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i was just about to post that.
In case it hasn't been posted:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/colum...7&sportCat=nba
-school' Horry would knock down Nash againBy Gene Wojciechowski
ESPN.com
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SAN ANTONIO -- Trust me, they don't call him "Cheap Shot Bob" in this town. Instead, Robert Horry, the man whose shoulder shiver helped alter the look and feel of the NBA playoffs, received something Sunday afternoon that you don't see and hear every day: a spontaneous, heartfelt standing ovation that lasted a full 30 seconds.
For checking into the game.
"They just missed him," said the Spurs' Michael Finley of the reception. "As fans, you miss having a valuable part of your team."
D. Clarke Evans/Getty Images
Robert Horry can't understand the uproar over his foul on Steve Nash.
Horry didn't put up much of a linescore in the San Antonio Spurs' 108-100 victory against the Utah Jazz in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. But he didn't have to. All he really had to do was show up.
"I'm just happy they accepted me back," said Horry, who can now count on exactly one finger the number of times he's gotten a standing O for reporting to the scorer's table. "It was funny."
Or as Jazz guard Derek Fisher, a former Horry teammate with the Los Angeles Lakers said, "I was actually jealous."
Exiled to David Stern's penal colony for two games, Horry finally returned to the court ... and to a hero's welcome. The cheers weren't for his three rebounds, two assists and one blocked shot in 16:32 of playing time. It was for what happened last Monday in this same AT&T Center. Phoenix Suns' point guard Steve Nash can tell you all about it.
Horry's controversial body check of Nash in the closing seconds of Game 4 sent tremors through the Suns-Spurs series. Horry was suspended for those two games, but it was the one-game suspension of the Suns' Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw (for leaving the bench area following Horry's flagrant foul) that created a national uproar.
The short-handed Suns lost Game 5 at home and were closed out here last Friday evening. Afterward, Nash said Stern's decision to suspend Stoudemire and Diaw "will forever haunt us." It won't haunt Horry. The man previously known as "Big Shot Bob" has a long history of winning championships (no active player has won more than Horry's six NBA les) and of making plays that matter. But the Nash controversy continues to puzzle him because, he said, he didn't do anything wrong.
"I'm an old-fashioned player, an old-school player who will foul you and foul you hard."
Robert Horry
"I'm still amazed at the notoriety that this one play got compared to Baron Davis' foul [against Fisher in the Golden State-Utah series] and Mikki Moore's foul [against Aleksandar Pavlovic in the Cleveland Cavaliers series]," Horry said. "Those were like malicious fouls in my eyes. Guys who can't protect themselves off their feet. Blow to the head."
According to the Horry School of Fouling, his shoulder-check on Nash was perfectly acceptable playoff etiquette. That's why he didn't understand why everyone -- Nash, Stoudemire and Diaw, the media -- got bent like a paper clip.
"You know what?" Horry said. "If I had the situation to do all over again I would still [do it]. That's just the way I'm programmed. You go over there and foul, and you foul them hard. The only thing I wish I could have changed is that it wouldn't have been that close to the scorer's table. Other than that, I'm an old-fashioned player, an old-school player who will foul you and foul you hard."
Nash was a rookie when Horry joined the Suns in 1996. They used to play one-on-one together in the Suns' practice gym. They took car drives together. Horry respected Nash then, and he respects him now. But that doesn't mean Nash, or anybody for that matter, gets a free pass in the postseason.
"I think on my part -- and I think [Nash has] been in the league long enough to realize -- it's just basketball," Horry said. "I can understand if I had clotheslined him and tried to hurt him, but that was just a bump. Hopefully in his eyes he'll look at it as just basketball and no hard feelings. Because when you're trying to win you have no friends until you walk off the court."
Horry probably doesn't have many friends in Phoenix, not that he cares. He said Stoudemire and Diaw only have themselves to blame for getting suspended.
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Tim Duncan and the Spurs were too much for the Jazz on Sunday.
"They complained ... like I can get in their heads and play Nintendo with their minds and bodies and get them to walk out onto the court," Horry said.
No, he said, this was about something more basic. This was about the unwritten code of playoff basketball that Horry, now in his 15th season, learned during the 1994 NBA Finals. The New York Knicks vs. Horry's Houston Rockets. Horry went in for a dunk and Knicks enforcer Anthony Mason took him out. Horry bounced hard against the wooden floor.
"I had two sprained wrists and a hairline fracture in my ass after it happened," he said. "I knew what had happened, but I was hurt. I got up after that, but it was still painful. You just played on. You don't worry about it. Nobody [from the Rockets' bench] ran over there trying to push and shove, trying to cause anything. It was just a hard foul and you get up and go."
Nash eventually got up, but it was obvious after the Game 6 close-out loss that he felt that the suspensions had denied the Suns a chance to compete on an even level. I agreed and told Horry that the best postseason series had been reduced to what-ifs.
Horry scoffed at it.
"Every year's going to be a what-if," he said. "That's the game of basketball. What if a guy turns his ankle? What if a guy gets in a car wreck coming to the arena? There are so many different aspects that could happen that nobody knows. Only the man upstairs knows."
Except that Horry's foul on Nash wasn't an accident. It was done on purpose and with the Suns' victory already assured. Doesn't matter to Horry. The playoff code is the playoff code. And he isn't the only one who thinks that way.
