Playoff Basketball Begins

[Lebowski Brickowski]

This game marked the beginning of playoff basketball in my mind. Every possession was fought tooth and nail. Every shot was critical. Big hits and hard fouls. Bowen not giving an inch of space to Nash (that nutcheck was not only awesome but totally legal). Manu's got a black eye. Timmy getting fouled constantly and no bitching about it, just getting that killer instinct.

And then we see the difference in how the two teams respond:

suns:
bell has lost his marbles.
stoudamire's whining is incessant
_'antoni (no D baby) has some crazy post game comments, obviously frustrated
the suns bench on the most clutch bowen three
etc.....

Spurs
Duncan with the laser focus
Manu with the killer instinct after the eye
Not a peep out of any player or coach about how "physical" the games are
TP physical and fearless as ever -- on both ends

This is what playoff basketball is all about.

and btw -- I think the crowd all read the Harvey article -- they were intense. Way to show up last light S.A.

[sa_butta]

Just like Duncan said after the game, Spurs responded well after the loss. I agree the rest of the series should be interesting and hard fought.

[T Park]

The crowd being loud was helped out by the jumbotron operators before the game started.

They started witht he "get loud, "NOISE" stuff with like 30 minutes on the clock before the game started.

So props to them for helping getting the crowd going early.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

April 22 marked the beginning of playoff basketball for me.

[T Park]

It was game 2 against Denver that started it for me...