duncan228
05-24-2008, 11:57 PM
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA052508.11C.BKNspurs.breakdown.389bfd3.html
Review-preview: Spurs will go back to L.A., but for only one game
Mike Monroe
Express-News
The backstage mix before, and after, Lakers games is never boring. Celebrities mingle easily with the athletes and officials. It's hard to tell who most admires whom.
Admiration and adulation flow in both directions and hero worship takes many forms, but when you see referees Ken Mauer and Tony Brothers posing for photos with actor Denzel Washington after the game, you don't have to ask who requested the shot.
When Washington followed his photo session Friday by talking with a Lakers beat writer, well, was it really eavesdropping when I listened in?
Saying their good-byes, the reporter asked the actor if he would be back at Staples on Thursday for Game 5.
“If there is a Game 5,” Washington said, laughing.
I couldn't resist. I scribbled in my notepad: “Denzel predicts sweep.”
“Denzel,” said a Staples Center official in our little mix, “meet Mike Monroe from the San Antonio Express-News. I think you just made a headline in his paper.”
All four of us had a good laugh.
“All right,” Washington asked, “what do you think is going to happen?”
What I told Washington definitely isn't what Spurs fans want to hear: There will be another Western Conference finals game at Staples Center on Thursday, but none after that. The Spurs are professional enough to win one game at the AT&T Center, but the league's oldest team is spent after a tough series against the Hornets.
These Lakers aren't those Hornets. They don't need a roaring home crowd to energize their game. They have Kobe Bryant, with three championship rings, and Derek Fisher, his teammate on those Lakers title teams. They have answers when the Spurs pose problems like those that stumped the Hornets.
When Gregg Popovich said blowing that 20-point lead in the final 18 minutes of Game 1 “hurt like hell,” he had to know the Spurs' best chance of winning the series was to steal Game 1, then coast a bit in Game 2.
The Spurs are proud and professional, and Manu Ginobili is on a mission to atone for his inability to dominate while playing on one leg. He got to rest early in Game 2, and that will help.
So Denzel will be back in his courtside seat Thursday, but the game he watches at Staples Center after that will be NBA Finals, Game 3.
http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x282/duncan228/5-23bythenumbers.jpg
http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x282/duncan228/5-23shotchart.jpg
http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x282/duncan228/5-23keystretch.jpg
* * *
ALTERATIONS
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has a history of dictating playoff matchups by shuffling his starting lineups. It was during the Spurs' first-round series against the Nuggets in 2005 that Manu Ginobili first slid into the sixth-man role that ultimately became his regular-season routine, part of a plan to manage his minutes.
Popovich went to the well one more time in Game 2 when he brought Ginobili off the bench and started Michael Finley. We know now that the move was out of concern for Ginobili's battered body. The alternative the coach considered was sitting him altogether.
It's also clear Popovich has been hoping to get something special, one more time, from Robert Horry. He has been the first big man off the bench for the last four playoff games. In the two games in Los Angeles, Horry came up empty, and you have to wonder if Popovich might tweak his big-man rotation, or perhaps choose to play more small ball.
Kurt Thomas has been relegated to a lesser role, and that has a lot to do with the nature of the Lakers' long front line. Thomas doesn't match up very well against Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom or Vladimir Radmanovic.
Review-preview: Spurs will go back to L.A., but for only one game
Mike Monroe
Express-News
The backstage mix before, and after, Lakers games is never boring. Celebrities mingle easily with the athletes and officials. It's hard to tell who most admires whom.
Admiration and adulation flow in both directions and hero worship takes many forms, but when you see referees Ken Mauer and Tony Brothers posing for photos with actor Denzel Washington after the game, you don't have to ask who requested the shot.
When Washington followed his photo session Friday by talking with a Lakers beat writer, well, was it really eavesdropping when I listened in?
Saying their good-byes, the reporter asked the actor if he would be back at Staples on Thursday for Game 5.
“If there is a Game 5,” Washington said, laughing.
I couldn't resist. I scribbled in my notepad: “Denzel predicts sweep.”
“Denzel,” said a Staples Center official in our little mix, “meet Mike Monroe from the San Antonio Express-News. I think you just made a headline in his paper.”
All four of us had a good laugh.
“All right,” Washington asked, “what do you think is going to happen?”
What I told Washington definitely isn't what Spurs fans want to hear: There will be another Western Conference finals game at Staples Center on Thursday, but none after that. The Spurs are professional enough to win one game at the AT&T Center, but the league's oldest team is spent after a tough series against the Hornets.
These Lakers aren't those Hornets. They don't need a roaring home crowd to energize their game. They have Kobe Bryant, with three championship rings, and Derek Fisher, his teammate on those Lakers title teams. They have answers when the Spurs pose problems like those that stumped the Hornets.
When Gregg Popovich said blowing that 20-point lead in the final 18 minutes of Game 1 “hurt like hell,” he had to know the Spurs' best chance of winning the series was to steal Game 1, then coast a bit in Game 2.
The Spurs are proud and professional, and Manu Ginobili is on a mission to atone for his inability to dominate while playing on one leg. He got to rest early in Game 2, and that will help.
So Denzel will be back in his courtside seat Thursday, but the game he watches at Staples Center after that will be NBA Finals, Game 3.
http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x282/duncan228/5-23bythenumbers.jpg
http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x282/duncan228/5-23shotchart.jpg
http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x282/duncan228/5-23keystretch.jpg
* * *
ALTERATIONS
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has a history of dictating playoff matchups by shuffling his starting lineups. It was during the Spurs' first-round series against the Nuggets in 2005 that Manu Ginobili first slid into the sixth-man role that ultimately became his regular-season routine, part of a plan to manage his minutes.
Popovich went to the well one more time in Game 2 when he brought Ginobili off the bench and started Michael Finley. We know now that the move was out of concern for Ginobili's battered body. The alternative the coach considered was sitting him altogether.
It's also clear Popovich has been hoping to get something special, one more time, from Robert Horry. He has been the first big man off the bench for the last four playoff games. In the two games in Los Angeles, Horry came up empty, and you have to wonder if Popovich might tweak his big-man rotation, or perhaps choose to play more small ball.
Kurt Thomas has been relegated to a lesser role, and that has a lot to do with the nature of the Lakers' long front line. Thomas doesn't match up very well against Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom or Vladimir Radmanovic.