last night, the San Antonio Spurs endured another big stretch in the second half where we couldn't find the right pitch on offense and, as a result, we came dangerously close to having every fair weather fan in South Texas jump off of the team's bandwagon as we narrowly avoided going in the hole, 3-1 against the Dallas Mavericks. Instead, we displayed a tremendous amount of mental toughness and grit to get our first road victory of the 2014 playoffs and even the first round series at two games each by defeating the Mavericks 93-89 at American Airlines Center in Dallas. The Spurs are returning to the Alamo city having regained home-court advantage and it is now Dallas who might want to consider counting their own fortunes that Vince Carter's prayer was answered on Saturday afternoon because, without that amazing shot, the Mavs could easily be a team facing elimination on the road tomorrow evening. San Antonio, who has still yet to put together a complete Spurs-like performance for 48 minutes in this series, took another positive step forward towards establishing a playoff mindset in this series and getting accustomed to the intensity of postseason basketball. By contrast, it was pointed out on the TNT broadcast, Dallas has been in a playoff mindset and dealing with postseason intensity for weeks having had to battle with Memphis and fight off Phoenix in order just to qualify to be here. That is always one of the dangers of clinching the best record in the league by a comfortable margin; we perhaps took our collective foot off of the gas at the end of the regular season and have had a hard time getting this behemoth of an 18-wheeler back to moving at full speed again. Through four games, the Spurs are fortunately back on track with two of the possible three remaining games at home and hopefully gaining momentum towards full playoff speed, which is a velocity that would allow us to finish this series off properly.
One of the stranger happenings from last evening's dramatic game occurred late in the fourth quarter. It is becoming clear that something weird happens when a Spurs player gets tangled up on the ground during the NBA playoffs with a Mavs player who is a former teammate. Seemingly every time it happens, the Mavericks player involved is overcome with a sense of desire to channel his inner-Three Stooges. Remember when Jason Terry perpetrated one of the most infamous cheap shots of all-time when he couldn't pass up the opportunity to fist bump former teammate Michael Finley in the groin during Game 5 of the 2006 Western Conference semi-finals? Well, history repeated itself last night when former-Spur DeJuan Blair decided to show off his soccer skills with Tiago Splitter's head. After the game, Blair claimed that he was kicking his legs out in protest to a foul call and made contact with Tiago inadvertently. I'm not sure that Tiago buys that explanation, but either way, DeJuan's outburst proved costly for the Mavericks. Not only did the catalyst of the Mav's second half comeback from 20 down to take the lead (DeJuan had 12 points and 11 rebounds in the game) get himself ejected, but the #BlackAndSilver were awarded two free throws on the foul and one on the technical (and ejection of Blair) which allowed us to turn a one point deficit into a two point lead with 3:08 left in the game. Even still, the Mavs kept fighting until the bitter end and it took the biggest shot of the season (to-date) for the Spurs, a clutch three by player of the game Boris Diaw with 32 seconds left, to go ahead for good. Boris was able to provide much needed production off of the bench, which was mostly absent in the first three games if you take Manu Ginobili out of the equation, with his 17 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists. If Boris can play like that in Game 5 at home, and bring some of his fellow 'Foreign Legion' bench compadres along for the ride, the Spurs will put themselves in a better position to build and maintain a lead tomorrow evening. Should that happen, San Antonio will put ourselves in a position to have an opportunity to closeout on Friday when we return to The Otherside.
Featured Image Source: American Songwriter
Headline Image Source: Bleacher Report
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…
Featured Image Source: Times Union
Headline Image Source: Right Right Wrong
One Right
2014 NBA Western Conference First Round, Game 2
Zambony - On Wednesday night, the Dallas Mavericks came back to the AT&T Center to challenge the San Antonio Spurs to another game of basketball. Unfortunately, the Spurs players came to the arena expecting to play Dallas in ice hockey. San Antonio might have actually fared better had we sent the Rampage players out on to the court because it appeared that, to a man sans Manu Ginobili, the Spurs had no interest in being out there. The zamboni parked deep in the bowels of the AT&T Center had more of a sense of urgency about Wednesday night's contest than the team with the best regular season record in the NBA. If you had told me Wednesday morning that we were going to get blown out in Game 2 on our home floor, 113-92, I would have assumed that it would of been because Dirk Nowitzki was going to have a monster throwback MVP level performance. This, however, was not the reason that the Spurs were dismantled by our neighbors to the north. Dirk struggled through another pedestrian 16 points on 7-19 shooting but the Mavericks, as a team, played with intensity and moved the basketball as if to put on a clinic to embarrass the alleged 'best passing' team in the league. And embarrassed we should have been. The Spurs mustered up only 17 assists on 34 made field goals and turned the ball over an uncharacteristic 22 times to the Mavericks postseason ready 7 turnovers.
