Did You Know?

[Solid D]

The 1978-79 San Antonio Spurs with George Gervin led the NBA in scoring with 119.3 ppg. The Spurs led the NBA in +/- Point Differential at +5.2.

The 2004-05 league-leading Spurs, have a +10.73 (1st) Differential, yet only score 97.11 ppg (13th).

[GrandeDavid]

Pretty cool stats, Solid D! Its a shame those 78/79 guys didn't win the championship. Guess that tells the importance of decent defense!

[Solid D]

Absolutely!

[Matrix]

Don't really think Defense was a big thing back then, The supersonics won it that year and they averaged 106.6 and their opp avg 103.9

[tsb2000]

Under Doug Moe, the Spurs paid absolutely no attention to defense.

[Solid D]

The Spurs lost in 7 games to the Bullets in 1979, after leading 3-1. The Bullets, under Motta, played good D and had a more formidable front court than the Spurs with Unseld and Hayes, plus flipping Bobby Dandridge back and forth between Forward and Guard. In the NBA Finals, the Bullets lost to Seattle with Jack Sikma, Downtown Freddie Brown & John Johnson.

That ending in Game 7 vs. the Bullets was so bitter that only the .004 shot by Fisher could be its equivalent to Spurs fans. Ed Vanek and Paul Mihalik were the refs, as I remember, and Doug Moe said they "should be shot"...or something like that.

[ShoogarBear]

I thought Jack Madden was the ref who called the "offensive foul" on Mark Olberding that handed game 7 to the Bullets.

It was a 0-1 point game (and the Spurs may have even been up) with about a minute left, Spurs ball, and Olberding had the ball. A Spur guard (?Silas) came around Olberding, who set a screen on his man as he passed him the ball. It was a move that Wes Unself had almost based his career on, but Madden called the offensive foul.

[Solid D]

Madden was the 3rd official that night. The screen was set by Billy Paultz and Tommy Henderson sold it with a flop. That call was one of several made by the crew down the stretch including an over-the-back on Paultz that was totally bogus and another touch-foul on Gervin. That gave the Bullets 6 points to draw them even in the last 2 minutes.