Spurs Special Forces
"This show is about the truth: the San Antonio Spurs are actually a team of covert international commandos."
A new and exciting vehicle for expressing adoration for the professional basketball franchise located in San Antonio, TX has emerged on the blogosphere over the past couple of years. What, you ask, is this new phenomenon that I'm referring to? I guess I would most accurately describe it as Spurs Fan Fiction. It is, indeed, a quite recent phenomenon thats arrival I would best pin point to the summer of 2013 during the team's march back to the NBA Finals for the first time since wining the championship in 2007. In the beginning, much of the fan fiction seemed to have been centered around bloggers using their creativity to poke fun at Coach Gregg Popovich's cantankerous and sometimes mysterious persona. It seems to have branched out from there to draw inspiration from some of the idiosyncarcies of the Spurs' Big Three; legends Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili. We here at theLeftAhead have even dabbled in some Spurs Fan Fiction, most prominently with Fourteen Down. The genre seems to be gaining tremendous steam and we couldn't be happier about it. The latest contribution to this emerging subculture hit the web yesterday and has been turning a few heads. The premise is spectacular. Quoting the video description on YouTube, "This show is about the truth: the San Antonio Spurs are actually a team of covert international commandos." After reading that, I couldn't have been more excited about pressing play. But after watching it, I felt that the plot fell a little flat but I'll let you judge for yourself. It appears this might become a recurring series so, if that is the case, I'm not going to worry too much about the story line of this "pilot" not being able to match a promising premise and solid animation. I'm still sold. So check it out and see if you're sold too. Should this, in fact, become a recurring series, I'll add the subsequent videos in the comments section of this post. Until next time.
Source: Matt Hill on YouTube
Sixteen Down
2014 NBA Finals, Game 5
Wish You Were Here - I clutched the rose on my necklace and peered blankly at the television screen. Moments earlier, I had been standing with my wife, Jenn, in the center of the living room. After screaming, receiving a spectacular hug and then exhaling when it finally happened, I subsequently retreated to the couch and sat down utterly exhausted. I couldn't move. I quickly realized that my momentary euphoria had absconded and left a foreboding cloud in its wake. Despite my tenebrous state, I knew where I was. I was back in the same vast empty space; the space that I had been in 74 days earlier while sitting in my car in the parking lot of the neighborhood basketball court. It was the first time that I had been back since that terrible Thursday evening in early April, but this time it was different. It was the same numbness, the same callosity. The difference was that this time it was familiar. I was acutely aware of it and I knew that the empty void would momentarily be engulfed.
I clutched the rose on my necklace, I peered at the television, and I focused straight ahead at the on-screen celebration. Like a dusting of snowflakes on the dreary overcast day that constitutes winter's last crescendo before gracefully submitting to the adagio exposition of a spring sonata, silver confetti danced in my field of vision. I followed one piece of confetti as it floated down from the rafters, around through the air and as it narrowly missed landing safely on the shoulder of one of the players before drifting rhythmically to a peaceful rest on the court. Like a maestro conducting the soloist in a concerto, this singular piece of confetti directed my eyes to play to its every whim. It demanded my attention and captured my imagination. This one piece of confetti seemed to control me because in that moment, and in the vast, empty space that I occupied, for whatever reason, it seemed profound. It was as if it embodied my entire universe. It was as if it were him.
* * *
Deep in the bowels of the AT&T Center, LeBron James gathered his Miami Heat teammates in a pregame huddle before taking the court for warmups ahead of Game 5 of the 2014 NBA Finals. Trailing in the series 1-3, the two-time defending champions had their backs up against the ropes and LeBron knew it. Given the trajectory of the series (after James and company had punched the challengers in the nose in Game 2 in San Antonio, the Spurs caught the Heat off guard by counter punching so forcefully in Games 3 and 4 in Miami that the champs were left clutching the ropes to avoid spiraling into a free fall), LeBron understood that it was going to take a super-human effort on his part in Game 5 to fight the Heat off of the ropes and back into the middle of the ring where they could retake the offensive in their quest for a three-peat. His message to his teammates was simple, "Follow my lead."
Less than an hour after hearing these words and following their leader through the tunnel and on to the court for warmups, the Heat were thoroughly in control of the basketball game. With 5:03 left in the first quarter Miami was dominating San Antonio. LeBron, upon hearing the opening bell, had exploded into attack mode for 12 points in the contest's first seven minutes. Also working in Miami's favor was the fact that LeBron's stellar start was coupled with the good fortune that his team was going up against an over-anxious opponent (it was evident that the San Antonio Spurs had returned to their home court and began Game 5 playing like a team that was pressing to win a championship instead of playing like a team that was focused on winning a playoff game). Therefore, a perfect storm was brewing in San Antonio to provide Miami a legitimate opportunity to get back in the series. LeBron James had simultaneously put on his cape and inspired new life in his teammates which allowed the Heat to capitalize on an uncharacteristic lack of composure by the Spurs. It all added up to a 22-6 lead for the the champs.
With seven minutes elapsed in the first quarter of Game 5 and trailing by 16 points, San Antonio was in dire straights and in desperate need of a basket on the next possession to prevent LeBron and the Heat from running away and hiding without being forced to face any resistance from the 18,581 hungry Spurs fans in attendance. Because of the Heat's quick start, the fans in the building had grown anxious but they were still salivating for an opportunity to show Miami how thunderously loud the AT&T Center can get when the city is trying to release nine years of pent-up championship closeout energy. For a little one-horse town, closing in on an NBA title at home means more than it does in the big city. It just does. Sure, it took a great deal of luck for us to have the good fortune to parlay a pair of winning lottery tickets into eventually building the type of small-market basketball franchise that is in contention for an NBA championship every single season. But because of how successful the Spurs have consistently been, nine years is an awful long time to wait for moments such as the one that was before us on Sunday, June 15. This is Titletown, TX, after all and the AT&T Center (also known as the house that David Robinson and Tim Duncan built) had not hosted a home closeout game in the NBA Finals since June 23, 2005 (the 2007 championship team closed out on the road by sweeping the Cavaliers in Cleveland).
Keep in mind, the home crowd was also harboring the heartbreak of losing last year's Finals to the same opponent and the opportunity to put that excruciating pain to rest would be added fuel to get the building rocking louder than ever before should the Spurs find themselves in position to win heading down the stretch. Needless to say, it was assumed that the noise of the home crowd would be a huge advantage for the Spurs throughout the night. Nonetheless, Miami's quick start to open up a 16 point lead had successfully taken the famished and revenge-thirsty crowd out of the game and had, thus, surprisingly neutralized San Antonio's advantage. Even from across town you could feel the tension in the building permeating through the television by virtue of the absence of noise coming from a shell-shocked crowd. Indeed, the next possession was shaping up to be the critical moment of the ball game. If, on the ensuing defensive stance, the Heat were able to force another missed shot or turnover and convert the stop into another easy basket at the other end (extending their lead closer to 20), Gregg Popovich may have been ready (out of frustration and with two losses to spare) to pull the regular rotation players and give the likes of Aron Baynes, Jeff Ayers, Matt Bonner, Marco Belinelli, and Corey Joseph a prolonged opportunity to try to get San Antonio back in the game.
Looking over at Coach Pop on the sidelines, I could almost see it written on his expression. One more empty offensive trip followed by another Heat basket and, more than likely, he would have elected to bench the regulars. I'm sure he knew that it would have been a tall order to hope for the reserve unit to find success in slowing down a LeBron James freight train which had already left the station, but he would have pulled the trigger anyway. The infamous Popovich mass-substitution that was forthcoming if things continued to go south would have demoralized the crowd but it would have also been the right decision and a necessary message for the NBA Coach of the Year to send to the rotation players in order to force them to regroup and refocus (similar to the earlier surrender in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder).
The ensuing possession for the Spurs was, therefore, the critical moment of the ball game because it quite possibly could have been the last chance the regulars might have been afforded to to try and right the ship. In less than seven minutes of game action, the AT&T Center scene, which was supposed to be a coronation, had rapidly deteriorated into a dark, murky mess. We were dangerously close to the point of needing someone from the team's front office to get on the phone with a South Beach hotel and confirm our reservation for a block of rooms the following night. Indeed, gray clouds were beginning to congregate once again in the skies above San Antonio and, as Spurs fans, we were helpless to stop whatever hell the basketball gods were conspiring to unleash. It just seemed like one of those nights. Besides dealing with being unable to defend the best player in the world (playing at the peak of his game), our offense, to that point, had been abysmal. The Spurs were 1-12 from the field and once again our attack, as it had in Game 2, seemed flustered by Miami's frantic defensive pressure. The prospect of returning to Miami to face a suddenly rejuvenated Heat squad that had climbed within two victories of making NBA Finals history by becoming the first team to overcome a 1-3 series deficit was beginning to seem like a real possibility. There was no question that this next possession was the critical moment of the game. Somebody in a home white uniform needed to step up and give this lethargic Spurs team (a team that had seemed invincible 36 hours earlier) some life. We needed a spark and it had to arrive on this possession. Otherwise, there was a distinct possibility that Game 5 was already lost.
It's always darkest before the dawn.
Like so many times before during his illustrious basketball career, when things seemed to be at their darkest in San Antonio, all of a sudden Manu Ginobili's majestic talent, in all its brilliant colors, appeared at the edge of the horizon and started rising up to fill the sky. During this possession, which doubled as the critical moment in the game, Manu sprang to life and delivered the necessary spark. Sixteen down, Ginobili put the ball on the floor, got bumped by Rashard Lewis, and finished a continuation by dropping a runner in over the top of Miami's interior defense. The whistle blew to award him the And One opportunity and the dormant crowd erupted with the fury of a thousand volcanoes. Fourteen down. Manu stepped up to the free throw line and sank the foul shot. Nothing but net. Thirteen down. Coach Pop was now relieved of the responsibility for making the decision on whether or not to pull the trigger on emptying the bench. The critical moment of the game (perhaps the critical moment of the series, the playoffs, the season, the last seven years) had just happened and Manu Ginobili, the greatest competitor to ever put on a San Antonio Spurs jersey, had delivered.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, he wasn't done. In fact, he was just getting started. On the next Miami possession, Shane Battier (desperate to get himself going in his final NBA game) became overly aggressive trying to establish position. Manu, who was guarding him, refused to give ground and Battier, in frustration, delivered a lethal elbow to Ginobili's chest. The whistle blew once again, but the confrontation continued nonetheless. Battier unrelentingly continued to throw his weight into Manu's upper body. Exacerbated, Ginobili through up his arms and ceded position. The unexpected release of opposing force caused Battier to tumble to the court and once arriving on the floor, the Miami journeyman kicked up his legs, tripping Manu and causing Ginobili to come crashing to the ground as well. Offensive foul, turnover, Spurs' ball. Battier's unwarranted aggression against the Spurs' sixth man proved to be a costly mistake. Within seven seconds of the turnover, Manu was letting a three pointer fly at the other end of the court. He buried it. Ten down. The crowd, sensing something magical was happening, was now working itself into a frenzy. Miami called timeout to try to thwart San Antonio's momentum.
Coming back out of the huddle, the Heat ran a well designed set play that resulted in Ray Allen attacking the smaller Patty Mills off the dribble. With Patty draped all over him, Jesus Shuttlesworth lowered his shoulder during his drive and dropped Mills to the hard court. This time, the referees swallowed their whistles and with no charge forthcoming, Allen dribbled into an open 16 foot jump shot. Surprisingly, the knock-down jump shooter missed and Ginobili was there to snatch a contested rebound. He dribbled down the court, commanded the attention of the Miami defense, and found a wide open Kawhi Leonard alone for another three pointer. Kawhi rose up and calmly knocked it down. Assist, Manu Ginobili. Seven down. Pandemonium in the AT&T Center. 45 seconds had elapsed off of the clock since reaching the critical moment of the game and during that time Manu Ginobili had scored six points, drawn a charge, grabbed a rebound, tallied an assist and cut a 16 point Miami lead to seven in the blink of an eye.
You would be well advised to wear sunglasses when attempting to fully take in the brilliant colors of Number 20's majestic talent. It's just that bright. When it comes to athletes, his is rarified air. The legends surrounding his feats on the basketball court are timeless. I mean, the guy swatted a flying bat right out of the air, and on Halloween no less. Playing his career during the television era has actually done his greatness a disservice because he does something magical every single night that you can only fully appreciate if you have seen it in person. Yet, even with television, these legends persist. Could you imagine them without the deterrent of cameras and replays? He would be our generation's Babe Ruth. Move over, Wilt Chamberlain and Pete Maravich. When I'm old, gray, and sitting out on the porch in a rocking chair with my grandchildren gathered round; I'm telling them stories of the times that I was in the building to see Manu freaking Ginobili.
And I tread a troubled track, my odds are stacked. I'll go back to black.