Note to the City of San Antonio: I know that Fiesta began early this year, which probably threw off our rhythm as a community because the weekend of Oyster Bake did not coincide with the first weekend of the playoffs, but regardless of the unintended consequence of extending Fiesta to three weeks which probably made San Antonio less festive than usual by the time this past Wednesday rolled around, we need to hurry up and find our Fiesta swagger as a city. The Spurs now have a series on our hands and we need to do our part to make sure that the team goes up to Dallas and handles our business in front of those overconfident Mavericks fans. On another side note, isn't it funny that after one victory in the series, every single Mavericks fan that you know comes out of the woodworks to let you know that they won as if you weren't watching the game? Oh Dallas fans, there you go again beating your chest way before it is warranted (and giving your team bad karma in the process). I guess you'll never learn, but on the other hand, that is part of what makes you so endearing. I love you, Dallas fans.While Spurs fans can do our part to show that we are playoff ready by getting our Fiesta swagger back, the ball club itself needs to arrive in Dallas for tomorrow's game angry and focused. The time for HEB Commercials, Frogging, and Team Selfies, albeit totally awesome for the regular season, should be over now. Every player, one through thirteen, needs to match the level of play that player of the game, Manu Ginobili, brought on Wednesday with his 5-6 on three pointers and 27 points and fresh off of celebrating the birth of his third son, Luca. Congratulations, Manu. I'm sure that 2013-14 NBA Coach of the Year, Gregg Popovich, will put together a game plan to counter the things that Dallas was doing effectively to punish us in Game 2. The #BlackAndSilver just need to be locked in and ready to execute from the minute that we step foot in the American Airline Center and we will be just fine in Game 3. Today is the Battle of Flowers parade here in San Antonio. Tomorrow, the San Antonio Spurs need to be ready for battle as soon as the pregame warm ups pause for the singing of The National Anthem. We have not played Spurs basketball yet in this series. Tomorrow, we need to get one right. ¡Viva la fiesta!
Featured Image Source: 2DBZ
Headline Image Source: SpursNation
Six Up
2013 NBA Finals Game 7
Shake It Out - Intellectually, I understand the merits of the worldview that argues that it is irrational for me, as a spectator, to get emotionally invested in the outcome of a sporting event when it does not have a direct impact on my own life. I understand the rationale behind treating sports as escapism, as a distraction from the rigors of everyday life, and to enjoy the injunction from personal stress that rooting for a favorite team provides but to do so while remembering that what I am participating in is just a game and should not hold relevance to my personal happiness because it exists tangentially to the circumstances of my life and the societal forces which are influencing it. After all, my desired outcome for the 2013 NBA Finals would not have lessened the remaining balance on my home's mortgage nor would it have accelerated the recovery of the San Antonio housing market from the 2008 collapse that occurred within six months of my wife and me purchasing our first home; a collapse that has subsequently caused us to spend the duration of our marriage digging out of the financial hole that we were left to manage given that our home was rendered chronically underwater and we've been too responsible to walk away but also too financially limited to maneuver our way out of the unfortunate bad luck of investing in the housing market at literally the worst possible time in the last 50 years. My desired outcome for the 2013 NBA Finals would not have increased the size or scope of the across-the-board pay raise that was recently fought for and won by the members of Texas State Employees Union, a group of people that I am privileged to work closely with every day, in an effort to force the Texas legislature to address a systemic problem, front-line state employee salaries in Texas have lagged dangerously behind inflation for decades which has severely eroded their buying power in relation to the cost of living; a problem that the power brokers in Texas would have been more than happy to ignore completely, this past legislative session, if they had been left to their own devices. My desired outcome for the 2013 NBA Finals would not have repaired strained relationships in my personal life, it would not have afforded me more free time to devote to completing the manuscript for my first book, and it would not have provided the clarity for my wife and me to definitively answer an on-going question, "when in the journey towards establishing our careers is the best time to start our family?" [Note: any comments in response to this post which attempt to compare us to the characters Carol and Trevor from the movie Idiocracy, no matter how humorous and well intentioned, will not be received favorably since poor Trevor dies childless as a result of a tragically embarrassing episode]. Yet despite all of the merits of the worldview I have just described, a worldview that carefully places one's spectator sporting allegiances on the peripheral of the forces being exerted upon one's pursuit of personal happiness, as a die-hard Spurs fan, I have no choice but to unequivocally reject it. Despite my attempts to intellectually rationalize to myself the worldview that basketball is just a game, that the successes and failures of my favorite team are inconsequential to the forces which are creating the tapestry of my personal happiness, it has been more than a month since the completion of the 2013 NBA Finals and I remain utterly heartbroken that the Miami Heat defeated the San Antonio Spurs 95-88 in Game 7 on June 20th.Perhaps the reason for this is that the intellectual worldview is inherently incapable of accounting for an indispensable variable factoring into the experience of a die-hard sports fan such a myself. That is, the rooting interest has developed organically out of deeply personal experiences and in care of immeasurably valued relationships over an extended period of time. For a die-hard sports fan, each opportunity to root for the favorite team does not occur independently in a vacuum, but rather occurs on the top of a mountain of memories and experiences that have not only contributed to a lifetime of both happy and sad moments but also have played a significant role in determining the trajectory of the individual's life and consequently, have indeed made a substantial contribution to personal happiness. In other words, for a die-hard sports fan, the obsessive participation in spectator sports is an outward projection of meaningful experiences and relationships which cut to the core of the fan's sense of self. When a significant collection of memories that help piece together one's understanding of the experiences and relationships that bring meaning to life are stitched together through the common thread of a sporting interest, one's allegiance to the success of that sporting interest naturally becomes very central to one's sense of self. This mountain of memories collected in pursuit of cheering for one's favorite team are valuable not only in there relevance to organizing the team's successes and failures in ones' mind, but more importantly they are important as bookmarks of one's own personal experiences and vessels for cherishing one's most meaningful relationships. Where is it that we begin to formulate our sense of self and our conditions for happiness if not through our own memories?
