Adande: Counting out Spurs becomes a yearly tradition

[Spurs Brazil]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playof...e=Spurs-080427

Counting out Spurs becomes a yearly tradition
By J.A. Adande
ESPN.com
(Archive)
Updated: April 27, 2008

PHOENIX -- Those sneaky Spurs are still here. Even after the Air Force retired the F-117 Night Hawk, the NBA's version of the stealth fighter keeps flying on, never picked up by the radar until it's too late.


Not even the third-best record in the tough Western Conference was enough for the Spurs to cast a large shadow on the NBA landscape. The hype had already started for a Lakers-Celtics Finals, and Phoenix was the trendy pick to win the marquee first-round matchup against San Antonio.


The Spurs are jamming up all of those plans, grabbing a 3-0 lead over the Suns and looking serious about defending their championship. Even if nobody else saw it coming.


"I know everybody was saying that Phoenix was going to win, but it's OK with us," Spurs guard Tony Parker said. "San Antonio, they always forget about us. I got used to it now. We just play, and then when we arrive to the Finals it's like, 'Oh, San Antonio.'"


These guys? Again? It's like one of those old Droopy cartoons, where that damn dog keeps showing up no matter how many times you thought he'd been disposed.


It's time to recognize the Spurs for what they are: not only the most dangerous team in the league, but the most dangerous team to the league. They kill ratings when they show up in the Finals. And they keep diminishing the value of the regular season. And they do it through the hardest task in the sport: winning playoff games.


During this run as the NBA's best and most consistent team since 1999, they never had the best record in the league during a single year. They've won 60 games only twice.


This season's squad did little to distinguish itself. Normally teams announce their presence with impressive road victories. But this season the Spurs were only 3-9 at Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Utah, the Lakers, Phoenix, Boston, Detroit and Orlando combined. In March they went through a stretch in which they lost six of seven games (all against teams that made the playoffs).


But in the first game of the playoffs they battled back and made all the biggest plays to beat Phoenix in double overtime. Then they applied a second-half lockdown in Game 2. Friday they put together their best performance of the season, led by Parker's 41 points and 12 assists.


"You don't ever want to say that, 'Oh we're just waiting for the playoffs to start,'" Bruce Bowen said. "That's not our motto here. We weren't playing good basketball at [the end of the regular season]. We would have liked to have been playing good basketball. But we understand, more than any other time, now it's more important you're focused on what you have to do."

Tim Duncan and Tony Parker give each other a hand for more on-court success.

It's not that the Spurs are unprofessional. They don't mail it in from October to March. You don't hear about their players getting arrested, or smoking marijuana.


The only admission the Spurs have had to make is that no team can play its hardest every game. The owners who pay their salaries and the fans who buy the tickets might not want to hear it, but you don't get everything every night. Not even from a team as businesslike as the Spurs.


"You can't try to win all the games, you can't play your guys 40 minutes a game, you can't play at the highest level every night," Duncan said. "It's human nature. You're going to go out there, some games aren't going to be played at the same level as other games.


"With that in mind, the playoffs come around, it's great to see everyone focus in and turn it up."


The Spurs have even had lapses in the playoffs over the years. Just to make sure there wouldn't be a letdown after San Antonio took a 2-0 lead in this series, Gregg Popovich went so far as to bring up the franchise's most bitter playoff defeat.


"We even mentioned the 0.4," Popovich said.


Yes, he went there, to Lakers guard Derek Fisher's miraculous shot with half a second left in Game 5 of the 2004 Western Conference semis, which was the pivotal point in their four straight victories to swipe the series.


"We won the first two, and we played like dogs a couple of games, then come back and all of a sudden 0.4 hits you right between the eyes and you're done," Popovich said. "That was on their mind [Friday]."


And so they responded with a demolition of the Suns that's forcing Phoenix to question everything from its roster composition to its coach. For now, the Suns' top priority is to find a way to keep Parker from torching them. But you know the Spurs will eventually find another way to win. Don't they always?



