Lucky 7? Spurs feeling comfortable as seventh seed

[duncan228]

Lucky 7? Spurs feeling comfortable as seventh seed (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-spursadvance)
By Paul J. Weber

Calling the Spurs perhaps the best No. 7 seed in NBA history is growing into a fashionable opinion.

“That’s not a compliment, is it?” Tim Duncan shot back.

Doesn’t mean it might not be true.

The Spurs rested Friday while awaiting the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference semifinals that begin Monday. The Spurs advanced as just the fifth No. 7 seed to win a playoff series—and the first since the opening round became a best-of-seven in 2003.

But San Antonio resembled no underdog while booting Dallas in six games.

It sent the second-seeded Mavs into an offseason that will likely be wrought with uncomfortable questions about their diminishing window for a championship, difficult roster decisions and looking back on swelling the payroll this year for a run that quickly fizzled out.

In other words, the summer San Antonio was careening toward most of the year.

“First 60 (games), I tell you, I was hesitant,” Spurs guard Manu Ginobili said. “I wasn’t sure that we had it in us. We were not having our best season. We were not approaching the games the right way.”

Almost everything the Spurs did looked wrong until March.

Richard Jefferson’s early disappointment after trading for his big contract. A winning record inflated by victories over losing teams. Twenty different lineups before Tony Parker broke his hand in March, when the Spurs finally stumbled into a Ginobili-driven combination that worked.

It’s why the Spurs couldn’t do any better than the No. 7 seed, and even after finishing off the Mavericks on Thursday night, Duncan maintained that the Spurs deserved to be there after putting together the worst of his 13 seasons in San Antonio.

And yet the Spurs still are still around, reaching the second round for the 11th time in that span.

“We earned that seventh seed,” Duncan said. “We got put where we’re supposed to be because we didn’t have a very good season. But we cleaned it up a little with this first series and we hope to continue that.”

Only one No. 7 seed has ever lasted beyond the conference semifinals: the 1987 Seattle Supersonics, who finished the regular season 39-43 but pulled off two playoff upsets before getting swept by the Los Angeles Lakers in the conference finals.

The other seventh seeds to survive the first round were the Chris Mullin-led Golden State Warriors in 1989 and 1991, and the 1998 New York Knicks. Each went on to lose 4-1 in the second round.

But they prevailed in best-of-five opening rounds that left more room for upsets, if only because the underdog needed to win three times instead of four.

The Spurs had three wins on the Mavs after just four games.

“No matter who we play from here on out—unless the Bucks make it to the Finals and we can, too—we’re not going to have home court,” Jefferson said. “We have a big task in front of us no matter who we play.”

Like the Mavs, the Suns are another familiar Spurs playoff foe. Phoenix has lost four consecutive playoff series to San Antonio since 2003, and the Spurs have ousted the Suns on their way to each of their last three championships.

The last time the Suns beat the Spurs was the opening round in 2000—which Duncan sat out of the postseason with a bad knee and Phoenix won in four games.

“For a seventh seed,” Mavs forward Dirk Nowitzki said Friday, “they’re obviously very, very good.”

Duncan and the Spurs are learning not to hear that as an insult.

“OK,” Duncan said. “I’ll take it.”

[L.I.T]

I have this feeling that duncan228 is about to spam the forum with all of the articles she's been saving up. Bring it on.

Oh and thanks in advance! I've been in spurstalk withdrawals since I woke up.

[Spurs Brazil]

Mavs make history by losing to 7 seed

http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/mavericks/post/_/id/4668865/mavs-make-history-by-losing-to-7-seed

SAN ANTONIO -- The Mavs made more ignominious playoff history.

They became the first team to lose a first-round series as a No. 2 seed. And that came only three years after the Mavs became the first No. 1 seed to fail to advance.

This six-game exit isn't nearly as embarrassing as the 67-win Mavs woeful series against the Golden State Warriors in 2007. It could be a stretch to even call this an upset, considering the Spurs' four-championship pedigree.

"This could have been the Western Conference finals," Brendan Haywood said. "The teams are that good. This isn't like a monumental upset or anything. You all are talking like this is the NCAA tournament and the 15 seed just beat the 2."

This actually wasn't the first time the Mavs lost to a 7 seed. The Sonics upset them in a best-of-five series in 1987.

But a 7 hadn't advanced since 1998.

"Going into the playoffs as a 2 seed is all we could have wanted," Dirk Nowitzki said. "We just happened to see a tough 7 seed that got rolling at the right time, got healthy and started to play well."

The Spurs certainly aren't a routine 7 seed. But the stat geeks tried to warn us that the Mavs were subpar by 2 seed standards.

[Blackjack]

Lucky 7?

Meh.

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/7554/blackjackdanielscopy.jpg

Now you're talking. :hat

[Bukefal]

Lucky 7?

Meh.

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/7554/blackjackdanielscopy.jpg

Now you're talking. :hat

:lol :tu

[Blackjack]

Mucho props to ace3g for the photoshop. :toast

[duncan228]

Spurs are no ordinary seventh seed (http://www.statesman.com/sports/pro/spurs-are-no-ordinary-seventh-seed-659650.html?viewAsSinglePage=true)
Kirk Bohls, Commentary

Tim Duncan, his head cocked to the side, seemed amused by the newly held premise that the Spurs have become the Greatest Seventh Seed Ever in NBA history.