My Uncle Bob took my brother, Chris, and me to see the Spurs play Larry Bird and the Celtics at the old Hemisfair Arena for our first NBA game. From around 1994 to 2005, I went to see the Spurs play the Pistons in San Antonio with my father almost every single year. One year, the Pistons beat the Spurs at the buzzer and I'm pretty sure Dad was the only person in our entire section that was cheering. While on a college visit to Trinity University with my mom in 1996, we went to a Spurs game while in town and I decided that night to apply for early admission. I was at Tim Duncan's first home game as a rookie in 1997 at the Alamodome with my friend, Yousif. When the Spurs used to practice at Trinity, I was playing pick-up basketball on the outdoor courts when David Robinson was walking to his car one day. You better believe, I dribbled right up to him and crossed him over, he couldn't stop chuckling all the way to his car. I was at the first game that Tony Parker started in his career in 2001. I was in building at the AT&T Center when Tim Duncan received his 2nd NBA MVP trophy, the Spurs beat the Shaq and Kobe Lakers that night. My friend, Brian, and I were at Game 1 of the 2003 NBA Finals. I watched Game 2 of the 2005 NBA Finals between the Spurs and the Pistons with my dad in Georgetown, TX. I watched the Spurs play the Pistons with Dad in Georgetown again that fall, our last game. My wife, Jenn, has continued the tradition with me, we still try to go to see the Spurs play the Pistons every year. I was at my brother's bachelor party when the Spurs won their first title in 1999. I was out with my sister, Heather, and Brian in San Antonio when they won in 2003. We did the celebratory drive down Military. I watched Game 7 of the Finals alone in my Dallas apartment when the Spurs beat the Pistons in 2005, I can only describe it as bitter sweet. I watched the Spurs win in 2007 in Dallas with Jenn as we were literally packing our things to move to San Antonio.
These memories and the experiences and relationships that are represented within them are catalogued then preserved carefully and done so in close proximity to the core of who I am as a person. In my own weird way, because the San Antonio Spurs are so intrinsically woven into my entire life experience, I internalize the success of the team as barometer of my sense of self and a validation of the people and memories that I hold dear. Admittedly irrational, each victory and defeat is a deeply personal experience despite the fact that my role as a spectator is marginal and removed from directly impacting the results. Is this healthy? Perhaps not, but this deep personal connection and investment in the team is, indeed, one that I hold for better or for worse.In Five Up, I wrote about the cruelty of "having the trophy so close within reach we could almost scrape a finger nail on it." Obviously, this was written before Game 7, when I was still filled with hope that the Spurs would bounce back to ultimately win the title anyway. In hindsight, after witnessing Miami edge out San Antonio in the fourth quarter of the decisive game, while I remain pleased with the way that I constructed that sentence as a writer, I am personally haunted by the excruciating imagery of my own prose. Reliving that dreadful Tuesday evening at the AT&T Center has proven to be utter torture. The incomprehensible sequence of events that led to our Game 6 defeat played over and over in my mind for days after Game 7. The nightmare still pops into my head, as if from out of no where, at any random moment to prompt a queasy sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. 28 seconds to go in Game 6, the Spurs were ahead by 5 points and closing in on the 5th championship in franchise history. Over the course of the last 28 seconds, 5 basketball plays occurred that adversely affected the Spurs. Miami secured an offensive rebound off of a missed shot, LeBron James buried a three pointer, Kawhi Leonard missed a free throw, Miami secured an offensive rebound off of a missed shot, Ray Allen buried a float back to the line off balance three pointer with his feet flirting dangerously with the out-of-bounds line. What if even one of those five actions had gone the other way? The San Antonio Spurs would have been the 2013 NBA Champions. And this only scratches the surface of the Pandora's Box that randomly bursts open in my brain like a sinister jack-in-the-box at some point on a daily basis. Left to my own devices and with time alone inside my own head, 'what if' scenarios bounce around my brain like a pinball. What if the NBA had not rejected the 7 year, $100 million contract that the Miami Heat signed Juwan Howard to in 1996? The Miami franchise would have been irreversibly crippled from having signed a mediocre player to a superstar contract, would have likely not have been in the same position to build a championship contending team around Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade a decade later, and the San Antonio Spurs would have probably been the 2013 NBA Champs. What if Ray Allen hadn't betrayed his loyalty to Kevin Garnet and Paul Pierce and hadn't left the Boston Celtics to go and sign with the enemy? He would have never hit the dagger three pointer at the end of regulation in Game 6 and the Spurs would have probably been the 2013 NBA Champs. What if LeBron James hadn't betrayed his loyalty to Cleveland in 2010 and had had the fortitude to continue to trust his own ability by believing that if he remained on the journey to fight to the top of the mountain top with his own teammates, his own franchise, his own city that he would one day persevere? Instead, he took the easy way out by becoming Dwyane Wade's more talented sidekick. In order for LeBron James to become a champion, he chose to take shortcuts. Had LeBron James had the competitive integrity of Michael Jordan, for example, the match up with the Miami Heat would have never happened and the San Antonio Spurs would have probably been the 2013 NBA Champs. There are hundreds of 'what if' scenarios that haunt me into searching for pathways through which the Spurs could have won this year's championship, but the person that this 'what if' scenario will likely wind up haunting the most in the long run is LeBron James, himself. There is a reason why 49 out of 50 states were rooting for the allegedly boring Spurs to win the 2013 NBA Finals. Taking shortcuts in life is not an endearing quality, especially in an all-time great basketball player. All-time great athletes, much like U.S. Presidents, can really only be judged accurately through the prism of history. I suspect that no matter how many championships LeBron James wins as a member of the Miami Heat, history will remember him unfavorably in comparison to the other all-time great champions that he will be measured against because of the shortcuts that he took and I suspect that after his playing days are long behind him, the decision to leave the Cleavland Cavaliers will haunt him immeasurably. Nonetheless, the image of an old LeBron James being tormented by regret as he sits in the rocking chair on his porch is of little consolation right now because in the end, we did lose to that player and that team which makes this defeat even more traumatic to deal with. With the whole country finally squarely behind the small market Spurs, a franchise that genuinely conducts its business the right way, building a team from the ground up and going through the painstaking effort to develop players year after year to remain competitive, it is heartbreaking to lose to a franchise that leveraged all of the space within the salary cap rules to it's advantage in order to shortcut its way back into contention.
