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Wow...the Lakers win Game 1 at home by 4 points and they think they're the Champions...
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/8...ing-aged-Spurs
Looks like time is finally trumping aged Spurs
by Mark Kriegel
LOS ANGELES - These media availability sessions are not known for their candor. It's no one's fault, certainly not the ballplayers — in this case, the Spurs — who had already been asked the same questions the night before. San Antonio was still just hours removed from its loss in the first game of the conference finals.
Still, players entered the conference room at a seaside resort in Santa Monica looking relatively spry, especially considering the humiliations visited upon the Spurs over these past several days. To recap: After beating the Hornets in a seventh game, they had to sleep on a runway in New Orleans. Then there was that loss in Staples. Finally, following the game, coach Gregg Popovich and his staff were informed that the hotel was out of their chosen beverages, both the Chardonnay and the Pinot Noir.
"They were out of both of them," said Popovich. "That was worse than having to sit on the airplane. We had wine on the plane."
Then again, Popovich and his charges might have found sobriety more tolerable if the Spurs had a victory to toast, or at least, if they had not lost in such uncharacteristically appalling fashion. Popovich's San Antonio Spurs — winners of four championships in nine seasons — gave up a lead that was 20 points midway in the third quarter. A chance like that won't come around again. Not against a team as talented as the Lakers. Certainly not on the road.
"It can happen in January," said Manu Ginobili. "But in a game like that? Game 1 of the conference finals? It should not happen."
Ginobili — the abundantly talented Argentine whose 3-for-13 shooting night makes him the Spur with the most room to improve — has been with the team for six seasons now. He could not recall giving up a lead like that in a big game.
"This one hurt," he said. "We were too slow down the stretch."
Slow? Slow is a sign of, well, athletes like Ginobili know all too well what slow signifies.
"We always talk about how experienced we are," he said. "Well, we were not yesterday. We were just old."
And that's the real subtext here: a great, if aged team — perhaps the most unappreciated in contemporary sports — confronting its mortality. Popovich, as is to be expected, professes nothing but disdain for the idea. "That trite assessement," he says, "that when we win we're the experienced team, and when we lose we're older than dirt."
The coach blamed Wednesday's loss on bad shooting. "We shot the ball poorly," he said, referring to his team's abysmal fourth-quarter percentage. "Three-for-21 isn't great."
Actually, 3-for-21 in the fourth quarter is a fair indication that his players had lost their legs. And what's the first thing that goes for an aging ballplayer? The legs, of course.
The Spurs — now endeavoring to become the oldest team ever to win an NBA championship — looked too old for the job the other night. As it is, they are the fourth-oldest team in league history. (For the record, according to Sports Inc., the oldest was the 1997-98 Knicks — average age, 32 years and 201 days — a team that won 43 regular-season games. Then there was Houston that same season — averaging 32 years, 148 days — a .500 club. Next, the 2000-01 Trail Blazers — 32 years, 39 days — a 50-win team swept by the Lakers in the first round.)
The average Spur is nine days shy of his 32nd birthday. This in a league where the average age is 27 years and 139 days. Popovich seems determined to go with a supporting cast that, in basketball terms, is ancient. Brent Barry won a dunking contest during the first Clinton Administration. Robert Horry will turn 38 this summer. Bruce Bowen will be 37 next month. Michael Finley, in his 13th pro season, is 35. Kurt Thomas is also 35. Of San Antonio's big three, only Tony Parker, at 26, remains in his physical prime. Ginobili will be 31 in July. After 11 great seasons, Tim Duncan is 32, and not quite the player he used to be.
By contrast, Lakers MVP Kobe Bryant is still only 29. So maybe — more than likely, actually — that's what this series will turn out to be, a tale of succession. This Lakers team should succeed the Spurs, just as the Spurs outlasted the previous Lakers regime.
If that's the case, though, recall the Spurs for what they were. If they'd have played in a big market, they'd have been relentlessly glorified. Duncan was the best power forward ever, close to technical perfection in everything he did. The guard play of Ginobili and Parker was daring and supremely skilled. More than that, though, the Spurs proved that playing defense didn't mean playing ugly. They never embarrassed themselves or anybody else. They just won.
You can raise a glass to that.
Wow...the Lakers win Game 1 at home by 4 points and they think they're the Champions...
huh, Kobe is old too then. Duncan is only 2 years older than Kobe, Manu is only 1 year older than Kobe. notto mention Parker.
succession? Kobe is an ex 3 time champion. did he forget that too?
They were saying that 3 or 4 years ago. It never gets, uh, old.
Huh? The Spurs were "experienced" on Tuesday and now "aged" On Friday. BFD.
Yes. It seems that the media knuckleheads have forgotten that this is basically the same team that won it all last year. You know how much older everyone is than last year's squad?
[Wait]
[Wait]
Answer: ONE year older.
I wonder if Mark Kreider thinks his writing skills (if he had any to begin with) have eroded so much in one year.
Even though it's only 1 year, it seems time may have caught up with some of the Spurs....Horry, Finley, Stoudamire are all s s of their old self. Compare them from a year ago and you can see the age kicking in.
Duncan and Parker still "got it". Manu is not healing as quickly as he used to.
Bowen is still quick amazingly but the juries still out on Brent Barry.
The Spurs gave up a late 20 point lead in a Playoff game, I don't think they've ever done that before. The old young Spurs would have laughed at that notion.
This series will be rugged for young legs, not to mention old ones, let's see how both teams hold up under 1 game every other day.
Yup...it's gonna be a tough series...for both teams.
Spurs in 6.
The repeated use of "old" and boring" as a description of the Spurs is the supreme benchmark of an untalented uncreative unimaginative lazy sportswriter.
Media, Laker fans, and just non-Spurs fans in general are absolutely hysterical.
Spurs just beat a glorified Suns team, the best young team in the league with the best pg in the league, and just lost Game 1 and people are ready to write them off??
How is this even possible? Just 3 days ago, these same media types and even fans were proclaiming that the Spurs still got it and are going to be a tough out. 1 loss, especially in Game 1 does not mean a single thing. Even the Suns for all their drama after Game 1...still came out fighting in Games 2, 4, and 5.
Kriegel = fail
the same was said about the hornets - that the spurs were finally passing the torch.
Groundhog year
Dang...Nice art work Bling...
the media.
The games are played by the men on the court...not on laptops and offices.
They came close once before but Horry's shot rimmed out.
Listening to the sports talk stations here in LA; they're talking about the Spurs in past tense.
so will they be playing game 2 tonight?
so the spurs are a bunch of drunks now? way to be focused.
Boy, am I glad I'm on the side of the good guys in this battle!
They lead by 16 in LA in Game 4 of 2003 playoffs and blew that, when the Spurs were supposedly "in their prime"...we all know how that series turned out.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=230511013
Pffft my blind grandma can photoshop better than that!
Really?
Ask her to do something creative.
Because so far, you've got squat.
Boy, am I glad I'm on the side of the good guys in this battle!
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