Now that the season has reached the halfway point, the exhalted ESPN NBA pundits have released their "Best and Worst" of the first half of the season.
Here are a few comments made about our Spurs:
4. Will the battle for the NBA le play out predictably or be wide open?
J.A. Adande: I started off thinking we were heading for another Spurs-Pistons finals (of course, the last time I thought that we got the Heat and Mavs). But I believe it's opening up. We didn't think Boston, New Orleans, the Lakers and Portland would be this good. We didn't think Miami and Houston would be this disappointing. I like that Boston won in Detroit, just to make you think, hmmm. And that San Antonio has a losing road record -- and would be on the road to start the playoffs if the postseason began right now. Again with the hmmm.
Chris Broussard: I know San Antonio turns it up in the playoffs, but I'm not convinced they'll be able to this season. Phoenix and Dallas aren't unbeatable either, so while one of those three will probably win the West, I wouldn't be surprised to see any of them get upset in the first or second round.
Chris Sheridan: Wide open in the West, but predictable in the East, where I don't see anyone seriously challenging Detroit or Boston in the first two playoff rounds. If I'm the Spurs, I'm a little scared of the Nuggets in a playoff matchup.
5. The one thing you anticipate seeing that most of us don't expect?
Ric Bucher: I have no idea what anyone else expects, but I would not be surprised to see the old standbys -- San Antonio and Detroit -- bounced out of this year's playoffs early if the regular-season trends carry over to the postseason. Granted, that's always a big if since there's no telling how the league is going to interpret its rules and who might be suspended as a result.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/s...t&lid=tab2pos1
I tend to agree.
Let's face it... the Spurs finally got lucky breaks last postseason.
The mighty Mavs got bounced in the first round by a team that duped them into a run-and-gun game, while a Robert Horry melee allowed the Spurs to slip past the surging Suns.
The good news is that the Mavs and Suns aren't kicking @ss like they did last year.
Unfortunately, neither are the Spurs.
P.S.
I don't fear the Nuggets or the Lakers.
Last chance for the Spurs to prove they have the HEART it takes to repeat.
Last chance to prove all the haters wrong.
Scared of what? The third-time's-the-charm theory?
You forgot to Bold this part. It's Bucher pretty much slapping us in the face. He is just mad because he has no personality to express how angry he is that the suns keep getting beaten by the spurs in the postseason.
Be fair... the Spurs don't advance without those suspensions.
I'll take it.
How many times have the Spurs gotten screwed in the playoffs?:
Strickland's errant pass
Olajuwon's dominance
Barkley's jumper over Robinson
Duncan's injury in 2000
Spurs falling asleep against the Lakers
Derek Fisher's turnaround jumper with less than a second
Ginobili fouling Dirk
F' it.
This year will be tougher, because they aren't playing as good and it's harder to repeat.
I still don't definitively see this. I recorded every game of last year's playoffs on DVD and have watched the Spurs-Suns series several times. The teams were both doing well, but Amare wasn't as dominant over the Spurs like he was in previous years. The games would have been closer, and maybe the series would have gone to 7 games, but the Spurs were much more physical in that Series and the suns were getting manhandled.
Sounds like typical January overreactions.
For midseason predictions that's about where we are. But the RR trip is upcoming so we'll see what happens. The rotation shortens and the team comes together historically. That's been the trend for many years so I hope it continues. The next 12 games or so will tell us alot. I'm going to be positive and look for a nice winning streak. Maybe 9 -3 in the next 12 games.Would be nice to see and that would probably be the cure for many.
To me, the luckiest of breaks was the improbable upset by the Warriors over the Mavs. Even the Spurs players themselves had to celebrate that one.
As for the Suns, the Spurs didn't need any luck to whip their assess. The Suns probably fielded their most formidable team last year. A team that was truly a threat to the Spurs playoff dominance - and they still couldn't beat them. The Spurs were clearly the better team and, as usual, imposed their will on them. If they were destined to win the series, why didn't they win Game 6 when they had all their players back at full strength?
Last edited by SenorSpur; 01-23-2008 at 01:54 PM.
I love playing the what if game! reality and the way it actually went down
Huh?
The Spurs have had their share of postseason heartache.
But to suggest they didn't have tremendous fortune in the playoffs last year is the same faulty thinking that led us to putting the same team out there again this year.
i don;t care about the RR trip... post ASG shape is all what matters... we have to make our push in March...
Other than the Mavs losing, what lucky breaks?
The suspensions?
Please. THe Spurs won that series when they kicked their asses in game 1.
Even if the Suns win game 5, the Spurs win game 6, and pull out a close game 7 in Phoenix.
Give me a break.
You've got to be ting me. You were'nt really posting during those playoffs.. Did you even watch the games? I don't understand how you could come to that conclusion.
You can chastise me for thinking the Suns win that series without the suspensions, but for you two to chalk up a Game 7 win on the road is preposterous.
Yeah cause they've never won a clinching game on the road in Phoenix before.but for you two to chalk up a Game 7 win on the road is preposterous.
oops....
You can't assume that. And you should not pretend that the suspensions turned the tide in that series!
What tide?
The Suns choked a huge lead in the 4th quarter in game 5.
Thats where the tide changed.
The suspensions did nothing but fire the Suns up and make it a everyone against the Spurs setting.
The Spurs winning that game 5 shut everything down.
Period.
But that is what has historically set up the March push that you and all of us want. That time period on the road is where this team seems to come together and the rotation shortens. This seems to position the Spurs for that season ending push, though last year wasn't as successful as the prior ones.
Oh, for chrissakes, STFU already about the Spurs only beating the Suns because of the suspensions. As people have pointed out ad nauseum, IT WAS A SEVEN GAME SERIES. The Suns had their full roster for all but 1 of those games. The Spurs beat them, fair and square.
Yes, the Spurs look vulnerable right now, yes their road record stinks. But this time last year, I thought the Spurs looked vulnerable too. Will they go all the way? Maybe. But I don't think they're any more vulnerable this year than they were last year, and I would argue that Udoka makes them a little more versatile and dangerous.
I think a SA-Boston or a SA-Detroit Finals is still very, very likely. But so much depends on injury and playoff seeding. IMO, the scariest team poised to pull an upset is the LAKERS.
If Pop starts to shorten the roatations some tonight, and we manage to put away the Lakers, Heat and Hornets before the long road trip, I have to feel the Spurs are in pretty damn good shape.
Then of course we have to avoid the injury bug the rest of season.
The whole "if the playoffs started today" bit is the most useless load of BS analysis ever.
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