Spurs of the Moment

Well, the Magic definitely looked like they were an improved team after their recent trades, but unfortunately they decided to do so against the Spurs. It wasn’t even very close as the Spurs lost 123-101. It’s pretty difficult to win games when you allow the other team to score 123 points on 60% shooting. Gilbert Arenas finally came back to life and scored 14 points with nine assists and six boards, and is now looking more like a good fit with Orlando. They also got 15 points from Jason Richardson and 11 from Hedo Turkoglu. I don’t think they will miss Rashard Lewis and his lack of rebounding prowess. I am not worried about them too much, but I do sincerely hope they beat the crap out of Miami from now on.

Anyway, the Spurs were pretty much done in by poor defense and some off-shooting by Ginobili and a few others. Collectively they only shot 42% from the filed. George Hill is still out with a “strained right big toe” (huh?), but Gary Neal has continued to pick up the slack. Neal is now averaging 17.8 points and three rebounds in the past four games that Hill has missed. He’s shooting 47% from the field, 84% from the line, and 42% from downtown (11-for-26). Not too shabby.

Notable Spurs Stat Lines
Tim Duncan: 12 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist. Duncan shot 50% from the field and only played 20 minutes.
Tony Parker: 16 points, 3 assists, 1 rebounds. He also had 3 turnovers… his A/T ratio has been a decent 2.8 this season, but that sucked. He shot 7-0f-12 from the field tho.
Manu Ginobili: 10 points, 6 assists, 5 boards, and 1 block. He only shot 3-of-10 from the field and played just 20 minutes also.
DeJuan Blair: 10 points, 5 boards, 2 assists, and 3 steals. I am still not sure what to make of Blair this season. He can grab potentially 15 boards a game, but just hasn’t been getting close most nights.�
Tiago Splitter: 11 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and a block. Splitter had one of his better games so far in just over 17 minutes of action.
Richard Jeffferson: 10 points, 6 boards, 2 assists, and a steal. A little disappointing considering he played 30 minutes.
Matt Bonner: 10 points, 6 boards, 1 steal. And in seven fewer minutes than RJ.
Gary Neal: 16 points, 2 rebounds. His scoring has been great, but the lack of peripherals is worrisome. The NBA doesn’t need another scorer/one-trick-pony.

Highlights/Recap:

So the NBA draft lottery was held last night before the tip-off of the Celtics-Magic game, and the Wizards won the first overall pick. So now the Wizards are faced with several different decisions: A) Draft Evan Turner instead of the projected and consensus #1 pick, John Wall, B) Draft Wall and send Arenas packing, or C) Draft Wall and keep Arenas and see how that pans out. They could even trade the pick, although I think that it’s unlikely. I find it funny since Arenas is the one who basically derailed the Wizards last season with his firearm shenanigans, yet the team chose to keep him and move damn near everyone else. Perhaps it’s because they still believe in him, but I think they just know that they won’t get near the value they want by dumping him, assuming anyone would trade for his ginormous contract and questionable judgement. At any rate, now they are faced with the prospect of having two point guards and trying to make it work, trading the pick, trading Arenas (good luck with that), or drafting Turner. It’ sounds messed up, but then again, that’s not really a very bad problem to have.

So after the draft lottery we got to watch Orlando squander home-court advantage by losing again to the Celtics. Let me just say this: I stand corrected. Boston is legit and Rondo is THE reason I am watching this series. Rondo looks like he is 12, but that’s a bad man and he should be counted among the NBA’s top point guards more often than he is. Nash, Deron, CP3, Kidd, Rose… those guys always get the love, but Rondo has the ring and is well on his way to another one. The Celtics are primed to get back to the top and duel the Lakers, showing that the only reason LA won last year was thanks to KG’s injury derailing Boston’s season. I’d buy that. Orlando meanwhile… what can I say? It’s hard to win it all when your best player shoots free throws like a drunken Shaq, Rashard Lewis is giving you like five points a game, and Vince Carter looks like he is preparing excuses like when he slipped and then laid there for ten minutes writhing as if he’d been shot.

I don’t care who wins tho, just so long as it isn’t the Lakers, and right now I think that Boston is the team to beat them.

As if the Spurs being ousted by the Suns wasn’t bad enough. My Playoff Predictions went from perfect to utterly ruined in Round Two as the Cavs choked against the Celtics in what could be LeBron’s last championship run in Cleveland.

Read more »

Manu Ginobili continued his spectacular play since being inserted back into the starting unit by dropping 43 points in a 112-100 win over the Orlando Magic last night. He was 13-of-25 from the field, including 3-of-6 from downtown, and he went 14-of-17 from the free throw line. He also had six rebounds, five assists, and one steal. No one had a double-double for either team but Tim Duncan came closest with his 23 points and eight rebounds. George Hill had nine points and nine assists, Matt Bonner came off the bench to score 15 points with his six rebounds, and Antonio McDyess finally had a decent game again with 10 points and seven boards.

The Magic had six players in double figures, but Dwight Howard had an off night with only 10 points and six rebounds. Howard was basically outplayed by McDyess after Duncan got into early foul trouble and Coach Popovich got ejected for arguing with the refs. Go figure. The biggest discrepancy in the game really came at the free throw line where the Spurs shot 20-of-26 compared to 12-of-26 for the Magic. Of course this came partially due to the Hack-a-Howard strategy which Dwight seemed to take exception to (“waaaa!”). Orlando also had 11 turnovers to the Spurs’ eight.

I’ve been saying it for a couple of months and it just keeps getting more and more obvious with each game, but it’s imperative that the Spurs resign Manu Ginobili this summer. It’s a shame they didn’t extend him earlier this year since they will likely be paying more than they would have to retain him. However, it’s not really too late is it? Kobe Bryant just signed a 3-year extension for $90 million, and don’t think Ginobili isn’t aware. The Spurs need to get on this so they focus on other things this summer.

Highlights from the game:

[youtube 7cMqx8_uNsM]

The Spurs have won seven of their last eight games and are on a three game winning streak again after that debacle against Cleveland. OK, so they only played the Clippers, T-Wolves, and Knicks, but as the Knicks showed our North Texas Nemesis, if you don’t come to play, there are no easy wins in this league – not even against the cellar dwellers.

Read more »