After Manu's magnificent flurry, the two teams traded baskets for the remainder of the first quarter and the Heat ended the period with a seven point lead heading into the second. To begin the next quarter, Coach Pop drew up a play that the Spurs rarely use; a play that he had added to the Spurs playbook for Richard Jefferson, once upon a time. Kawhi Leonard received the ball at the top of the key and immediately swung it over to Boris Diaw over on the left wing. He then cut hard to the basket curling off of a perfect Tiago Splitter back screen that picked off his defender, Dwyane Wade. Tiago's defender, Chris "Birdman" Andersen was slow to react and Boris delivered a perfect alley oop pass that Kawhi hammered home without breaking a sweat. Five down.
The Heat brought the ball back up the court and ran a set to get Wade a shot but as he tried to attack Danny Green off of the dribble, Danny stripped the ball from him and eventually tied him up for a jump ball. Danny went on to win the tip and the Spurs were back in attack mode. San Antonio methodically worked the ball up the court and around the horn. Tiago to Boris to Tony to Danny back to Boris to Kawhi isolated on the left elbow against LeBron James. Kawhi sized up the king, juked him once with a jab step and head fake, and then rose up and drained a 20 foot jumper right in his eye. Three down. It was beginning to seem as if the Spurs momentum was starting to flummox the Heat. You could see it on the faces of some of LeBron's teammates. They were beginning to succumb to the relentless march of inevitability. As Miami's supporting cast continued to stiffen up, it was clear that the pressure was building up like water in a dam and it was just a matter of time before it was ready to burst open.
Miami, however, was able to regroup and hold the Spurs off over the next few minutes. Wade and Chris Bosh both dropped in jump shots to get the Miami lead back to seven during a four minute stretch in which the Spurs went cold from the field. With the offense stagnating, San Antonio turned to our security blanket to operate the offense for the next few possessions. With the smaller Udonis Haslem guarding him, Tim Duncan went to work. Tony Parker fed Timmy in the post and Timmy dropped a beautiful retro 13 foot turn around fade-away over Haslem's outstretched arms. The hustle & flow of Tim Duncan's post game likens itself to a canon of literature from the Romantic Era and this particular shot was a masterpiece contribution. There was no time to dwell in art appreciation, however, as Wade came right back down, drew a foul, and made both free throws.
On the next possession, the Spurs went right back to TD in the low post. LeBron came with a double team to help Haslem so Duncan turned away from James right into Udonis hoping to draw a foul. When a foul was not granted on the body contact down low, Haslem was able to regroup and block the shot back out to the perimeter. Timmy reacted quickly to regain control of the basketball but with the shot clock winding down he had to throw up a desperation shot. The shot missed but luckily Boris was in position to grab the rebound and alertly fired it back out to Marco Belinelli. Marco pump faked a scrambling Ray Allen, took one dribble, and buried a confident 17 foot jumper that purposefully suggested that, as far as Marco was concerned, C.R.E.A.M. (championships rule everything around me). Belinelli had signed with the Spurs last summer so that he could play for a championship contender and despite limited minutes, he was delivering in his first NBA Finals.
The Heat came back down and attempted to reestablish their sputtering offense but were not patient enough to get the ball into the hands of James in one of his sweet spots. They settled instead for an open Haslem 19 foot jumper from the top of the key. After Haslem missed and Diaw secured the rebound for the Spurs, San Antonio purposefully worked the ball back in to Duncan in the post. Timmy turned, swept across the lane, and put up a running jump hook over a helpless Haslem. This shot was reminiscent of the one he had taken over the top of Shane Battier to give the Spurs a lead in the closing minute of Game 7 of last year's Finals in Miami. Last year, he back rimmed it and the rest was history. This year, he dropped it in as if he were blowing a kiss to the Spurs fans in order to reassure us that his "guarantee" would hold true and that the trophy was coming home. Miami quickly called a timeout but it seemed to be of little use in quelling San Antonio's momentum.
On the next Heat possession, Ray Allen was called for an offensive foul setting a moving screen away from the ball on Boris Diaw. Having clearly established a mismatch in Duncan's match up against the undersized Haslem, the Spurs were happy to continue exploiting it. After the Allen turnover, Tony dribbled off of a screen by Timmy, passed to Boris on the wing. Bobo hit a cutting Duncan near the rim. Tim rose up and scored over Haslem once again and drew the foul. One down. The crowd was now officially embarking on its ascension into the rafters and appeared poised to systematically remove the AT&T Center roof from the rest of the building. In other words, it was safe to say that the fans were starting to smell blood. After Timmy had dropped in his third shot int he last four possessions, LeBron James threw up is hands exasperated. Apparently he did not appreciate bearing witness to true NBA royalty as it shredded apart his team's interior defense. As much as privilege might make it hard to accept, sometimes even kings are rendered helpless and forced to sit back and watch the throne.
Even though Timmy missed the free throw that would have tied the game, it was becoming noticeably visible on the television screen that the body language of LeBron James' teammates was taking a turn for the worse. You could now unquestionably see the dejection in their faces. James would not be quite as easily discouraged, but he now seemed resigned to the fact that this was quickly becoming a contest of the best player in the world versus the best team in the world. While his teammates confidence was eroding, to his credit, the evaporation of the Heat lead only made LeBron look more determined. On the next trip down the court, however, (unfortunately for LeBron) the same could also be said about his opponents, who were oozing with defensive intensity and appeared determined to coalesce as a cohesive unit in order to deny another one-man surge. Defiantly, James attempted to attack off the dribble and was met at the rim by the four outstretched arms of Tim Duncan and Kawhi Leonard. LeBron missed the contested layup and there was a scramble for the loose ball that resulted in the ball cascading out of bounds off of Manu.Not to be deterred, LeBron attacked the rim again after Miami inbounded the ball. Again, he was met at the rim, this time by Timmy and Boris and again he missed the lay up. Uninterested in giving the king a third chance to get to the rim, this time Kawhi gobbled up the rebound and immediately started pushing the ball up the court.
On the break, Rashard Lewis picked up Kawhi sprinting down the middle of the court but as Kahwi approached the three point line, Lewis continued back pedaling to the free throw line. Leonard stopped his attack on a dime and rose up behind the arc to take the type of shot that only superstars dare to attempt on this big of a stage and the type of shot that he wouldn't have dreamed of taking in the 2013 NBA Finals. Not only did Kawhi rise up and attempt such a risky transition three, but in keeping with his rising stardom he had the swagger to bury that cold-blooded triple. Two up. The amassed fans in the AT&T Center lost their collective minds. The San Antonio Spurs had our first lead of Game 5 of the 2014 NBA Finals.
With the lead finally secured, (having already made a play in the critical moment of the game) the Spurs called on Manu Ginobili to step on the opponents' collective throats. Based upon the fire in his eyes, Manu clearly appeared to believe that he still had more to do to finish the job of redeeming himself for his 2013 NBA Finals performance. After Miami wound up with a contested Ray Allen fade away on a broken play, Patty Mills narrowly missed a three, and Rashard Lewis air balled a contested three, Manu caught the ball near the top of the key and waived off a screen to get an isolation against Lewis. Ginobili calmly dribbled the ball back out to near the half court line to set up his attack. He drove left on Lewis and as Chris Bosh came to help near the rim, Manu smoothly reversed the ball underneath the basket with his left hand and dropped it up off the backboard on the other side of the rim for a sick reverse layup. Four up. You could now hear the AT&T Center crowd from the suburbs. After Patty Mills drew a charge on Dwyane Wade on the next Heat possession, you could easily hear the crowd from San Marcos. The Spurs brought the ball back down the court and five passes later, Manu was fouled on another drive to the basket and almost converted the three point play on a runner. He uncharacteristically rimmed out the first free throw but he knocked down the second one. Five up. The crowd at the AT&T Center was going (what could only be described at this point as) bananas and you could almost see the demons of Game 6 of last year's Finals gathering their things together to get ready to leave the building.
LeBron, however, (still competing hard) drove the lane again and created a wide open three pointer for Bosh. Seemingly half-heartedly, Bosh launched the shot which rimmed out. Timmy secured the rebound and got the ball back to Manu on the outlet. With a full head of steam and that look in his eyes, Manu drove to the cup and jumped in the air for what seemed would be another spectacular reverse layup or floater. To the surprise of every member of planet Earth's basketball viewing public, Manu Ginobili didn't put the ball in position for a layup or floater. Instead he just kept rising up in the air. Up and up he went until he had the ball so high that he was at a clear advantage over Chris Bosh, who was challenging Manu at the rim. The 36 year old proceeded to slam the ball so violently into the basket directly in Bosh's face that I literally began crying tears of joy. Seven up (and I'm not talking about the soda), demons exorcised.
In my 30 years of watching the NBA, Manu Ginobili is the only player I have ever seen that has been able to do things with a basketball that have made me so full of such utter euphoria that my only recourse is to begin weeping and that is a good enough reason for me to make him the player of the game. Like the sonic boom you would imagine is created when a supernova explodes, the Spurs fans in attendance finally reached the crescendo of Titletown, TX's close-out a championship at home for the first time in nine years noise. You could hear it clear across the entire state. The noise, as predicted, was now an insurmountable obstacle for the Miami Heat to overcome. The writing was on the wall. When James (still competing, God bless him) was able to drop in a fade-away jumper to cut the lead back to five, the Spurs dribbled back down the court and even though the show was over, Manu amused the fans by granting them an encore. After a series of San Antonio Spurs passes, Manu caught the ball at the top of the key, dribbled right (using a Tim Duncan screen), stepped back off of the dribble, and drained a juicy fade away three pointer. As if it was all a dream, we were eight up, and the ball game was over. The San Antonio Spurs had a lead that we would not relinquish.
In the second half, the coronation was indeed on. Miami was unable to threaten to change the outcome of the game and the Spurs offense shifted naturally into cruise control. Patty Mills erupted for 14 points in the third quarter making all five of his shots including four from downtown. Needless to say, the Spurs backup point guard, who had played remarkably well throughout the playoff run, was hot in the third. In the fourth, it was the Tony Parker show. Parker, who went scoreless until the last possession of the third quarter, scored 14 points in the fourth on 6-7 shooting and 2-2 from the free throw line. It was a fitting cherry on top of the sweet and tasty championship dish for a man who had put the Spurs on his back the season before and almost carried the team to a title. You could easily sense that while Parker had put together a legendary 2013 playoff performance that had fallen only 28 seconds short of a championship, he was much happier to play a lesser role in 2014 but actually capture another ring, with a little help from my friends. With 2:12 left in the game and the Spurs ahead by 18, Gregg Popovich began substituting his star players out to give them a well deserved standing ovation.
After "having the trophy so close within reach that we could almost scrape a finger nail on it" last season, it was remarkable to see the mixture of excitement, joy, relief, and vindication expressed on the star players' faces as they fittingly took their curtain calls. The first to leave was Kawhi Leonard: The Future. Next, it was Tim Duncan: The Franchise. Then, Manu Ginobili: The Legend was pulled from the game. Finally, Coach Pop substituted for Tony Parker: The Present and Boris Diaw: The X-Factor together allowing the high school teammates the opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream. After all of the Spurs' stars had had their curtain calls, it was just a matter of watching the clock run down during garbage time.
With 42 seconds left in the game, Jeff Ayers made the last basket of the Spurs' 2014 NBA season by draining a 20 foot jumper that was assisted by The Red Mamba, Matt Bonner (the only other member of the team besides the Big Three that was already an NBA Champion). Tony Douglas came down a made a 24 foot three point jumper for the Heat with 37 seconds left and then the countdown to basketball bliss was on. Because the shot clock was running down with 14 seconds left in the game, Corey Joseph launched a half-hearted 19 foot jumper that missed. James Jones got the rebound, Miami advanced the ball, and Toney Douglas put up another three pointer with one second left for good measure. The shot missed as the buzzer sounded and the San Antonio Spurs were NBA Champions once again. The drive for five was complete. Confetti was free fallin'. Cinco.
The post-game celebration was spectacular to witness. Coach Pop sitting on the bench, looking utterly exhausted, just soaking in the excitement of his players. Tim Duncan and Mana Ginobili enjoying the moment through the eyes of their children. Danny Green running around like a kid in a candy store, manically trying to hug anyone and everyone all at once. Above all else, what stood out was the expression on Kawhi Leonard's face as the players gathered for trophy ceremony. If you've ever wanted to know what it is like to win a championship, all you would have to do is look at Kawhi's eyes during those moments. They told you, "it's good." And his smile reinforced, "it is good." As Adam Silver (the newly appointed NBA Commissioner) announced Leonard as the recipient of the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP award, the combination of unbridled joy and genuine shock was a fascinating snapshot of this entire era of San Antonio Spurs basketball. The humble glow on Kawhi's face just beamed through as if to say, "wow, this is pretty sweet, I could get used to it." Hopefully, like his teammate Tim Duncan, who won the same trophy in 1999 (at a similar age to Kawhi) he will in fact get quite used to it. Not only was Kawhi following in the footsteps of Timmy, but for the first time since Paul Pierce in 2008 and for only the fourth time in history (Dennis Johnson in 1979 and Bill Walton in 1977), the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Award is going (going) back (back) to Cali. Kawhi is only the fourth native Californian to win the award joining Pierce, Johnson, and Walton.
