mjnxn
05-19-2007, 03:39 PM
http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_21988.shtml
Heath: Spurs Advance While Suns Cling to Excuses
By Travis Heath
for HOOPSWORLD.com
May 19, 2007, 08:59
This just in: the San Antonio Spurs are a better basketball team than the Phoenix Suns.
There, I said it.
Of course, it's not the sentiment most of the NBA world wants to hear.
Sometimes the truth hurts.
People in this country love a good underdog story. They also love to tear down those at the top. The Spurs have been consistently on top in the NBA for almost a decade. Other organizations can only dream of achieving such consistency.
This kind of success breeds contempt. Thing is, the Spurs have been so classy over the years that it's been hard for people to find ways to quantify their contempt. Sure, some have pointed to Bruce Bowen's aggressive defensive style, but it wasn't until Robert Horry's hip-check that people finally had a piece of empirical evidence to hang their hat on as they unleashed their fury.
We are going to be forced to hear in the coming days and weeks that the Spurs only won because Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw weren't allowed to play in Game 5. If that makes Suns fans and the rest of the underdog worshippers sleep better when their heads hit pillow at night that's just fine and dandy. However, it's just not reality.
The reality is that the Spurs had Game 4 in the bag before they got lulled to sleep, and if they didn't lose focus for a few minutes the little spat between Horry and Nash never would have happened and the Spurs would have taken the series in five.
What excuse would the Suns have used then?
Perhaps the old Bowen's a dirty player would have fit the bill, and it's an excuse Stoudemire already began adopting as soon as he sensed the Suns' ship was sinking.
Hmm... that's a particularly ironic excuse for the Suns, especially when you consider what Raja Bell did to Kobe Bryant last year in the playoffs when he committed one of the most vicious fouls in recent memory. You know, the one when Bell decided to go UFC on Bryant and clotheslined him around the neck. Interestingly, Bell's foul was much worse than Horry's but cost Bell half as many games.
Of course, that foul was somehow okay because it was committed against Bryant, another top-dog American sports fans love to see torn down.
Point is, Bell is every bit as "dirty" as Bowen. The difference is that the Spurs didn't whine and cry about it in the media the way the Suns did.
Mike D'Antoni was telling anyone who would listen in recent days that he believed his team was more talented than the Spurs. Quick question: how often have you heard Greg Popovich or any member of the Spurs do the same in the last decade?
The answer is never, because teams which are truly members of the NBA elite don't need to go around telling everybody how good they are. This was a telltale sign of a chink in the Suns' armor and was nothing more than a juvenile attempt at constructing a false facade with the hope of manufacturing confidence.
It failed.
The better team almost always wins a seven-game series and the better team won this one, too.
It's almost comical -- especially here in Denver -- to hear all the talk radio pundits who watch no NBA basketball all season long chime in on the topic like they have something intelligent to add to the debate.
They screamed that the Spurs don't deserve to win the series.
They hollered that the Spurs are dirty.
And, predictably, they started throwing fits about how Duncan whines about calls and gets away with murder out on the court.
This kind of banter is great for talk radio fodder, but it shows an inherent misunderstanding of the broader NBA picture.
Heck, what big NBA superstar doesn't complain about calls, and why does Duncan get hammered so much by the media for doing so? At least he complains in a civil way.
Does anyone remember a cat named Michael Jordan? At last check, most folks hold him in pretty high regard. Well, he used to complain about almost every call very demonstratively -- especially come playoff time. It's a fact of the NBA landscape and it probably will be forever.
Superstars complain to the referees.
Tim Duncan does it.
Amare Stoudemire does it.
Even everyone's favorite point guard Steve Nash does it (very incessantly in Game 6, by the way).
Get over it, folks. The Spurs sure did.
Go ahead and hate the Spurs because they're better than your favorite team.
Go ahead and hate the Spurs because they execute better in the final minutes of playoff games than any team in recent memory.
Go ahead and hate the Spurs because your favorite team doesn't have a player who gets after it on the defensive end the way Bowen does.
And go ahead and hate the Spurs because not a single team in the Association has a player capable of stopping Duncan one-on-one.
But don't try and perpetuate this fallacy that the better team lost in this series as a result of two players not playing in Game 5.
Excuses can be adopted for every happening in life, but champions refuse to see them. This kind of focused and voluntary blindness is what ultimately differentiates champions from the rest of us, and in the end, it's what differentiated the Spurs from the Suns in this series.
