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Tag Archive - Tim Duncan

Black Coffee, Steely Dan, and the Bland, Refined Flavor of the San Antonio Spurs

May 17, 2012 in by with 16 Comments

Photo by atilla acs on Flickr

Tuesday night’s winterization of the Clippers by the Spurs was comprehensive. They shut off their water, emptied and cleaned their swimming pool then covered it with a heavy duty tarp, brought in their garden furniture, unplugged the coffee maker, drained their plumbing and filled it with antifreeze, and set a little timer to make their living room lights come on between 6:30 pm and 11:45 pm. When all was said and done, the Spurs walked away with a 108-92 victory and a 1-0 lead in the best of seven series. And it didn’t really seem that close. The Clippers went on a run early in the fourth to cut the deficit to 8 with 8:42 remaining, but the Spurs tightened up again and never looked back after that.

This was either something to be admired, more a work of craftsmanship than pure sport, the purest expression of the artistry of the Spurs or else it was just another mind-numbingly boring display of the interminable snoozefest that the Spurs pass off as basketball. Myles Brown said “Why do people think watching something that works well is so boring?” and then twenty minutes later Netw3rk said, “The Spurs ‘brand’ has been more or less in place for over a decade … and the sports fan at-large doesn’t want it. It bores them.” For a long time, I agreed with the latter. One of my first articles for this site was, after all, about Tim Duncan and was titled “More Like Power Bore-wards.” But beginning with when I took a closer look at the layered and deceptively simple way their plays work, I began to turn the corner on the Spurs. Suddenly, I was looking forward to watching them play the Clippers, and the reason is plain: the Spurs are an acquired taste, like black coffee or whiskey.

The essence of an acquired taste is that you have to want to acquire it before you actually know if you like it. This is supremely counterintuitive. But there aren’t very many people who get their first taste of black coffee and say, “Man, this is what I’ve been missing!” No: you ease yourself into it with drinks that please your sweet tooth, with frappucinos and other things that are more like milkshakes than coffee. And a lot of people will stay right there, enjoying their coffee with whip cream and chocolate syrup, but some people will eventually decide they want to be discerning about their coffee not as a drink, but as coffee. As an experience unto itself. Things like getting your coffee beans whole to grind yourself becomes important. Having a coffee maker that keeps the water at the right temperature and ready all the time becomes important. In some ways, it means not just liking the thing but liking that you like it.

So it goes—if you’re not someone who just grew up with them—with the Spurs, and Kevin Arnovitz hit on this in his excellent post about their motion weak offense. It’s a beautiful explanation of how the Spurs subtly derange the defense by having Tony Parker hand the ball off on one wing and cut through the paint to receive it on the other wing. In essence, Arnovitz’s case is that this shouldn’t be boring because almost anything can happen at any point in the play because it gives the Spurs so many options: if the defense is napping, Parker can get the handoff back and drive the lane; if Duncan has good position on the low block, he can get the ball and back his man down; if the swingman at the top of the arc is Bonner, he can shoot the three if he’s open; and on and on and on. It sounds great on paper, but there’s a problem with how it’s received by the average basketball fan, and Arnovitz actually points it out himself. “The final resort of the Spurs’ signature set,” he writes, “looks like the first strike from most teams — a simple angle pick-and-roll on the left side with a variety of drive-and-dish options for Parker.” All that motion, all that glorious stuff, can end up looking like what most teams start with, and that’s why it seems boring. If you can’t see the intricacies that got Parker the ball on the opposite wing, if you can’t see how it’s gotten Duncan better post position on the weak side or how it’s freed up a wing at the top of the arc, then it just looks like noise.

But this is just another part of an acquired taste because the onus is on you to understand it, not on the object to become more likable. If someone says they like whiskey and then goes on to say they drink Southern Comfort, someone who’s actually into whiskey will point out that Southern Comfort is technically a whiskey-flavored liqueur. And that’s the thing: a taste that requires acquiring is not about figuring out what you like about something. It’s about learning something new outside yourself, about bringing that thing into your understanding.

Outside of consumable items, acquired tastes pop up most often in music, so it’s also natural for people to reach for band comparisons in trying to explain the Spurs. I compared them to Menomena, a band that builds its songs into complex machines out of simple melodic units. Netw3rk compared them to Fugazi on Tuesday night.