Leonard played remarkably in Game 3-5 of the Finals. He was like a phantom of the future. Game 3: 29 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks. Game 4: 20 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, 3 blocks. Game 5: 22 points, 10 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 1 block. For three games, Kawhi went toe to toe with the best basketball player in the world in LeBron James and for three games, the Spurs' small forward played the king to at least a draw. Kawhi forced LeBron's game to suffer a severe case of californication. In fact, you could easily argue that Kawhi's combination of Bruce Bowen defense and Sean Elliot offense in the final three games of the series was good enough to one up LeBron.
While firmly establishing himself during these Finals as an NBA superstar, Kawhi also has karate kicked the Spurs' championship window back to wide open for several years to come. As for next year, the young nucleus of Tiago, Danny, Patty, and Kawhi represents a respectable foundation for constructing a playoff contender. Throw in the rejuvenated Boris Diaw, a still-in-his-prime Tony Parker continuing to play at an all-star level, and another year of Manu and Timmy performing at an exceptional level for their age, and there is no reason why San Antonio shouldn't be right in the mix to defend our title when the 2015 playoff roll around. This sustained run of excellence, that will seemingly continue for several years to come, has exceeded the wildness of my imagination as a young Spurs fan coming of age during the first run to the title in 1999. It is hard to fathom that here we are 16 seasons later and there is no end in sight for the Spurs playing the role of championship contender. What are the chances that your favorite team from childhood would go on to become (hands down) the best team in American professional sports for two straight decades? Not a day goes by that I don't marvel in the dumb luck of that happening to me. I'm thankful for my Spurs every day.
We here now. It's time to stand up and elevate the game.
In this series, the #BlackAndSilver were in pursuit of achieving a human accomplishment that predates the entire history in which our species has enjoyed stewardship of the planet. In this series, the Spurs were in pursuit of achieving something primordial...redemption. It was evident from before the tip-off of the first game. You may have noticed a stark difference between the introduction of the 2014 NBA Finals from the introduction of the 2013 NBA Finals. This year's finals were not introduced with a laser and fire show as they were the year before in Miami. In San Antonio, the National Anthem was sung, the lineups were introduced, and the players took the court to jump center. It was an old-school feel. So old-school, in fact, the AT&T Center forgot to turn on the air conditioning for Game 1. The blistering playing conditions of Game 1 were emblematic of the fiery focus of a team that would not be deterred from achieving the redemption it had locked its sight on. The focus in our players' eyes was carnal and that fire burned over the course of the next five games. Without theatrics or showmanship this focused group from humble San Antonio put on their hard hats and worked the glitz and glamour Heatles into dust. Ball don't lie when the results are irrefutable. The Spurs outscored the Heat by an average of 14 points per game, the largest point differential in NBA Finals history. San Antonio not only chased redemption and captured it in the 2014 NBA Finals, but we inevitably grabbed it so hard that we squeezed the life out of the flamboyant team that we were taking it from.
Indeed, the 2014 San Antonio Spurs were among the greatest championship teams in recent memory. The way that we were able to come together to play dominant team basketball was truly remarkable. This team was better than the 2013 Heat title team. If you could catch Eric Spolstra, Pat Riley, or a member of the team in a moment of candor, I imagine that you could get any of them, to a man, to admit that they were extremely fortunate to be champions in 2013. This year's Spurs team was also better than the 2012 Heat or the 2011 Mavs. This squad would have destroyed the Kobe-Gasol Lakers. I believe they would be favored over the 2008 Boston Celtics. This current incarnation of the Spurs, while not the defensive behemoth of past title teams, was hands down the best offensive Spurs squad to win a title. And because they were sneakily above average defensively as well, they were arguably the best Spurs title team to-date. The last champion that could make a compelling case to be historically greater is probably the 2001 Los Angeles Lakers. When you factor in the redemption theme, you can, however, make a strong case that this year's Spurs team was the greatest team to win an NBA championship since the 1998 Chicago Bulls.
Speaking of redemption, while ranking the greatness of past champions is a subjective endeavor, I can say that the similarities that I outlined before these Finals started between the 1989 Detroit Pistons and the 2014 San Antonio Spurs proved to be quite accurate. Both teams lost the Finals in seven games the year before in heart-breaking fashion. Both teams also had the good fortune to get a rematch against the team that had beaten them in the Finals the year before. In 1989, the Detroit Pistons dismantled the Los Angeles Lakers in a decisive four game sweep that ultimately shut the door on the championships that were collected by the Magic Johnson / Kareem Abdul-Jabbar / Pat Riley era Lakers. In 2014, the San Antonio Spurs annihilated the Miami Heat and halted the ring count bravado of the LeBron James / Dwyane Wade / Chris Bosh era. Heat at not three, not four, not five, not six, but two. Both teams ripped through their respective opponents as if they weren't even playing the rival who had bested them the year before but were rather playing a game of chess against redemption itself. It takes focus to beat redemption at a game of chess and both teams had it. It also takes an impeccable brain trust. For the 1989 Detroit Pistons, that brain trust was Hall of Fame point guard Isaiah Thomas and legendary Head Coach Chuck Daly. Thomas and Daly, while at the NBA apex for a period of only two years, were nonetheless standard-bearers for basketball excellence during the bridge between Magic's Lakers and Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls. Future Hall of Famer Tim Duncan and his cantankerous partner Head Coach Gregg Popovich are clearly the brain trust of the 2014 San Antonio Spurs. Their run of basketball excellence has sustained over two decades and by taking the 2014 NBA title, Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich have further solidified their entrenchment as the standard-bearers for consistent brilliance over the last twenty years not only for the NBA, but for all of American professional sports.
This is a public service announcement, brought to you by the good folks at theLeftAhead: Tim Duncan is NOT the greatest power forward of all-time. Is Tim Duncan greater than Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Kevin Garnett and on down the list? There is no question about it. But by boxing Timmy into a discussion about power forwards, one is robbing his legacy the opportunity to be held up and compared to other big men...the likes of Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O'Neal, and on down the list. Furthermore, Timmy's place among the pantheon of great players should not be limited by position at all. Not that Tim Duncan cares about all of the lights, but we need to be discussing how he compares to Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Kobe Bryant as well. Now that Timmy has been around the block five times, I am of the opinion that he is one of the five greatest basketball players of all-time. The others on my list? Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and Magic Johnson. Keep in my mind that I said the greatest basketball players of all-time not the best basketball players of all-time. Best means that one has mastered the art of playing the game of basketball; greatest means that one has mastered the art of winning at the game of basketball's highest level. So yes, Tim Duncan is one of the five greatest basketball players of all-time. Not only am I of this opinion, but I have the numbers to bare it out.
Now that the ring count is retied, it is extremely difficult for the Kobe apologists to continue to make the case that Kobe is the greatest player in the post-Jordan era. Keep in mind that Kobe won three of his five championship rings as arguably the second best player on the team, in other words as Shaquille O'Neal's sidekick. While Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and now Kawhi Leonard have all had moments during championship runs where they have asserted themselves as the Spurs number one option, there is no question that for all five championship runs, Tim Duncan was the foundation of the team and for his entire career, he has been the Spurs best player. Tim Duncan is a quintessential winner and with this title he has definitively cemented his status as the greatest NBA basketball player in the post-Jordan era. In fact, based on winning at the highest level, you can argue that Timmy is the second greatest player behind Michael Jordan to lace them up since 1980. Look at how Timmy's career performance in the NBA Finals stacks up against the other all-time great players of the last 34 years. Only Michael Jordan boasts a better career performance.
Notable NBA Finals Career Performances Since 1980
(minimum 27 games)
Michael Jordan: 24-11 in the NBA Finals (.686), 6 championship rings (6-0 in Finals series), 6 Finals MVP's
Tim Duncan: 23-11 in the NBA Finals (.676), 5 championship rings (5-1 in Finals series), 3 Finals MVP's
Kobe Bryant: 23-14 in the NBA Finals (.621), 5 championship rings (5-2 in Finals series), 2 Finals MVP's
Shaquille O'Neal: 17-13 in the NBA Finals (.567), 4 championship rings (4-2 in Finals series), 3 Finals MVP's
Larry Bird: 16-15 in the NBA Finals (.516), 3 championship rings (3-2 in Finals series), 2 Finals MVP's
Magic Johnson: 24-27 in the NBA Finals (.471), 5 championship rings (5-4 in Finals series), 3 Finals MVP's
LeBron James: 11-16 in the NBA Finals (.407), 2 championship rings (2-3 in Finals series), 2 Finals MVP's
This 5th NBA Championship is enormous for something that Tim Duncan insists that he does not spend time thinking about but is constantly on the mind of his biggest fans...his legacy. The appointment Timmy has made to hoist a 5th banner into the rafters of the AT&T Center catapults Duncan, in my opinion, onto the Mount Rushmore of basketball players, supplanting Magic Johnson to take his place next to Bill Russell, Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. By leading the Spurs to the 2014 title, the incomparable Tim Duncan aka Time's Father has left Kobe Bryant and all of his other contemporaries in his dust and ascended to the highest rung for greatness in NBA annals. Timmy now has Russell, Jordan, and Jabbar in his sights and should he capture another title before he retires he will pass by Kareem and spark quite a debate for basketball junkies such as myself because a 6th Duncan ring would invariably make the designation of Greatest Basketball Player of All-Time a three person conversation.
What is likely far more rewarding to Timmy than individual greatness, is being a part of the San Antonio big three. Duncan reveres his teammates and having a pair of them that have been by his side for the majority of this spectacular run is seemingly more rewarding to him than all of the individual hardware he has collected over the years. You need not look any further for evidence of this than Timmy's interactions with Tony and Manu while celebrating their fourth title together. Duncan couldn't seem to get enough of being near Tony and Manu and reflecting on what they had accomplished together as comrades, brothers, and friends. And indeed, what the three of them have accomplished together is truly extraordinary...four titles together spanning 12 seasons. Incredible.
If the trio of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili had happened to be put together for an NBA franchise in a major media market, they would be universally revered as the greatest NBA trio of all-time. For arguments sake, let’s place them in Boston. Say Rick Pitino and the Celtics had won that 1997 draft lottery after all and drafted Tim Duncan and had also had the good fortune to draft Parker and Ginobili in subsequent years. Boston fans would have forgotten about Larry Bird, Kevin McCale, and Robert Parish because Boston would now have 21 NBA titles instead of 17 with Timmy, Tony, and Manu hauling in more banners than Larry Legend did. The Spurs trio would be regarded as the kings of Boston with the city's infamous fans lining up arm in arm all along the watchtower on the off chance that they might catch a glimpse or their conquering heroes each time they were ushered inside the castle walls. Boston fans would be like, Pedro who? The pet phrase Big Papi would evoke Bostonians to think of Big Punisher not David Ortiz. I mean, Bobby Orr wouldn't even be able to get a free ride on a zambony these days in Boston if Tim, Tony, and Manu were currently playing there. In New York? Forget about it. Luckily for me and millions of other small-market Spurs fans, we rarely had to share our adoration of the greatest trio in NBA history with the rest of basketball's global fan base until recently. As much as we have enjoyed keeping Timmy, Tony, and Manu primarily to ourselves over the last 12 years, it is gratifying to see them finally getting their just do with the larger basketball audience.
Revolution 1: The art of teamwork, perfected.
The culmination that faithful Spurs fans had been waiting for manifested in the 2014 NBA Finals. For the 2014 San Antonio Spurs, it truly was a beautiful game. The Spurs had shown glimpses of this unstoppable team basketball at times over the past three seasons. During the 20 game winning streak spanning the last ten games of the 2012 regular season and the first ten games of the 2012 playoffs, it was on display. The Spurs reached these heights at times during the 2013 Finals run, albeit too sporadically. It's almost a footnote in Spurs history now given the heartbreaking way that the 2013 Finals concluded, but the Spurs dismantled the defending champion Miami Heat by 36 points in Game 3 of that series. This season, we had a 19 game winning streak during the regular season during which we looked unbeatable at times.
This ascension back to the NBA mountain top seemed unfathomable to most of the experts. After losing Manu Ginobili to injury prior to the 2009 NBA playoffs and then inexplicably bowing out in the first round as the three seed to the sixth seeded Dallas Mavericks in 5 games, a theory emerged that the Spurs were too old to continue to compete for NBA championships. In 2010, we returned the favor to Dallas by upsetting the second seeded Mavericks as the seventh seed but we proceeded to fall apart in the second-round and let one of our other rivals from years past finally got the better of us. The Phoenix Suns exorcised some of their own demons by sweeping the Spurs out of the playoffs in that 2010 Western Conference Semi-Final series. In 2011, the Spurs temporarily quelled some of the "too old" narrative by regaining our mastery of the regular season to enter the 2011 playoffs as the one seed. Once again, however, an injury disrupted Manu Ginobili and the Spurs were embarrassingly eliminated in the first round by the Memphis Grizzlies in six games.
