"poise"

[twincam]

Good morning folks.

I'd like to say that the Spurs are now playing "Spurs Basketball".

I'd like to touch on something that not too many speak of when mentioning the Spurs.

It's called "POISE".

Do you all remember in 1999 when they won their first championship with poise. They didn't panic when they were down by double digits, they simply improvised and maintained their poise and found a way to win.
Just like last night. Tim Duncan (franchise player) did not have a good shooting performance. However, the bench came through when most of the starters were experiencing a sub par performance.
Did the Spurs panic? No. They simply used their poise to find a way to win a game. Perimeter shooting, which is NOT their strength, aided their comfort zone during the critical closing minutes of the fourth quarter.
Confidence, created a comfort zone for Robert Horry especially. "Big Shot Rob" finally found his zone once he shot the ball without thinking. He had NO hesitation and shot the ball with confidence. When you get confidence, you get team play and chemistry.
The overall factor in tonight's game is 'poise'. When the going gets tough for San Antonio, their focus and team play determines their outcome whether they're shooting under their normal field goal percentage. For example, although Tim Duncan was having a terrible shooting night, he hit a clutch bank shot to give the Spurs a lift and silence the crowd. Sure, he missed eight straight field goals in the third period and the Denver crowd cheered on his misses...but when cruch time came, he hit his patented bankshot off the glass to give his team an advantage...thus silencing the crowd to a funeral silence.
Everything you've just read originates from poise. We must remember to think back from 1999 on what got the Spurs to championship status. The same happened in 2003 as well. The Spurs don't need to trash talk and become y with the media saying that they're invinsible, etc. The Spurs do their talking with fundamentals, starting with team defense and taking care of business when it really counts. Did you see how the Nuggets almost killed Manu in the closing minutes with that flagrant foul? Did the Spurs retaliate with elbows, fists, trashtalking? No, because they have that ONE THING that most teams don't have...CLASS...and their icing on the cake, POISE

I thank you all for reading...

[IX_Equilibrium]

good post

[FromWayDowntown]

Last night's game reminded me of Game 3 of the 1999 Western Conference Finals in Portland. Timmy couldn't get a break from the officials -- though there was justification for every call -- and his minutes were extremely limited. With the talking heads wondering how the Spurs could possibly survive without Tim, the Spurs just played their brand of basketball -- mainly great defense (holding Portland to, I think, 69 points) and poised offense. It was the point in 1999 that I felt a le was a possibility. Last night, I saw a team that played that way in a hostile environment and found a way to win against a lot of bad cir stances.

[twincam]

damn skippy!

[ZStomp]

It's all about POISE!