Send In The Rodeo Clowns (ESPN Daily Dime Spurs)

[Amuseddaysleeper]

Easily one of my favorite W's of the year....




Send in the rodeo clowns
Stein
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com

LOS ANGELES -- The sadists from San Antonio love this stuff. They live for it, actually.

They eagerly await the annual nuisance of being kicked out of their own building for eight straight games by the rodeo. They take great pride in brickfests like this where they somehow manage to shoot less than 30 percent from the field for three quarters and still pull out a textbook Uglyball victory. They suddenly don't even seem to mind the rising chorus of cracks leaguewide about their advancing age.

On this resurrection Sunday, they were volunteering their own Spurs jokes.

"Everybody's young to me," Tim Duncan said when asked about teenage counterpart Andrew Bynum. "I'm like 40 now."

And this from coach Gregg Popovich, on the subject of calling up James White from D-League: "We've been such a juggernaut lately. Now we're really going to scare the [bleep] out of people."

That sort of self-deprecating humor flowed from several corners of the visitors' locker room at Staples Center, for the first time in a long time for the Spurs. It was the clearest signal yet that they're feeling better than you'd think about themselves.

Sunday's 96-94 overtime triumph over the Los Angeles Lakers required San Antonio to overturn a 10-point deficit to start the final period, survive the usual slew of late clutch buckets from Kobe Bryant and overcome an afternoon of wire-to-wire horrific shooting.

No wonder Spurs guard Brent Barry said: "This kind of game just may count for more than one win in the W column."

Not coincidentally, San Antonio escaped with that W on the first stop of their annual Rodeo Trip. This is the fifth installment of an extended hiatus every winter that, in 2007, calls for them to go 24 days without playing a game on their SBC Center floor . . . but which historically triggers the second-half surge that snaps the Spurs into contender mode.

Problem is, this group of grind-it-out guys has rarely played to typical Spurs standards. They've suffered eight home losses already and arrived in L.A. with five defeats in their previous seven games against teams with winning records, all while Phoenix and Dallas have been surging to respective 67- and 66-win paces.

Worse yet, Rodeo Trip '07 arguably comes with the greatest degree of difficulty San Antonio has seen yet. A back-to-back set looms Wednesday and Thursday in Utah and Phoenix, followed by five straight games against likely East playoff teams after a four-day window to get in some practices back home.

"We've also been one of the one, two or three best defensive teams every year in the past and we're not right now," Popovich said, rejecting the idea that "this rodeo deal" guarantees anything.

"It doesn't mean that it's going to continue forever. We have to make it continue."

That should explain why Pop made the go-to lineup change we see at some point every season, asking Manu Ginobili to move to the bench. The Spurs figure that starting Barry instead and using Ginobili as a sixth man gives their creaky reserve unit some extra juice while increasing the likelihood that Ginobili, Duncan and Tony Parker will be fresher as a threesome at the end of games.

"I didn't even get it out of my mouth and [Ginobili] started laughing," Popovich said. "He said: 'What took you so long? I was expecting this.' "

Of course, pretty much nothing went to plan for three-plus quarters here, with the Spurs getting offense from no one but Duncan. You've undoubtedly heard all about the Spurs' ongoing search for an infusion of youth and athleticism -- "A legitimate water-cooler topic," Barry called it -- but they looked like they could use a shooter, too, after hitting just 19 of 66 field-goal attempts entering the fourth. That's a success rate of 28.8 percent.

But defense and the Lakers' wasteful free-throw shooting kept the Spurs in it long enough for Bruce Bowen, Parker and Michael Finley (with the game-clinching triple in OT) to heat up ever so slightly. That allowed San Antonio to avenge two previous losses to the Lakers and left just enough time for Parker to make a quick getaway to join fiancée Eva Longoria at the nearby Screen Actors' Guild Awards.

The rest of the Spurs, furthermore, were too giddy about the victory to make too much of Bryant's errant elbow that tagged Ginobili in the face on the final play of regulation. Mere moments after Bryant appeared to foul Robert Horry on an airballed 3-pointer from the corner -- and chortle at his ex-teammate when no foul was called -- Ginobili blocked Bryant's potential game-winning jumper at the fourth-quarter buzzer. But Bryant flung out his arm in apparent attempt to draw a foul, leaving Ginobili with a welt under his right eye that left him on the bench for the first 2:56 of overtime and required postgame X-rays.

"That's not his style," Popovich said of Bryant, dismissing suggestions that the shot was intentional.

The Spurs' preference, clearly, was talking about the basketball, after weeks of hearing how much ground they've lost to the Suns and Mavs.

