McDonald: Manu Was As Hot As Ice

**duncan228** · 02-26-2008

http://blogs.mysanantonio.com/weblog...onald_m_8.html

Jeff McDonald: Manu was as hot as Ice

Sometimes, it pays to have the stat-gathering abilities of an NBA team's PR department at your disposal. Before last night's game against Atlanta, I was chatting with Spurs intern Patrick Rees about the superhuman roll Manu Ginobili was on.

In his five previous games, Ginobili had averaged an astounding 34.4 points. When was the last time a Spurs guard had done that, we wondered?

Well, this afternoon Rees -- who is responsible for putting together the team's daily dose of game notes -- figured it out. To find a Spurs guard as hot as Ginobili was for that five-game stretch, you have to go all the way back to 1982. George "Iceman" Gervin averaged 42.8 points in five games between March 2 and March 9 of that year.

When it comes to the art of scoring, that's not bad company for Ginobili to keep. It should be noted, however, that Ginobili had more assists in one game of his streak (12 against New Orleans) than Gervin had total during his (10). Ginobili also had a 15-rebound game during his five-game opus, to Gervin's 23 total.

When you take all facets of the game into consideration, you could make the argument that, thanks to Ginobili, we just witnessed the best five-game stretch by a guard in Spurs history.