At this point the "too old" narrative reached its apex right before the Spurs pulled off one of the greatest draft day trades in NBA history to acquire the rights to Kawhi Leonard in exchange for sending beloved Spurs guard George Hill to his hometown Indiana Pacers. Plucking American-born Kawhi Leonard away from the Pacers began one of the most spectacular engineering projects of global collaboration in the history of industrialization that retooled the Spurs into the machine on display during these Finals. Kawhi was soon joined by fellow American Danny Green to create the toughest defensive starting wing-combination in the NBA. With that combination in place to accompany the big three, the Spurs' front office did what they do better than any other front office in the league and started globe trotting. Boris Diaw was added to the squad to join Tony from France. Tiago Splitter continued to develop his Brazilian game to complement Manu's South American flare. Patty Mills and Aron Baynes were acquired from Down Under and Marco Belinelli was brought in to add some Italian seasoning to the mix. By the time the 2012 lock out ended and the season was underway, the Spurs had remarkably found a way to put all of the pieces into place to return to seriously contending for NBA championships. It was just a matter of time before the machine became an instrument that was fine-tuned to begin playing the sweet, sweet music of The Beautiful Game.
This June, the time was finally now. Without a doubt, the 2014 San Antonio Spurs were built not bought. In fact, they were purposefully engineered in the global marketplace to outwit the discouraging trend of teams buying the greatest individual talent available in American and betting on the odds that the accumulation of individual talent would overpower the competition. This was the blueprint that the 2012 and 2013 Miami Heat borrowed from the 2008 Boston Celtics to win back-to-back NBA championships. This year, the Spurs obliterated that blueprint by building a global team whose whole was remarkably greater than the sum of its parts. The engineering of the machine was complete. The machine was a beautiful instrument and that instrument played a song so overpowering that the best basketball player in the world was powerless to silence it. The Beautiful Game performed an overpowering symphony in the 2014 NBA Finals that was so remarkably rewarding to listen to, there is only one possibility for its title. Cinco.
As I sit here beaming as one of the luckiest and happiest sports fans of a generation, I know that I should be satisfied. I know I should stop clapping and exit the theater. But against my better judgement, I can't help but wonder if the San Antonio Spurs have one more encore left for those of us still in the audience continuing our unabashed ovation. There is still one unturned stone, there is still one unaccomplished goal, there is still one dream that we have not yet been able to catch. Back-to-back. So if you need me, I'll still be here in the audience cheering relentlessly and waiting to see if the band comes back out to give that one elusive encore. If you need me, I'll still be here in the audience holding my breath waiting to see if The Beautiful Game returns to play the most spectacular symphony of my wildest dreams. Come on, San Antonio. Just one more. Play that back-to-back music to my ears. Let's go, Spurs. Just one more. Seis.
* * *
As I sat on the couch and in that vast empty space, I knew that my emotions would soon engulf me. I rested there, motionless, embracing my catatonia while fully understanding that time is the enemy. My acute awareness of an impending emotional reaction was driven primarily by my experience in April, but also partially by a prior experience with a championship clinching win by the San Antonio Spurs. As I stared blankly at the television, coincidentally on Father's Day, at this 2014 Spurs' celebration, I remembered my experience watching Game 7 of the 2005 NBA Finals and I remembered my dad. The 2005 NBA Finals series between the Detroit Pistons and the San Antonio Spurs had been a special moment in time for my father and me. Since my childhood, my dad and I had dreamed of an NBA Finals match up between our two favorite teams (Detroit was my dad's favorite team and San Antonio is obviously my favorite team) and in bitter sweet fashion, our dream came to pass in 2005 at both the best and worst of times.
In August of 2004, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. I was living in Detroit at the time and the Pistons were fresh off of winning the title in resounding fashion by destroying the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals. My dad and I had had an ongoing tradition since I was in junior high school to attend the Spurs' game in San Antonio each year when the Detroit Pistons were in town. With a couple of exceptions due to extenuating circumstances, my dad and I had attended every Detroit Pistons v. San Antonio Spurs game that took place in San Antonio since 1993. After my dad's diagnosis, he and my mom visited me in Detroit and we were able to take a trip out to the Palace at Auburn Hills (the Detroit Pistons arena) but it was during the NBA off-season so there was not an opportunity to see a Pistons' home game during their visit. Nonetheless, after I returned to Texas during the holidays, my dad and I attended one last game between the Pistons and the Spurs in San Antonio during the 2004-05 regular season. With both the Pistons and Spurs once again among the top teams in their respective conferences, I remember my dad and I discussed during the game how promising it looked that our dream of Detroit v. San Antonio matchup in the NBA Finals would be realized in June.
When June arrived and that was, amazingly, the 2005 NBA Finals matchup, my dad's disease had taken root and his mind was too far gone to be fully present with me to share the experience we had been dreaming of for so many years. I watched the Spurs defeat the Pistons in Game 2 with him in my parent's home on Sunday, June 12, 2005. My dad smiled as he peered at the television during that game. He clearly enjoyed my company but was experiencing the realization of our dream in spirit much more than he was able to experience it cognitively. By the time Game 7 arrived, and the Spurs escaped victorious from a pressure-packed fourth quarter, watching the game alone in my Dallas apartment, I remember I had had a numbness in processing the result. I had occupied a vast, empty space as the Spurs began celebrating the 2005 championship. I remember that I was emotionally exhausted and I was eerily detached from the happiness that comes with a title-clinching victory. After watching the championship ceremony and witnessing Tim Duncan receive his third NBA Finals MVP award, I called my parents on the phone to talk to my dad. He was happy to speak to me. My mom had had the game on in the house for him, but apparently he had not been able to process the results very well. When I told him that my Spurs had just finished playing his Pistons for the NBA Championship, he asked me, "who scored the most touchdowns?" That was the moment the devastatingly cruel reality of Alzheimer's disease hit home with me. Alone in an apartment in Dallas, I was no longer detached. The space I occupied was no long vast and empty. On the night of Thursday, June 23, 2005, my beloved San Antonio Spurs had just won our third NBA championship and I was alone, balling uncontrollably, engulfed in a perfect storm of agony and ecstasy. The ferocity of the competing emotions made for a piercing experience, one I assumed I was unlikely to experience again.
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground. Same as it ever was.
One of the last things that Brian and I had been making plans to do together was to find a weekend to get together in San Antonio and go to a Spurs game. As the season wore on and we hadn't pinned down a game we wanted to attend on a weekend that worked with both of our schedules, it seemed that the best plan might be to try to target a playoff game that would fall on a weekend. Then, on April 3 (a few weeks before the start of the playoffs), just like that, Brian was gone. When I decided to write this second edition of the Black & Silver blog series after Brian's passing, I knew that I wanted to dedicate it to my best friend. After making the commitment to the project, I experienced this calming confidence that permeated from outside of myself and that I associated with Brian's spirit. Inexplicably, I just knew that the Spurs would prevail this year.
Through out the playoff run, I carried his memory with me. The Spurs have allowed me to feel close to him. Since Brian's passing, I've worn a silver rose on a necklace as a memorial to my best friend. The rose is symbolic of a significant moment in our friendship so I have been wearing it around my neck as a tribute to him every day since April 3rd and I will continue to wear it every day for the rest of my life. As these playoffs have unfolded, I've regularly clutched the rose on my necklace in tense moments during games. After the Spurs captured the title, as I sat on the couch watching the championship ceremony unfold, the vast empty space persisted and I continued to wait patiently to be engulfed. I knew that the same mixture of emotions that I felt in 2005 were an inevitability. I also knew that there was only one thing that would release me from emptiness and into the endless depths of emotion. There was a song that I needed to hear. Holding on to the rose on my necklace I sat on the couch in my emptiness and watched to post game championship coverage until the last piece of confetti had dropped from the rafters. When the coverage was complete and the lights were turned off in the AT&T Center, embracing the darkness, I switched over from the television to our living room stereo, found the aforementioned song and pressed play. The music crashed down on my soul like a tidal wave and, as anticipated, I was finally engulfed.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year.
We met in seventh grade basketball tryouts. It was 1991 and I guess I was thirteen and he was twelve. Being a naturally gifted athlete, Brian was ahead of me on the depth chart. If my memory serves me, he started the season as the third string point guard on the A team and I started the season as the second string point guard on the B team. For whatever reason, quickly after tryouts had begun, we started pairing up together for drills during practice that required a partner. Maybe it was because we enjoyed each other’s company. Perhaps it was because Brian was very laid back and I lacked steady confidence in my abilities which made us a good match because some of the other point guards on the team were super competitive. I’m sure it was probably a combination of those things. Regardless, I quickly established myself in Brian’s circle of close friends.
I think that one of the reasons we ended up becoming best friends is that, while we shared similar interests with our entire group of friends such as sports, video games, clothes, and music, Brian and I seemed to have a special connection when it came to our shared interests in music and basketball. It went beyond simply enjoying the same artists and athletes. For some reason, we both had a passion to interact with the music and sport that we loved, but we always had a blast sharing music and basketball with each other. For over 22 years music and basketball were woven together throughout the majestic quilt that was my most important friendship. From creating our own pretend radio station as eight graders in 1992 to creating Rhime Divine (our own hip hop group) as college sophomores in 1998. From having a blast playing Hoop It Up together in Austin in 1994 to attending Game 1 of the 2003 NBA Finals together at the AT&T Center in San Antonio. Music and basketball were omnipresent in my relationship with my best friend. This journey has taught me that they are now vehicles that I can use anytime that I want to feel close to him.
As I announced in the post after the Spurs had gone into the City of Blinding Lights and stormed the castle, the songs that appear in this year’s edition of the Black And Silver blog series originate from a playlist entitled Brian’s Cuts that I created for his memorial party. These were songs that Brian loved. I used them to honor him as I used our team as my muse to do something that he always pushed me to do more of; write. Perhaps the blogging was a coping mechanism. Perhaps it was a distraction. The pain was acute when I began this journey and sitting on the couch in that vast empty space after the journey was complete, I was utterly exhausted. I had nothing left. It has taken me a great deal of time to put these thoughts together. While the thoughts flowed freely during the journey, once it was completed, the well was empty. Now, I am finally beginning the slow process of replenishing it.
A great deal has changed since that unforgettable night in June. I now live in Denver, Colorado. LeBron James is once again a Cleveland Cavalier. And the San Antonio Spurs once again have made history by becoming the first franchise in the four major North American professional sports leagues to hire a full-time female assistant coach in Becky Hammon (one of my proudest moments as a Spurs fan). One thing hasn't changed. I miss my best friend and I think about him every day. I am continuing to use music and basketball as vehicles to feel close to him. As I had come to realize during the journey that was the 2014 San Antonio Spurs' march to a tithe title, music and basketball are woven together throughout the majestic quilt that was my most important friendship. The two fabrics complimented each other perfectly.
Sitting on that couch in that vast empty space back in June, I prepared myself for the inevitable engulfment, found the song I needed to hear and I pressed play. Wish you were here. With every ounce of my being, in that moment, wish you were here. I finally succumbed to the moment and the moment brought me peace. Brian is gone but every time I clutch my rose, I garner strength. I have our music. Every time I play one of our songs, I garner strength. I have our Spurs. Every time I reflect back on the 2014 Spurs march to the title and how close it made me fells to my best fiend, I garner strength. Wish you were here. And wishing it is torture, but through this journey I have established an unbreakable connection with the ways that you are here. Brian, I miss you. I can't wait to see you again on the other side. Until then, I won't forget to write.
Editor's Note: An excerpt of this post was originally published on July 31, 2014. The excerpt was deleted and replaced with the completed piece on May 2, 2015 but we are choosing to keep the original publication date. The final version of this piece references the hiring of Becky Hammon by the San Antonio Spurs on August 5, 2014. That historic event, however, postdates the represented publication date of the post.
Featured Image Source: NBA.com
Headline Image Source: El Quinto Cuarto
One Left
2014 NBA Finals, Game 4
Juicy - It was all a dream... All thirteen players that suited up for the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4 of the 2014 NBA Finals dotted the box score with at least two points. Yes, thirteen players scored for one team in an NBA Finals game. This has never happened before. The NBA expanded the active roster for an NBA game from 12 to 13 players during the lockout-shortened 2011-2012 season. We are currently in the third NBA Finals series played since that happened and in no contest from 2012-2014 had all 13 players scored for one team until Thursday night. The San Antonio Spurs used 40 field goals (25 of them assisted), 18 free throws, and 13 different scorers to defeat the Miami Heat 107-86 in Game 4 and for our second consecutive blowout victory on the road in this series. So many different people scored for the Spurs Thursday night, I'm pretty sure even the Coyote was in the box score with a dunk. We came back to Miami this week seeking not just a split, but rather redemption for our last two NBA Finals appearances in American Airlines Arena. And this was no easy task. The Triple A, now housing the two-time defending champions, had apparently become more intimidating than ever because the Heat were undefeated at home in the 2014 NBA playoffs heading into these Finals. We also returned to the scene of San Antonio's greatest playoff disappointment to face an opponent who had not lost back-to-back playoff games since dropping Games 3, 4, & 5 of the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals to the Boston Celtics. Well, we came back to Miami and, as the Spurs often do, we were able to find a way to be the team that put an end to our opponent's impressive streaks. More importantly, we also got our coveted redemption. It sure doesn't hurt, either, that we got in such emphatic fashion.
