Rogue
04-24-2009, 07:20 AM
With the hope of stealing back the home court advantage, spurs set their walk to Dallas a couple of days ago for two consecutive road games to play there. Although the spurs lost game 1 regretfully at home last Saturday, our players still held their confidence and beat Dallas Mavs in game two. With the series tied at 1-1, it's more like a reinstart for both teams, the only difference is the home court advantage is in Dallas now. Even so, we still have confidence in our spurs made of metal that they can survive this series anyway even without home court advantage.
Relatively, the 3rd game of this series is also a must-win game for the Mavs. Spurs are a team that you should never loosen your nerves at even when you're 19pts up over them in the 4th quarter. Obviously this series is still far from over for Spurs even though they were pushed hundreds of miles closer to the first-round quit by the terrible lose they acquired last night.
For Spurs and any other team in NBA, it's generally more difficult to shoot on road as well as they do at home. To some degree, it was just their poor shows in shooting that killed them last night and pushed them to the edge of a cliff. The Spurs need at least one win in Dallas to open a door to the second round, and they have already missed one chance since losing that game by 21pts to Mavs last night. Now they have got to man themselves up and trade their last piece of strength for a win in Dallas, if that mission gets dragged to game 6, I think it will be even more difficult for Spurs to finish it.
For the first time in this decade, the spurs are about to miss the second round. Even as the most optimistic people, I still can't keep myself from imagining the complaint and flak that the spurs fans are gonna launch against the spurs players once they quit this series. I think we fans should always keep ourselves cool and calm whatsoever, even when witnessing our beloved team getting wiped out by the Mavs. It's still a big uncertainty which team will get out of the first round to the second, or out of the playoffs to home. Either way, I think there won't be any loser in this series, the two rivals in this series both deserve our full respect, even though there is fateful to be one team to act as a stepstone for its brother of Texas. I'm not living in Texas but I love the three Texan NBA teams more than any other basketball team in the rest of the world, though Yao forces me to stand on the opposite side to the rockets team. :lol
It's time for us spurs fans to look forward, because it makes no sense to regret about the past. However, we have got to know what gets us here before setting the next step. Our success and championship shouldn't be build on bubbles, but a stable foundation that can keep our team great for a second decade. I strongly believe the next decade will still belong to our spurs made of iron, our 15 warriors and 1 coach are fully ready to jumpstart their fighting-back.
Tim Duncan
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3173.jpg
16 minutes, four points, two rebounds, one assist
2-for-9 from the field, 0-for-0 at the line
Tim Duncan sat on bench for the majority of the game last night, that mainly was because of Pop's decision rather than his knee injury hopefully. Spurs played pretty bad in the first quarter last night, exactly as bad as the Mavs did in game 1 of this series. But the Mavs tried to fight back and finally won that game when we heard the buzzer, oppositely Pop didn't even make a try. Instead, Duncan spent more than 32 minutes on bench last night. I hope his butt didn't get injuried due to the long time sitting.
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Tony Parker
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3527.jpg
21 minutes, 12 points, four rebounds, three assists
5-for-14 from the field, 2-for-4 at the line
With Manu done, Tony Longoria has to take more resposibility on the backcourt, and he did two good jobs in the first two games though the spurs lost one of them. However, Tony Longoria was really very disappointing last night. From the 14 shots he took last night, he only got 10 points and he even missed 2 of his 4 shots at the line, which inked only 12 points on his book.
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Roger Mason, Jr.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3628.jpg
16 minutes, seven points, 3-for-6 from the field, 1-for-3 on three-pointers
Even though we can use 100% of our tolerence to control our unsatisfactory on him and consider passive his performances in offense last night, it's still impossible for us to deny the undoubted fact that Mason did a poor job on the defensive end. Although Mason is taller than Tony Longoria, he seemed almost transparent on defensive end last night. Barea dropped 7 pts in the first 6 minutes of the game without missing even one shot, which can only be considered Mason's efforts. Mason has never been considered good at defense, but none of us has ever clearly observed him under a microscope.
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Michael Finley
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3023.jpg
17 minutes, one rebound
0-for-2 from the field, 0-for-1 on three-pointers
After a series of brilliant shows in game 1, Fin started to keep silent from game 2. It was pretty smart of him to limit his shots to only 2 last night, because the spur fans and mav fans both are tired of the sounds he makes by hitting the rim violently with the ball. Fin wasn't stimulated by the enthusiastic fans and the gym that he can't be more familiar with, instead he continued his humble performances last night.
