What a great game

[GSH]

I sat right behind the Sonics bench, and did my best to generally harass the out of Ray-Ray any time he was nearby. I also spent a lot of time specifically watching Allen, and whoever was guarding him.

First play of the game, Ray-Ray had the ball and Bowen was glued to him. Allen passed, and then stood there for a couple of seconds doing nothing. The Sonics put up a shot, and Allen just reached out and hit Bowen. Bowen wasn't doing anything, because there wasn't anything to do - Allen was just standing there, while all the action was around the basket. He just hit Bowen for the of it. I guess he was trying to start something to see if he could get Bruce to react.

Later in the first quarter, Bowen was guarding Allen right in front of the bench. Ray-Ray came around a pick and passed the ball. Then he gave Bruce a REALLY sharp elbow shot in the middle of his chest. It was a solid shot, and it really looked like it hurt. Once again, it had nothing to do with the play. He just saw a situation where nobody was looking, and took a cheap shot on Bowen. It was an absolute chicken thing to do. Bowen came up holding his chest, and complained to the ref. When there wasn't going to be a call, Allen was laughing about it.

Ray-Ray caught his share of from the fans tonight; and, like I said, I tried to do my part. For the most part he ignored it. (Although Fortson did react once.) But near the end of the game, with about a minute and a half left, Allen was by himself on our end of the court. The crowd noise had really died, and I took the opportunity to tell him it was time to go fishing. He reached up like he was rubbing his nose, and flipped me the bird. It was sort of like an early Christmas present.

I won't even comment about the calls on Bruce, except to say that I think the refs pay too much attention to the newspapers. There was one other thing that I thought was really amazing. Jerome James looked like a frightened kid trying to guard Duncan. He kept getting beaten, and he spent a lot of time grabbing Tim's jersey. There was one play where Tony was curling around Duncan, using him for a pick. As that was happening, James had grabbed Tim's jersey; his arm was fully extended, and Tim's jersey was stretched out at least a foot. For a second, I really thought Tony was going to curl around the pick and run into Tim's stretched out jersey, and just bounce off. James let go just in time. The unbelievable part was that there was a ref standing right there, and he never said a thing. It wasn't the sort of thing you could miss.

The best thing was, the bad calls didn't matter. Even keeping Bowen on the bench with foul trouble didn't matter. The Spurs thoroughly beat the Sonics' asses.

It was a great game.

[duncan2k5]

nice. what exactly did fortson react to? and what did he do? yea there were a lotta bullcrap calls on bruce. and i can tell from their body landuage around each other that they really dont like each other. a cheapshot here and there. the usual. its fun to watch tho