This comes courtesy of the Express-News. This is too funny.
PHOENIX — About an hour before Thursday night's tipoff, the Spurs learned Phoenix would be without backup point guard Leandro Barbosa. A little more than 15 minutes later, they heard the man Barbosa backs up, Steve Nash, also wouldn't be playing.
So Spurs coach Gregg Popovich made like the locals: He walked up to Suns coach Mike D'Antoni at midcourt, tucked his hands under his arms and flapped.
:lmao :lol :lmao
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Spurs pass easy test
Web Posted: 03/10/2006 01:13 AM CST
Johnny Ludden
Express-News Staff Writer
PHOENIX — About an hour before Thursday night's tipoff, the Spurs learned Phoenix would be without backup point guard Leandro Barbosa. A little more than 15 minutes later, they heard the man Barbosa backs up, Steve Nash, also wouldn't be playing.
So Spurs coach Gregg Popovich made like the locals: He walked up to Suns coach Mike D'Antoni at midcourt, tucked his hands under his arms and flapped.
The fun didn't stop there for the Spurs. Taking advantage of Phoenix's injury-riddled roster, they rolled to a 117-93 victory in the teams' second annual Chicken Dance at US Airways Center.
With Nash sidelined by a sprained right ankle, Tony Parker peppered the Suns for 29 points. Manu Ginobili continued his efficient shooting of the past three games, scoring 18 points on just eight shots.
The game came one year to the day after Tim Duncan and Ginobili didn't play here because of injuries. When the Spurs took the court that night, Suns owner Robert Sarver flapped his arms and shouted, "Chickens!"
Although Thursday's victory didn't tell the Spurs much about their chances should they meet the Suns in the Western Conference finals, they weren't complaining. Not with tonight bringing their fourth game in five nights and the Los Angeles Lakers already in San Antonio relaxing.
Bruce Bowen was the only Spurs starter to play more than 30 minutes. Brent Barry and Beno Udrih, who likely will back up Parker for the foreseeable future while Nick Van Exel rests his sore left elbow, each scored 13 points off the bench.
"Sometimes when a team is lacking their best players ... you can get overconfident, and the other team can step up and have a very emotional game," Ginobili said. "We really took care of business, and I'm proud of that."
D'Antoni has done a good job this season plugging the leaks in his roster, most notably the sizeable hole left by forward Amare Stoudemire, who has yet to play after undergoing surgery on his left knee in October. Phoenix carried an 11-game winning streak into Thursday and had only four more losses than either the Spurs or the Dallas Mavericks.
"Mike has done a good job of adjusting the talent," Popovich said. "He's created other situations that have to be guarded because the Steve-Amare thing isn't exactly there."
Unfortunately for the Suns, the "Steve-Amare thing" spent the evening in sport coats on the sideline. D'Antoni knew there was a chance Nash might not play after he sprained his right ankle Monday against New Orleans. He didn't know his backup also wouldn't be able to go.
A little more than an hour before the game, Barbosa complained of groin pain — enough so that the Suns took him to the hospital for tests. Nash, meanwhile, was testing his ankle on the arena's practice court.
As D'Antoni was updating reporters about Barbosa, the Suns' trainer popped his head into the room and announced Nash didn't look strong enough to play.
D'Antoni settled on using Raja Bell to initiate the offense. Of the five players Phoenix started, only Shawn Marion played in last season's conference finals.
As they did in their 91-86 victory over the Spurs on Jan.7, the Suns threw the 6-foot-7 Marion on Parker, hoping Marion's length would keep him out of the lane. But when Marion backed off, Parker simply buried jump shots over his head.
Parker made five midrange jumpers in the first quarter alone. After the Suns closed within 12 near the end of the third quarter, he buried another 17-footer — a promising sign for the Spurs considering more and more teams have started to use bigger defenders on their point guard.
"They just back off him because they know he's not going to shoot (3-pointers)," Popovich said. "It's part of his game he'll have to improve just like he's had to improve his midrange jump shot.
"Because of that, he hasn't allowed it to frustrate him. He's played the game, penetrated where he can, gotten the ball to his teammates, (and) picked and chosen his spots more in transition than in the halfcourt."
The Spurs pretty much picked and chose what they wanted. They made 12 of their first 15 shots and shot 71.4 percent in the opening quarter. Their 38 points were one shy of the most in any quarter this season.
At halftime, the Spurs had 64 points and only three turnovers.
When Phoenix beat the Spurs without Duncan and Ginobili last season, Sarver apparently thought Popovich held out his two stars on purpose to keep the Suns from gaining any confidence heading into the playoffs.
"Yeah," Popovich deadpanned, "that was all my psychological voodoo.
"I'm going to tell (D'Antoni), 'You can't do that. That's my ploy, not yours.'"
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