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Matt Bonner
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3748.jpg
20 minutes, two points, four rebounds
1-for-5 from the field, 0-for-4 on three-pointers
Matt was perfect on 2-pointers last night, he made only one though. In other words, he missed all the 4 shots on three-pointers which used to be the reason why he could earn a place in the starting five of spurs team. Playing Bonner in line-up is just like a double-edge sword, his existence gives the spurs one more choice outside the 3-point line while there isn't anything else consistent we can expect from this canadian. But his was more like a butcher-knife last night rather than a sword, and the spurs chose the wrong side to put their hands on, which made it even worse.
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Bruce Bowen
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3167.jpg
24 minutes, three points, three rebounds
1-for-3 from the field, 1-for-2 on three-pointers
Thanks to Mason's poor job on defensive end, Bowen got plenty of minutes last night and did a pretty good job on both ends last night. Spurs used to be famous as a team with awesome defense, and Bowen was inarguably a cornerstone in the defensive systerm of spurs team. For that reason, the starting SF position had been occupied by this undrafted player for many years until Pop somehow demoted him to bench at the start of this regular season, and never gave him any chance to start except in the game at Denver Nuggets, in which Pop rested all of his tripple bigs. The first game day of playoffs is already nearly one week ago but Fin is still our starting SF, maybe Pop is saving Bowen for the WCF or even the NBA Finals.
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Ime Udoka
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3501.jpg
25 minutes, four points, five rebounds,
2-for-4 from the field, 0-for-1 on three-pointers, 0-for-1 at the line
Since Manu got diagnoised with an injury that declared his exit of this season, Ime Udoka has shared more minutes together with other players that can play SG, but none of them can function as well Manu would have done, Udoka is a pretty decent one though. Although the spurs lost the game last night, his personal performances were still pretty consistent and satisfying as they were supposed to be, especially his 5 rebounds which were beyond good for a guy of his size.
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Drew Gooden
http://spurstalk.com/drew-gooden-spurs.jpg
26 minutes, six points, five rebounds
2-for-12 from the field, 2-for-2 at the line, 0-for-1 on three pointers
Let alone the game minutes, only 5 spurs had at least one double figure on their book last night, Gooden is just one of them. Respectively they were Oberto and Tony Longoria who both got double digits in score, and Kurt Thomas that grabbed 10 rebounds last night. The other two are Hill and him, and Gooden beat Hill by two shots from the field. When Tim was sitting on bench, Gooden was naturally considered the most useful offensive power in the paint and it's rational to give him more shots to try. No one wants to blame, he just didn't have a good luck at shooting last night.
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Fabricio Oberto
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3988.jpg
17 minutes, 10 points, four rebound
3-for-5 from the field, 4-for-4 at the line
After a couple of DNP, the well-reserved Oberto finally got a chance last night and did a perfect job on both ends of the floor. His 10 points wasn't a big issue but that was the second highest on our team, only behind Tony Longoria's 12 points. Hopefully his performances of last night will earn him some minutes in the following games of this series, anyway it's a bad thing for any team to DNP a player earning 3m/yr for too many games, except for those teams made up of garbage contracts like Knicks.
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George Hill
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/4488.jpg
24 minutes, eight points, three rebounds, two assist,
2-for-10 from the field, 0-for-3 on three-pointers, 4-for-4 at the line
After lose game one regretfully to Mavs, the chant of Hill had been getting louder and louder till the game of last night, as if George Hill would be a savior for the spurs. By creating that much garbage time, Mavs persuaded Pop to give Hill some chance last night, but his show of last night only strengthed Pop's mind in freezing him I'm afraid. And his poor show of last night also totally put off his support in the fanbase, though we still hope he can dry up the faggots as soon as possible and restart a fire with them.
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Kurt Thomas
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3012.jpg
18 minutes, four points, 10 rebounds
2-for-3 from the field
In my humble opinion, Kurt is the best option for Spurs to guard Dirk. Dirk has lost some abilities through these years in speed and sprint, so Kurt won't have any problem catching up Dirk's paces. And Kurt's size is more than enough to restrict Dirk's jumpers at any spot of the floor, not to mention Dirk's 3-point shooting skills also have shrinked a lot.
