.
They agree!
In SAN ANTONIO:
And in DALLAS :
Spurs' Ginobili, healthy again, is up to old tricks
-By EDDIE SEFKO /
The Dallas Morning News
If you're the San Antonio Spurs, it's real easy to latch onto an optimistic theme going into the first-round series against the Mavericks.
Just look at what happened a year ago, when Manu Ginobili sat out the playoffs with a balky right ankle, and the Mavericks cruised to a 4-1 series win over the Spurs.
Dallas Mavericks / NBA
Before that, when Ginobili was healthy, the Spurs reached the Western Conference finals in 2008 and won the NBA championship in 2007.
Go back to 2006, and the Mavericks had to survive an intense battle with Ginobili and the Spurs to advance past the second round.
Now, after putting together a high-quality season, Ginobili is as healthy as he's been in two years. He's averaged 21.4 points since the All-Star break and just a shade under 24 points in his last 14 games.
The Mavericks know what all this means.
"Ginobili is really, really crafty," Mavericks guard DeShawn Stevenson said Friday. "And he makes that team go. That's no disrespect to anybody on that team. But when he goes, he makes that team go."
Stevenson is going guard the 6-6 shooting guard at times during this series. So will Shawn Marion and Caron Butler and possibly even Jason Kidd and Roddy Beaubois.
There's no easy way to do it. And as much as Tim Duncan remains the center of the Spurs' universe, Ginobili has been their most unstoppable weapon during their strong second-half run this season.
As sure as there's a widening bald spot on the back of his head, Ginobili is poised to have a big series and make the Mavericks prove they can beat a full-strength Spurs team.
"He's probably their main, go-to guy in crunch time," Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. "So you're always going to have to deal with situations where he has the ball in pick-and-rolls and isolations and situations where he's playing off of movement.
"Look, he's a great player. And [Tony] Parker and Duncan are great players. It's a challenging situation. They're very well-balanced. With the three stars healthy, it becomes a more difficult task to guard them."
As always, the Spurs will run pick-and-rolls as their primary offensive set whenever they get in half-court situations. That's not unlike the Mavericks. And the Spurs shoot the 3-pointer as well as the Mavericks do. They made just four fewer triples this season than Dallas.
Part of that success comes because Ginobili and Parker are terrific penetrators, and when they draw the defense, it leaves Roger Mason Jr., Richard Jefferson, Matt Bonner or George Hill free for 3-pointers.
And, of course, Ginobili led the Spurs with 132 treys.
"Ginobili has been their motor lately," Dirk Nowitzki said. "You got to guard a couple things with them and that's Duncan in the post, and you got to guard a million pick-and-rolls with Parker running it some and Ginobili running it some."
It won't be easy for anybody. But Stevenson said he's looking forward to the challenge.
"My focus is to go out there and lock up Ginobili if I have to, and anybody else," he said. "But mostly, I think our focus has to be on Ginobili. He's proven he can do it."
There is no debate that the Spurs weren't the same without him.
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how the does deshawn stevenson know how crafty ginobili is
and who the cares about his wannabe kimbo-slice opinion is
such stupid quotes
shawn marion has faced the spurs like three or four times in the playoffs, he would really be the one we should be listening to
Big opportunity for RJ in this series to open things up for Manu.
Dallas Morning news is just filling space.
I live in Dallas (as a Spurs fan) and can attest Eddie Sefko is a pretty damn good sportswriter.
"jet will be out 7-10 weeks"
That only proves he's not a doctor.
Sefko made (or at least defended others who voted) Duncan a second-team All Decade selection for the years 2000-2009.
Brilliant.
Let me guess. Dirk was first-team.
Yeah he is a pretty good writer. I've played golf with him a few times, and had some good spurs/mavs convos with him. Great guy, good writer... not so much of a golfer lol...
Sefko's the guy who swore that Gortat would absolutely be a Mav this season before the Magic's matching period was up. He lost a lot of credibility with that(of course in his Defense no one could have predicted what a Otis Smith really was and that he would be willing to pay 20 million dollars with luxury tax for backup bigs)
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