dougp
04-29-2011, 11:19 AM
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/sports/basketball/29dribble.html?_r=1
Given the inexorable rise of pro basketball’s exciting new breed — Derrick Rose to Kevin Durant — there was something poignantly old school in how San Antonio clung to playoff life and its prolonged era of excellence Wednesday night.
The Game 5 heroics against the Memphis Grizzlies were right out of Spurs central casting: Manu Ginobili, the global basketball ambassador with the expanding bald spot, scrambling into the corner and hitting a frantic jumper while falling out of bounds; and Gary Neal, a 26-year-old N.B.A. rookie from Towson University, being handed the ball and bagging the game-tying 3-pointer from straightaway at the fourth-quarter buzzer.
Some fans at the AT&T Center carried signs that read “The Dynasty Lives.” Actually, it barely flickers after the Spurs’ 110-103 overtime victory. They won the last of their four championships in 2007, and despite 61 victories and the top seeding in the Western Conference, Wednesday’s comeback may have been no more than a last stand in the shadow of the Alamo, a stay of execution until Game 6 in Memphis Friday night.
If that is the case, who wouldn’t stand to applaud this team that has for more than a decade defined precious N.B.A. commodities — continuity and comity — in a sport that long ago converted to celebrity worship driven by the corporate shoe company agenda?
Under Coach Gregg Popovich and General Manager R. C. Buford, the championships that bridged the careers of David Robinson and Tim Duncan but largely revolved around Duncan were achieved without the benefit of a marquee free-agent signing. With the exception of Robinson and Duncan, the principals — Ginobili and Tony Parker — were international players who were far from lottery draft picks.
There has always been something deliciously contrarian about the globalization of professional basketball flourishing in a city derided by many as an N.B.A. backwater while the melting pot of New York primarily has only the short-lived run of Danilo Gallinari to show for its interests outside the borders.
In a large news media market like New York or Los Angeles, the Spurs would have been celebrated for their ethnic diversity, Duncan for his quiet dignity, Popovich for creating a fundamental purity and system in which the collective need obscured all resident egos. Instead, the network executives cringed whenever the Spurs (and not the Lakers) played their way into the N.B.A. finals, which meant no Shaquille O’Neal, no Kobe Bryant.
When the Spurs played in their last finals, sweeping Team LeBron from Cleveland in 2007, Popovich acknowledged that the Spurs weren’t the most watchable team in 1999, when they won the first of their four titles. Back then, they relied on the interior presence of Duncan and Robinson, but as Popovich said, whatever mainstream apathy that came later was knee-jerk and misguided.
“That’s their problem, not mine,” he said. “I can’t help them, poor souls. They’ve got to live in their ignorance. I can’t make them keep watching us, but it’s always dumbfounded me, since the arrival of Tony and Manu. If you can’t enjoy watching those two guys play and you don’t understand that they’re as much fun to watch as a lot of other people in bigger markets, then I can’t help, and it means you’re not much of a fan and you don’t understand the game.”
Spurs admirers around the country — which is to say those who enjoy precise execution of the high screen and roll, crisp body and ball movement, and expert court spacing enhanced by the slashing talents of Parker and Ginobili — were heartened this season by the team’s success after Popovich went to an up-tempo offense to offset the undeniable decline of Duncan, who this week celebrated his 35th birthday.
Their 61 regular-season victories were not a mirage as much as they were a tribute to the Spurs’ commitment to a system that has always played well during the regular-season grind. But a late swoon presaged the problems they have encountered against a quicker, more athletic Memphis team.
The Spurs won’t be an easy closeout for the Grizzlies, who are looking for their first playoff series victory. But if they fall, the Spurs will no doubt cross a psychological threshold, no longer viewed as contenders and ripe for rebuilding. Duncan’s old-school era might even be out. What a fundamental basketball education those who paid close attention to the Spurs have received.
Pop's quote is priceless.
Believe.
Given the inexorable rise of pro basketball’s exciting new breed — Derrick Rose to Kevin Durant — there was something poignantly old school in how San Antonio clung to playoff life and its prolonged era of excellence Wednesday night.
The Game 5 heroics against the Memphis Grizzlies were right out of Spurs central casting: Manu Ginobili, the global basketball ambassador with the expanding bald spot, scrambling into the corner and hitting a frantic jumper while falling out of bounds; and Gary Neal, a 26-year-old N.B.A. rookie from Towson University, being handed the ball and bagging the game-tying 3-pointer from straightaway at the fourth-quarter buzzer.
Some fans at the AT&T Center carried signs that read “The Dynasty Lives.” Actually, it barely flickers after the Spurs’ 110-103 overtime victory. They won the last of their four championships in 2007, and despite 61 victories and the top seeding in the Western Conference, Wednesday’s comeback may have been no more than a last stand in the shadow of the Alamo, a stay of execution until Game 6 in Memphis Friday night.
If that is the case, who wouldn’t stand to applaud this team that has for more than a decade defined precious N.B.A. commodities — continuity and comity — in a sport that long ago converted to celebrity worship driven by the corporate shoe company agenda?
Under Coach Gregg Popovich and General Manager R. C. Buford, the championships that bridged the careers of David Robinson and Tim Duncan but largely revolved around Duncan were achieved without the benefit of a marquee free-agent signing. With the exception of Robinson and Duncan, the principals — Ginobili and Tony Parker — were international players who were far from lottery draft picks.
There has always been something deliciously contrarian about the globalization of professional basketball flourishing in a city derided by many as an N.B.A. backwater while the melting pot of New York primarily has only the short-lived run of Danilo Gallinari to show for its interests outside the borders.
In a large news media market like New York or Los Angeles, the Spurs would have been celebrated for their ethnic diversity, Duncan for his quiet dignity, Popovich for creating a fundamental purity and system in which the collective need obscured all resident egos. Instead, the network executives cringed whenever the Spurs (and not the Lakers) played their way into the N.B.A. finals, which meant no Shaquille O’Neal, no Kobe Bryant.
When the Spurs played in their last finals, sweeping Team LeBron from Cleveland in 2007, Popovich acknowledged that the Spurs weren’t the most watchable team in 1999, when they won the first of their four titles. Back then, they relied on the interior presence of Duncan and Robinson, but as Popovich said, whatever mainstream apathy that came later was knee-jerk and misguided.
“That’s their problem, not mine,” he said. “I can’t help them, poor souls. They’ve got to live in their ignorance. I can’t make them keep watching us, but it’s always dumbfounded me, since the arrival of Tony and Manu. If you can’t enjoy watching those two guys play and you don’t understand that they’re as much fun to watch as a lot of other people in bigger markets, then I can’t help, and it means you’re not much of a fan and you don’t understand the game.”
Spurs admirers around the country — which is to say those who enjoy precise execution of the high screen and roll, crisp body and ball movement, and expert court spacing enhanced by the slashing talents of Parker and Ginobili — were heartened this season by the team’s success after Popovich went to an up-tempo offense to offset the undeniable decline of Duncan, who this week celebrated his 35th birthday.
Their 61 regular-season victories were not a mirage as much as they were a tribute to the Spurs’ commitment to a system that has always played well during the regular-season grind. But a late swoon presaged the problems they have encountered against a quicker, more athletic Memphis team.
The Spurs won’t be an easy closeout for the Grizzlies, who are looking for their first playoff series victory. But if they fall, the Spurs will no doubt cross a psychological threshold, no longer viewed as contenders and ripe for rebuilding. Duncan’s old-school era might even be out. What a fundamental basketball education those who paid close attention to the Spurs have received.
Pop's quote is priceless.
Believe.