"Right now we're a little bit behind where we usually are at this point of the season, but we still have more room to improve than those teams," said Popovich, who was celebrating his 58th birthday Sunday. "I don't think they can play a whole lot better. We can. That's what I focus on."

Said Ginobili: "Yes, sometimes we look at the standings, too. But it's fine with us. Let them [stay hot]. We don't believe we are the team now that we may be in the playoffs."

[FromWayDowntown]

Problem is, this group of grind-it-out guys has rarely played to typical Spurs standards. They've suffered eight home losses already and arrived in L.A. with five defeats in their previous seven games against teams with winning records, all while Phoenix and Dallas have been surging to respective 67- and 66-win paces.

* * * *

"Right now we're a little bit behind where we usually are at this point of the season, but we still have more room to improve than those teams," said Popovich, who was celebrating his 58th birthday Sunday. "I don't think they can play a whole lot better. We can. That's what I focus on."

One of the few things that has given me some small amount of optimism is based on the combination of these two things. While Dallas and Phoenix are playing remarkable basketball right now, I'm hard-pressed to believe that either is so good that it will end up among the greatest regular season teams of all-time. They're great teams, but thinking that either will win 64+ games this season is a stretch in my mind. I can see each ending somewhere between 60-63 or so, but I'd be surprised if they can go much beyond that.

The Spurs ended the first half of the season on 56 win pace, but that was with some self-inflicted wounds. With all of the things that have gone wrong with this team to this point, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it still ended up winning somewhere around 58-60 games. That would require that they play well down the stretch. But if they don't do that, this entire discussion would seem to be academic anyway.

My point, and the thing that Pop seems to be saying, isn't that the Spurs can or will eventually catch either the Suns or Mavericks in the standings before this season ends. Rather, it is that if the Spurs strike me as far more likely to end the season on an unholy tear than either Dallas or Phoenix. And if that happens, the Spurs' playoff outlook will be far rosier than we might be thinking right now.

I'm not saying it's a great argument. It might be that Dallas or Phoenix (or both) will end up winning 65-67 games during this regular season. It might be that the Spurs will continue to be the same maddening inconsistent team that they've been to this point this season, and they'll end up closer to 55 wins than they will to 60. But, if you're looking for a reason to be optimistic, Pop seems to be saying that this is your argument.

[lefty]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailyd...ilydime-070129


Send in the rodeo clowns
Stein
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com

LOS ANGELES -- The sadists from San Antonio love this stuff. They live for it, actually.

They eagerly await the annual nuisance of being kicked out of their own building for eight straight games by the rodeo. They take great pride in brickfests like this where they somehow manage to shoot less than 30 percent from the field for three quarters and still pull out a textbook Uglyball victory. They suddenly don't even seem to mind the rising chorus of cracks leaguewide about their advancing age.

On this resurrection Sunday, they were volunteering their own Spurs jokes.

"Everybody's young to me," Tim Duncan said when asked about teenage counterpart Andrew Bynum. "I'm like 40 now."

And this from coach Gregg Popovich, on the subject of calling up James White from D-League: "We've been such a juggernaut lately. Now we're really going to scare the [bleep] out of people."

That sort of self-deprecating humor flowed from several corners of the visitors' locker room at Staples Center, for the first time in a long time for the Spurs. It was the clearest signal yet that they're feeling better than you'd think about themselves.

Sunday's 96-94 overtime triumph over the Los Angeles Lakers required San Antonio to overturn a 10-point deficit to start the final period, survive the usual slew of late clutch buckets from Kobe Bryant and overcome an afternoon of wire-to-wire horrific shooting.

No wonder Spurs guard Brent Barry said: "This kind of game just may count for more than one win in the W column."

Not coincidentally, San Antonio escaped with that W on the first stop of their annual Rodeo Trip. This is the fifth installment of an extended hiatus every winter that, in 2007, calls for them to go 24 days without playing a game on their SBC Center floor . . . but which historically triggers the second-half surge that snaps the Spurs into contender mode.

Problem is, this group of grind-it-out guys has rarely played to typical Spurs standards. They've suffered eight home losses already and arrived in L.A. with five defeats in their previous seven games against teams with winning records, all while Phoenix and Dallas have been surging to respective 67- and 66-win paces.

Worse yet, Rodeo Trip '07 arguably comes with the greatest degree of difficulty San Antonio has seen yet. A back-to-back set looms Wednesday and Thursday in Utah and Phoenix, followed by five straight games against likely East playoff teams after a four-day window to get in some practices back home.