Despite my personal animus with LeBron James' decision and the way that the Miami Heat put together a championship caliber ball club, give them credit. In a tightly contested Game 7, the Spurs were led by Tim Duncan's 24 points and 12 rebounds and my player of the game Kawhi Leonard's 19 points and 16 rebounds, but in the end it was not enough to match the brilliance of James and Dwyane Wade. LeBron scored 37 points and collected 12 rebounds and Wade scored 23 points and collected 10 rebounds. Most importantly, however, the duo made clutch shots in the final moments of a gut wrenching fourth quarter and on the other end of the floor, the Spurs did not. Tim Duncan, one of the most consistently unflappable all-time great players basketball has ever seen, inexplicably missed a bunny of a jump hook over Shane Battier with around a minute left and an opportunity to tie the game. On subsequent Spurs possessions, the physical breakdown of the body of San Antonio's most beloved player caught up with the Spurs once again as Manu Ginobili was unable to be Manu Ginobili and physically execute the basketball plays that his fearless and brilliant basketball mind was asking him to execute. Furthermore, my predicted ascension of Tony Parker into the conversation of best basketball player in the world hit a speed bump as Tony was unable to assert his will over the outcome of Game 7 up to the level of the lofty standards that that title would expect. Sometimes basketball is just that simple. There is no rational explanation for why, but when two teams are evenly matched, one team executes and the other doesn't. On the court, the Miami Heat earned the title by being the better team in the fourth quarter of the last game of a series where two teams played each other to a draw in the previous 27 quarters. Congratulations, Miami. And as heartbreaking as this defeat in the NBA Finals was, I'm thankful for having had the experience. The journey to and the experience of having my beloved #BlackAndSilver back in the NBA Finals was such a joy. San Antonio is a special place and I feel truly blessed to have gotten to experience this amazing run with my community. This journey, despite all of the pain which has resulted from its difficult conclusion, has given me a unique opportunity to reflect upon the relationships and memories that have made being a San Antonio Spurs fan such an integral part of my life as well as live new experiences with loved ones and create new memories. Despite the irrationality of it all, I welcome the pain of losing the 2013 NBA Finals in heartbreaking fashion because in the end, being a die-hard Spurs fan is as central to who I am and is a force in my life that contributes as much to my personal happiness as the forces that influence my residence, my career, my friendships, and my family. After all, some more than others, but where I live, the types of people that I work with, who my friends are, and how I relate to my family are all aspects of my personal happiness that have been influenced by my die-hard affinity for the San Antonio Spurs. So, I'll relish this pain right now and learn to cherish it at some point down the road, but I'm already beginning to feel some of the heartbreak begin to get squeezed out of me by anticipation of the future. I still believe that Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker will raise another banner in the AT&T Center. I couldn't have higher hopes for the San Antonio Spurs in the 2013-14 NBA season. Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green, and Tiago Splitter will be one year further into their development and therefore more seasoned come playoff time. Couple that with the fact that Timmy, Manu, and Tony were, are, and will always remain true champions. Each time that they have experienced a crushing playoff defeat which has arguably cost them a championship [see 2004, 2006], they never jumped ship, nor did the franchise back up a Brink truck to lure in reinforcements, instead they regrouped and came back with the same core group to win the title the next season. It's always darkest before the dawn. We've got next.