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Jacque Vaughn
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/.e1d/img/4.0/global/basketball/nba/players/3195.jpg
16 minutes, seven points, two assists, 2-for-5 from the field, 3-for-6 at the line
Jacque would also have got a double-digit score if he had hit all the shots at the line. Like Oberto, Jacque also had been benched for a long time before getting remembered by Pop. It's unfeasible to expect those long-time benchwarmers to make consistent contributions to the team, but it's also not a bad idea to use them temporarily. I hope to see their jerseys on court in the following games, not only in the garbage minutes.
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Gregg Popovich
http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/topstory/sports/popovich_gregg030428.jpg
Last night's game should have reminded me of a regular season game, in which the spurs played with all their big 3 on bench and finally lost to Denver as a result. But my poor memory didn't find that game from its depot until my eyes got caught by Pop's mona lisa-like mysterious smile. Maybe that sophisticated coach has already made a thorough plan on the following games of this series. In Pop we trust, the spurs won't be that easy to be defeated by the Mavs anyway, at least I believe Pop will put off this series to game 6.
-------------------------------
Offense
Spurs played extremely bad at the offensive end, which is clearly illustrated by the 67 points which were the lowest number in the postseason of our team's history. But our bad performances in offense can hardly be fully reflected by the points only, our entire system got crippled last night by the Mavs and creeped hilariously like a body learning to walk. Uniting our entire team, we only collected 10 assists last night which were only half as the amount of Mavs'. The 12 points in the 3rd quarter was just an epitome of our bad offensive work last night. We only got 42 quarters in the first 3 quarters, thankfully to the Mavs for loosening their defense in the 4th quarter and allowing us to pick up 25 pts in his quarter, which helped us avoid a historic shame.
Defense
Compared to our shameful performances in offense, our works on the other end were pretty passive last night. We managed to hold our opponent's points under 90, making Jason Kidd shoot 1-6 from the field. The only positive thing I saw from last night's game was just we still had our awesome defense that brought us four rings in one decade, in our defense we believe that we are still a good team and a title contender.
Drive to Five
Even though we lost a game by 21 pts last night, it's still counted as only one game and the record of this series still is 1-2, which means we are only one game behind our opponent. One game's leading gap is far from enough for Mavs to lock a ticket for the second round, so our opponent will also work 100% of their guts off fighting us. Obviously the rest of this series won't be easy for either team, but the spurs don't do what is easy, they just do what is needed to do and what can prompt their team. In Pop and the 15 warriors on our team, we will continue to believe.
Believe.
Relatively, the 3rd game of this series is also a must-win game for the Mavs. Spurs are a team that you should never loosen your nerves at even when you're 19pts up over them in the 4th quarter. Obviously this series is still far from over for Spurs even though they were pushed hundreds of miles closer to the first-round quit by the terrible lose they acquired last night.
For Spurs and any other team in NBA, it's generally more difficult to shoot on road as well as they do at home. To some degree, it was just their poor shows in shooting that killed them last night and pushed them to the edge of a cliff. The Spurs need at least one win in Dallas to open a door to the second round, and they have already missed one chance since losing that game by 21pts to Mavs last night. Now they have got to man themselves up and trade their last piece of strength for a win in Dallas, if that mission gets dragged to game 6, I think it will be even more difficult for Spurs to finish it.
For the first time in this decade, the spurs are about to miss the second round. Even as the most optimistic people, I still can't keep myself from imagining the complaint and flak that the spurs fans are gonna launch against the spurs players once they quit this series. I think we fans should always keep ourselves cool and calm whatsoever, even when witnessing our beloved team getting wiped out by the Mavs. It's still a big uncertainty which team will get out of the first round to the second, or out of the playoffs to home. Either way, I think there won't be any loser in this series, the two rivals in this series both deserve our full respect, even though there is fateful to be one team to act as a stepstone for its brother of Texas. I'm not living in Texas but I love the three Texan NBA teams more than any other basketball team in the rest of the world, though Yao forces me to stand on the opposite side to the rockets team. :lol
It's time for us spurs fans to look forward, because it makes no sense to regret about the past. However, we have got to know what gets us here before setting the next step. Our success and championship shouldn't be build on bubbles, but a stable foundation that can keep our team great for a second decade. I strongly believe the next decade will still belong to our spurs made of iron, our 15 warriors and 1 coach are fully ready to jumpstart their fighting-back.