J.A. Adande is the author of "The Best Los Angeles Sports Arguments." He joined ESPN.com as an NBA columnist in August 2007 after 10 years with the Los Angeles Times. Click here to e-mail J.A.

[BuzzerBeater]

"It's time to recognize the Spurs for what they are: not only the most dangerous team in the league, but the most dangerous team to the league...."

Compe ive sports, when distilled down to it's true essence, reveals a struggle, a contest between combatants
using their skills, knowledge and spirit to subdue the compe ion and win the prize.
Money has watered down sports and weakened it to the point where it has hardly any taste.
The Spurs success has ruined many a highly financed venture on a regular basis.
They are the anomalous constant running throughout the NBA universe.
The Spurs are that distilled essence, the bitter drink that must be swallowed by their opposition.
Too bad, so sad.

[callo1]

I always chuckle when I read that "dangerous to the league" bull crap.

The Spurs have a boatload of international talent on their roster, and while domestic rating may not be as high when they are in the finals, international ratings do very well. Isn't globalization what the league is after?

Another thing that pisses me off about the league is the refusal to market "good guys". The eintire idea of marketing players before teams is a mistake to begin with. This marketing philosophy is simply moronic. The NBA has never known how to market their product. In the 80's, we went from Magic Vs. Bird, to Jordan Vs. the rest of the league, then when these players retire, the league craps itself because it put all effort into individual player marketing.

Who can forget the "How is the league going to survive without Jordan?" articles.

To create a lasting fan interest in the sport, market the teams, not individuals...players come and go, get traded, get hurt etc., but the teams stay. The NFL has done this for years and that is why they generate 50 times more annual revenue than the NBA.

The "problem" with the Spurs is they don't talk , don't get in bar fights, don't make headlines for rape charges, don't disrespect other teams, don't gloss themselves, don't try to take weed or weapons through the airports, don't beat their chests, don't beat their wives etc.

I hope they never shed that "problem" that they have.

We live in a time in society where KG talking and banging his chest like a fool shows just how "passionate" and "intense" he is, while the Spurs go play the best game 3 in years for a team up 2-0 and keep their mouths shut, still talk of respecting the other team, and calmly walk off the court after they assert their dominant control of the series... and they are boring.

Is the league a reflection of society? or is society a reflection of the league?

This question is hard to answer, but look no further than how BSPN has handled themselves the last few years for evidence.

Dr. Jack Ramsey was taken off doing tv. game analysis because he isn't "provocative" enough. We need loud mouth talking goons like Stephen A-Hole to drive up ratings. Dr. Jack has forgotten more about basketball than Stephen A-Hole will ever know. The same can be said for BSPN's treatment of David Aldridge.

The league needs to be clear with their iden y and how they want to portray themselves. If you want a cleaner image to be born out of the aftermath of the brawl in Auburn Hills, then quit talking about it and using it to market every matchup that features Pistons Vs. Pacers, or Wallace Vs. Artest....MOVE ON ALREADY. If you say it was an abberation, then treat it like one.

/rant off...I could go on for hours

[m33p0]

i like the pic they have of timmy in that page.

[word]

Read that this morning. Typical west coast, or east coast for that matter, at ude. Hey, for people in New York and LA there IS no other part of America. Does anyone really think a Bobcats -vs- Grizzlies finals would be a cash cow ? There are 32 teams in the league and for people like Adande, only 5 or 6 are worthy of the finals and there are thousands of matchups in the league that aren't. What amazes me is what ESPN has become, quite frankley. I find it nearly impossible to watch and increasingly worthless to read. Not to mention their 'experts' are generally wrong. ESPN is nothing more than a 'hype machine' for a few players and teams in ALL SPORTS and the rest be damned.

What's bad for the league is ESPN.

[Doctor J]

The writer of this article is the one who predicted that Suns would beat Spurs in 6. Ha Ha.