The inference, of course, is that San Antonio has overcome a grave injustice that had somehow inexplicably branded it the next-to-last playoff team in the cannibalizing Western Conference.

"That's a compliment, isn't it?" Duncan asked with a wry grin. "Hey, we earned a seventh seed, I'll put it that way. We had so many ups and downs. We did not have a good season. But we've cleaned it up some."

Yeah, he and his teammates have scoured themselves of an erratic regular season and fears that the dynasty that included four titles in nine years had run its course.

They clean up well. And after disposing of their archnemesis Dallas Mavericks in six games, they're looking good, albeit in their customary roles of would-be champions.

The Spurs have this thing down pat, of course.

So no one, least of all Dallas, should be surprised.

They always hit the right balance of gritty, stupefying defense, clutch shots and unspeakable calm. Why, didn't Gregg Popovich relax his free throw-challenged players during the series-clinching Friday game when he told them the next one to miss would have to buy him a car?

It may have calmed some nerves but was hardly needed to alleviate any stress on Duncan, who before returning to the court asked, "What color do you want?"

Color it a silver-and-black NBA.

And color the Spurs incredibly confident — so confident that playoff newcomer George Hill was waving off veteran Manu Ginobili in the fourth quarter and taking the tough shots himself.

Once again, the Spurs have clearly demonstrated they have poise and presence and, mostly, pressure defense. And Pop, of course.

Pop fretted over injuries to All-Star point guard Tony Parker and possible future replacement Hill, the frustratingly long acclimation of newcomer Richard Jefferson to the Spurs' way, the broken nose of Ginobili early in the Mavs series, and always the worrisome wear and tear on Duncan, a now 34-year-old power forward who may be the best to ever play the position.

The club that almost always comes up with the right answers has found stability out of a 14-year solid pro in Antonio McDyess; spontaneity from an emerging star in Hill, second-year point guard; and a rugged spirit from banging rebounder DeJuan Blair, who's so young that Pop said he was watching cartoons before Game 6.

But it always comes back to the staple of defense, the trademark of this proud, small-market Texas franchise.

The unrelenting defense that took Jason Kidd and Jason Terry out of their games, and roughed up Dirk Nowitzki so much that the 7-foot forward settled for those patented fallaway jumpers rather than attack the basket.

Kidd's success at three-pointers went south from a career-best 42 percent in the regular season to a pedestrian 32 percent against San Antonio.

Terry lost key minutes to the electrifying Rodrigue Beaubois, although Dallas coach Rick Carlisle absentmindedly forgot about him in the second half of Game 6.

It all goes back to defense.

"Pop is very strict on what he wants and expects," Jefferson said. "Defense is all he cares about. And I like to play. If I want to play, I've got to play defense."

Through the first round, the Spurs rank just 12th of the 16 playoff teams in scoring. They don't have a player among the league's top 22 scorers this postseason. But only Orlando's and Boston's defenses have been stingier than San Antonio's.

The system that has brought San Antonio four championships from 1999 on is still effective, and now props up the Spurs with an excellent shot of adding a fifth.

"We are playing our best basketball of the year," Duncan said. "That's what you want this time of year."

With the second-seeded Mavs sidelined, with both Kobe Bryant and LeBron James nursing nagging injuries for the top-seeded Lakers and Cavs, with next-round opponent Phoenix carrying huge psychological baggage in this rivalry after losing four straight playoff series, San Antonio clearly has a great chance of winning it all.

"I think we're as good as anybody," Hill said. "There's no reason we can't win it all. If we play our game, which is defending well and sharing the ball, we can be a scary moment for a lot of people."

If the Spurs get by the fast-paced Suns and two-time MVP Steve Nash in this semifinal series, they'll do so with a tenacity on defense that includes textbook rotations and contested shots, and constant pressure on Nash, who comes into the series with a strained hip.

The Mavs witnessed it firsthand. The Spurs chased Kidd off the three-point line and didn't allow him to get set, and trapped Terry on pick-and-rolls.

"They're a good defensive team. That's what they do," Nowitzki said. "J. Kidd is a player who's very good in the open court, but we never got into the open court. You can beat that team if you score in the 100s, but not if you're in the 80s."

Against Dallas, San Antonio won all four games in which it held the Mavs to 90 points or fewer, the first stat that Pop cited afterward.

His team will have a similar challenge against the Suns, who averaged 103 points in their series against the Trail Blazers and 108 points in their four victories.

"Long, contested jump shots against the Spurs equal death," Mavs center Brendan Haywood said. "This series could have been the Western Conference finals. This wasn't a monumental upset."

Not even close. Consequently, the Spurs bandwagon grows, something Hill relishes.

"We like that people write us off," he said. "Now they're jumping back on the wagon. The wagon's getting a little full and heavy, and the wheels are starting to fall off. That's the fun part for us."

[m33p0]

actually, it's yellow.