"We've also been one of the one, two or three best defensive teams every year in the past and we're not right now," Popovich said, rejecting the idea that "this rodeo deal" guarantees anything.

"It doesn't mean that it's going to continue forever. We have to make it continue."

That should explain why Pop made the go-to lineup change we see at some point every season, asking Manu Ginobili to move to the bench. The Spurs figure that starting Barry instead and using Ginobili as a sixth man gives their creaky reserve unit some extra juice while increasing the likelihood that Ginobili, Duncan and Tony Parker will be fresher as a threesome at the end of games.

"I didn't even get it out of my mouth and [Ginobili] started laughing," Popovich said. "He said: 'What took you so long? I was expecting this.' "

Of course, pretty much nothing went to plan for three-plus quarters here, with the Spurs getting offense from no one but Duncan. You've undoubtedly heard all about the Spurs' ongoing search for an infusion of youth and athleticism -- "A legitimate water-cooler topic," Barry called it -- but they looked like they could use a shooter, too, after hitting just 19 of 66 field-goal attempts entering the fourth. That's a success rate of 28.8 percent.

But defense and the Lakers' wasteful free-throw shooting kept the Spurs in it long enough for Bruce Bowen, Parker and Michael Finley (with the game-clinching triple in OT) to heat up ever so slightly. That allowed San Antonio to avenge two previous losses to the Lakers and left just enough time for Parker to make a quick getaway to join fiancée Eva Longoria at the nearby Screen Actors' Guild Awards.

The rest of the Spurs, furthermore, were too giddy about the victory to make too much of Bryant's errant elbow that tagged Ginobili in the face on the final play of regulation. Mere moments after Bryant appeared to foul Robert Horry on an airballed 3-pointer from the corner -- and chortle at his ex-teammate when no foul was called -- Ginobili blocked Bryant's potential game-winning jumper at the fourth-quarter buzzer. But Bryant flung out his arm in apparent attempt to draw a foul, leaving Ginobili with a welt under his right eye that left him on the bench for the first 2:56 of overtime and required postgame X-rays.

"That's not his style," Popovich said of Bryant, dismissing suggestions that the shot was intentional.

The Spurs' preference, clearly, was talking about the basketball, after weeks of hearing how much ground they've lost to the Suns and Mavs.

"Right now we're a little bit behind where we usually are at this point of the season, but we still have more room to improve than those teams," said Popovich, who was celebrating his 58th birthday Sunday. "I don't think they can play a whole lot better. We can. That's what I focus on."

Said Ginobili: "Yes, sometimes we look at the standings, too. But it's fine with us. Let them [stay hot]. We don't believe we are the team now that we may be in the playoffs."

[Amuseddaysleeper]

i beat you to this

a few threads below

[lefty]

Sorry didn't know

[Please_dont_ban_me]

i beat you to this

a few threads below

Ooooooooooo

You gonna' take that from him, Lefty?

[lefty]

Ooooooooooo

You gonna' take that from him, Lefty?

Of course not
My Stein thread looks better

[johnpaulwall21]

damnnnnnnnnnn its the battle of the fittest, lefty vs amuseddaysleeper lets vbookie this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lefty]

damnnnnnnnnnn its the battle of the fittest, lefty vs amuseddaysleeper lets vbookie this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kori Ellis]

Popovich, who was celebrating his 58th birthday Sunday.

Happy Birthday to Pop

[ChumpDumper]

[Cry Havoc]

Happy Birthday to Pop

Surprised we haven't seen any, "Pop: Too old to be an effective head coach?" threads on the board.

[ChumpDumper]

True, I thought he was older.

[AFBlue]

Said Ginobili: "We don't believe we are the team now that we may be in the playoffs."

My favorite quote of the whole article because they know they can do better. Now all they have to do is make that statement a reality.

Although, the one where Pop drops the s-bomb and facetiously talks about the Spurs dominance is good too...

[LilMissSPURfect]

Rodeo Clowns............play an important role. Without them it wouldn't be a Rodeo!

[leemajors]

"Everybody's young to me," Tim Duncan said when asked about teenage counterpart Andrew Bynum. "I'm like 40 now."

And this from coach Gregg Popovich, on the subject of calling up James White from D-League: "We've been such a juggernaut lately. Now we're really going to scare the [bleep] out of people."

hahaha

[E20]

"I didn't even get it out of my mouth and [Ginobili] started laughing," Popovich said. "He said: 'What took you so long? I was expecting this.' "

Not too many NBA starters would take this news so lightly, but then agains this is Manu we are talking about.