Rique
04-23-2008, 10:46 AM
First Buck, now Mike?
WHat is wrong with these guys? Is someone paying them extra money to write stuff to get the Suns fired up? You figure, of all teams, the Spurs would know that a team can come back down from 0-2 against them. I am a bit disappointed by both of Harvey and Finger.
Spurs oust Suns (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA042308.Mike_Finger.en.3fce55b.html)
Amare Stoudemire was right. The Spurs aren't in Phoenix's head. They're much deeper than that now, somewhere in the pit of the Suns' stomach, where hopelessness and despair make their homes.
Can something be stunning and completely expected at the same time? If so, that's what the Suns' Tuesday collapse in the third quarter at the AT&T Center was. Stunning in its suddenness, stunning in its depth, stunning in the way it sucked everyone wearing orange into its catastrophic pull.
And yet when it was over — when Phoenix's futile, too-late attempt at a rally had fallen short and left the Suns on the brink of yet another unceremonious playoff exit at the hands of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker — no one was surprised at what they had witnessed.
The night before Game 2, Phoenix coach Mike D'Antoni decided against another look at a Suns game tape and chose to watch a new episode of "Medium" instead. This was one of those six-of-one, half-dozen-of-the-other deals, because both viewing options offered visions of dead people.
Officially, the Spurs will fly to Phoenix on Thursday, and they might even lose a game while they're there. But this series is over, as sure as disco and Bear Stearns are over, and for the Suns to deny it would make them look as silly as they would if they wore hotpants on Wall Street.
It was far-fetched enough to think these Suns — these Suns who have lost 14 of 18 playoff games to the Spurs, and who have lost those games in every way imaginable — could beat their nemesis in four games out of seven. But to win four out of five? After the punches to the gut the Spurs delivered them in consecutive games at the AT&T Center? Steve Kerr might as well try to trade for Bill Russell and see how that helps him.
Shaquille O'Neal hasn't fazed the Spurs a bit — even if he did coax Gregg Popovich into a silly and largely counterproductive few minutes of Hack-a-Shaq on Tuesday. The Spurs were already pulling away by then, having turned an 11-point second-quarter deficit into an eight-point third-quarter lead in a span of just 10 minutes. If the intentional fouls on O'Neal did anything, they allowed the Suns to catch their breath.
Popovich said "the worm turned" in that third quarter, but it didn't turn as much as it reverted to form. The Spurs always have had the cooler heads in this matchup, even when they've been hip-checking Steve Nash into the scorer's table, and Tuesday simply provided more evidence of that.
Amare Stoudemire, who had dunked on the Spurs at will during a 25-point first-half outburst, was greeted by Duncan's long arms and defensive intensity after halftime, and he folded like a hold-'em player with a seven-deuce offsuit. He missed all four shots he attempted in the third quarter, then missed three more to start the fourth. During all of this, his shoulders slumped and his eyes drooped, and whatever hope the Suns had of turning this into a series was long gone.
And this time, there were no ready-made excuses, no outside scapegoats. O'Neal had blamed floppers in the first game, just as Stoudemire had blamed foul trouble, but the Suns were plagued with neither Tuesday. Stoudemire finished with just three fouls, O'Neal had just four, and both were on the floor when Phoenix self-destructed.
By the end of the night, it was obvious that the blame rested only with the Suns themselves, and the credit only to the Spurs, and this was more familiar than Phoenix liked to admit, even if they finally did.
"It was really nothing that they did different tonight," D'Antoni said.
It's always been this way, or at least it seems like it. That's how Tuesday could be stunning and completely expected all at once, and how that paradox somehow made perfect sense.
WHat is wrong with these guys? Is someone paying them extra money to write stuff to get the Suns fired up? You figure, of all teams, the Spurs would know that a team can come back down from 0-2 against them. I am a bit disappointed by both of Harvey and Finger.
Spurs oust Suns (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA042308.Mike_Finger.en.3fce55b.html)
Amare Stoudemire was right. The Spurs aren't in Phoenix's head. They're much deeper than that now, somewhere in the pit of the Suns' stomach, where hopelessness and despair make their homes.
Can something be stunning and completely expected at the same time? If so, that's what the Suns' Tuesday collapse in the third quarter at the AT&T Center was. Stunning in its suddenness, stunning in its depth, stunning in the way it sucked everyone wearing orange into its catastrophic pull.
And yet when it was over — when Phoenix's futile, too-late attempt at a rally had fallen short and left the Suns on the brink of yet another unceremonious playoff exit at the hands of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker — no one was surprised at what they had witnessed.
The night before Game 2, Phoenix coach Mike D'Antoni decided against another look at a Suns game tape and chose to watch a new episode of "Medium" instead. This was one of those six-of-one, half-dozen-of-the-other deals, because both viewing options offered visions of dead people.
Officially, the Spurs will fly to Phoenix on Thursday, and they might even lose a game while they're there. But this series is over, as sure as disco and Bear Stearns are over, and for the Suns to deny it would make them look as silly as they would if they wore hotpants on Wall Street.
It was far-fetched enough to think these Suns — these Suns who have lost 14 of 18 playoff games to the Spurs, and who have lost those games in every way imaginable — could beat their nemesis in four games out of seven. But to win four out of five? After the punches to the gut the Spurs delivered them in consecutive games at the AT&T Center? Steve Kerr might as well try to trade for Bill Russell and see how that helps him.
Shaquille O'Neal hasn't fazed the Spurs a bit — even if he did coax Gregg Popovich into a silly and largely counterproductive few minutes of Hack-a-Shaq on Tuesday. The Spurs were already pulling away by then, having turned an 11-point second-quarter deficit into an eight-point third-quarter lead in a span of just 10 minutes. If the intentional fouls on O'Neal did anything, they allowed the Suns to catch their breath.
Popovich said "the worm turned" in that third quarter, but it didn't turn as much as it reverted to form. The Spurs always have had the cooler heads in this matchup, even when they've been hip-checking Steve Nash into the scorer's table, and Tuesday simply provided more evidence of that.
Amare Stoudemire, who had dunked on the Spurs at will during a 25-point first-half outburst, was greeted by Duncan's long arms and defensive intensity after halftime, and he folded like a hold-'em player with a seven-deuce offsuit. He missed all four shots he attempted in the third quarter, then missed three more to start the fourth. During all of this, his shoulders slumped and his eyes drooped, and whatever hope the Suns had of turning this into a series was long gone.
And this time, there were no ready-made excuses, no outside scapegoats. O'Neal had blamed floppers in the first game, just as Stoudemire had blamed foul trouble, but the Suns were plagued with neither Tuesday. Stoudemire finished with just three fouls, O'Neal had just four, and both were on the floor when Phoenix self-destructed.
By the end of the night, it was obvious that the blame rested only with the Suns themselves, and the credit only to the Spurs, and this was more familiar than Phoenix liked to admit, even if they finally did.
"It was really nothing that they did different tonight," D'Antoni said.
It's always been this way, or at least it seems like it. That's how Tuesday could be stunning and completely expected all at once, and how that paradox somehow made perfect sense.