The San Antonio Spurs were able to navigate the past several weeks to arrive back in the city of blinding lights and achieve our redemption in American Airlines Arena by just continuing to play outstanding team basketball during these NBA playoffs. In fact, since May 4 when the Spurs blew out the Mavericks 119-96 in Game 7 of our first round series we have (on most nights) played some of the best basketball that the league has ever seen. During this impressive stretch, the Spurs have gone a solid 12-4 (.750 winning percentage) but have won our twelve victories by an average of 20.08 points per game (the only close contest was the Spurs' five point overtime victory to closeout the Thunder in Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals). Granted, the four contest that we have lost during this stretch (by an average of 8.75 points per game) and the prior three contests that we surrendered to the Mavs (by an average of 4.67 points per game) will prevent these Spurs from having a shot at being remembered as one of the most dominant teams in NBA playoff history, but in our wins we have played impeccable team basketball. Rarely, during this stretch, has there been a victory that has been the byproduct of a signature performance by one of our star players. In last years run to the 2013 NBA Finals, the Spurs rode Tony Parker's brilliant play to many a playoff victory. While Tony, Tim Duncan, and Manu Ginobili have all played stellar basketball throughout this year's run, we have not needed to rely on any of our big three to put up huge numbers in order to win. We have just shared the basketball night in and night out and overwhelmed our opponents with our depth. And the Spurs are not just deep, we are Indian Ocean deep. Better yet, we are Jack Handey deep. Case in point, the aforementioned ability of this team to get thirteen players into the scoring column in an NBA Finals game is proof enough that this is an historically deep basketball club. Here is one of the Spurs player's lines from Thursday night: 20 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, 3 blocks. Looking at it in a vacuum, one would assume that this line probably belonged to Tim Duncan but that would be an incorrect assumption because this was the line of Kawhi Leonard: NBA superstar. Here's another line from Thursday: 14 points (on 5-8 shooting), 2 assists. Again in a vacuum, one would assume that this could be Tony's line on an efficient shooting night in a game where the defense was predicated on getting the ball out of his hands early. Again, this would be an incorrect assumption because this was Patty Mill's line which he impressively put together in 16 minutes and from his role as back-up point guard. Here's one more: 8 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists, 1 steal. That's Manu Ginobili's line, right? Obviously, Manu is the only Spur who is versatile enough to put together a near triple-double without having a huge scoring night. Guess again, Boris Diaw is also that versatile. By the way, on Thursday night the big three (while not needed to dominate) still contributed to the team win. Tim Duncan had 10 points, 11 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 1 blocked shot. Tony Parker had 19 points and 2 assists. Manu Ginobili had 7 points, 1 rebound, and 2 assists.
In the flow of San Antonio's team efforts, Bloriff Diaw has indeed had an astronomical impact on this series, especially since he was inserted into the starting lineup alongside Tim Duncan for Games 3 & 4 in what Coach Pop refers to as Medium Ball. In last year's Finals, Miami was able to punish the Spurs for playing our traditional lineup of Tiago Splitter and Tim Duncan because we were unable to close out regularly enough on all of Miami's shooters when they went small. When we adjusted by trying to match them with our own small lineup featuring Manu Ginobili in the starting lineup, the Heat proved to be slightly better than us at Small Ball, winning two of the final three games. Boris Diaw playing at the level he is playing at this year, with all of his versatility, changes everything. On defense, Boris has had the quickness to defend the three point line while also protecting the rim. On offense, he has had the size and low post skills to punish Miami for going small as well as the passing skills of a point guard which has allowed us to run much of our offense through him down on the block and from the point forward position. Boris Diaw's impact on this series is a testament to the Spurs depth in the respect that we have so many weapons that we can eventually devise a strategy and find one to strategically utilize in order to completely change the trajectory of a Finals series. Even though Kawhi had another monster game on Thursday night, I am giving Boris the nod as player of the game because he has been that trajectory-altering weapon for the Spurs in the past two games played in Miami.Fortunately for Spurs fans, when Heat coach Erik Spoelstra looks beyond his four future hall-of-famers and down his bench to find players who can make a momentum-changing impact on the series, to this point, he has been unable to find the weapons to match ours. Boris' ability to impact this series in drastically more ways than the fifth or sixth player on the Heat's depth chart is also a testament to the brilliance of Gregg Popovich as a basketball tactician. Employing Medium Ball has allowed the Spurs to take Miami completely out of their game. Coach Pop is generally regarded as the best basketball coach currently coaching in the NBA despite the fact that he has had some really heart-breaking playoff defeats over the years at the hands of some good but probably inferior coaches. One of the reasons why Pop garners so much respect is that he has been proven time and time again that, if you are an NBA head coach that has figured out a way to beat the San Antonio Spurs in a playoff series, you do not want to give Coach Pop a year or more to game plan how to approach a playoff rematch. He really has had the ability to look under the hood and figure out the necessary personnel moves, player development, and eventually a game plan to overcome whatever match up problems your team and your game plan had presented him with in the series that you beat him in. In the past two seasons alone, Coach Pop has already gotten revenge on Lionel Hollins and the Memphis Grizzlies for our 2011 defeat and Scott Brooks and the Oklahoma City Thunder for our 2012 defeat. This series is far from over, but it seems at this point that Miami's best hope for clawing their way back into the 2014 NBA Finals will come via a herculean effort by LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, and Ray Allen. It seems much less likely that Erik Spoelstra has the personnel nor the strategic savvy to dig his team out of this hole by making a tactical adjustment that utilizes another one of the Heat's weapons.
It appears that many among the national media covering the NBA are utterly shocked at the level of team basketball that the Spurs have been playing during these NBA Finals. It continues to be mind-boggling to me that very few of the people who get paid to report on the NBA all season didn't already know how good the Spurs are and couldn't see this coming. Before this series began, I compared these Spurs to the 1988-89 Detroit Pistons who overcame a heart-breaking seven game defeat to the Los Angeles Lakers the year before to come back and sweep the two-time defending champion Lakers out of the 1989 NBA Finals. These Spurs came within a few missed free throws in Game 2 of sweeping the two-time defending champion Miami Heat out of this years Finals. It has been quite apparent to me after watching both of these teams all season that the scenario we find ourselves in was not only a possibility but more likely a probability. Somehow (heading into this match up), the so-called experts continued to not know about the potential that these Spurs have for all-time historic greatness. ...and if you don't know, now you know.
Nonetheless, as much as I would love to definitively say that the Spurs have broken the will of the team that eliminated us from the postseason last year, I've been watching NBA basketball long enough to know that is very unlikely and that this series is, indeed, far from over. Even though it has never happened in the Finals, eight NBA teams have overcome 1-3 holes to win a playoff series. Heading into tonight's contest, it would be ludicrous to think that the two-time defending champion Miami Heat are incapable of becoming the ninth. The main reason that Spurs fans must refrain from celebrating prematurely is because LeBron James is just too good to go down without a fight. While our team play has been hitting on all cylinders these past two games, LeBron had already proven once in this series that his individual greatness can rattle our unit enough that we can still be forced into abandoning the team defense and ball movement which we must rely on in order to win games. We can also still be pushed into playing a desperate brand of basketball in which our defense takes unnecessary risks in reaction to a player of LeBron's caliber and consequently (after a player like that gets into a rhythm where he is dictating the action by creating his own offense and also setting up his teammates), Tony and Manu sometimes respond by reverting back to playing one-on-one basketball on offense in an attempt to neutralize the momentum of the other team's star player. Tonight, the greatest basketball player in the world is going to be highly motivated to impose his will in order to try to force us into playing that desperate style of basketball again. San Antonio cannot fall for the trap. If we continue to stick to our defensive principles and share the ball on offense, it will not matter what LeBron does individually to create his own offense. Even if LeBron is able to play the best scoring game of his career, as long as we do not allow him to use his offensive gifts to break down our defense to the point where he is dictating both his own offense and also getting his teammates going, the Heat will have a hard time winning (even if LeBron goes for 60). This is provided that we also don't turn the ball over repeatedly and continue to execute our ball movement on the other end. In other words, LeBron James is capable of winning tonight's ball game. He is not capable of winning it if he is not allowed to take us out of our game by reeking havoc on defense and also both scoring and getting Wade, Bosh, and Allen going as well on offense. If the #BlackAndSilver take the court tonight at the AT&T Center and proceed to use one of the deepest rosters in NBA history to play together in pursuit of Revolution 1, we will put ourselves in position to win another playoff basketball game against a great player whose team just happened to get the better of us last year. It is that simple. Sometimes the best team is simply the best team and is able to prove it more times than not against individual greatness. If we consistently play our game tonight, chances are it will be demonstrably apparent to every viewer (including those who happen to also be members of the national media) that we are indeed the better team. The Spurs did not start this transformation to becoming the best team last Tuesday or in April or even last October. Gregg Popovich has been preparing the 2013-2014 San Antonio Spurs to be the best team by equipping us to be better than the 2012-2013 Miami Heat since June 21st, 2013. Now that the transformation has taken hold, hopefully tonight is another night that we are able to prove it.
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Wish you were here.
Featured Image Source: Widescreen Wallpapers
Headline Image Source: The New York Times
Two Left
2014 NBA Finals, Game 3
City of Blinding Lights - It has been quite a long time since the San Antonio Spurs have had a superstar basketball player on our roster who was born on the American mainland. 29 years to be exact. "How could this be?" you ask. Well, Tony Parker obviously doesn't fit that criteria. He was born in Bruges, Belgium on May 17, 1982. Manu Ginobili obviously doesn't fit the criteria either. He was born in Bahía Blanca, Argentina on July 28, 1977. "Tim Duncan?" Although he was born a U.S. Citizen, it is pretty well universally known among basketball fans that he doesn't fit the criteria either. Timmy was born in Christiansted, United States Virgin Islands on April 25, 1976. "Hold on, surely David Robinson was born on the American mainland, right? After all, he postponed beginning his NBA career for two years to finish his commitment to the United States Navy. His nickname is the Admiral. He is practically Captain America." Actually, while David Robinson was born in the continental United States, even he does not fit the criteria because he was born on the island of Key West, Florida on August 6, 1965. So there you have it. The last player to fit the criteria was a nine time NBA All-Star, made the All-NBA First Team five times, and was a four time NBA scoring champion. He stopped playing for the franchise in 1985 and his number 44 jersey has been hanging from the rafters in the AT&T Center (the Alamodome and HemisFair Arena previously) for quite some time. As far as being born on the American mainland and also going on the become a superstar basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs is concerned, George Gervin, who was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 27, 1952, might finally have some company. 22 year old Kawhi Leonard, who was born in Riverside, California on June 29, 1991 (six years after The Iceman played his last game for the franchise), had a performance Tuesday night on basketball's biggest stage that just might have cemented his ascension to superstar basketball player status. Leonard scored 29 points on 10-13 shooting (3-6 from deep) in Game 3 of the 2014 NBA Finals to spearhead a 111-92 Spurs road victory over the Heat at American Airlines Arena in Miami. Thanks in large part to the performance of Kawhi, home court advantage in the series has officially been grabbed right back.
Not only did Kawhi shoot lights out, but he also collected 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocked shots while playing stellar defense the entire game on the world's best basketball player. LeBron James was limited to 22 points and committed an uncharacteristic seven turnovers with Leonard draped all over him for big stretches of the game. After two games in this series and a split at home, San Antonio Spurs fans had been worried because Kawhi's performance had not been able to rival the breathtaking showcase of his abilities as a two-way player he had unleashed during the 2013 NBA Finals (averaging 17 points and 11 rebounds). For Games 1 & 2 of the 2014 NBA Finals, Kawhi put up only 9 points and 2 rebounds in each game and was in constant foul trouble committing 9 personal fouls in 56 minutes and fouling out of Game 2. He seemed tentative with his decision making back in San Antonio and he was allowing James to be the aggressor in their one-on-one match up on both ends of the floor. It is no secret that the acquisition of the draft rights for Kawhi Leonard during the 2012 NBA draft is one of the primary reasons that the Spurs have reemerged as championship contenders over the past couple of seasons. Coming into Game 3, Spurs fans knew that it would be extremely difficult for us to win a road game against the two-time defending champions if we continued to get the tentative Kawhi from Game 1 & 2. We knew that we needed the beast-mode Kawhi from the 2013 Finals and Tuesday night we got that and then some. Whi played a breathtaking game and asserted himself as a dominant force from the jump by hitting his first six shots on his way to scoring 16 points in the first quarter and outdueling LeBron in the process (James had 14 first quarter points). Leonard, as the primary defender on James, then proceeded to hold LeBron to only eight points over the course of the final three periods. Kawhi clearly was on a mission on Tuesday to make up for his earlier struggles in the series and his superstar performance made him the runaway choice for player of the game. By the way, only two other players in NBA history have scored 29 or more points in an NBA Finals game before enjoying their 23rd birthdays. Their names? Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant. Last night, Kawhi Leonard: NBA superstar may just have indeed arrived.