Tim Duncan
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3173.jpg
16 minutes, four points, two rebounds, one assist
2-for-9 from the field, 0-for-0 at the line
Tim Duncan sat on bench for the majority of the game last night, that mainly was because of Pop's decision rather than his knee injury hopefully. Spurs played pretty bad in the first quarter last night, exactly as bad as the Mavs did in game 1 of this series. But the Mavs tried to fight back and finally won that game when we heard the buzzer, oppositely Pop didn't even make a try. Instead, Duncan spent more than 32 minutes on bench last night. I hope his butt didn't get injuried due to the long time sitting.
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Tony Parker
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3527.jpg
21 minutes, 12 points, four rebounds, three assists
5-for-14 from the field, 2-for-4 at the line
With Manu done, Tony Longoria has to take more resposibility on the backcourt, and he did two good jobs in the first two games though the spurs lost one of them. However, Tony Longoria was really very disappointing last night. From the 14 shots he took last night, he only got 10 points and he even missed 2 of his 4 shots at the line, which inked only 12 points on his book.
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Roger Mason, Jr.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3628.jpg
16 minutes, seven points, 3-for-6 from the field, 1-for-3 on three-pointers
Even though we can use 100% of our tolerence to control our unsatisfactory on him and consider passive his performances in offense last night, it's still impossible for us to deny the undoubted fact that Mason did a poor job on the defensive end. Although Mason is taller than Tony Longoria, he seemed almost transparent on defensive end last night. Barea dropped 7 pts in the first 6 minutes of the game without missing even one shot, which can only be considered Mason's efforts. Mason has never been considered good at defense, but none of us has ever clearly observed him under a microscope.
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Michael Finley
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3023.jpg
17 minutes, one rebound
0-for-2 from the field, 0-for-1 on three-pointers
After a series of brilliant shows in game 1, Fin started to keep silent from game 2. It was pretty smart of him to limit his shots to only 2 last night, because the spur fans and mav fans both are tired of the sounds he makes by hitting the rim violently with the ball. Fin wasn't stimulated by the enthusiastic fans and the gym that he can't be more familiar with, instead he continued his humble performances last night.
-------------------------------
Matt Bonner
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3748.jpg
20 minutes, two points, four rebounds
1-for-5 from the field, 0-for-4 on three-pointers
Matt was perfect on 2-pointers last night, he made only one though. In other words, he missed all the 4 shots on three-pointers which used to be the reason why he could earn a place in the starting five of spurs team. Playing Bonner in line-up is just like a double-edge sword, his existence gives the spurs one more choice outside the 3-point line while there isn't anything else consistent we can expect from this canadian. But his was more like a butcher-knife last night rather than a sword, and the spurs chose the wrong side to put their hands on, which made it even worse.
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Bruce Bowen
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3167.jpg
24 minutes, three points, three rebounds
1-for-3 from the field, 1-for-2 on three-pointers
Thanks to Mason's poor job on defensive end, Bowen got plenty of minutes last night and did a pretty good job on both ends last night. Spurs used to be famous as a team with awesome defense, and Bowen was inarguably a cornerstone in the defensive systerm of spurs team. For that reason, the starting SF position had been occupied by this undrafted player for many years until Pop somehow demoted him to bench at the start of this regular season, and never gave him any chance to start except in the game at Denver Nuggets, in which Pop rested all of his tripple bigs. The first game day of playoffs is already nearly one week ago but Fin is still our starting SF, maybe Pop is saving Bowen for the WCF or even the NBA Finals.
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Ime Udoka
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3501.jpg
25 minutes, four points, five rebounds,
2-for-4 from the field, 0-for-1 on three-pointers, 0-for-1 at the line
Since Manu got diagnoised with an injury that declared his exit of this season, Ime Udoka has shared more minutes together with other players that can play SG, but none of them can function as well Manu would have done, Udoka is a pretty decent one though. Although the spurs lost the game last night, his personal performances were still pretty consistent and satisfying as they were supposed to be, especially his 5 rebounds which were beyond good for a guy of his size.
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Drew Gooden
http://spurstalk.com/drew-gooden-spurs.jpg
26 minutes, six points, five rebounds
2-for-12 from the field, 2-for-2 at the line, 0-for-1 on three pointers
Let alone the game minutes, only 5 spurs had at least one double figure on their book last night, Gooden is just one of them. Respectively they were Oberto and Tony Longoria who both got double digits in score, and Kurt Thomas that grabbed 10 rebounds last night. The other two are Hill and him, and Gooden beat Hill by two shots from the field. When Tim was sitting on bench, Gooden was naturally considered the most useful offensive power in the paint and it's rational to give him more shots to try. No one wants to blame, he just didn't have a good luck at shooting last night.
