Reply With Quote
No kidding, homer TNT announcers.
Yeah yeah...we ing get it. But guess what, he's not. Your job is to call the game, not remind us every two minutes that Ibaka is not playing.
No kidding, homer TNT announcers.
Even if Isucka played, we would have won this game, tbh. that jungle .
Overrated imo. Clips dropped 100+ multiple times on OKC.
Would have been a closer game and we might have sweat a little more but there was no denying the spurs tonight.
First few sentences of the ESPN recap:
SAN ANTONIO -- Tim Duncan scored 27 points and the San Antonio Spurs took advantage of Serge Ibaka's absence to dominate the paint, beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 122-105 on Monday night in the opener of the Western Conference finals.
Manu Ginobili added 18 points and Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green had 16 points each. Tony Parker did not appear limited by a hamstring injury, scoring 14 points and having 12 asssists.
Kevin Durant scored 28 points and Russell Westbrook added 25. Oklahoma City's remaining starters, Nick Collison, Thabo Sefolosha and Kendrick Perkins combined to score five points.
The Thunder struggled without the defensive presence of Ibaka, who will miss the remainder of the postseason after suffering a calf injury in the Thunder's series clincher against the Los Angeles Clippers.
San Antonio had 66 points in the paint and shot 58 percent from the field.
The Spurs fed Duncan early with Ibaka out, and the veteran responded by scoring 12 points in the first quarter, making six of his seven shots.
The Spurs beat the Thunder for the first time this season, but it wasn't easy despite Ibaka's absence. Despite missing his first four shots, Westbrook continued to bull his way into the lane and it paid off as the game wore on.
Ibaka's absence is a huge factor, tbh, let's not ignore that..
It doesn't matter, though, nobody remembers injuries when they look back at champions..
There's just no denying we caught a huge break but they have the ref advantage (see that bull foul call where no one touched Russ) so can we call it even?
We all know this, but listening to the broadcast tonight, the thunder were the team getting hosed. in Reggie and Kerr. Not to go homer, but damn those dudes pulling for okc was clearly coming thru the broadcast.
Kerr called the block on Manu a bad call, but only because it was blatantly obvious and they showed the slow mo replay. /rant
Swear the same reporter keep asking the spurs and okc about ibaka pretty annoying
Spurs honestly would have been ed if Ibaka was playing tonight. The Spurs caught a lucky break, they now need to take advantage.
This ,possible championship swing tbh
I saw the post game and I think about 1 out of every 3 questions from the reporters was about Ibaka.
thunder shouldn't be playing for the finals if the absence of one player hurts them this bad. if spurs lost any of their key players, the difference would be negligible.
At one point Tim came really close to rolling his eyes even lol.I saw the post game and I think about 1 out of every 3 questions from the reporters was about Ibaka.
They never talked about Tonys injury in the finals or manus injury in 2011.
Ibaka is more valuable than Westbrook against the Spurs, as I said before the game, tbh..
However, nobody remembers injuries..
2013: no Westbrook
2009: no Garnett, no Yao, no Jameer Nelson
2006: No Amare
2004: Karl Malone misses Finals
2003: no Dirk, no Webber
2000: no Duncan
If it were a 1 point, loss I can see that but with a 17 point win, you have to give your team some credit. Make no mistake, I think we should be able to sweep them because Ibaka is out but had he played, we gotta believe we would figure them out in a 7 game series.
Spurs absolutely destroyed OKC tonight, but it's hard to say what Ibaka would do. No doubt he is a positive impact for obvious reasons though. No need to deny or hide from that. Plenty of teams have had massive injuries, but OKC has it bad the past few years unfortunately for them.
Having said that, Spurs dismantled OKC tonight. There were rough stretches, but as a whole, Spurs got what ever they wanted. OKC is in so much trouble if their bench doesn't get them the production they did tonight or if KD/Westbrook struggle. The pressure to score on KD/Westbrook is so unreal right now. In pretty much every game, if OKC gets locked up for a 5-6 minute stretch, that is a double digit lead for the Spurs.
Although they are different teams, the overall principle is the same: The Spurs are going to go get a healthy dose of of good looks all game. Much more than their opponent. Doesn't mean they can't lose, just means that they should be in the driver seat if they rebound, take care of the ball and if OKC doesn't get bench/kd/westbrook production.
And remember, it took the rotting corpse of Derek Fisher going into "oh look it's the Spurs time to turn on beast" mode to make this game even that close.
Re-posting my rant from the game thread because this really pissed me off and i just now saw this thread with its more appropriate le for my GNSF melt:
I mean that right there is why i don't feel sorry for okc. you wanna waste money on stars and not amnesty perkins and get real help down low you run into this problem. I mean after perk and ibaka you got adams and collison? If spurs were to lose spiltter (their version of the "defensive anchor" so i picked him) they still throw diaw in the starting lineup. plus they have a forward that, apparently unlike KD, can play the 4 in small ball situations effectively (leonard), and the spurs run a system where bonner, ayers and baynes could spell duncan/diaw + leonard smallball 4, and spurs would still be compe ive at least, even with a starting big out.
Spurs could still get capable defense from leonard, duncan, green, parker diaw and manu- all with the spurs "defensive anchor" splitter hypothetically out. It's not my fault the MVP cant defend and no one else on this okc team besides ibaka knows how to play at the other end of the court either.
How many times tonight were the announcers like: "see, usually that would get stopped but ibakas out" and "if only okc had some sort of way, some sort of bigger, more athletic forward out there other than collison, that shot would've been defended so much better."
Asterisk me the up because okc was thin to begin with and they dont have a system and happens and youre left with what you prepared yourself with.
Abaka and the Thunder
wow look at this fellatio espn recap of the game. i understand not having ibaka is a factor, but starting every other sentence with it? seems like they're already making excuses.
http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=400558954
I defy Caron butler to shoot that we'll again. Him and fisher were pretty much the bench.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