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Yes, the Spurs might actually have our first NBA superstar on the roster that was born on the American mainland since George Gervin in 1985. In fact, in this period that constitutes R.C. Buford's tenure running the franchise's basketball operations, I would venture with near certainty that the San Antonio Spurs have had the fewest American basketball players suit up for our team of any franchise in the league. I can't imagine that it is even close. You would be hard pressed to find a better collection of international athletic talent on display any where in the world over the past 10 years than the basketball roster that the Spurs have sent on the court night in and night out and currently have competing in the NBA Finals. Thinking about the Wild International uniqueness of the Spurs yesterday, I was reminded of a preseason game I attended a few years back with my best friend, Brian and my wife, Jenn. I knew that I had tweeted before that particular game so I used my Twitter feed to help me remember when it took place. It turns out that it was a preseason game that occurred as we were embarking upon the 2009-2010 season. On a side note, after locating the tweet I also realized just how long ago 2009 was technologically. If I had had a fully developed Twitter game back in the fall of 2009, the tweet from that day would have looked slightly different:
Going to the Spurs game tonight. Seats on the 15th row. 2nd best seats I've ever had. Pop better play Timmy, Manu, and Tony.
— Ted James (@tedjames) October 9, 2009
After scrolling back through my Twitter feed to 2009, I almost chuckled remembering how primitive my skills at using the platform were back then. Knowing what I know now as an unverified Twitter ninja, the tweet would have probably been reworded and abbreviated so that it could have also included @thebdub and @JHook528 and #GoSpursGo. This would have made for a much more nostalgic trip back down #MemoryLane (You see what I did there? Ninja skills). At any rate, what prompted me to think about a random preseason game yesterday was that it had served as an interesting opportunity to watch the best international basketball club in the world actually play another international club. The Spurs took on Olympiacos Piraeus B.C. at the AT&T Center that night. I remember that the three of us had an amazing time watching an interesting game. What stood out to me about the game, more than anything, was that because we had been fortunate enough to have unbelievable seats on the 15th row, we were close enough to the court to hear the players communicate. To my surprise, I heard less English from the Spurs at times than I heard from the Olympiacos squad led by Josh Childress. The current version of the Spurs is even more international than those teams at the beginning of the decade. Despite all of the English As a Second Language (EASL) barriers that the Spurs have had to work around each and every season during the R.C. Buford era, it is quite obvious that basketball (at the least the way its played in San Antonio) is a universal language. The San Antonio Spurs, in the truest sense of the word, are the world's best basketball team.
As often happens, reflecting on one positive memory triggers the remembrance of another. That night, after the game, Brian came over to Jenn and my house to partake in another one of our other favorite past times along with rooting for the Spurs...barbequing. On countless occasions after Jenn and I had bought our house in 2008, Brian came back into town to kick back with us, have a few cold ones, listen to music, and eat. If we were grilling food on a Friday or Saturday night and there was any possibility that Brian could get away from Austin, he was there. Sometimes we would have large gatherings of friends over to barbeque at the house. Other times it was just the three of us. Either way, there was nothing more enjoyable than hanging out with Brian late into the night on our deck (or before we built it, in the driveway) discussing politics, music, and of course the Spurs. Brian and I were known to overdo it from time to time. Every once and a while, a few cold ones turned into a few too many. One of those nights was on the eve of the 2009 Inauguration of Barack Obama. Brian and I were so excited about the historic event we were about to witness the next morning that we just stayed up right through the night. As the sun was rising on the morning of January 20, 2009, Brian and I were wide awake, deep in conversation, and listening to music. One of the songs that I distinctly remember us listening to during that brilliant sunrise was a song that had become somewhat of an Obama for America campaign theme song: "City of Blinding Lights" by U2. Memories have a funny way of fusing together the things that you miss about the important people you have lost. I miss listening to music with my best friend. I miss watching the Spurs with my best friend. In reverence to these things that are now absent in my life, the songs that appear in this year's edition of the Black And Silver blog series originate from a playlist entitled Brian's Cuts that I created for his memorial party.
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San Antonio put on an historic exhibition of basketball on Tuesday night during the first half of a game played under the blinding lights of the city that boasted an undefeated home record in American Airlines Arena during the 2014 NBA playoffs heading into Game 3. We scored 41 points in the first quarter. We scored 71 points in the first half. We made an NBA Finals record 75.8 percent of the shots that we attempted in those two quarters. It was a beautiful display of sharing the basketball that happens only once upon a dream. As perfection is an unobtainable pursuit in an endeavor as complex as an playing an NBA basketball game, the 2014 San Antonio Spurs may never reach Revolution 1: the art of teamwork perfected, but during the first half of Game 3 we seemed hellbent on trying. That was probably about as close to a perfect display of team basketball as has ever been seen on a stage as grand as the NBA Finals. Hopefully, since we came up a little short of perfection (missing 24.2 percent of our shots by the end of the half), the Spurs can make another run at perfection tonight. We are going to have to play even better than we did on Tuesday in order to return home from Miami unscathed and to give ourselves an opportunity to close out the champs at home on Sunday. While tonight's game is a must-win for the Miami Heat, in my opinion it is also a must-win for us. Miami has proven over and over again that they will make you pay for allowing them to hang in a series in which you've had the early upper hand. Yes, it is becoming harder and harder to argue the fact that the Spurs are the best team in the NBA. San Antonio has won two games in this series by sharing the basketball and relying on our cohesion as a collection of international talent to overwhelm the Heat in those two contests. The Heat, however, still have the best basketball player in the world and were able to win Game 2 because of his determination and his brilliance. The longer a series is prolonged, the better the chance that the best player has of imposing his will to outlast the best team.
The reason for this is that the longer that the best player is able to keep his teammates afloat, the more confident they will become in their own abilities to help him persevere thus elevating their entire group closer to the level of the better team. Once the two teams are playing on closer to an equal footing, the lesser team has a much better chance of utilizing the best player in the world to steal the series. We have seen that movie before and I am not interested in seeing a sequel. The heartbreak of Game 6 much less LeBron James' series clinching jumper in Game 7 last year never happen if the Spurs had somehow found the energy and resilience to match the Heat's desperation in Game 4 and impose our will. Tonight it will be even more difficult than it was last year because Miami has the added advantage of playing Game 4 at home. We are facing an extraordinary challenge tonight against the defending champs. I believe, however, that if the #BlackAndSilver continue to play our wild international brand of basketball in pursuit of Revolution 1, we will be up for the challenge. We came to Miami this week for redemption, not for a split. The juicy gossip on South Beach is that there might be a new superstar coming to town next season. What is being overlooked in all the hysteria surrounding the possible completion of the Heatles is that, perhaps, there is a new superstar in Miami at this very moment. Even when your game is as American as apple pie and as smooth as ice, when you are quieter than Tim Duncan sometimes it takes a while for people to take notice that the thing that makes you a superstar is playing your role to help your team play winning basketball in the most hostile environments and for the biggest stakes. Kawhi Leonard, you might just be the brightest star in the city of blinding lights tonight.
Featured Image Source: Atchim
Seven Right
2014 NBA Finals, Game 2
Starin' Through My Rear View - The Miami Heat lead the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals five to four after coming into the AT&T Center last night and stealing Game 2 of this year's series 98-96 in front of 18,581 properly cooled off Spurs fans. My fear coming into last night was that the Heat were capable of stealing Game 2 by forcing the Spurs into committing an uncharacteristic number of turnovers and then converting those into fast break points at the other end of the court. To my complete and utter shock, Miami indeed proved capable of stealing Game 2 but not through the formula that I believed to be their only path to victory. San Antonio only committed 11 turnovers last night which Miami converted into an uneventful five points. If I hadn't been allowed to watch the game and was only allowed to look at one statistic from the box score after the game to try to determine whether or not we had won, I would have looked at the Spurs' turnovers. The way that we have been playing at home this postseason, having seen those numbers, I would have assumed that we probably cruised to another double-digit victory at the AT&T Center. And, indeed, we were well on our way to doing just that for the first 14 minutes of the game. The Spurs were ahead of the Heat by 11 (30-19) when, for some inexplicable reason, Ray Allen was able to fake both Marco Belinelli and Boris Diaw into believing he was going to pass the ball to a cutter while standing at the three point line. Both Marco and Boris bit on the pump fake pass leaving Allen wide open behind the arc. Ray Allen drained the triple to cut the Spurs lead to eight and in doing so, completely shifted the momentum in the game. Miami finished the second quarter on a 24-13 run to tie the game at halftime and were able to get the best player in the world going in the process. During that run, LeBron James scored 11 points and established a rhythm in the game that would come back to haunt the Spurs in the second half.
In the third quarter, James gave San Antonio a flashback of the nightmares we had all of last summer by shooting the basketball like he did in Game 7 of last year's Finals; except this time he did it in our building. James shot 6-7 in the period (including a pair of three pointers) for 14 points. All of his baskets in the third came over the top of the defense from the perimeter. Yet despite LeBron taking over the game on the offensive end, the Spurs hung tight in the period and even took a one point lead into the final frame when Tony Parker hit a shot on our last possession to put us back ahead. The fourth quarter was back and fourth again as the Heat pretty much relied on James to create all of their offense by facilitating at the top of the key. LeBron was brilliant again scoring another eight points in the period and creating a wide-open three pointer for Chris Bosh to give Miami a two point lead with 1:17 left in the game. After Manu Ginobili committed the most costly of our 11 turnovers on the ensuing possession trying to force it into Tim Duncan on the post (to be fair, Manu was poked in the eye at the top of the key which should have been called a foul giving Manu two free throws), Kawhi Leonard fouled out of the game trying to defend LeBron's drive to the basket. James split the pair of free throws and then Manu missed a jumper from 19 feet. The Heat rebounded the ball, gave it to LeBron at the top of the key where he was able to create a hockey assist by passing to Bosh who then hit a cutting Dwyane Wade under the basket to take a five point lead with nine seconds left. After a timeout, the Spurs ran a decent play to get Boris Diaw a look at a three pointer but he decided to drive and kick when a Miami defender rushed towards him. He got the ball to Manu, who drained the triple, but the play took too long to develop and time expired.
While LeBron James put on a masterful 35 point, 10 rebound, 3 assits Game 2 performance that put his team in a position to win an NBA Finals game on the road, the San Antonio Spurs beat ourselves. To my surprise it wasn't turnovers that did us in last night. Instead, another nemesis of ours (that hadn't reared its ugly head in quite a while) made an unfortunate and untimely cameo in the 2014 NBA Finals: missed free throws. The Spurs went 12-20 from the charity stripe in Game 2 including a brutal possession in the guts of the game in which we went 0-4. With 6:43 remaining in the fourth quarter, Mario Chalmers was flagged with a flagrant foul when he hit Tony Parker in the chest with a vicious elbow underneath the Heat's basket as he tried to free himself from Tony off of his dribble penetration. This gave the Spurs two free throw attempts and possession of the basketball. Tony missed both and on the ensuing play, Chris Andersen fouled Tim Duncan for two more free throw attempts. Timmy also missed both. That wasted opportunity, ladies and gentleman, is the difference between being up 2-0 in the NBA Finals and now needing a victory in Miami in order to win the series. Despite the missed foul shots, Timmy was once again the player of the game putting up 18 points, 15 rebounds and tying Magic Johnson for the most double-doubles in NBA playoff history during the loss.
As heartbreaking of a defeat as last night's ball game was, I'm extremely confident that it was an anomaly rather than what is to be expected as we move further into this series. LeBron James played about as well as you could ask him to play and it still took a Spurs meltdown in the fourth quarter for Miami to secure the victory. Granted, there will be a smaller margin for error once we get back to the circus-like atmosphere of American Airlines Arena in Miami (and all of its pyrotechnic glory) but the Spurs are equipped for the challenge. If we figure out a way to make LeBron work a little bit harder to manufacture the Heat's offense and if we get back to our patented ball movement and rely on our deeper bench, we will put ourselves in a position to bounce right back from last night's disappointment. One man can always win a basketball game against any opponent, but the 2014 San Antonio Spurs are too good to be beaten in a series by any one player; even one as gifted as LeBron James. If the Heat offense continues to be as reliant on James as it was last night, the odds are that Miami will prove to be the team with the smaller margin for error moving forward in this series. Yesterday, was a tough day at the office. The #BlackAndSilver need to forget about it and simply focus on what's next. After all, we have been invited to host a passing clinic tomorrow evening down in the city of blinding lights which is providing us with an excellent opportunity to move one step closer to writing these San Antonio Spurs into the history books as one of basketball's finest teams.
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City of Blinding Lights
The city took something from me, it took something from all of us.
Upon arriving on our maiden voyage, we battled masterfully.
We were not distracted by the shimmer, we were not intimidated by the lights.
We saw those gaudy displays of opulence as hubristic,
The last gasps of an overextended empire, bumptiously unaware of its vulnerability.
We know that the fall is coming.
It will happen, it just didn't happen then.
We had advanced swiftly but as we moved into position to trample the throne,
The city, intoxicated in its excess, found favor with the gods.