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Five Up
2013 NBA Finals, Game 6
One More Time - Potentially seconds away from the roof being blown off the building, and with the AT&T Center the loudest I have ever heard it in all of the countless visits that I have made inside the arena that Tim Duncan built, 18,000 people were simultaneously stricken with the same nightmare. What was setting up to be one of the most special places to be in America late last evening, somehow became one of the worst places to be in America. I have never experienced a more violent swing in emotions during a sporting event and I have never seen a more dazed and confused group of people clear an arena and rightfully so. Losing a tight game and squandering an opportunity to eliminate your opponent is always rough. But this was something entirely different. The post-game AT&T Center scene was so other-worldly bizarre that it quickly became dangerous. Generally, there is a heavy rush to the parking lot immediately following the final buzzer of a game, but usually some people leave early and others hold back to wait for the crowd to dissipate. Quite literally, everyone was trying to get the hell out of that building all at once. The last time I was pushed in the back that many times in a crowd was on the rope line at a 2008 Obama for America campaign rally waiting to shake then Senator Obama's hand. Spurs fans were pushing, clawing, grabbing, and yelling at each other in an effort to get through the exits so that they could breathe again. This is a natural reaction to experiencing all of the air being sucked out of a building, but it was quite a chilling experience to go through nonetheless. My wife and I tried our best to stay calm and move with the flow of the crowd down the escalators and through the lobby towards the exits, but it became increasingly difficult. Some of the more inebriated amongst the herd were cursing the refs, the Heat, and the world without any regard for their proximity to children. To make matters worse, I counted at least three or four Miami Heat fans who were senselessly baiting the crowd and gloating to anyone who would listen. It is one thing to attend an actual game and root for the road team, but to attend a watch party hosted by a franchise for its fans, root for the opponent, and then gloat to the gathered masses after we've just suffered one of the most excruciating defeats imaginable; classless. Although, I didn't actually see any of them get jumped, there were definitely some heated exchanges going on between dejected Spurs fans and these clowns. I guess in any crowd of people this size you will always find a handful of lunatics exercising the same amount of sense as a chihuahua barking at a pack of wolves. Hopefully, none of them were actually physically harmed so that they can get what's coming to them in the form of karma. After all, there is one more game to play. So enough about them, more so than the handful of Heat fans baiting the masses, it was the aggravation that Spurs fans were displaying towards each other over our inability to move through the crowd and get outside that was escalating the most tempers. A woman almost pulled me down by the shoulder screaming hysterically about how she needed to get out of here. I let her by, trying to keep my arm on my wife's shoulders in front of me, but I sternly reminded her about the news flash of the year..."everyone really needs to get out of here." Another woman, a few yards behind me in the crowd, was pushed into another fan who turned around unquestionably agitated. That fan proceeded to push the first woman and it seemed as if the incident was tinkering on the verge of setting off a riot. Luckily, there was a very large gentleman (must have been 6'4, 300 pounds at least) who was near enough to the altercation that he was able to put himself between them and diffuse the situation. Of what I witnessed, this was the closest that the building evacuation process got to devolving into utter chaos but the entire walk felt as if it could happen at any moment. While the loss itself was indescribably disappointing, the thing that was truly heart breaking was seeing our community momentarily turn on each other and regress back to an "every man for himself" mentality when we had been so close to getting to instead experience a harmonious departure from the arena, filled with dancing, hugging, and back slaps, and into the streets of San Antonio to join our friends and neighbors as we all continued to celebrate well into the night like a family.San Antonio Spurs fans had the right to be angry, confused, dejected, and sad last night after the game. Given the stakes and our proximity to victory, it was the toughest defeat I have personally ever experienced in my 28 years as a Spurs fan. The Game 7 loss to the Mavericks in 2006, the Game 5 loss to the Lakers in 2004, and the Game 6 loss to the Rockets in 1995 were all up there, but having the trophy so close within reach that we could almost scrape a finger nail on it? The cruelty of this one is utterly excruciating.
And that has spilled over into a citywide hangover through out the day today. The entire city seems to be sleepwalking in a zombie-like transient state. But it has to end tonight when we go to sleep. Tomorrow is a new day. The saving grace to the cruelty of this loss is that it comes with an immediate chance for redemption. Also, if someone had told Spurs fans at the beginning of the season that we would be getting to play one Game 7 in the 2013 NBA Finals with a chance to win our 5th championship, we would have all been thrilled about the opportunity to put another banner up in the rafters of the AT&T Center. There are 48 minutes left in our season and we should be confident that our ball club will seize this moment. The San Antonio Spurs still lead the Miami Heat 596-584 (cumulative scoring) in the Finals and we have, for more time in this series than not, proven that we are a deeper, more well rounded, and, yes, a better basketball team than our opponent. Tim Duncan, last night's player of the game, has clearly saved something in his tank for this moment. Timmy had 30 points and 17 rebound trying to get the thing done last night. I would be shocked if he does not repeat or improve on that performance tomorrow night in Game 7. By the way, San Antonio is 0-2 in this series in games that have been officiated by Joey Crawford, we are 3-1 in games that have not (including 1-0 on the road). Joey Crawford will not be officiating Game 7. On a historical note, no road team has won a Game 7 in the NBA Finals since the 1978 Washington Bullets defeated the SuperSonics in Seattle. While this seems discouraging, to me this seems to suggest that the road team is due. Also, the #BlackAndSilver have not lost back-to-back games with Tim, Tony, and Manu in the lineup since December 12th and 13th. This is a longer period of time without losing back-to-back games than the constantly referenced streak the Heat have been on since January 8th and 10th. But more than anything, the reason to remain optimistic about our chances on Thursday night is that I genuinely sense that our players and our city want this title more than those counterparts in Florida. As excruciating as it was to be in that AT&T Center after the final buzzer had sounded last night, I had never experienced so much excitement and so much hunger for a victory in any sporting venue that I have ever been in as I did during last night's game at the AT&T Center, and the game wasn't even being played on the court down below us. The crowd was going bonkers and the noise level was deafening when the Spurs took a 5 point lead in the final minute on a Tony Parker floater, it was utter pandemonium. This city and our players are so hungry for a championship and it seems more than reasonable to me that Miami and its players will not have the capacity to reach down deep enough to match that hunger tomorrow night, having won a championship last year.I spent a lot of time last night at the AT&T Center peering up at the four championship banners in the rafters. I know that the energy that was in that building last night (while greater than any I had ever experienced) will pale in comparison to the energy that will be in it tomorrow. Tomorrow night, the city of San Antonio will be so hungry for a championship that we will be loud enough for the greatest winner of a generation, Tim Duncan, to hear our screaming on South Beach and use it as fuel to make that one final push that will hopefully put championship banner number five up in the rafters of a building that will one day have his statue on its grounds. Before this series began, while congratulating the Miami Heat on winning the Eastern Conference, I suggested that this match up would be an epic clash of champions. The 2013 NBA Finals have certainly lived up to that prediction. I also proposed, "may the best team win." I am utterly convinced at this point in time that the San Antonio Spurs are the best team in this series. Although tomorrow's game will be the hardest leg of this journey, it will also be the final one. Game 7 is an amazing opportunity for the Spurs to prove that we are the best team in the series by absorbing the body blow of the toughest loss in franchise history and countering it with a resounding upper cut and delivering it with such fury that it produces aftershocks which resonate in our community and the annals of basketball history forever. Our best basketball of the season has yet to be played. It's always darkest before the dawn. Shake it out.
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Fifteen Down
2013 NBA Finals, Game 5
Come Together - Sometimes, when a photogenically challenged former Weight Watchers spokes model whispers softly into the vast open spaces of an empty arena, the fleeting sounds still travel far enough to awaken a sleeping giant. Manu Ginobili erupted out of hibernation last night to add another chapter to one of the most Paul Bunyanesque folklore inspiring legends of a sports career that our generation has ever seen, earning player of the game honors to boot. In a surprise start, Manu went wire to wire in Game 5 pouring in 24 points while dishing out 10 assists in a performance that I will certainly add to the bedtime stories that I will one day tell to my children about Number 20 (the same way my dad used to tell me bedtime stories about all the breathtaking feats he witnessed watching Ted Williams hit a baseball). On a side note, topping the list of legendary Manu stories to tell my children...the Halloween Bat story, a tall tale so incredible that you wouldn't believe it had we not been blessed to live in an age of video documentation (note to self: remember to tell that story every October 31st from the time your first child is age five until the time your grandchildren come to visit and find you mumbling incoherently in a rocking chair). Manu's resounding statement of defiance last night came upon the heals of a media onslaught of negative press and speculation that his retirement from the game of basketball might be imminent. In the post-game press conference, Ginobili carefully reminded the gathered masses that overall he hasn't played a bad series but has just been taking what the defense is giving him which has made his role more of a distributor than a scorer. He did admit, however, that he was disappointed in his Game 4 performance saying, "Game 4 was a different situation, and I was a little upset." Thanks to the heroics of a particularly feisty Ginobili (everybody loves when Manu gets that look in his eye) as well the remarkable hot streak of Danny Green (24 points and 6-10 from the arc to set a new NBA Finals record for threes in a series with 25), a player that is so locked in that he's draining wadded up napkins in random strangers cups from across the restaurant during his lunch break, the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Miami Heat 114-104 last night in Game 5 of the 2013 NBA Finals in front of 18,581 appreciative fans who were treated to a marvelous mix of nostalgic delirium and clairvoyant exuberance. For one last time on our home floor this season, Spurs fans were able to bask in the enjoyment of taking in a perfectly blended mixture of our dynastic past, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan (17 points, 12 rebounds, 3 blocks), and our surprisingly bright future, Danny Green and Kwahi Leonard (16 points, 8 rebounds, 3 steals). Oh, by the way (I almost forgot), our present got into the mix last night too. Tony Parker had 26 points on 10-14 shooting and threw in 5 dimes to boot. All told, the San Antonio's starters combined for 107 out of our 114 points besting with 5 players the firepower that the Heat have only been able to generate from their top four players over the past couple of ballgames. If you take Kawhi's 16 points out of the equation, Tony, Manu, Danny, and Timmy outscored James, Wade, Bosh, and Allen 91-87 in Game 5. Had the teams been playing four on four, this would have been the gut-wrenching nail biter I had expected it to be. But because the #BlackAndSilver are making a strong case that they are a deeper, more well rounded basketball team, San Antonio was able to win the pivotal game of the series relatively comfortably and will be returning to Miami needing to only win one more game to put an exclamation point on a truly remarkable 2012-13 campaign.
And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me. Shine until tomorrow, let it be.
