alamo50
05-16-2005, 10:42 AM
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Otto Greule Jr / Getty Images
San Antonio players, including (from left)Tony Parker, Nazr Mohammed, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili should not have let the Sonics back in the series, writes columnist Mike Celizic.
COMMENTARY
By Mike Celizic
NBCSports.com contributor
Updated: 12:50 a.m. ET May 16, 2005
I’ve just one question for the San Antonio Spurs, and when they answer it, they’re free to go back to sleep: Where’s the passion?
I know I’m not the only person who can’t understand how the Spurs could come out with so little energy against Seattle after Jerome James, whose name will never be mentioned with Tim Duncan when the discussion turns to the game’s great big men, called them out after Game 3. Ray Allen had already thoroughly dissed Bruce Bowen when James delivered his un-humble opinions of the Spurs.
San Antonio had won the first two games of the series, then lost the third in Seattle. The Sonics barely escaped with the win when Duncan missed what would have been the game-winner at the buzzer.
It was then that James felt the need to light a fire under the team from Texas. "I don't give them no respect, none,” he said, managing to get off a triple-negative in a seven-word sentence, which may be a record.
Right then, the fans back home along the River Walk must have been drooling in anticipation of what their Spurs would do to James and the Sonics in Game 4. It wasn’t a question of whether the Spurs would stomp the Sonics for their temerity. It was more a question of whether Seattle would need a spatula, a fire hose or both to remove the remains of its team from the court when the game was done.
In Seattle, Sonics fans had to be cringing at every replay of James’ words, certain that he had just provided the Spurs with more motivation than they needed to sweep the next two games and the series.
Instead, with the exception of Duncan, who scored 35, the Spurs didn’t bother to show up. They were down by two after one, six at the half, and 16 after three. Bowen contributed three points. Spurs guards Tony Parker and Brent Barry were outscored by Allen and Luke Ridnour 52-14.
San Antonio committed 20 turnovers and allowed the Sonics to shoot 50 percent from the field.
In short, the Spurs rolled over, fetched up a deep yawn, and took the night off.
The Spurs have been one of the top franchises in the game, and the citizens of San Antonio, who don’t have a lot else going in the way of major league sports, treat them as well as any fans treat any team in the game. They’ve won their two titles, in 1999 over the Knicks and in 2003 over the Nets. No one can say they are failures.
But if they haven’t failed, they have disappointed, and they have at various times played in ways that raise questions about their level of desire, about their pride.
Just last year, they beat the Lakers in the first two games of the Western Conference semifinals, then lost four straight to a team that would lose the NBA Finals to Detroit.
They beat New Jersey in six games in 2003, but the year before that, they were steamrolled by the Lakers in five games. And that was an improvement over the 2001 Western Conference Finals, when they went down in four straight to L.A.
In 1999, they won their first title, beating a Knicks team that was playing without Patrick Ewing, but in 2000, they went down in five in the first round to then-lowly Phoenix.
Okay, no one wins every year, not even the Yankees. But San Antonio has been one of the elite teams in the league for a decade, and it has had more disappointing playoffs in that time than it has triumphant ones.
Too often, the Spurs have done what they did Sunday in Seattle — failed to play with the ferocity and passion and desire that marks great teams.
Some of that has to come from the coach, and it’s true that Gregg Popovich is a pretty good and very likeable guy. And some has to be the result of being very big heroes in a town that has no one else to idolize. No matter what they do, as long as they put up good records and put legitimate role models like David Robinson and Tim Duncan on the court, they’ve done all that’s asked of them.
You expect them to win this series, but last year you expected them to beat the Lakers, who, as Detroit proved, weren’t nearly as good as everybody — including the Lakers themselves — thought they were.
They’re better than Seattle. It’s as simple as that.
But they’re not that much better, as the Sonics showed in their two wins.
The Spurs seemed utterly unconcerned. They didn’t, after all, lose home-court advantage. They’d just lost a game and were going home for another. Ho-hum.
And if they’d played with determination to show these upstarts what happens when you talk smack about the Spurs, you could almost forgive a loss and write it off to the Sonics playing on home-court adrenaline. But — again with the exception of Duncan — the Spurs brought nothing to the court. They let Jerome James diss them and, while they didn’t let him score, they didn’t shut him up.
The Spurs were called out and they didn’t answer the call.
Where’s the passion?
Mike Celizic is a frequent contributor to NBCSports.com and a free-lance writer based in New York.
