duncan228
11-21-2007, 09:40 AM
http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/hawks/entries/2007/11/20/watch_listen_an.html
Watch, listen and learn
By Sekou K Smith
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s more to a night with the San Antonio Spurs than just precision timing on back cuts and the obligatory Gregg Popovich snarl at Joey Crawford.
It’s a chance to see a machine run the way it was intended to run. It’s an opportunity to view masters of their craft show the rest of us how a team is supposed to operate. It’s NBA basketball at its finest (I don’t care that the ratings are always awful when the Spurs are in the NBA Finals).
And if you’re not careful, you might sit back, watch these masters of the game, listen to the sound that their clockwork makes and learn a little something about how to win.
I wonder if the Hawks took notes while they were being schooled Tuesday night. Really, I do. Because it’s hard to tell what they’re doing these days other than turning a little early season promise into hot garbage.
Tim Duncan and Al Horford were chatting under the basket in front of the Spurs’ bench during one lull in the action and they were both smiling like they knew something most of the other people in the building didn’t. Guess it was a championship thing.
But you must know that they’ve experienced some things, as multiple title winners, that very few people have. The beauty of what the Spurs do lies in the fact that they do it every night. They play the same way on Tuesday night in November as they do on a Tuesday night in May or June. It’s just the way they’ve been built and the way they run things.
You wonder if the Hawks have any better understanding of that after being smacked around by this team, or if they knew as much before the game and just couldn’t do anything to stop it.
I’m not sure. Just when you think they start to understand how this whole thing works (why the winners consistently win and why the others do not), they show up with one of these listless, glass-eyed outings that takes us all back to the 13-69 stinker the Hawks put forth a couple years back.
Take for example the Spurs’ attitude about Tuesday’s game. They didn’t treat the Hawks like the 3-7 punching bag they’re on their way to becoming. They treated them like the dangerous, athletic, high-flying outfit that punished both Dallas and Phoenix on the same floor this season.
“We wanted to come in here and respect them,” Popovich said when it was over.
Indeed.
Watch, listen and learn
By Sekou K Smith
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s more to a night with the San Antonio Spurs than just precision timing on back cuts and the obligatory Gregg Popovich snarl at Joey Crawford.
It’s a chance to see a machine run the way it was intended to run. It’s an opportunity to view masters of their craft show the rest of us how a team is supposed to operate. It’s NBA basketball at its finest (I don’t care that the ratings are always awful when the Spurs are in the NBA Finals).
And if you’re not careful, you might sit back, watch these masters of the game, listen to the sound that their clockwork makes and learn a little something about how to win.
I wonder if the Hawks took notes while they were being schooled Tuesday night. Really, I do. Because it’s hard to tell what they’re doing these days other than turning a little early season promise into hot garbage.
Tim Duncan and Al Horford were chatting under the basket in front of the Spurs’ bench during one lull in the action and they were both smiling like they knew something most of the other people in the building didn’t. Guess it was a championship thing.
But you must know that they’ve experienced some things, as multiple title winners, that very few people have. The beauty of what the Spurs do lies in the fact that they do it every night. They play the same way on Tuesday night in November as they do on a Tuesday night in May or June. It’s just the way they’ve been built and the way they run things.
You wonder if the Hawks have any better understanding of that after being smacked around by this team, or if they knew as much before the game and just couldn’t do anything to stop it.
I’m not sure. Just when you think they start to understand how this whole thing works (why the winners consistently win and why the others do not), they show up with one of these listless, glass-eyed outings that takes us all back to the 13-69 stinker the Hawks put forth a couple years back.
Take for example the Spurs’ attitude about Tuesday’s game. They didn’t treat the Hawks like the 3-7 punching bag they’re on their way to becoming. They treated them like the dangerous, athletic, high-flying outfit that punished both Dallas and Phoenix on the same floor this season.
“We wanted to come in here and respect them,” Popovich said when it was over.
Indeed.