Where are the Finley haters now?!

[MoSpur]

Finley is having a good stretch right now. I am excited about his. Manu had a great game last night and Tim has had two in a row. The Spurs are starting to peak. I just hope they win all this week.

[2centsworth]

I'm waiting for the Finley who can't shoot over 40% to return. Gotta love his 3-12 type of nights. heh?

does it really matter? Spurs beat the mavs with vinny del negro, steve kerr, and derek anderson. They surely will beat them with Finley off the bench, shoot they might beat them with my fat butt of the bench.

[GoSpurs21]

The Spurs have their best record ever at this point in the year.

This despite Duncan and Manu having subpar seasons. Why?

Some of the credit, of course, goes to Tony's breakout performance, but it's not like he's been the second coming of Isiah. Bruce, has been solid, of course, but that's not enough of a reason either.

It's the depth. Everyone else has spent extended time both in the "sucking" and "making key contributions" category: Finley, NVE, Nazr, Rasho, Brent, Horry, Beno, Marks. For every one of those guys, you can find at least 1 or 2 games where they were a key to a win. For example, Barry did almost nothing all year, but then picked it up just just when we were really having productivity problems from Manu and NVE.

Not one of them has impressive stats. So I find it funny when somebody says "X sucks", because you could say that about any of them at one time or another during the year. Yeah, it would be better if we had 1 or 2 guys we could consistently count on. And for the playoffs, I think we absolutely will need that. So far, though, it's working.

please enlighten me to exactly which game NVE actually didnt effect it negatively...it must have been a preseason game cause I cant think of a single example.

[leemajors]

Nelson couldn't coach defense if he was paid to do so. Oh wait, he was...

i think some of the bucks teams coached by don nelson had one of the top ranked defenses at the time. then again, that was a long time ago.

[mavsfan1000]

Nelson used to care about defense but when got older he cared very little and instead went the opposite direction in run and gun stuff.

[grjr]

I always thought that Finley was the one Mav that actually tried to play some defense back in the day. Mostly towrds the end of games though.

[mavsfan1000]

I always thought that Finley was the one Mav that actually tried to play some defense back in the day. Mostly towrds the end of games though.

Now that is funny. Finley never played defense when he was with Dallas.

[Obstructed_View]

I always thought that Finley was the one Mav that actually tried to play some defense back in the day. Mostly towrds the end of games though.

I first noticed Fin when he played for the Suns. He came in and stuck to Jordan like gum on his shoe for the game. It was a great defensive performance, especially by a young player who might have been so awed by Jordan that he wouldn't be able to play with him. Finley did indeed play defense when he played for the Mavericks, even after Nelson's abandonment of defense from a team standpoint. Finley's defense really went to in his final year with the team, when he put off surgery and the Mavericks fans suddenly decided he was a useless player. Don Nelson inherited a defensive team in Milwaukee and turned them into an offensive at the expense of defense team that couldn't get it done in big games. He did the same for Dallas.

[leemajors]

Jordan did state at one point that Finley was one of the top players in the league, but that was around his first retirement or shortly after. He was also a regular at Jordan's infamous summer workouts.

[wildbill2u]

Waiting in the wings with the NAZR haters and Barry haters. And the TP haters and the Gino haters and the worst of all, Tim Duncan haters. And I won't even mention the Pop haters or FO haters who long for a streak of losing games so they can predict Armageddon for the Spurs season.

All you have to do is have one bad or average game and these 'fans' come out of the woodwork.