Kori Ellis
05-17-2006, 12:14 AM
Buck Harvey: Heart of a champion? Something to believe
Web Posted: 05/17/2006 12:00 AM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA051706.1C.COL.BKNharvey.spurs.178079f5.html
I believe bad calls happen to good people.
I believe Mark Cuban had nothing to do with either game in Dallas. He doesn't intimidate refs; he irritates them. If anything, the officials should want to make sure they don't have to see Cuban in another round.
I believe conspiracy talk is both fun and fiction. David Stern will celebrate the elimination of the small market that has eroded his TV ratings over the last number of years, but the sentiment doesn't seep to the game itself.
And I believe something else. I believe the Spurs, right or wrong, are seething. They think they should be coming home with the series tied, at worst, and they think others have stopped this from happening.
Unlike other teams who have faced historic deficits in the playoffs, the Spurs don't feel beaten as much as they feel abused.
How do teams come from 3-1 down?
I believe this is how.
Anger isn't enough for the Spurs. They need to find their poise, which they didn't have at the end of both games in Dallas. They've made more mistakes than the refs have.
They need to quit feeling victimized, too. From the beginning of these playoffs, when they found a stronger-than-an-eighth-seed in Sacramento, they've been expecting something to go wrong.
The Mavericks, in contrast, keep reacting as if the next bounce will be theirs. It's in their body language as well as their jumpers. When Jason Terry backed up on Tim Duncan in overtime Monday night, coolly arcing a shot as if in practice, he looked like a man who knew life was on his side.
The Spurs need to change this, too. They need to make the Mavericks tighten, and that begins tonight.
I believe in odds, too, and I understand what the Spurs face. Only about 5 percent of teams have come back to win a series when down by a 3-1 deficit. These numbers are worse than Fab Oberto's free-throw numbers.
But the details of the past skew the odds. There's a reason a team loses three of the first four games in a playoff series and is eventually eliminated. The other team is usually better.
Even the rare comebacks don't accurately describe what is going on in this series. An example of that was this very month, when Phoenix put together only the eighth such 3-1 comeback in NBA history.
The Suns were equally frustrated with the officiating in that series. But that's where the similarities end. The Suns were the second seed, the Lakers the seventh. The Suns were clearly the better team and should have responded.
The Spurs and Mavericks are even, which is why a series I covered a quarter of a century ago for a Boston newspaper is a better measure. Then the Celtics and the Sixers — two 60-game winners who chased each other all season within the same division — met in the 1981 Eastern Conference finals.
The Celtics had home-court advantage, as the Spurs did, then went down 3-1, which the Spurs have done. The Celtics, however, didn't come as close in Philadelphia as the Spurs did in Dallas.
The Celtics trailed late in Game 5, and tonight won't be easy for the Spurs, either. The Mavericks, still on a roll, will feel better about themselves in this game than they would in either of the next two.
But the Spurs won 63 games this season; winning a home game is not too much to ask. And the Celtics relied on the same logic. They came back to edge the Sixers in Game 5, and then something happened that carried over to that critical Game 6.
All emotions changed. The Celtics became the ones with nothing to lose. The Sixers, feeling pressure for the first time, tightened at home knowing they couldn't return to Boston for a Game 7.
At this point technical adjustments don't mean as much as emotional ones. This is what Rudy Tomjanovich played into in 1995, when the heart-of-a-champion Rockets came from 3-1 down to beat Phoenix.
Will it be the same for the Spurs? The odds say no.
But can the Spurs win a home game tonight? Can they then go back to Dallas, where they were within two plays of winning two games, and steal one? If that happens, how will the Mavericks feel about coming back to San Antonio for a Game 7?
I believe it can happen.
Because I've seen it before.
Web Posted: 05/17/2006 12:00 AM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA051706.1C.COL.BKNharvey.spurs.178079f5.html
I believe bad calls happen to good people.
I believe Mark Cuban had nothing to do with either game in Dallas. He doesn't intimidate refs; he irritates them. If anything, the officials should want to make sure they don't have to see Cuban in another round.
I believe conspiracy talk is both fun and fiction. David Stern will celebrate the elimination of the small market that has eroded his TV ratings over the last number of years, but the sentiment doesn't seep to the game itself.
And I believe something else. I believe the Spurs, right or wrong, are seething. They think they should be coming home with the series tied, at worst, and they think others have stopped this from happening.
Unlike other teams who have faced historic deficits in the playoffs, the Spurs don't feel beaten as much as they feel abused.
How do teams come from 3-1 down?
I believe this is how.
Anger isn't enough for the Spurs. They need to find their poise, which they didn't have at the end of both games in Dallas. They've made more mistakes than the refs have.
They need to quit feeling victimized, too. From the beginning of these playoffs, when they found a stronger-than-an-eighth-seed in Sacramento, they've been expecting something to go wrong.
The Mavericks, in contrast, keep reacting as if the next bounce will be theirs. It's in their body language as well as their jumpers. When Jason Terry backed up on Tim Duncan in overtime Monday night, coolly arcing a shot as if in practice, he looked like a man who knew life was on his side.
The Spurs need to change this, too. They need to make the Mavericks tighten, and that begins tonight.
I believe in odds, too, and I understand what the Spurs face. Only about 5 percent of teams have come back to win a series when down by a 3-1 deficit. These numbers are worse than Fab Oberto's free-throw numbers.
But the details of the past skew the odds. There's a reason a team loses three of the first four games in a playoff series and is eventually eliminated. The other team is usually better.
Even the rare comebacks don't accurately describe what is going on in this series. An example of that was this very month, when Phoenix put together only the eighth such 3-1 comeback in NBA history.
The Suns were equally frustrated with the officiating in that series. But that's where the similarities end. The Suns were the second seed, the Lakers the seventh. The Suns were clearly the better team and should have responded.
The Spurs and Mavericks are even, which is why a series I covered a quarter of a century ago for a Boston newspaper is a better measure. Then the Celtics and the Sixers — two 60-game winners who chased each other all season within the same division — met in the 1981 Eastern Conference finals.
The Celtics had home-court advantage, as the Spurs did, then went down 3-1, which the Spurs have done. The Celtics, however, didn't come as close in Philadelphia as the Spurs did in Dallas.
The Celtics trailed late in Game 5, and tonight won't be easy for the Spurs, either. The Mavericks, still on a roll, will feel better about themselves in this game than they would in either of the next two.
But the Spurs won 63 games this season; winning a home game is not too much to ask. And the Celtics relied on the same logic. They came back to edge the Sixers in Game 5, and then something happened that carried over to that critical Game 6.
All emotions changed. The Celtics became the ones with nothing to lose. The Sixers, feeling pressure for the first time, tightened at home knowing they couldn't return to Boston for a Game 7.
At this point technical adjustments don't mean as much as emotional ones. This is what Rudy Tomjanovich played into in 1995, when the heart-of-a-champion Rockets came from 3-1 down to beat Phoenix.
Will it be the same for the Spurs? The odds say no.
But can the Spurs win a home game tonight? Can they then go back to Dallas, where they were within two plays of winning two games, and steal one? If that happens, how will the Mavericks feel about coming back to San Antonio for a Game 7?
I believe it can happen.
Because I've seen it before.