Through the ostentatious worship of its false idols,
It seduced a fleeting moment of commotion that neutralized our resolve
And fire reigned down from the heavens like spears on our heads.
Blinded, we left wounded and empty handed.
But now we will return to the city once again, with our vision restored.
We will arrive on this voyage wiser, bonded by the fellowship of our noble scars.
We are still not distracted by the shimmer, we are still not intimidated by the lights.
After rebuilding the strength of our core, we are more resolute in our preparedness to persevere.
The city, more overextended than ever, relies now almost completely on the strength of its king.
We know that the fall is coming.
It will happen, and we know that is has to happen now.
We have advanced again swiftly and moved back in position to trample the throne.
With the grace of a thousand stars we will embrace our chance at redemption
And working together we will use our wit to overwhelm the the city's aggressive defenses.
While the spoils of a prolonged period of decadence are the desire of most challengers,
We return not in pursuit of the city's abundance of treasure.
Just to rip the crown jewel from the king's bare hands.
Written June 2014 in San Antonio, Texas
Featured Image Source: Sporting News
Headline Image Source: ClipArt ETC
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.
Eight Left
2014 NBA Western Conference Semifinals, Game 5
B.O.B. - When the hip hop duo, OutKast, released their debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, on April 26, 1994, Tim Duncan had just wrapped up his freshman season at Wake Forest. Fast forward twenty years and OutKast is the most buzzed about act on this year's summer music festival circuit and Tim Duncan is making his twentieth appearance in the NCAA or NBA postseason. In the past 20 years, OutKast has sold more than 21 million copies of their six studio albums and Tim Duncan has been the anchor of Wake Forest Demon Deacon (NCAA) and San Antonio Spurs (NBA) teams that have won 1,168 basketball games. If you're looking for standard-bearers in the fields of mainstream hip hop and professional sports, you would be hard-pressed to come up with better examples during this era.
Sure, Jay Z has sold more records than OutKast and Kobe Bryant currently has one more championship ring than Timmy, so there are cases to be made elsewhere. Some might argue that OutKast should be disqualified because they haven't released a studio album in almost 8 years or that Duncan should be disqualified because he has never won back-to-back championships. However, OutKast has released 5 hip hop masterpieces in the last 20 years and tomorrow, Tim Duncan will be appearing in his 9th Western Conference Finals with a fantastic opportunity to finish off his 5th masterpiece NBA season. In comparison, I would argue that Jay Z has only released 3 hip hop masterpieces (Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint, and The Black Album) and Kobe Bryant has had only 8 appearances in the Western Conference Finals and won only 2 of his 5 titles while serving as the anchor of his Los Angeles Lakers teams. The Lakers have also missed the playoffs all together twice during the Kobe Bryant era whereas the Spurs have made it every single year with Timmy as the anchor and under his stewardship of the franchise. For my money, when it comes to consistent brilliance, OutKast and Tim Duncan are the clear choices as the standard-bearers for the the last twenty years.
Consistent brilliance is something that is hard to achieve in any human endeavor therefore it should be celebrated wherever it can be identified. The consistent brilliance of Tim Duncan is certainly not appreciated as much as it would have been had Timmy's Spurs caught a few breaks here or there and he had finished off more playoff runs with NBA titles. A bounce of the ball here, a different referee call there and Tim Duncan could have realistically surpassed Michael Jordan's 6 championship rings already. Had the San Antonio Spurs caught every single break in every single playoff run, it is not inconceivable that Duncan could be challenging to tie Bill Russell's 11 championship rings this season. Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs have capitalized on 4 opportunities and won four titles so far. However, they were in the mix and were serious title contenders on at least six other occasions:
1999-2000: The San Antonio Spurs were denied a realistic opportunity to defend their 1999 title when Tim Duncan missed the playoffs due to injury for the first and only time of his career to date. Because of Timmy's injury, the Spurs bowed out of the playoffs in the first round to Phoenix in 4 games. The Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant led Los Angeles Lakers went on to capture the title, but only after the Portland Trail Blazers melted down in the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. Given that the Spurs had swept the Blazers and the Lakers in 1999 and the Lakers were just establishing themselves as a championship-level team during the 2000 playoff run, it is reasonable to assume that a healthy defending champion Spurs' squad led by Tim Duncan would have had a puncher's chance at fending off the up-and-coming Shaq and Kobe Lakers for one more year and might have started the San Antonio dynasty with back-to-back championships.
2003-2004: Point Four.
2005-2006: The Foul.
2007-2008: This year, Oklahoma City was given three days off by the NBA after winning a hard-fought series against the LA Clippers to advance to the Western Conference Finals. In 2008, the league did not extend the same courtesy to the Spurs after we won an epic 7 game semifinal series on the road in New Orleans on May 19th. The Spurs were expected to be in Los Angeles to play the Lakers in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals on May 21st and had already had the bad luck of having spent several hours stuck on the team plane during a delay of their flight leaving New Orleans. Despite all of this, the Spurs dominated the first half of Game 1 of the WCF against the Lakers and looked primed to steal home court advantage for the series. However, the team ran out of gas in the second half and Kobe Bryant led the Lakers to a 89-85 comeback victory. The Spurs could never recover. Manu Ginobili played the series injured and Joey Crawford and company swallowed the whistle when the Lakers fouled Brent Barry on the final possession of Game 4 which could have won the game for the Spurs and tied the series at 2-2. The league later acknowledged that the foul call should have been made but it was too late for the Spurs as another title run went up in flames when the Spurs were eliminated in Game 5, losing 100-92 back in LA.
2010-2011: After securing the best record in the Western Conference, another injury sidelined Manu Ginbobili for the first game of the first round series against the Memphis Grizzlies. That small opening was all that the Grizzlies needed to take advantage and steal home court advantage in Game 1, defeating the Spurs in San Antonio 101-98 with the help of a cold blooded Zach Randolph three pointer. The Spurs, playing from behind the rest of the series, eventually bowed out in Game 6 in Memphis to become only the second number one seeded team to lose a 7 game first round series (2007 Dallas Mavericks). Had the Spurs figured out a way to get out of that first round series with Memphis, we would have had a great opportunity to win the title because our in-state rivals, the Dallas Mavericks, capitalized on the fact that the Kevin Durant led Thunder and the LeBron James led Heat were not quite ready to win a championship. As this year has proven, any playoff match-up between the Spurs and Mavericks is an all out war but given that we have gotten the upper hand (winning 4 out of 6 playoff series against the Mavs) there would have been a decent chance that we would have defeated that team in the Western Conference Finals, no matter how well Dirk was playing. Had that happened, the Spurs would have had a crack at the Miami Heat before they had obtained collective championship experience. The Spurs, just like the Mavs, would have taken advantage and won those Finals.
2012-2013: 28 Seconds Away.
In a perfect world, one that affords the San Antonio Spurs every break, every single year, Tim Duncan would currently be competing for his 11th title to tie the mark set by Bill Russell. While the world clearly isn't perfect, the fact that Tim Duncan-led Spurs teams have been serious title contenders enough times that Timmy's career could rival Russell's if the world were perfect is a testament to the consistent brilliance of Duncan. As outlined above, the San Antonio Spurs have had our fair share of bad breaks that have costs us opportunities to go out and seize opportunities to grab more rings. At this point, however, there is no need to dwell on the what ifs. I bring them up in this context simply to demonstrate how dominant of a force Tim Duncan has been in the NBA. While most NBA fans and experts give Timmy deserved praise as an all-time great player and many people even consider him the greatest power forward of all-time, I think that these bad playoff breaks have certainly caused the vast majority of the basketball public to undervalue his greatness. If the Spurs had simply capitalized on one third of the six serious opportunities to win a title outlined above, Timmy would have six rings (tied with Jordan) which would have framed this year's run as Duncan's opportunity to surpass Jordan in titles which would have forced the basketball public to view his place among the all-time greats completely differently. For Spurs fans, however, after all of the heart break we have endured, we are more than willing to be completely satisfied with just one more. Seeing Tim Duncan finally celebrate one more championship, 15 years after his first, would allow us to count our blessings and move forward into the future being completely content with the Tim Duncan era of Spurs basketball. Amazing as it might have sounded a few years ago, Timmy has yet another golden opportunity in 2014 to hoist his 5th NBA Championship trophy. Using the 5 masterpiece albums recorded by OutKast as metaphors, what follows are the 5 reasons that I feel extremely confident that Tim Duncan will seize this opportunity to finish off his 5th masterpiece NBA season.
Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik: Danny Green and Kawhi Leoanard must have been really angry that the team's chances of a sweep in Game 4 were ruined by the bad karma generated from one small corner of the San Antonio Spurs blogging community (see Four Right) becauseboth players played with a chip on their shoulders in Game 5 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the Portland Trail Blazers to earn co-player of the game honors. Danny had 22 points on 9-13 shooting (4-6 from downtown) and added 9 rebounds. Kawhi had 22 points on 9-15 shooting (3-4 from downtown) including his most spectacular dunk of the season and he also grabbed 7 boards of his own. For the fourth time in five games the Spurs dominated the Blazers, winning Game 5 going away and closing out Portland's young up-and-coming squad 104-82 on Wednesday night at the AT&T Center. While it was a relief to get the series finished so that San Antonio would have an opportunity to get some rest before Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, the fortune of an easy closeout game against the Blazers came with the cost of losing Tony Parker in the first half to a hamstring injury. Tony went scoreless in 10 minutes of play but luckily it was later determined that it was a Grade 1 strain (the least severe) and Tony has said that he expects to play in Game 1 of the WCF. The emergence of Danny and Kawhi in Game 5 against the Blazers is the first reason that I am confident in the Spurs' chances this season. If the duo can play like they did on Wednesday on both sides of the court for the duration of this playoff run, it will be virtually impossible for any of the remaining teams to stop San Antonio and our young perimeter talent from having a Player's Ball at the AT&T Center sometime next month.
ATLiens: Former Atlanta Hawk, Boris Diaw, and his cohort of alien residents who formulate the lineup within the Spurs' second unit that is otherwise referred to as the Foreign Legion played a magnificent second-round series against Portland. This lineup, consisting of Boris, Patty Mills, Marco Belinelli, Aron Baynes, and professor emeritus Manu Ginobili, was largely absent during big stretches of the first round series with Dallas. However, the Foreign Legion recovered nicely to overwhelm the Blazers' bench which was one of the weakest benches in the NBA throughout the course of the season. The San Antonio second unit outscored its Portland counterpart 220-77 over the duration of the 5 game series. This was a clear advantage. As talented as the Blazers' starting unit is, it was a tall task for them to try to keep pace with the Spurs by playing extended minutes while our starting unit was getting normal rest. The teams who are remaining in the 2014 NBA playoffs are all deeper than Portland so it is imperative to our chances for success that the Foreign Legion and the rest of our bench continue to play sharp, confident basketball for the rest of this tournament. The strong performance of the second unit during the Western Conference Semifinals is the second reason that I am confident that San Antonio will be taking Elevators (Me & You) to the top of the NBA mountain sometime in the latter part of next month.
Aquemini: One could argue that Big Boi and Andre 3000 were at the peak of their powers as a hip hop duo with the effort on display in 1998's, Aquemini. When OutKast released that album in 1998, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili were four years away from becoming teammates with the San Antonio Spurs and were close to a decade away from being at the peak of their powers as a basketball duo. Now 16 years after the release of OutKast's opus and in their 12th season as teammates, Tony and Manu are still making beautiful music together on the basketball court. While these days they seem to take turns putting together dominant performances, they are still capable of obliterating the opposition by both playing at their best on any given night. This was evident once already during this year's playoff run, and at the most needed time, when the Spurs' legendary backcourt dismantled the Dallas Maverick's defense in Game 7 of the first round series, combining for 52 points, 9 assists, 7 rebounds, and 6 steals in a season-saving performance that resulted in a blowout victory. It should go without saying that Tony and Manu must be playing together at a high level in order for San Antonio to have a realistic shot at ending this season in a title. Late this afternoon news was released that comes as a huge relief to Spurs fans. The hamstring injury which sidelined Tony for the majority of Game 5 against the Blazers on Wednesday night is not going to keep him out of the lineup to start the Western Conference Finals as he has been cleared to play in Game 1. Unfortunately for fans of the Oklahoma City Thunder (San Antonio's WCF opponent), news this week out of their camp unfortunately went the other way as the team announced that starting power forward, Serge Ibaka, will likely be sidelined for the remainder of the 2014 postseason with a calf strain. This is a devastating loss for the Thunder and for Spurs fans like me, who always want to play our top competition at full strength, it is certainly disappointing news that the Thunder's third most important offensive player and the anchor of their defense will be sidelined for the series. Nonetheless, the Spurs cannot relax for one minute in Game 1 or throughout the series because we are still facing league MVP, Kevin Durant, and his all-star teammate Russell Westbrook in this series. Add in that Derick Fisher, who has made a career out of sticking the knife in the hearts of Spurs fans, is also on the other side of the ball and we still have our work cut out for us if we want to win the West. But if Tony and Manu can continue to set the table for the the Spurs' shooters to feast on open three pointers so that we can smoke the Thunder defense like we intend to Skew It on the Bar-B, then we should be just fine in this series. The timelessly elite combination of Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili in the Spurs' backcourt is the third reason that I am confident that the 2014 campaign will end with San Antonio bogging in to our favorite local cuisine for a jubilant celebration in June.