With so much riding on the outcome of Game 5, I knew I needed an enduring theme for last night to put myself in the right mental frame of mind to stay locked in for the entire evening. I was admittedly a little nervous all weekend but I was able to remain, all things considered, extremely optimistic and calm. I knew that if there was any group of players, any franchise, any city that was up for the challenge of seizing the upper-hand in the NBA Finals back from the defending champs and putting their backs against the wall, it was these players, this franchise, this city. I was comforted all weekend by the tranquility of a singular thought. The entire San Antonio community just needs to come together and we are going to be just fine in Game 5. When you are attempting to be the best it is befitting to draw inspiration from the best, so "Come Together" by The Beatles made a ton of sense for my Game 5 theme. Until I started writing this post this evening, the irony that The Heatles is one of the premature nicknames that was manufactured for the James-Wade-Bosh incarnation of Miami, honestly, hadn't even dawned on me. Interestingly, another thought had been percolating in my mind this morning which was to come home from work tonight and recompose the iconic Abbey Road photo of The Beatles with the faces of Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Greg Popovich. Funnily, after a five second internet search this evening, I quickly came to realize that it has already been done. Well played, Pounding the Rock, well played. I guess the ability to do this Spurs bloggy thing full time has its advantages, after all. You get the first crack at snatching tremendous ideas out of the creative stratosphere. But like the San Antonio Spurs themselves, I could care less who gets the credit, I'm just glad that that steaming bowl of awesome is just one click away for all to enjoy. For now, I'm content to keep living on the same plane of existence in this vast unexplainable universe as the one currently inhabited by Danny Green; one that keeps him trapped in a Waking Life dream state (spoiler alert) where all he does is knock down three pointers in the NBA Finals and every time he thinks he is waking up back into reality, instead he wakes up into another dream where all he does is knock down three pointers in the NBA Finals. Don't wake up, Danny, at least not for 72 more hours. Dreams are powerful appendages of the human condition and every San Antonio Spurs fan is on verge of living one, but every dream comes at the risk of falling victim to the nightmares that are lurking out there just beyond the horizon. Game 5 was pivotal, but we have not accomplished our goal yet. The defending champions are more than capable of terrorizing all of the plans that we've already made to dance around in our dreams with the haunting eternity of instead making us live with the nightmare of perpetually pondering what could have been. If the San Antonio Spurs play our best basketball game of the season tomorrow night, that will not happen. This journey has been long, this journey had been weary, this journey must be seen through to its completion. This is not the time to ease up, not one millimeter. This is not the time to relax, not for one second. This is not the time to celebrate, not one bit. This is the time to get physically, emotionally, and spiritually prepared to bring everything we've got, one more time.
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Four Up
2013 NBA Finals, Game 4
Not Afraid - The San Antonio Spurs lead the Miami Heat in the 2013 NBA Finals 382-377 (cumulative scoring). Win by 36 or win by 16, San Antonio and Miami are now tied at two victories a piece and in case you haven't noticed...it is really, really, really close. On Thursday night, the San Antonio Spurs spoiled a growing hope in the city to celebrate a championship by winning this series at home. Miami defeated San Antonio 109-93 at the AT&T Center in front of 18,581 mildly overconfident Spurs fans who were unable to match the desperation of a group of Floridians who had the audacity to come into our house and wear black. The player of the game was Tim Duncan who had 20 points, 5 rebounds, and a block. Eric Spoelstra, more than from his tactical adjustments, benefited from a radical increase in effort and aggressiveness from his best four players. Spoelstra must have stolen a card out of the Mark Jackson coaching playbook and spent all day Wednesday building up his top players to believe that they are an invincible angelic force manifested by God the Father and sent down to Earth for the purpose of giving mortals a glimpse of the level of play that he gets to enjoy in Heaven when he watches Jesus, Moses, Abraham, and Noah lace 'em up and take on all comers on the parquet of the old Boston Garden which was transported upstairs after its earthly demolition in 1998. By the way, in Heaven they play with 12 foot baskets but don't you dare challenge Jesus at the rim because he will get up and cram in your face. The difference between Spoelstra and Mark Jackson as motivators, however, is that Spoelstra benefits from players who already know how to play at the highest level and don't have to be prematurely anointed by their coach to believe it. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Ray Allen combined for 99 points on Thursday night. But chances are very high that Eric Spoelstra is going to need to display more coaching acumen than being a world-class motivator to win the series. The rest of the Miami Heat combined for a paltry ten points in Game 4. A performance where three future Hall-Of-Famers and Chris Bosh play aggressive, purposeful basketball can work to win one "our backs are against the wall" NBA Finals game. It is highly unlikely that it can work to win an NBA Finals series against the San Antonio Spurs. Greg Popovich will make the necessary adjustments to get his players to take away some of the motions that put Bosh and Allen in spots where they were able to feed off of Dwyane and LeBron's energy and get into rhythm. The Heat will need to get more contributions from more places in order to win Game 5 because if San Antonio can indeed limit Bosh and Allen, 65 combined points between James and Wade (no matter how spectacular the buckets that generate them) shouldn't be enough to beat the Spurs. LeBron's performance was to be expected and if it had just been LeBron playing his best game of the Finals, the Spurs might have still been okay (even with Bosh and Allen playing well too). The man that did us in on Thursday night arrived via time machine. The throwback performance by Dwyane Wade, where he displayed some of the individual brilliance of his 2006 Finals run, could not have been anticipated. It was reasonable to expect that Wade would play better out of desperation but you need more than 8 timeouts and a halftime to prepare for this version of the Flash and if you tell me that the treatment he received on his injured knee before Game 4 is on the up and up, then I have no choice but to believe you. Nonetheless, with two days off before Sunday's Game 4, the Spurs will adjust the defensive schemes to now account for two superstars instead of one. Not that that Dwyane Wade will necessarily show up again. But if he does, the Spurs will be much better prepared for him.
