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huh? melo played great - 35 pts (on good shooting), 9 boards, couple steals. mason played well but didnt scare the nuggets into thinking they would lose.
i still dont get why pop didnt play duncan and manu but good game guys.
There are two types of NBA players.
Those that get payed millions to play. The majority.
Those that get payed millions to win. A minority.
Enjoy the minority while you can.
huh? melo played great - 35 pts (on good shooting), 9 boards, couple steals. mason played well but didnt scare the nuggets into thinking they would lose.
i still dont get why pop didnt play duncan and manu but good game guys.
You can't win if you don't play.
You can't win if you can't play.
And why could they not play?
They could have played, but they were already tired and banged up from the previous night. Chances of injury go up with fatigue, and if one of the big three gets seriously injured then they aren't winning anything. Try to see the big picture here.
I knew you would throw out that bull about getting injured.
So the Spurs should go balls out during the regular season because they rarely get injured, and when they do they can always play through it, just like last year, right?
Undoubtedly, there is a lot of griping in the league about away back-to-backs and Pop's decision is a protest. I don't buy the injury angle.
Yes playing a b2b game is going balls out. I mean no other team in the NBA has to do that.So the Spurs should go balls out during the regular season because they rarely get injured, and when they do they can always play through it, just like last year, right?
It wasn't a must win game, but I wouldn't have rested the big 3 (well Manu maybe if he was trully banged up). I don't see how playing Tim and Tony for 25/28 minutes would had been so terrible for their bodies.
Playing your starters to win a game in Denver the night after getting an overtime win in which your starters get major minutes is going balls out. If other teams don't manage the minutes of their key players, that's their problem. If, on the other hand, they sit them out to rest them, it's fine with me.
For real? That's why this was a 'must-win game?'
2007-3rd seed in West, 2nd place in Division
2005-2nd seed in West
In '05 and '07 we visited the Suns in the playoffs. We beat them both times. That turned out well for them.
Don't worry about an early-February game. We were missing Ginobili and Parker for a while and we're still in the thick of it. We'll be just fine.
Yeah but to begin with playing back to back game is a ing total non sense !
All the NBA teams should do the same and tank these games to oblige Stern to eradicate this crazy .
Some of the fans here regret the pop decision because kids are paying their ticket to see TD TP and Manu but in the same time we know that the teams playing a btb game 20 hours are at 50%.
The wrong here is to oblige professional team to play BtB games not pop decision to rest his guys.
And guys get injured in just practice...
Look, injurys can happen at anytime no matter what game it is so I can't really buy the whole "protecting from injury thing"
I don't know... I think I can understand why Pop decided to rest the stars and it really was nice to see our bench get some minutes burn
However these guys are professional athletes and are payed very well to be entertainers. Would you be pissed if you bought tickets to a music concert and the lead singer or band decided to take that night off?
Heh,I wish I could call in to work everytime I felt tiered, but then again that would be alot of days off. lol
and Pop tanked just like Ghostwriter said he would. That is piss poor. Oh, let me guess.. Ginobili wasn't going to show up because he earned some keep, so Pop pulled out the good ol, we got in late wah excuse and blamed the nba schedulers..
smb... there are kids in the stands that paid to see parker, duncan and manu and nothing...
they got to see jacque vaughn.
you see, there is no entertainment.. when is the next time I waste money on a ticket and show up and Pop decides to tank????
ing ridiculous.. I would rather bowl than waste money on this team.
So much for last night. Ridiculous. I am pissed. Some of you dumb s think its cool and Pop pulled a fast one. Well that's ing gay.. you were probably the dumb that couldn't go out to recess and play kick ball because you were a re and couldn't say your abcs. Just like ducks..
... why do I have cable to see this ... Jacqu? it's over..
go ing bowl then you short got. all you do is trash your own team. pop is a genius get off his nuts get off the spurs nuts get off ginobilis nuts go be a god damn laker fan your posts are ing pathetic as are you. you are the biggest chump on this board and there are actually laker fans on here that are nothing compared to you
seriously after our rodeo road trip. id love to meet you at a spurs game. if you even live in the area. bandwagon got
Last edited by e20dylan; 02-04-2009 at 03:16 PM.
Go SPURS Go!
idiot
PER Diem: Feb. 4, 2009Comment Email Print By John Hollinger
ESPN.com
Say this about Gregg Popovich: He's not afraid to be unorthodox.
I can't think of a single other coach in the league who would do what he did last night. Of course, it helps to have the job security that comes with wining four championships. Only Phil Jackson is as confident in his future as Popovich is.
