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tesseractive: Mavs had a top 10 defense that year--that's good enough to win a le, and as stated above, a winning record against the eventual champion Spurs (when Dirk was healthy).
But yeah, like LeBron said, you need luck to win a championship. Respect to the Spurs that year, no doubt they were a great team. Well, not really a great "team" per say, but the fact that the greatest PF ever probably had his single greatest season that year made them a great team. I'm just saying that if we're looking for weaknesses as per the OP, their lack of offensive options would be their major weakness. The Mavs managed to use that to their advantage pretty well as long as Dirk was healthy. Look at the playoff stats. Steve freaking Kerr was the 2nd best offensive force on the team, and it was all due to Duncan.
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Two big weaknesses: TOs and FTs.
Jack commuted many costly TO's that led to high % transition baskets.
Parker and Speedy couldn't shot, TP wasn't that reliable handling the rock.
Manu was a minor role player.
The Admiral was done, the Spurs were better with Rose.
Rose had stone hands and couldn't protect the rim.
Bowen couldn't drive.
FT's.
The '05 team was the best Spurs team, the '13 team was great too.
The 2003 Spurs were the worst of the ringing teams; if it weren't for God Mode Duncan I'd take the 2013 team over them (rookie Manu ~= TOSB Manu, today's Tony >>>>>>>>> sop re Parker, Kawhi >>>> Captain Jack, retiring D-Rob >>>> Splitter)
I recall the free throws, they were terrible. And they had a seemingly nightly problem of losing 20 point leads and letting the opponent back in the game. Certainly a powerful team, though, I never perceived them to be as dominant as other dominant teams such as the 3-peat Lakers or Bulls.
Walt Williams and Raef Lafrenz were better than Dirk in that playoff run. The Mavs played over their heads just to get where they got.
Back to the OP, the 2003 Spurs' biggest weakness was how much better they were than everyone else. They routinely flipped the switch on teams.
LOL revisionist history. The Mavs pulled out that Game 1 because they hit 49/50 free throws. It was one of the flukiest playoff wins I have ever seen. Then the Spurs won Game 2 by 13 and were up big in Game 3 when Nowitzki was injured in the fourth. I'm not trying to crack on Dirk because he became an amazing player, but 2003 Dirk was not prime Dirk who took them to the Finals twice and won them a le. The 2003 Mavs were horrendous defensively with Nash and Dirk on the floor; to Dirk's credit, he became a much better defender within the next 2-3 years, but he was awful defensively in 2003. And 2003 Nash is one of the worst defenders I have ever seen. The Spurs won that le when they beat LA, not when they beat Dallas.
[QUOTE=Obstructed_View;6701562]Walt Williams and Raef Lafrenz were better than Dirk in that playoff run. The Mavs played over their heads just to get where they got.
Back to the OP, the 2003 Spurs' biggest weakness was how much better they were than everyone else. They routinely flipped the switch on teams.[/QUOTE]
BINGO! They toyed with the league.The 05 Spurs got lucky vs Pistons and 07 Spurs got every break go there way in playoff bracket(CAvs in Finals Mavs upset round 1)
The 03 Spurs lost 6 playoff games by combined 13 points and their wins were big margins.They could of gone 22-2 in those playoffs if they were such a thing.
3 elimination games were double digit wins including 28 point pounding of Lakers in Staples.Toyed with da league.
Spurs got lucky because of Dirk injury=LOL
Game 1-Spurs inexperience and arrogance blew 18 pt lead and Mavs shot silly 49-50
Game 2-Spurs bombed them out
Game 3-Mavs were down 20 when Dirk got hurt in 4th quarter.
Killed the Mavs in that series on inside-Duncan and Rose
Seem like Lakers were down 20 pts every game vs Spurs.
The Nets 2 wins were by combined 3 pts.They could beat them 6-0.
Like every other spurs team: Pop! and chokness, lol losing game 1 against the mavs with Finley game winner...
at this dude bumping a 3 year old thread to say that...
But anyways, I actually think the '03 team was clearly the weakest of any Spurs le teams. They relied way too heavily on Duncan. Parker/Manu had their moments but were nowhere near the players they'd later become. Robinson was 36 or 37 and much inferior to his '99 self.
That playoff run was pretty much just Duncan putting the team on his back night in and night out and dragging them through the playoffs. Obviously there were moments where others chipped in, but there wasn't really any consistent 2nd or 3rd option.
Yeah, there was no stopping Tim Duncan that playoffs. Not to mention Speedy Claxt
2003 team wasn't that good TBH. D-Rob on his last legs, Tony just a kid, Manu yet to emerge. TD carried them to the chip..
TD was unbelievable that year.......a MONSTER!!
Inexperience - would give up big leads.
Did Duncan get 10 blocks in the clincher vs nets? I read some Reddit threads today where people claimed he wasn't credited for 2 blocks. Is this valid? I have tHe game on vhs I think I need to go back and watch it to count it. People claimed one block was flat out missed and one was questionable as Robinson got the credit-not sure where in the game the missed blocks were but I think both blocks were close together in the game.
Besides Porker?
No weakness tbh
Turnovers.
No lead was safe.
For those of you too young for 2003 then imagine 2016 Finals Lebron w/ the 2015 Cavs supporting cast.
2002/3, the Spurs were horrible at FTs and TOs.
Tim was incredible, but he had plenty of help from Tony and Manu were great, Philly cheesesteak rebounded, defended. Defense was best in the league.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 07-24-2016 at 07:58 AM.
2013 still hunt me, It flashback to me at least one time a day in misery!
Parker was either hot or cold that year in the playoffs too.
Out of all the Spurs championships, 03 Spurs is the weakest. But out of all the championships, 03 Duncan is the greatest.
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