The Spurs are a basketball team for hardcore basketball fans. That's really what I'm saying. They're like Fugazi.
May 15, 2012 10:56 pm via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite
@netw3rk
netw3rk

It’s an apt comparison in a lot of ways. Fugazi cared not for mainstream acceptance and had no interest in signing to a major label after they became successful. All their CDs bore the text “This CD is $8 postpaid from Dischord Records” at a time when most CDs were $17 at Sam Goody and all their shows were all ages and $5. And as Chris Ballard’s Sports Illustrated story on Duncan makes clear, Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan, as the pillars of the Spurs for the last 15 years, have no interest in anything other than what works on the court. “I could be more accessible and be the darling for everybody,” says Duncan towards the end of the piece. “I could open up my life and get more endorsements and be out there and be a fan favorite. But why would that help?” The Spurs are about basketball the way Fugazi are about music, and that hardcore devotion will always alienate some people.

However. Fugazi are also indelibly cool. By eschewing the machinery of the music industry, they endeared themselves to–and in many ways created–the independent-minded music community. The Spurs’ approach has earned them no such cachet and they remain resolutely unhip and old. So while the way they play the game might be Menomena-esque and the way they approach the game might be Fugazi-esque, the way the public at large views the Spurs is probably most like the way they view Steely Dan.

Technically immaculate, disciplined, with an ever-critical eye towards getting the right players to to do the right jobs, with moments of unalloyed brilliance, their approbation sadly consigned to the province of fellow professionals, completely at home being the background music at JC Penney: this is Steely Dan and the San Antonio Spurs in a nutshell. My freshman year college roommate was a huge Steely Dan fan, and I couldn’t square it with the rest of his personality. He also loved The Smiths and R.E.M.; A Tribe Called Quest and Common (back when he was Common Sense); Sartre and Kerouac. And yet he adored this band that sounded like cheesy elevator music to me, the one with pseudo-jazz sax solos, a band where everything felt scrubbed clean and soulless. The one the dad in “Say Anything” listens to. Where was the fire? The grime? The ragged edge that made the music I liked feel alive? In essence, where were the dunks? The alley-oops? The fast breaks and circus lay-ups? The highest highs and the lowest lows? All Steely Dan were giving me was great footwork, textbook pick and rolls, bank shots, and championships. Steely Dan weren’t  a band I was missing out on, they were a band I wanted to miss out on. As soon as I heard Fugazi in high school, I knew I had to like this band, but I was content to mock Donald Fagen and company until the summer after my junior year.

Something just clicked that summer. But the thing was, I had to go to them. I had to want to become a Steely Dan fan and so I did. I bought Citizen, which neatly collected all their works into one box set, at the record store I worked at and that summer, as my band drove all over Massachusetts playing shows, we listened to a lot of Steely Dan. I slowly developed a taste for their ultra-smooth music, began to appreciate the way it was almost like soul music deconstructed and reconstructed by aliens. Their narrators were seedy, empty, often desperate and I began to see how the music’s coolness, its spotless polish, was a mirror of the facade the song’ characters were living. And once you acquire the taste for something, it draws you in ever deeper.

And so it goes with the Spurs. They’re running the same action I yawned at for most of this season, but suddenly it all looks different. Like a lot of people, I tend to key in on certain players during games, watching how Kevin Durant is getting loose from screens or appreciating the way Derrick Rose can slice through defenders like they’re standing still. But watching the Spurs now I see all the players as just players, as cogs in the machine of Popovich’s offense. I can see those possibilities that Arnovitz outlines in his article arise and come to fulfillment and I get satisfaction out of that seeing. Here’s just one play from Tuesday night’s Game 1 against the Clippers, and it’s a supremely simple one:

Duncan sets the high screen for Parker, who gets doubled. Duncan rolls to the paint where he screens Boris Diaw’s man (Blake Griffin) and Diaw catches it with space. He doesn’t shoot but instead drives into the paint where he finds Duncan wide open for the easy lay-in. So simple, but everyone does exactly what they should do, and that suddenly seems beautiful. And in terms of opening up multiple possibilities, Diaw taking an open three or midrange jumper would have been a fine choice, as would Duncan dishing it back out to Kawhi Leonard because Leonard’s man had collapsed on Duncan.

And so on Tuesday night I sat watching, squarely on the side of those who admire the clean precision, the footwork, the easy way the Spurs kept getting open looks at three-pointers. I’ve acquired the taste for Spurs basketball but I’ve also realized it takes more than just appreciating good fundamental basketball play; it takes appreciating the appreciation of those things—the very essence of acquired taste.