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Fabricio Oberto
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3988.jpg
17 minutes, 10 points, four rebound
3-for-5 from the field, 4-for-4 at the line
After a couple of DNP, the well-reserved Oberto finally got a chance last night and did a perfect job on both ends of the floor. His 10 points wasn't a big issue but that was the second highest on our team, only behind Tony Longoria's 12 points. Hopefully his performances of last night will earn him some minutes in the following games of this series, anyway it's a bad thing for any team to DNP a player earning 3m/yr for too many games, except for those teams made up of garbage contracts like Knicks.
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George Hill
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/4488.jpg
24 minutes, eight points, three rebounds, two assist,
2-for-10 from the field, 0-for-3 on three-pointers, 4-for-4 at the line
After lose game one regretfully to Mavs, the chant of Hill had been getting louder and louder till the game of last night, as if George Hill would be a savior for the spurs. By creating that much garbage time, Mavs persuaded Pop to give Hill some chance last night, but his show of last night only strengthed Pop's mind in freezing him I'm afraid. And his poor show of last night also totally put off his support in the fanbase, though we still hope he can dry up the faggots as soon as possible and restart a fire with them.
-------------------------------
Kurt Thomas
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/images/basketball/nba/players/3012.jpg
18 minutes, four points, 10 rebounds
2-for-3 from the field
In my humble opinion, Kurt is the best option for Spurs to guard Dirk. Dirk has lost some abilities through these years in speed and sprint, so Kurt won't have any problem catching up Dirk's paces. And Kurt's size is more than enough to restrict Dirk's jumpers at any spot of the floor, not to mention Dirk's 3-point shooting skills also have shrinked a lot.
-------------------------------
Jacque Vaughn
http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/.e1d/img/4.0/global/basketball/nba/players/3195.jpg
16 minutes, seven points, two assists, 2-for-5 from the field, 3-for-6 at the line
Jacque would also have got a double-digit score if he had hit all the shots at the line. Like Oberto, Jacque also had been benched for a long time before getting remembered by Pop. It's unfeasible to expect those long-time benchwarmers to make consistent contributions to the team, but it's also not a bad idea to use them temporarily. I hope to see their jerseys on court in the following games, not only in the garbage minutes.
-------------------------------
Gregg Popovich
http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/topstory/sports/popovich_gregg030428.jpg
Last night's game should have reminded me of a regular season game, in which the spurs played with all their big 3 on bench and finally lost to Denver as a result. But my poor memory didn't find that game from its depot until my eyes got caught by Pop's mona lisa-like mysterious smile. Maybe that sophisticated coach has already made a thorough plan on the following games of this series. In Pop we trust, the spurs won't be that easy to be defeated by the Mavs anyway, at least I believe Pop will put off this series to game 6.
-------------------------------
Offense
Spurs played extremely bad at the offensive end, which is clearly illustrated by the 67 points which were the lowest number in the postseason of our team's history. But our bad performances in offense can hardly be fully reflected by the points only, our entire system got crippled last night by the Mavs and creeped hilariously like a body learning to walk. Uniting our entire team, we only collected 10 assists last night which were only half as the amount of Mavs'. The 12 points in the 3rd quarter was just an epitome of our bad offensive work last night. We only got 42 quarters in the first 3 quarters, thankfully to the Mavs for loosening their defense in the 4th quarter and allowing us to pick up 25 pts in his quarter, which helped us avoid a historic shame.
Defense
Compared to our shameful performances in offense, our works on the other end were pretty passive last night. We managed to hold our opponent's points under 90, making Jason Kidd shoot 1-6 from the field. The only positive thing I saw from last night's game was just we still had our awesome defense that brought us four rings in one decade, in our defense we believe that we are still a good team and a title contender.
Drive to Five
Even though we lost a game by 21 pts last night, it's still counted as only one game and the record of this series still is 1-2, which means we are only one game behind our opponent. One game's leading gap is far from enough for Mavs to lock a ticket for the second round, so our opponent will also work 100% of their guts off fighting us. Obviously the rest of this series won't be easy for either team, but the spurs don't do what is easy, they just do what is needed to do and what can prompt their team. In Pop and the 15 warriors on our team, we will continue to believe.
Believe.