ObiwanGinobili
06-09-2005, 11:56 AM
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,10369-1647429,00.html
Purists hope to spur San Antonio past destructive Pistons
By Bill Center, Times Online Special Correspondent
Basketball played in its purest form is as close as you can come to ballet in sport.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is packed with some of the world's most gifted athletes, men who can run and leap with the grace of a gazelle as well create magic on a basketball court.
So it is no surprise that there are teams in the NBA that are a joy to watch. The Phoenix Suns and Steve Nash, their playmaking guard, spring to mind. As does the up-tempo game practiced by the Dallas Mavericks. And the Miami Heat featuring the one-two punch of Dwyane Wade playing off Shaquille O'Neal are not too far behind.
Unfortunately, none of those teams will be around on Thursday evening when the best-of-seven NBA finals begin in Texas. The survivors are the Detroit Pistons, the defending champions, and the San Antonio Spurs, who won their second title in a five-year span in 2003.
This is not going to be pretty. No game that includes the Pistons ever is. The Pistons' supporters will argue that their style of basketball is based on hard-nosed defense. Lovers of the game will say that it has more to do with destruction.
The Pistons are bullies and bully basketball works in the NBA. It is easier to destroy than create. Had the Suns and Heat advanced to the finals, the NBA would have been celebrating a final series showcasing some of the best players in the league. The scores would have routinely reached triple-digits. The gods of television would have been pleased.
Truth is, the hopes of those teams - and basketball purists - were crushed by the weight of the Pistons and Spurs. We now have a final that will throw up 80-75 scores and more pushing and shoving than fans of real basketball can stomach. Remember, this season began with a brawl between the Pistons and Indiana Pacers. And now it's going to end with Ben Wallace and co trying to pound the Spurs into submission.
But there is hope here for fans of true basketball, most notably in the form of four Spurs: Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and Robert Horry.
Duncan is the classic NBA "big man" featuring a combination of grace and power around the basket. He can shoot and block shots without resorting to thuggery. And he's unselfish. "He couldn't care less who takes the winning shot as long as it's taken," Parker said.
Parker is a youthful and swift point guard who can penetrate the heart of most defenses and either get the ball inside to Duncan or outside to Horry, who is one of the game's premier long-distance shooters, particularly when the game is on the line.
Which brings us to Ginobili, who is a throwback to the way the game was once played and a living exhibit of how far the NBA has fallen.
Basketball is the only all-American game. We created the sport. OK, the credit goes to Dr James Naismith, a Canadian, but it is our game. And for decades, the United States dominated international basketball because we simply played it better than anyone else. Americans were the very best at shooting the basketball, hitting the open man with a pass, enforcing the tenets of team defense and running the court.
Then we forgot how to play our game. Teamwork and the jump shot took a backseat to high-flying dunks that would lead to lucrative shoe endorsements. Dunking requires little skill, just the athletic ability to jump. And the more we dunked, the worse we shot from the outside. And the more we dunked, the more the opposition just grabbed and held. And the more we grabbed and held, the less we ran the court, until we reached the point where the NBA's best players embarrassed the United States at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
In fact, "our" team was Argentina, who ran, shot and played defense in the once-American way. And one of the stars of that Argentina team was Ginobili, who has become something of a folk hero during this NBA season because he runs and shoots and plays the game the way it was played an era ago.
"You can't help but admire the way Manu plays the game," Nash said after the Suns were knocked out of the Western Conference finals by Ginobili's Spurs. "He's not gifted in one area, other than the fact that he can play the entire game at both ends of the floor."
That gift helped Argentina to Olympic gold, but can it help San Antonio win the NBA title against a Detroit team that would rather destroy than create? For the sake of American basketball, let the answer be yes.
Purists hope to spur San Antonio past destructive Pistons
By Bill Center, Times Online Special Correspondent
Basketball played in its purest form is as close as you can come to ballet in sport.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is packed with some of the world's most gifted athletes, men who can run and leap with the grace of a gazelle as well create magic on a basketball court.
So it is no surprise that there are teams in the NBA that are a joy to watch. The Phoenix Suns and Steve Nash, their playmaking guard, spring to mind. As does the up-tempo game practiced by the Dallas Mavericks. And the Miami Heat featuring the one-two punch of Dwyane Wade playing off Shaquille O'Neal are not too far behind.
Unfortunately, none of those teams will be around on Thursday evening when the best-of-seven NBA finals begin in Texas. The survivors are the Detroit Pistons, the defending champions, and the San Antonio Spurs, who won their second title in a five-year span in 2003.
This is not going to be pretty. No game that includes the Pistons ever is. The Pistons' supporters will argue that their style of basketball is based on hard-nosed defense. Lovers of the game will say that it has more to do with destruction.
The Pistons are bullies and bully basketball works in the NBA. It is easier to destroy than create. Had the Suns and Heat advanced to the finals, the NBA would have been celebrating a final series showcasing some of the best players in the league. The scores would have routinely reached triple-digits. The gods of television would have been pleased.
Truth is, the hopes of those teams - and basketball purists - were crushed by the weight of the Pistons and Spurs. We now have a final that will throw up 80-75 scores and more pushing and shoving than fans of real basketball can stomach. Remember, this season began with a brawl between the Pistons and Indiana Pacers. And now it's going to end with Ben Wallace and co trying to pound the Spurs into submission.
But there is hope here for fans of true basketball, most notably in the form of four Spurs: Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and Robert Horry.
Duncan is the classic NBA "big man" featuring a combination of grace and power around the basket. He can shoot and block shots without resorting to thuggery. And he's unselfish. "He couldn't care less who takes the winning shot as long as it's taken," Parker said.
Parker is a youthful and swift point guard who can penetrate the heart of most defenses and either get the ball inside to Duncan or outside to Horry, who is one of the game's premier long-distance shooters, particularly when the game is on the line.
Which brings us to Ginobili, who is a throwback to the way the game was once played and a living exhibit of how far the NBA has fallen.
Basketball is the only all-American game. We created the sport. OK, the credit goes to Dr James Naismith, a Canadian, but it is our game. And for decades, the United States dominated international basketball because we simply played it better than anyone else. Americans were the very best at shooting the basketball, hitting the open man with a pass, enforcing the tenets of team defense and running the court.
Then we forgot how to play our game. Teamwork and the jump shot took a backseat to high-flying dunks that would lead to lucrative shoe endorsements. Dunking requires little skill, just the athletic ability to jump. And the more we dunked, the worse we shot from the outside. And the more we dunked, the more the opposition just grabbed and held. And the more we grabbed and held, the less we ran the court, until we reached the point where the NBA's best players embarrassed the United States at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
In fact, "our" team was Argentina, who ran, shot and played defense in the once-American way. And one of the stars of that Argentina team was Ginobili, who has become something of a folk hero during this NBA season because he runs and shoots and plays the game the way it was played an era ago.
"You can't help but admire the way Manu plays the game," Nash said after the Suns were knocked out of the Western Conference finals by Ginobili's Spurs. "He's not gifted in one area, other than the fact that he can play the entire game at both ends of the floor."
That gift helped Argentina to Olympic gold, but can it help San Antonio win the NBA title against a Detroit team that would rather destroy than create? For the sake of American basketball, let the answer be yes.