Otto Greule Jr / Getty Images
San Antonio players, including (from left)Tony Parker, Nazr Mohammed, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili should not have let the Sonics back in the series, writes columnist Mike Celizic.
COMMENTARY
By Mike Celizic
NBCSports.com contributor
Updated: 12:50 a.m. ET May 16, 2005
I’ve just one question for the San Antonio Spurs, and when they answer it, they’re free to go back to sleep: Where’s the passion?
I know I’m not the only person who can’t understand how the Spurs could come out with so little energy against Seattle after Jerome James, whose name will never be mentioned with Tim Duncan when the discussion turns to the game’s great big men, called them out after Game 3. Ray Allen had already thoroughly dissed Bruce Bowen when James delivered his un-humble opinions of the Spurs.
San Antonio had won the first two games of the series, then lost the third in Seattle. The Sonics barely escaped with the win when Duncan missed what would have been the game-winner at the buzzer.
It was then that James felt the need to light a fire under the team from Texas. "I don't give them no respect, none,” he said, managing to get off a triple-negative in a seven-word sentence, which may be a record.
Right then, the fans back home along the River Walk must have been drooling in anticipation of what their Spurs would do to James and the Sonics in Game 4. It wasn’t a question of whether the Spurs would stomp the Sonics for their temerity. It was more a question of whether Seattle would need a spatula, a fire hose or both to remove the remains of its team from the court when the game was done.
In Seattle, Sonics fans had to be cringing at every replay of James’ words, certain that he had just provided the Spurs with more motivation than they needed to sweep the next two games and the series.
Instead, with the exception of Duncan, who scored 35, the Spurs didn’t bother to show up. They were down by two after one, six at the half, and 16 after three. Bowen contributed three points. Spurs guards Tony Parker and Brent Barry were outscored by Allen and Luke Ridnour 52-14.
San Antonio committed 20 turnovers and allowed the Sonics to shoot 50 percent from the field.
In short, the Spurs rolled over, fetched up a deep yawn, and took the night off.
The Spurs have been one of the top franchises in the game, and the citizens of San Antonio, who don’t have a lot else going in the way of major league sports, treat them as well as any fans treat any team in the game. They’ve won their two titles, in 1999 over the Knicks and in 2003 over the Nets. No one can say they are failures.
But if they haven’t failed, they have disappointed, and they have at various times played in ways that raise questions about their level of desire, about their pride.
Just last year, they beat the Lakers in the first two games of the Western Conference semifinals, then lost four straight to a team that would lose the NBA Finals to Detroit.
They beat New Jersey in six games in 2003, but the year before that, they were steamrolled by the Lakers in five games. And that was an improvement over the 2001 Western Conference Finals, when they went down in four straight to L.A.
In 1999, they won their first title, beating a Knicks team that was playing without Patrick Ewing, but in 2000, they went down in five in the first round to then-lowly Phoenix.
Okay, no one wins every year, not even the Yankees. But San Antonio has been one of the elite teams in the league for a decade, and it has had more disappointing playoffs in that time than it has triumphant ones.
Too often, the Spurs have done what they did Sunday in Seattle — failed to play with the ferocity and passion and desire that marks great teams.
Some of that has to come from the coach, and it’s true that Gregg Popovich is a pretty good and very likeable guy. And some has to be the result of being very big heroes in a town that has no one else to idolize. No matter what they do, as long as they put up good records and put legitimate role models like David Robinson and Tim Duncan on the court, they’ve done all that’s asked of them.
You expect them to win this series, but last year you expected them to beat the Lakers, who, as Detroit proved, weren’t nearly as good as everybody — including the Lakers themselves — thought they were.
They’re better than Seattle. It’s as simple as that.
But they’re not that much better, as the Sonics showed in their two wins.
The Spurs seemed utterly unconcerned. They didn’t, after all, lose home-court advantage. They’d just lost a game and were going home for another. Ho-hum.
And if they’d played with determination to show these upstarts what happens when you talk smack about the Spurs, you could almost forgive a loss and write it off to the Sonics playing on home-court adrenaline. But — again with the exception of Duncan — the Spurs brought nothing to the court. They let Jerome James diss them and, while they didn’t let him score, they didn’t shut him up.
The Spurs were called out and they didn’t answer the call.
Where’s the passion?
Mike Celizic is a frequent contributor to NBCSports.com and a free-lance writer based in New York.