Stankonia: If you have been following this year's installment of the Black & Silver blog so far, then you are probably well aware that I have dedicated the series of posts for the 2014 postseason to my best friend Brian, who passed away shortly before the beginning of the playoffs. In October 2000, OutKast released Stankonia which was a special moment in Brian and my friendship. We were roommates at the time and we had both been waiting anxiously for weeks for the new OutKast record to drop. The day of the release, we both waited to listen to any of it until we were both home from work and or school and could listen to the entire album together. I remember that we had a spectacular listening session together that day and were blown away by the brilliance of the album. In particular, I remember that Brian could not get enough of B.O.B., the song that also bares the name of the subtitle to this blog post. The sheer creativity and innovation on display by OutKast in B.O.B. was clearly inspirational to Brian as evidenced by this. Being that Brian and I were also a hip hop duo, I always sensed that we had a special insight into the nature of Big Boi and Andre 3000's relationship as partners and friends and I was always curious to watch how the pair navigated the waters of the music industry as a group and also independently as artists. It always seemed helpful to try to attempt to relate what Brian and I went through over the course of our 16 years together as Rhime Divine to the evolution of OutKast as a duo over the same period of time. In Fifteen Left, I laid out my motivations to attempt this sequel to last year's Black & Silver blog series. At times it has been rough, but I have truly felt Brian's presence with me during the time that I have spent watching each of these Spurs playoff games. While I prefer to keep details of the spiritual effect that this journey has had on helping navigate through my grieving process private for now, I can say that there is this feeling that I am holding inside of me which is full of Brian's energy and which is telling me that this particular Spurs playoff run is going to end with San Antonio swagging So Fresh, So Clean when it is all said and done. This constant feeling of reassurance and excitement is the fourth reason why I am confident that the Spurs will be bringing the NBA Championship trophy back to Titletown, TX.
Speakerboxxx / The Love Below: In 2004, OutKast won the Grammy for album of the year becoming arguably the first rappers to win that prestigious award (Lauryn Hill won the 1999 'Album of the Year' Grammy for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, partly on the skills that she showcased as an emcee on that album). When OutKast released this classic double album where each artist was largely responsible for one disc, Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan were half way through earning the four NBA titles that they currently have together. For 17 seasons now, Coach Pop and Timmy have worked together as the driving force behind the San Antonio Spurs' sustained success. While they serve in different roles for the organization and are seemingly so different in so many ways, they also appear to be as inseparable as OutKast, with careers that are so interlinked that it almost seems incomprehensible to entertain the idea of one without the other. In other words, Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan are the OutKast of the NBA. At the beginning of this post when I compared the sustained brilliance of OutKast to the sustained brilliance of Tim Duncan and pronounced that these individuals are the standard-bearers in their given fields over the last 20 years, I purposefully left Tim Duncan's partner out of the equation. After all, that is the way that Coach Pop would want it. For his entire career, Gregg Popovich as deflected the praise that he receives for his success toward his players, specifically his artistic partner...Tim Duncan. While Coach Pop and Timmy might be recording separate discs, they are working magic together in the studio this summer trying to put the finishing touches on their 5th masterpiece NBA season. And if the #BlackAndSilver are able to complete this long, hard journey and capture the title that has alluded us for the better part of a decade now, perhaps we might even get a rare moment of positive emotion out of Coach Pop on the podium. If, indeed, the Spurs climb the mountain and we are lucky enough to have Pop give a reaction to express his excitement, I suspect he might express it in as little as two words with something like, "Hey Ya!" But we can't get ahead of ourselves just yet. Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan know better than anyone that the hardest legs of this journey are still to come. This duo has been around the block one too many times to start looking ahead of the task which is right in front of them. Right now, that is the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals tomorrow night. Coach Pop will have the team ready for that challenge and Tim Duncan will be ready to add another chapter to his historic legacy. The number one reason that I am confident that the San Antonio Spurs will be the 2014 NBA Champions is the consistent brilliance of Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan. And peering back over the last 20 years of basketball, I couldn't ask for a better reason.
Featured Image Source: 2DBZ
Headline Image Source: BizWEEK.US
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
Twelve Left
2014 NBA Western Conference First Round, Game 7
Wild International - The San Antonio Spurs organization should strongly consider sending a case of HEB salsas to Paul Pierce of the Brooklyn Nets, as a small token of our appreciation. Pierce provided a valuable assist in the effort to save the Spurs season yesterday afternoon when he blocked Kyle Lowry's driving layup attempt at a series clinching game winner for the Toronto Raptors in their first round match up with Brooklyn. The Nets narrowly escaped in Game 7, 104-103, to win the series four games to three thanks to seasoned playoff veteran Pierce's blocked shot. What bearing did this play have on San Antonio's Game 7 match up with Dallas? I'm glad you ask. Throughout NBA playoff history, the home team has won 80 percent of all of the Game 7's that have been played. There were an unprecedented 5 first round Game 7's that were taking place this past weekend which meant that the statistical odds were that four out of five of the home teams would win their series. Three of those Game 7's had been played on Saturday and heading into Sunday, the home team (Indiana, Oklahoma City, and LA Clippers) had won all three. While I highly recommend the book, I didn't need to reread Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise to figure out that there was a strong statistical likelihood that either the Brooklyn Nets or the Dallas Mavericks were going to win a Game 7 on the road on Sunday. The statistical likelihood that they would both win or that neither would win dropped dramatically as either occurrence would have been an anomaly. Therefore, while preparing for the Spurs game (which was the second game of an ABC double header) I became the biggest Brooklyn Nets fan that you could imagine, rooting for them to be the one road team out of five (20 percent) that wins Game 7 and thus putting the statistical odds strongly in the Spurs favor that we would take care of business at home. While I have always liked Paul Pierce's game and was kind of bummed this year to see him in another uniform other than Celtic green, I'm really glad that he was playing for the Nets yesterday. You don't want to leave anything to chance in a Game 7, so Pierce's heroics went a long way towards putting my mind at ease about the Spurs' prospects for the game that I thought was about to begin after the Brooklyn victory.
The NBA apparently had other ideas. While I was watching the events leading up to The Truth's huge assist for the Spurs, unbeknownst to me (and probably a lot of Spurs fans) the NBA and ABC had started the Mavericks-Spurs game and were airing it on ESPN 2 but were doing so without properly informing the ABC viewing audience. I had assumed that if the Nets-Raptors match up ran long, that ABC might start the game and air it on ESPN so I had been flipping obsessively over to ESPN, but every time that I switched, they were still airing softball so I assumed that the league was delaying the tip of our game until the end of regulation in the other game. It wasn't until the final minute of the exciting finish in Toronto that someone at ABC finally had the brilliant idea to flash an alert across the scroll on ABC to let viewers know that the game in San Antonio was airing on ESPN 2. I immediately flipped over to find that I had missed the first five minutes of game action. While I was extremely perturbed, I was glad to see that the Spurs had a 7 point lead when I flipped over. Whatever caused the delay on the part of the NBA and ABC on alerting the audience of the tip of Mavericks-Spurs game was an epic fail that hopefully will be addressed and resolved so that it doesn't happen again later in the playoffs. As a die-hard Spurs fan and with all of my superstitions, I do not appreciate missing one possession of the Spurs' postseason (much less five minutes of a crucial Game 7) so the NBA and ABC should feel extremely fortunate today that it worked out that the Spurs had a lead by the time that I caught wind of the error and switched to the broadcast.
But enough about statistical probabilities and television snafus. While these things added to the nervousness surrounding yesterday afternoon's festivities, they were quickly forgotten by Spurs fans by early in the second quarter when it became abundantly clear that the San Antonio Spurs had no intention of leaving the arena last night carrying the dubious distinction of becoming the first franchise to be eliminated twice in the first round of the NBA playoffs as a one seed. There would be no repeat of the 2011 first round heartbreak against Memphis as the Spurs ran away and hid from the Dallas Mavericks in a dominant 119-96 blowout victory that served as a purposeful reminder to the rest of the playoff field that we were, indeed, the best team in the NBA during the 2013-14 NBA regular season. For the first time this postseason, San Antonio played Spurs basketball for 48 minutes and never allowed the outcome of the contest to come into question. Save a brief Mavericks run at the beginning of the third quarter in which they were able to employ a small lineup to cut the lead to 14 points, the Spurs utterly dominated the game and maintained 20 plus points of separation for most of the second half.
Player of the game, Tony Parker, was breathtaking, carving up the Dallas defense for 32 points on 11-19 from the field and 10-13 from the line. Dallas repeatedly, in their desperation, resorted to committing extremely hard fouls on Tony and Manu's drives to the basket but both players shook off the unnecessary roughness and continued attacking the cup the entire night. Tony was having so much fun that he even had an out-of-body experience when he jumped into the face of former Spurs teammate turned series villain, DeJuan Blair, to talk trash after crossing DeJuan over off the dribble and leaving him more frozen than Donald Sterling's Clippers franchise assets. Tony received an uncharacteristic technical foul for his antics but it was well worth it to Spurs fans who were able to enjoy a little payback for our pent up frustration with DeJuan's shenanigans throughout the series. After the game, Tony and DeJuan both said that it was all in good fun and that they remain close friends despite the rivalry.
I had predicted in my post on Saturday that, based on the way the series had unfolded, the Spurs were due for a blowout victory in Game 7. I was extremely relieved but not surprised at all that we were able to play at a level to achieve exactly what I had predicted. While the Spurs offense had inexplicably sputtered during the first part of the series and had gradually been revving up over the past few games, it was finally back to full speed in Game 7 as five players scored in double figures en route to the blowout. The Spurs finally performed at an elite level on defense as well holding Dirk Nowitzki (who was 4-0 in Game 7's in his career coming into yesterday) to 22 points on 8-21 shooting and shutting down red-hot Monta Ellis, who mustered only 12 points on 3-11 shooting. Tim, Tony, Manu, and Coach Pop now hold a 3-2 career record in Game 7's and this one served as a tiny bit of sweet redemption for the heartbreaking overtime loss to Mark Cuban, Dirk, and the Mavericks in the 2006 Western Conference Semi-Finals. Tim Duncan is now 4-2 against Dirk in the playoffs, further elevating the stature of his legacy to greater heights above and at the expense of one of the fiercest rivals of his career and another all-time great player. It was magical to see these legendary warriors go to battle in another classic playoffs series, but I must say that as a Spurs fan, it was extremely satisfying to watch Timmy increase his upper-hand over Dirk by eliminating the Mavs in such resounding fashion.
It seems, at least for the first game, that the lucky Spurs charm that my friend Matt presented to me on Friday night worked beautifully. The Spurs were not snake-bitten by the likes of bad refereeing, miraculous shot-making, or strange bounces of the ball that might have swung the outcome of the game and series. I wore the lucky charm on my wrist and not only did it protect the Spurs from basketball voodoo curses but it seemed to allow me to channel some amazing memories that kept me smiling throughout the game. As I savored the emphatic way that the #BlackAndSilver closed out the series, I looked down repeatedly at that little charm on my wrist and reflected on some of those memories that I wrote about my friend Brian in my first post from this year's edition of Black & Silver. Brian, Matt, and I watched many a Spurs-Mavericks playoff game together and I'm sure that I am safe in speaking for Matt, as well as myself, that those are some splendid memories that won't be forgotten anytime soon. I remember that the two teams that Brian enjoyed beating the most in the playoffs were the Los Angeles Lakers and these Dallas Mavericks.
Each time that we played the Mavericks in the playoffs, Brian really got in the spirit of the in-state rivalry and loved participating in some lighthearted joshing back and forth with Mavs fans. In particular, Brian embraced expressing some good-natured disdain for Mark Cuban during each of these previous match-ups. Matt, Brian, and I often watched Spurs-Mavericks playoff games out at one of our favorite San Antonio pool halls or bars and there were always Mavericks fans at these establishments (cheering obnoxiously for their team) and we somehow always seemed to find ourselves interacting with them (ladies and gentlemen, that somehow also goes by another name, and that name is Alcohol). It was always in good fun, but for me and for Brian as well, there was nothing better than getting the last laugh of the night over Mavs fans after watching a hard-fought Spurs victory out in the city. Knowing Brian, and after witnessing Mark Cuban's hilarious over-the-top celebrations after the Mavericks Game 3 and Game 6 victories, I know there would have been a great deal of satisfaction to be had by him in the way that the Spurs shut down Big D with an overwhelming and dominating performance yesterday afternoon. Right now, Brian would be smiling and perhaps contemplating a public service announcement, "we ain't messing around this year, we coming to take that back." Next up: the Portland Trailblazers. If yesterday is any indication, the San Antonio Spurs have finally rounded into playoff form and will be ready for the challenge. Oh, and Paul Pierce. Enjoy that salsa, my man. We owe you one. That Green Sauce is the best.
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Headline Image Source: VEEOZ
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.
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