Man Sauce
05-26-2005, 08:14 PM
Suns comeback would be good for basketball
Ian O'Connor / Special to FOXSports.com
The San Antonio Spurs represent an international exercise in class (Tim Duncan), style (Tony Parker) and sizzle (Manu Ginobili), making them an awfully tough contender to dislike. And listen, I am 100 percent behind any team or cause that makes Eva Longoria's heart skip a beat.
But it would be good for the game of basketball, on all levels, in every corner of the globe, if the Phoenix Suns complete their mission impossible and take four of five games from the Spurs in the Western Conference finals.
This has nothing to do with Gregg Popovich's condescending tone, one he apparently kept out of the playbook when he was a college coach going 69-110 at Pomona-Pitzer. This has everything to do with honoring the aesthetic appeal of the sport.
The Suns are the NBA's eye candy, even with Longoria rooting for the point guard on the other side. They run, they stun, and then they run and stun some more. At a time when coaches everywhere wrap suffocating holds around their players' talents, Mike D'Antoni embraces the philosophy of a referee who keeps his whistle silent.
If you don't notice me, I'm doing my job.
D'Antoni hardly bothers calling plays and, on the rare occasion he does, the Suns are too busy having fun to hear him. Steve Nash dribbles, he passes, and his lucky recipients fire away as if staring down the barrel of an 16-second shot clock.
No, the Spurs haven't been too impressed. They won the first two games of the series, on the road, by wearing down the Suns with relentless execution in the fourth quarter. Parker is making Nash earn every step he takes toward the basket. Ginobili is establishing himself as the most creative and clutch slasher in the world. Duncan is being Duncan, good enough to challenge for his third title in seven years.
San Antonio can adapt faster than the Woody Allen character in Zelig. The Spurs can go halfcourt or fullcourt, inside or outside. They're not afraid to bang with the Pistons, or run with the Suns. If Greco-Roman wrestling is your game, they'll borrow Rulon Gardner's tights. If you're trying to recapture some bygone ABA glory, they'll pull a Doug Moe and paint the ball red, white and blue.
But almost singlehandedly, Phoenix is the team that lifted up a league in dire need of lifting. Scoring rose as easily as Amare Stoudemire would for a Nash-delivered lob. The Suns claimed the league MVP award (Nash), the Coach of the Year award (D'Antoni) and the Executive of the Year award (Bryan Colangelo) by fast-breaking opponents into oblivion, and still many NBA observers expected them to confront an ugly postseason demise.
Defense wins championships, the traditionalists warned. Sprinting wins Olympic gold medals, not NBA parades.
So what if that never stopped Magic Johnson's Lakers. Too much time has passed, and too many Pistons-Pacers and Knicks-Heat series have been played. When Michael Jordan was tired of being Michael Jordan, playoff basketball was reduced to Big Ten football: best-of-seven series were often lost inside a cloud of fourth-and-one dust.
The Suns arrived as the antidote to all of that. They raged against the grain of conventional thought and announced they intended to ride their regular-season wave through the back end of June.
Few gave Phoenix a chance, and here's why it's important that they crawl out of their 0-2 hole: a sweep, or a five-game defeat, might erase whatever gains the Suns have made in the name of easy-on-the-eye ball. Coaches would have their excuse to slow it back down and remind their players of the cautionary tales authored by the 2004-05 Suns.
If you love a free-flowing NBA built around the fast break, be afraid of a Phoenix fold, be very, very afraid. The league doesn't need another example of a regular season pinball machine that tilted at the first sign of playoff turbulence.
Basketball's beauty has always been discovered on the fly, with visionary point guards finding their teammates streaking to the hole. The Suns are the official guardians of this truth. If they go down, and go down hard, more coaches might send more players back to the Big Ten scrums.
That's why I'm all for the NBA's eye candy, Eva's little heart be damned.
Fox Sports Article (http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/3640756) :rolleyes
Ian O'Connor / Special to FOXSports.com
The San Antonio Spurs represent an international exercise in class (Tim Duncan), style (Tony Parker) and sizzle (Manu Ginobili), making them an awfully tough contender to dislike. And listen, I am 100 percent behind any team or cause that makes Eva Longoria's heart skip a beat.
But it would be good for the game of basketball, on all levels, in every corner of the globe, if the Phoenix Suns complete their mission impossible and take four of five games from the Spurs in the Western Conference finals.
This has nothing to do with Gregg Popovich's condescending tone, one he apparently kept out of the playbook when he was a college coach going 69-110 at Pomona-Pitzer. This has everything to do with honoring the aesthetic appeal of the sport.
The Suns are the NBA's eye candy, even with Longoria rooting for the point guard on the other side. They run, they stun, and then they run and stun some more. At a time when coaches everywhere wrap suffocating holds around their players' talents, Mike D'Antoni embraces the philosophy of a referee who keeps his whistle silent.
If you don't notice me, I'm doing my job.
D'Antoni hardly bothers calling plays and, on the rare occasion he does, the Suns are too busy having fun to hear him. Steve Nash dribbles, he passes, and his lucky recipients fire away as if staring down the barrel of an 16-second shot clock.
No, the Spurs haven't been too impressed. They won the first two games of the series, on the road, by wearing down the Suns with relentless execution in the fourth quarter. Parker is making Nash earn every step he takes toward the basket. Ginobili is establishing himself as the most creative and clutch slasher in the world. Duncan is being Duncan, good enough to challenge for his third title in seven years.
San Antonio can adapt faster than the Woody Allen character in Zelig. The Spurs can go halfcourt or fullcourt, inside or outside. They're not afraid to bang with the Pistons, or run with the Suns. If Greco-Roman wrestling is your game, they'll borrow Rulon Gardner's tights. If you're trying to recapture some bygone ABA glory, they'll pull a Doug Moe and paint the ball red, white and blue.
But almost singlehandedly, Phoenix is the team that lifted up a league in dire need of lifting. Scoring rose as easily as Amare Stoudemire would for a Nash-delivered lob. The Suns claimed the league MVP award (Nash), the Coach of the Year award (D'Antoni) and the Executive of the Year award (Bryan Colangelo) by fast-breaking opponents into oblivion, and still many NBA observers expected them to confront an ugly postseason demise.
Defense wins championships, the traditionalists warned. Sprinting wins Olympic gold medals, not NBA parades.
So what if that never stopped Magic Johnson's Lakers. Too much time has passed, and too many Pistons-Pacers and Knicks-Heat series have been played. When Michael Jordan was tired of being Michael Jordan, playoff basketball was reduced to Big Ten football: best-of-seven series were often lost inside a cloud of fourth-and-one dust.
The Suns arrived as the antidote to all of that. They raged against the grain of conventional thought and announced they intended to ride their regular-season wave through the back end of June.
Few gave Phoenix a chance, and here's why it's important that they crawl out of their 0-2 hole: a sweep, or a five-game defeat, might erase whatever gains the Suns have made in the name of easy-on-the-eye ball. Coaches would have their excuse to slow it back down and remind their players of the cautionary tales authored by the 2004-05 Suns.
If you love a free-flowing NBA built around the fast break, be afraid of a Phoenix fold, be very, very afraid. The league doesn't need another example of a regular season pinball machine that tilted at the first sign of playoff turbulence.
Basketball's beauty has always been discovered on the fly, with visionary point guards finding their teammates streaking to the hole. The Suns are the official guardians of this truth. If they go down, and go down hard, more coaches might send more players back to the Big Ten scrums.
That's why I'm all for the NBA's eye candy, Eva's little heart be damned.
Fox Sports Article (http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/3640756) :rolleyes