No Garnett when Spurs face Celtics

[ShoogarBear]

And Houston without Yao.

And Bulls without Boozer.

And Milwaukee without Michael Redd.

And Hawks without Joe Johnson.

And Nuggets without Chauncey/Kenyon.

And Memphis without Rudy Gay.

And Nuggets without Carmelo.

And Wizards without a bunch of guys.

And Magic without chemistry.

And Suns without new trade acquisitions.

CIA Pop.

[TampaDude]

No one felt sorry for us in 1999-2000 when Duncan was out for the playoffs with the knee injury.

No one felt sorry for us when Derek Anderson got leveled by Juwon Howard and never recovered in 2001.

No one felt sorry for us when Derek Fisher's shot counted when it shouldn't have.

No one felt sorry for us when Spurs were robbed by the officiating in games 3 and 4 of the Mavs series in 2006.

No one felt sorry for us in 2008 when Manu's ankle was the culprit for Sasha turning into Bruce Bowen.

No one felt sorry for us when 2 of the Spurs big 3 were often injured the past 2 seasons.

em.

No one felt sorry for us when Brent Barry got mugged by D Fish in 2008 and Joey Crawford swallowed his whistle.

Yup... 'em!

[easjer]

Eh, luck is a piece of it. It's true the Spurs have had some lucky breaks. It's equally true that a number of teams have players who come together over a player's absence and elevate their game to compensate (particularly when it's something like a death in the family - the spirit of let's win it for him). It's also true that with the hot streak and best league record by several games, teams are starting to circle SA on their calendar and play up to it.

Nature of the game. We have to hope that the Spurs do not get hit with injuries any more than they have; if they do, then other teams will be lucky in their turn playing the Spurs.

[Agloco]

My point is simply that the Spurs have had a fair stretch of good luck with other teams having star and/or rotation players out. Sure, the Spurs are missing Anderson and missed Hill for a few games. The point remains, we've been the benefactor of a lot of other teams' outages.

Surely the Spurs aren't the only team to benefit from the aforementioned list?

[easjer]

Toronto certainly benefited from Dirk's absence.

[eisfeld]

And Houston without Yao.

And Bulls without Boozer.

And Milwaukee without Michael Redd.

And Hawks without Joe Johnson.

And Nuggets without Chauncey/Kenyon.

And Memphis without Rudy Gay.

And Nuggets without Carmelo.

And Wizards without a bunch of guys.

And Magic without chemistry.

And Suns without new trade acquisitions.

So what's the point? Other teams played the exact same teams without their "star" players and they even lost a couple of games. It's only a valid argument when it happens in the PO's.