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Believe.They throw guys like Malik Rose and Brent Barry out there.
The team that will rule the West: San Antonio Spurs
By Mark Kreidler -- Bee Sports Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, April 23, 2005
Oh, you wanted a complete team? We can do that.
The San Antonio Spurs are so complete that they have only three players who average more than nine points per game, and they could still go to the NBA Finals and win. The Spurs have raised unremarkable individual play to a team art form. It's possible they could bore you to death, but more often than not they'd beat you into submission long before that, anyway.
Speaking recently about Peja Stojakovic's improvement from a mediocre defensive player to a decent one, Kings coach Rick Adelman noted that most NBA veterans go one way or the other. Their primary contribution is generally offensive or defensive but rarely both.
"It's very hard to do," Adelman said, and one only need to glance around the league to know it's true.
But the Spurs have some of the exceptions to that rule, and it's one of the many reasons they ought to win a Western Conference that features high-flying Phoenix and, for them, Denver in the first round.
Tim Duncan gets beat on defense just like everybody else, but only sometimes, and very rarely in a crucial sequence. And Duncan sets the tone for the Spurs - understated, calm to the point of deception, ready to spring. The Spurs get on people quickly, pick them up early in transition, don't really let them breathe.
They come at you with Bruce Bowen and his bludgeoning style, and they've got Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker trying to yank away steals, and Duncan and Nazr Mohammed blocking shots. Coach Gregg Popovich, in fact, is getting six points and six rebounds per game out of Mohammed, and he averages fewer than 18 minutes after coming over in a late-season trade with the New York Knicks.
The Spurs are deep without being remotely sexy. They throw guys like Malik Rose and Brent Barry out there. Tony Massenburg gets 11 minutes a game, for Pete's sake. Glenn Robinson was rescued from retirement after Rasho Nesterovic's injury, and Robinson is scoring nine points in his 16 minutes per game.
San Antonio wins games one tiny advantage at a time. The Spurs get two more rebounds per game than their opponents. They hold teams to 43 percent field-goal shooting while hitting 45 percent themselves. They commit 13 turnovers per game to opponents' 14.5, actually shoot worse on free throws and from the three-point line ...
It doesn't sound like total domination, does it? And yet, at the end of the day, it's the Spurs who use those tiny advantages to gain the edge. At the end, it's those couple of extra rebounds, an extra steal or two and maybe a bonus block that holds the other guys to 88 points per game, which will get you a win most of the time in the NBA.
Is it foolproof? Hardly; the Lakers were falling apart at the seams internally last spring but used that Derek Fisher answered prayer to help push San Antonio out of the le picture. The Nuggets, who play that wide-open style favored by the Suns, Kings and Sonics, beat the Spurs twice in four meetings this season.
But if you're looking for a reason to find a favorite in the Western Conference, the Spurs can do that. They've done it before.
Believe.They throw guys like Malik Rose and Brent Barry out there.
Germans?
Forget it he's rolling.
Well played man, well played.
Yeh but of course it is "boring".
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