Daily Gems
Here are John Hollinger's top five NBA observations for Wednesday. Insider
Hinrich a solution in Orlando?
Potential H-O-R-S-E participants
Bogut's injury affecting playoffs
Finally healthy in Houston
Boston back on top
Still, it's pretty amazing to see three All-Star-caliber players sit out a game, given how tightly packed the Western Conference seeding race is. It's even more amazing when that game is against the Spurs' likely rival for the conference's second seed, or when you just saw all three players looking spry and healthy a night earlier in an overtime win against Golden State.
Nonetheless, Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker all sat out last night's 104-96 loss to Denver, a game the Nuggets tried very hard to give away, and probably would have had the Spurs sent in the varsity.
The loss pulled Denver within a game of San Antonio in the race for the West's No. 2 seed; since the two don't play again this season, it also handed the Nuggets the season tiebreaker at 2-1.
Here's the really weird part: The Spurs have four days off before playing in Boston on Sunday, and next week they get the All-Star break.
OK, now for the part I can understand: Duncan and Parker played 43 minutes and Ginobili played 35 in an overtime win in Golden State the night before. That game started at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time; the one last night in Denver started at 6 p.m. Pacific, so the team only had 22½ hours between games and a very long flight; going Oakland to Denver is about as far-flung a back-to-back as you'll see. Throw in the al ude and it was going to be a very rough night for the Spurs' three stars.
Popovich also manages the big picture as well as any coach in the league, which is why his teams always hit their peak in the spring. So you have to respect his track record in this department.
Nonetheless, this game in particular was an odd time to make this choice, as it could end up putting the Spurs on the road in the second round of the playoffs.
Of course, perhaps it was all a ploy to avoid giving Denver a psychological advantage. The Spurs have had the Nuggets' number in recent playoff series, and perhaps Popovich thought taking a tired team into Denver and losing would embolden the Nuggets come May. Thus, perhaps he figured a calculated gamble in February was worth potentially losing a Game 7 at home in the playoffs.
One other idle thought: I'm not sure if Spurs fans are upset by what happened last night. But I guarantee Blazers fans are.
John Hollinger writes for ESPN Insider. To e-mail him, click here.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/column...PERDiem-090204
Sequ, will you party with DPG?
Pop wanted to Tlong
I'm bothered more with the martyrs/Stan Marshes for Pop, than Pop's decision, (since it was just one measly regular season game.)
Anyone who wants to hide behind the "championship coach! name me one coach you'd rather have for the Spurs...if you don't like it than you cannn getttouutt" cop-out, is missing the point. I'll take Jordan's side when he would say it's about the fans, and giving their money's worth when it came to playing every night. Q
uestioning Pop on this is no different than disagreeing with him, from a fan standpoint, on his surrendering of games before the 4th quarter.
Pop could have easily tested both the new players, and preserved our players, and gotten a win by sending Timmy or Tony in the second half to help get us another win.
It is an example of Pop going overboard with the "big picture" philosophy. And I don't buy it because the Boston game isn't even on Thurs or Fri, it's on Sunday!
Reducing players minutes, in their twilight like Bruce, Horry and Shaq is one thing, arbitrarily taking out prime players who were usable for no reason other than an arbitrarily motivated ones is another.
Last time I checked, there's a difference between sitting players out AFTER teams have clinched their division or whatever, and doing it in the very middle of the regular season compe ion. Unorthodox is an understatement. It was just a wasted game for fans to watch.
Pop's sixth man strategy was good, and other teams have adopted it since. This strategy however for the sake of "guaranteed health" (heaven forbid it shows up again) being adopted by others would be a nightmare.
Lakers had a lot of problems to win today against the reps without Calderon and Bosch.They were down when Bosch wasn't injured.They will play tomorrow in Boston.They are going to have more problems to win games without Bynum and this year they don't have Turiaf in the bench.
Maybe we are not going to be the 1st of the west but it's early to quit the fight.
When we have to play agaisnt them in the playoffs we will see how important it's to be the best team of the west.Last year we need 7 games against the Hornets because they had home court advantage.I'm pretty sure we could win before 7 games if we had began the series in SA.And I'm pretty sure 6 games against Phoenix with those 7 games were important to be tired against the Lakers.
It's not the same to be 1st than 2nd or even 3rd.It's February and yesterday we only had 5 games lost more than them.And we will play one game against them in SA.
TD and Tony didn't need to be 40+ minutes against the Warriors and none against Denver.They could play 30 minutes both games.
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