"It's a part of our game," said Fisher, an 11-year veteran. "It's not like he picked him up and threw [Nash] over the scorer's table. He hit him."
So I asked Horry what he'll do if the same set of cir stances present themselves in the series against the Jazz. Utah guard Deron Williams dribbling down the court ... the Jazz comfortably ahead in the final minute ... seconds ticking off the game clock.
Horry looks at me like I've asked him if he wears socks during the game. Of course, he'd foul Williams.
"But I'd fall down this time and make it look like I'm trying to take a charge," he said. "I've got to look like I'm trying to get ready to take a charge and fall down. Then everybody would be like, 'Oh, he got knocked down too.'"
Horry is laughing now. He gets up from the chair in front of his locker and begins to walk away. "Can't tell more secrets," he said.
Gene Wojciechowski is the senior national columnist for ESPN.com. You can contact him at [email protected].
i was just about to post that.
Gene Woj;aljfd;lkjfsdalk;fjschski has had a real hard-on against the Spurs the last week. I'm pretty sure he's the one who got the * ball rolling.
its harder for some i guess
Yep, Wojo was the er who had that * in his Game 6 article.
I'm sure he's thinking that all he's doing here is giving Horry the rope to hang himself. 'im.
BTW I wrote a response (comment) to that article which said basically "The team with the cute white guy lost and Suns fans and sportswriters need to deal with it" and the ESPN.com assholes TOSd me. No cussing, no insulting other posters.
Seriously he needs to get a life. I guess he figures that actually coming up with something original is too hard so he sticks with the easy stuff.
exactly what I said when it happened, dude, you've got to flop there, its the status quo on the NBA today, and because Horry stood strong, every one thinks that he tried to kill nash."But I'd fall down this time and make it look like I'm trying to take a charge," he said. "I've got to look like I'm trying to get ready to take a charge and fall down. Then everybody would be like, 'Oh, he got knocked down too.'"
The standing o was badass and loud!!!
Look, Wojo at ESPN should be known by now for his mediocre, cliché-ridden drivel. How this guy has a regular job writing about sports is beyond me. I could write stuff just as good and insightful as him, and for a fraction of the $$. So his * article is not even worth mentioning. Like Wilbon said, the Spurs just don't care.
That said, Wojo's article on Horry was much better.
but you did rob, you did."They complained ... like I can get in their heads and play Nintendo with their minds and bodies and get them to walk out onto the court," Horry said.
Sig worthy.
Once in awhile, Horry is my favorite player in the L, once in awhile
A-M-E-N.
The funny thing about all this is how every teams's fans will stand by their team for whatever crap they do. Last years booing of finley by mavs fan was deemed 'classless' and comments by cuban about the riverwalk created uproar but at the same time people will celebrate bowen's and horry's cheapshots as heroic and comments against them will be said to be made only because the other team's lost.
Horry who basically says that he will do anything(he says as long as he doesnt injure the guy) to get a victory couldnt take all the trash talking etc from the mavs last year. Too bad he cant take what he dishes out.
Meh, every Ahab's got to have a Moby .
Horry probably doesn't have many friends in Phoenix, not that he cares. He said Stoudemire and Diaw only have themselves to blame for getting suspended.
yeah!!
In some language Wojciechowski translates to asshole.
Is Horry referring to Nintendo Wii or the Nintendo Family Computer? If it is indeed the Family Computer console, then hands-down, he is old fashioned...old-school.
To be honest, I feel in love with that console way, way back!
Booing finley was/is classless. So is insulting an entire city.
Bowen and Horry are not dirty players. Although i do think Horry's foul was dumb and was at least a little dirty....still Terry's deliberate, aimed punch at the balls is infinitely dirtier. And Bowen? he's not dirty---meaning he never goes out to intentionally hurt people with his play.
As someone else on this forum mentioned, the standing ovation for Horry was not because anyone condoned his actions (although many people joke around with that, and a few are serious about it). It was more because the media and nba "fans" everywhere were taking one hard (and fairly dumb--given the sensitivity of the NBA game today) foul by Horry and using it to personally insult him and even threaten him. Even people who jokingly (or even seriously) applaud the fact that Nash went flying into the scorer's table (as a result of getting hit at the WRONG POINT IN HIS STRIDE by a foul that was NOT THAT HARD) were standing up and applauding only because of how much Horry's been insulted and condemned over the past few days. It was so overblown and exaggerated. (I think I read that the man got racist threats?? ..........)
That's what Woj....ski fails to see and mention.
Woj...ski is a joke.
He should officially change his name to "Woj...ski"
THIS! this is what puzzles me! Why do people type with just the first letter of every word capitalized??
(I'm sorry, I don't have a real response for your idiotic post...the style of your post elicited a much stronger reaction out of me)
oh..got deleted. But yeah...why do people do that (typing with caps on the first letter)??
They don't. They write in all caps and it gets converted.
They're German.
Ah...that's another thing I've wondered about too. why do people type in all caps? hmmm...I guess people write in all caps because...they think it looks cool? important? ahh, who knows...
And I also wonder about all these damn acronyms that seem so common to everyone but me. WDAPAAA (What Designates A Phrase As An Acronym)?? Does someone just decide that a phrase is common and starts using it? I have to have urbandictionary.com open on a tab while going through forums sometimes... maybe i'm just out of date.
ha!
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