NBA Playoffs: Manu Enters the Hot Tub Tim Machine

April 30, 2012 in by with 0 Comments

The excitement of the start of the playoffs was dampened considerably yesterday by Derrick Rose’s devastating ACL tear. The crushing loss of the reigning MVP from one of the two teams in the east with a legitimate shot at winning a title hung like a black cloud over the rest of the day’s games, and probably won’t quite disappear from the backs of our minds for the rest of the postseason and beyond. But Sunday’s opening contest between the Jazz and the Spurs played host to something as wonderfully life-affirming as the Rose injury was soul-crushing: Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili found the fountain of youth.

The aging Duncan and injury-plagued Ginobili, both of whom sat out the final stretch of regular season to preserve their legs, lent credence to the theory that maybe, just maybe, the teams best suited for this hectic, 66-game lockout schedule are the oldest ones, the ones with the veteran know-how. How many times did we see Duncan do this in the regular season?

Ginobili’s two slams were equally awesome, throwback affairs.

Through two days, the postseason has been at times depressing (the injuries to Rose and Iman Shumpert) and thrilling (the Clippers’ insane comeback, Kevin Durant’s game-winner), and full of smaller, simpler pleasures that may go forgotten as the playoffs unfold. Pleasures like the knowledge that two of the most reliable aging superstars in the game can still look 10 years younger when they want to.

Expectations & Subversion: How The Spurs Let A Song Go Out Of Their Heart

April 19, 2012 in by with 3 Comments

Photo by Joost J. Bakker IJmuiden on Flickr

When it comes to comparing sports and music, there are few tropes as tired as linking jazz and basketball. Hell, I’ve done it. But as it goes with most clichés, it comes up again and again because there’s a kernel of truth in it, because it can be a useful way to see the game. Like a quintet on the bandstand playing a standard, the five players on the floor in basketball are working within a structure that allows for fluidity and improvisation. The things they’re doing are all interconnected, interdependent, and when one of them shifts his approach, it affects the entire fabric of the play. There’s initiative, understanding, recognition, response. The idea of basketball players as jazz musicians rewards our conception of the game as beautiful, a work of art, even.

But there are other ways to expand our sense of the game via music. What if we instead consider the plays a team runs as being akin to the basic units of pop music: the verse, the chorus, the bridge? After all, the cagiest pop songs play on our expectations with each new section, adding wrinkles and subverting convention, much like Steve Nash does with the basic pick and roll.

Consider, for example, the chorus of Christina Aguilera’s “What A Girl Wants,” which begins at 1:11 in the video below.

The chorus to the song is essentially the same refrain repeated twice, a common enough structure for the hook of a pop tune, but there’s something a little off-kilter about this particular one. The first time, the first line is a pickup into the chorus—that is, “What a girl wants” is sung so that it’s the word “wants” that falls on the first beat of the chorus. The second time through, the line lands slightly differently. It begins on the first beat and the word “wants” falls on the second beat of the chorus. It’s a little rhythmic trickery that keeps it from being repetitive.

And rhythmic trickery is more or less what defines the relationship between the pick and roll and the slip screen. Here’s Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol running the pick and roll (excuse the ABBA—it’s just the cost of doing business):

Being one of the most fundamental basketball plays, the bread-and-butter pick and roll establishes expectations. The big man will set the pick and the guard will run his man into the pick, letting the big man roll to the hoop. It’s the first time through the chorus. But once the defense is anticipating the straight pick and roll, it’s time to bring out the slip screen. Here’s Bryant and Gasol running it:

As you can see, as soon as Cousins has bought the pick and roll and started hedging in an attempt to stop Bryant from turning the corner towards the middle, Gasol breaks for the bucket, gets the easy pass from Bryant, then feeds it to Lamar Odom under the hoop. This is the second time through the chorus, where a little wrinkle keeps us on our toes.

But that’s playing in a subtle way with expectations. In both music and basketball you can go with a giant misdirection. Consider a staple of hard rock dynamics, the quiet chorus after the bridge as demonstrated by the Smashing Pumpkins in “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” (bridge starts at 2:28 if you want to skip ahead):

At 3:06, just when the conclusion of the bridge seems to be building towards another full-blast chorus, everything except for guitar and vocals drops out, plus the vocals are down an octave from early iterations of the chorus. We’re primed for the big guns, but the song goes in a completely different direction.