The #BlackAndSilver are certainly in a dog fight now but there is no need for Spurs fans to panic. Sure both teams are evenly matched and both teams are equally capable of winning this series but the winner of tomorrow night's Game 5 will be at a huge advantage to win it all and, luckily for us, that game is being played right here in Titletown, TX. Sure, having home court advantage in the pivotal game of the series doesn't, in and of itself, guarantee anything so if you are looking for a little something extra to help alleviate your overwhelming case of Finals anxiety, you have come to the right place. Let me walk you through a statistical analysis that I put together last night for the exact purpose of putting my own mind at ease. In a relatively close sample size, the San Antonio Spurs are 18-8 all-time in the NBA Finals (.692 winning percentage). The Miami Heat are 12-9 (.571 winning percentage). Each team needs to play 2-1 ball (.667 winning percentage) or better over the next week to hoist a trophy. To date, San Antonio's organization has performed above that marker and Miami's has performed below it. Individually, LeBron James is 8-11 in the NBA Finals (.421 winning percentage) and he is trying to improve the trajectory of his legacy against Tim Duncan, who is an identical 18-8 (.692 winning percentage) as the franchise having played in every game (winning all four series) and who was 16-6 (.727 winning percentage) in the Finals before Miami was able to add two more losses in the four games so far this year. James was 6-9 going into this matchup (.400 winning percentage). A split of the first four games has inflated LeBron's Finals record and it has deflated Timmy's Finals record. Granting that both of these players are far enough into their NBA Finals career that these statistics bare some meaning on who they are, then the sheer statistical probability is that the extending out of this year's sample with two or three more games will pull each player back closer to their mean. To put these numbers in context, Michael Jordan (one of the most dominant forces the Finals have ever seen) won six Finals series against zero defeats and his career Finals mark is 24-11 (.686 winning percentage). Remember, Tim Duncan as of today is at 18-8 (.692 winning percentage) which is a slightly higher Finals winning percentage than a player who is widely regarded as the best basketball player of all-time and who finished his career without ever losing the series. Conversely, Kobe Bryant, 23-15 (.605 winning percentage), has won five championship series and lost two. Shaquille O'Neal, 17-13 (.566 winning percentage), has won four championship series and lost two. Both of these players are fine champions, but the difference between always winning a championship in the Finals and usually winning a championship in the Finals is likely having the ability to consistently win two out of every three games played (.667 winning percentage) in the NBA Finals as Jordan and Duncan have done but Kobe and Shaq have not. Furthermore, LeBron James has not yet established a capacity to win in the Finals at any where close to the clip that Kobe and Shaq established, much less Michael and Timmy. The worst case scenario for James that still yields him a championship gets his Finals record to 10-12 (.455 winning percentage) after this series.That is still an unusually large jump in winning percentage for a superstar from a third to fourth trip. Conversely, at exactly the point that Tim Duncan is at, four games into his 5th Finals, Jordan was 18-9 (.667 winning percentage). I feel better about the chances of an all-time great player who wins in these games at a slightly higher clip than Michael Jordan and who has consistently kept his Finals winning percentage above two out of three (.667 winning percentage) to be able to figure out a way to get this thing done than I would about a superstar who will not even be able to climb to even (.500 winning percentage) in the Finals no matter what happens for the duration of this series. Tim Duncan just needs to do what he has done throughout his career, stay above above 2-1 (.667 winning percentage) and win two out of the next three games to win another title. Do you feel better now? Well you should feel a little better, one thing that my vast experience watching and studying lots and lots of sports (particularly the NBA) has taught me is that some teams and athletes have a higher capacity to persevere through adversity than others. The numbers bare it out that between the Spurs and the Heat and Tim Duncan and LeBron James, the Spurs and Duncan have shown a higher capacity to overcome. That being said, hopefully all of that mild overconfidence that was on display in the AT&T Center during Game 4 has been flushed out of the collective systems of Spurs fans. We should go into tomorrow night rooting confidently for our Spurs but we should also root with what Coach Pop refers to as "appropriate fear." The players on the court will almost certainly be playing with "the appropriate fear." The Miami Heat are extremely talented and very dangerous, especially now that they have perfected time travel technology and gone back to fetch the 2006 version of Dwyane Wade to take the place of this 2013 counterpart, and they are still the defending champions. They also have the ability to draw on experience to figure out a way to put a boot on our neck by stealing another one at the AT&T Center tomorrow night. This is our last stand in San Antonio for the season and we as a community need to make it abundantly clear to the Miami Heat that it is because of their greatness that we are not going to allow them to become the first road team to win two games in South Texas in an NBA Finals series. They need to feel early and often that their best hope for winning back to back games in the 2013 NBA Finals will come in Miami. At some point tomorrow night we need to force them to come apart by making them realize that they are incapable of matching the way we come together.
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