Heath: Spurs Advance While Suns Cling to Excuses
By Travis Heath
for HOOPSWORLD.com
May 19, 2007, 08:59
This just in: the San Antonio Spurs are a better basketball team than the Phoenix Suns.
There, I said it.
Of course, it's not the sentiment most of the NBA world wants to hear.
Sometimes the truth hurts.
People in this country love a good underdog story. They also love to tear down those at the top. The Spurs have been consistently on top in the NBA for almost a decade. Other organizations can only dream of achieving such consistency.
This kind of success breeds contempt. Thing is, the Spurs have been so classy over the years that it's been hard for people to find ways to quantify their contempt. Sure, some have pointed to Bruce Bowen's aggressive defensive style, but it wasn't until Robert Horry's hip-check that people finally had a piece of empirical evidence to hang their hat on as they unleashed their fury.
We are going to be forced to hear in the coming days and weeks that the Spurs only won because Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw weren't allowed to play in Game 5. If that makes Suns fans and the rest of the underdog worshippers sleep better when their heads hit pillow at night that's just fine and dandy. However, it's just not reality.
The reality is that the Spurs had Game 4 in the bag before they got lulled to sleep, and if they didn't lose focus for a few minutes the little spat between Horry and Nash never would have happened and the Spurs would have taken the series in five.
What excuse would the Suns have used then?
Perhaps the old Bowen's a dirty player would have fit the bill, and it's an excuse Stoudemire already began adopting as soon as he sensed the Suns' ship was sinking.
Hmm... that's a particularly ironic excuse for the Suns, especially when you consider what Raja Bell did to Kobe Bryant last year in the playoffs when he committed one of the most vicious fouls in recent memory. You know, the one when Bell decided to go UFC on Bryant and clotheslined him around the neck. Interestingly, Bell's foul was much worse than Horry's but cost Bell half as many games.
Of course, that foul was somehow okay because it was committed against Bryant, another top-dog American sports fans love to see torn down.
Point is, Bell is every bit as "dirty" as Bowen. The difference is that the Spurs didn't whine and cry about it in the media the way the Suns did.
Mike D'Antoni was telling anyone who would listen in recent days that he believed his team was more talented than the Spurs. Quick question: how often have you heard Greg Popovich or any member of the Spurs do the same in the last decade?
The answer is never, because teams which are truly members of the NBA elite don't need to go around telling everybody how good they are. This was a telltale sign of a chink in the Suns' armor and was nothing more than a juvenile attempt at constructing a false facade with the hope of manufacturing confidence.
It failed.
The better team almost always wins a seven-game series and the better team won this one, too.
It's almost comical -- especially here in Denver -- to hear all the talk radio pundits who watch no NBA basketball all season long chime in on the topic like they have something intelligent to add to the debate.
They screamed that the Spurs don't deserve to win the series.
They hollered that the Spurs are dirty.
And, predictably, they started throwing fits about how Duncan whines about calls and gets away with murder out on the court.
This kind of banter is great for talk radio fodder, but it shows an inherent misunderstanding of the broader NBA picture.
Heck, what big NBA superstar doesn't complain about calls, and why does Duncan get hammered so much by the media for doing so? At least he complains in a civil way.
Does anyone remember a cat named Michael Jordan? At last check, most folks hold him in pretty high regard. Well, he used to complain about almost every call very demonstratively -- especially come playoff time. It's a fact of the NBA landscape and it probably will be forever.
Superstars complain to the referees.
Tim Duncan does it.
Amare Stoudemire does it.
Even everyone's favorite point guard Steve Nash does it (very incessantly in Game 6, by the way).
Get over it, folks. The Spurs sure did.
Go ahead and hate the Spurs because they're better than your favorite team.
Go ahead and hate the Spurs because they execute better in the final minutes of playoff games than any team in recent memory.
Go ahead and hate the Spurs because your favorite team doesn't have a player who gets after it on the defensive end the way Bowen does.
And go ahead and hate the Spurs because not a single team in the Association has a player capable of stopping Duncan one-on-one.
But don't try and perpetuate this fallacy that the better team lost in this series as a result of two players not playing in Game 5.
Excuses can be adopted for every happening in life, but champions refuse to see them. This kind of focused and voluntary blindness is what ultimately differentiates champions from the rest of us, and in the end, it's what differentiated the Spurs from the Suns in this series.