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Same ol' Spurs whip Suns
by: Marc Stein
posted: Sunday, May 6, 2007 | Feedback | Print Entry
filed under: Phoenix Suns, San Antonio Spurs
PHOENIX -- Basketball season is over for the rest of Texas.
Steve Nash just publicly questioned his team's heart.
And when Tony Parker wasn't shredding the Phoenix defense Sunday, Tim Duncan was outdueling Amare Stoudemire.
If it's possible for a team to gather serious championship momentum when we're only one game into the second round, you'd have to say that San Antonio is gathering.
What else to conclude when the Spurs snatch away the Suns' home-court advantage at the first attempt ... and when Nash is already voicing more displeasure with the Suns' fire and hunger than he is about the Magic Johnson Rule that forced him to sit out most of the final minute of a virtual must-win game ... and when the team from Dallas that came to San Antonio last May and won a Game 7 on the Spurs' floor is watching this series on TV from home?
"We played the way we always play," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich claimed after Sunday's 111-106 defeat.
You know what?
He's right.
Pop might have been trying to downplay the significance of a Game 1 victory, but this is how the Spurs always seem to look against Phoenix.
In control, whether it's a low-scoring game or not.
"You have to beat them and we didn't beat them," said Suns coach Mike D'Antoni, who struggled to mask his postgame frustration with the officiating but couldn't overlook the Spurs' role in their troubles.
"It's almost like a heavyweight champion," D'Antoni continued. "You have to knock them out and we didn't do it."
That's largely because Parker was scoring all over the floor -- jumpers included -- in racking up 32 points. Shawn Marion, Leandro Barbosa and Nash all took turns trying to stay in front of him, but Parker was slowed by neither Marion's length nor Barbosa's speed.
Duncan, meanwhile, gradually worked his way into a flow and wound up totaling 33 points and 16 boards, with 21 points coming in the second half. Of greater consequence, Duncan's presence at the rim helped hound Stoudemire into 1-for-6 shooting in the fourth quarter. Amare missed a number of in-deep shots as part of a 6-for-19 effort, taking some shine off a nice line of his own: 20 points, 18 boards and five blocks.
The clincher? San Antonio lived up to yet another trademark by missing five fourth-quarter free throws.
Yet that didn't prevent the Spurs from scoring a whopping 34 points in the period to put immediate pressure on Phoenix in Tuesday night's Game 2. Not with Michael Finley (19 points) and Robert Horry (10) each chipping in a helpful 3-pointer in the final quarter.
"We scored 106," D'Antoni said. "That should be enough."