Now take a look at the wide-open three-pointer Steve Novak managed to get at the end of the Bulls-Knicks game on Easter at the end of regulation:

Jared Dubin does a great job of breaking down this entire play right here, but the basic thing that made such an open look possible is that everyone was expecting it to go to Carmelo Anthony. Once Anthony gets the ball at the three-point line, he’s doubled, allowing Novak to float out to the opposite side of the floor. His shot, unfortunately, doesn’t go down, but regardless of that, it’s a great play, made possible because everyone’s expecting the big heroic chorus from ‘Melo. Instead, they get the quiet, guitars-and-vocals chorus from Steve Novak.

The thing about basketball, though, is that these patterns don’t happen in isolation, but rather overlap and affect each other over the course of the game. The pick is the foundation of several different plays and can also be part of a larger scheme in either a directly useful or misdirecting way. When it comes to layering motifs and patterns, there a few teams that do it better than the San Antonio Spurs and few bands that do it better than Menomena.

Menomena, from Portland, Oregon, compose their music in a fairly unique way. One of the members begins with a part that gets recorded and then looped while the other members add new parts that interlock with the original part. The early result is reams of rough material that is then shaped into songs as parts are pulled away or added. By the time the compositions are complete and ready to be recorded as full songs, they’re often staggeringly complex songs built from the simplest pieces. Here’s an example from their 2007 album Friend and Foe, a song called “Wet and Rusting”:

You can hear the song begins with a spare melody (“I made you a present …”) repeated twice, followed by a second part sung once (“It’s hard to take risks …”). Since these lines are barely accompanied it’s hard to conceive of them as verses or choruses—they’re just bits right now. The form begins to repeat, but then extends under the second part, this time backed by a guitar line instead of the ghostly piano that backed it the first time. When the piano returns with drums and bass in tow, the words evaporate. The middle instrumental section stays at home harmonically with the first two parts but explores new textures. When the initial lyrical part returns at the 2:21 mark, there’s a new vocal line laid in under it. As the song reaches its dynamic peak, it’s not achieved with new material, but rather by juxtaposing all the previously played parts against one another. It’s an unusual way to build a song, but it’s pretty standard for a basketball offense.

Take the San Antonio Spurs. In a recent game against the Lakers, they hammered the pick and roll with Tony Parker and either Tim Duncan or Tiago Splitter early, probably because the Lakers are notoriously weak defending it. They like to mix it up a bit, with Parker often dishing the ball off before running through the paint to emerge on the other side to receive it again and run the pick and roll. But eliminating transition baskets, the game on offense for the Spurs began with these three plays:

The first one is simple enough: Duncan steps out to set a screen, Parker gets separation from Ramon Sessions (who goes over the screen) and Andrew Bynum is too deep to defend the jumper. This is the first verse, the “I made you a present” of their sets. In the second play, Sessions tries going under the screen, but that still gives Parker room to shoot and he sinks it. This is the repeat of that first melody (“And when you unravel …”). In the third play, Splitter sets the pick and tries to roll, but Pau Gasol closes out and bothers the shot enough to force a miss. The Spurs have established the pattern and now the Lakers have reacted well enough to defend it.

So the next time they run a pick and roll, they run it a little differently:

Here, Splitter sets the pick twice and Bynum and Sessions both follow Parker while trying to shield Splitter from the pass as he roles. But in the meantime, Duncan has slipped away from his defender into the open space by the free throw line extended. He catches the pass from Parker and makes the jumper in rhythm. This is the development of the initial melody into the second melody, the “It’s hard to take risks” part of the Menomena song. It exists in the same general tonal world (that is, it’s not a key change or a big dynamic change), but it’s a little different approach, and just enough to throw us off guard.

But the Spurs haven’t forgotten about that first part. They go back to it, with Parker running a simple pick and roll again on the wing:

Sessions doesn’t want to leave Ginobili, so Parker has an open shot. It’s interesting to note that even as Parker makes the open jumper, Bynum has dropped too low in the post to defend Duncan if Parker had passed it off. This return to the fundamental pick and roll is not simply a rehash of the initial action, but instead is colored by the results of the earlier pick and rolls and Duncan’s made jumper. It is, effectively, the first melody supported by the xylophone and acoustic guitar from “Wet and Rusting.” It’s not just a play, but instead a play that’s been opened up by the plays preceding it.

As the game progresses and the Lakers try to counter the Spurs, the sets become more nuanced and layered. Look at these two possessions:

What begins as a pick and roll turns into multiple screens as the double comes on Parker. In both examples, Bonner’s initial pick is basically a decoy. It draws Gasol and Sessions to the ball and Bonner floats out to the three-point line on the opposite side of the floor. In the first clip, he dribbles closer before handing the ball off to Stephen Jackson and screening his man to allow Jackson the elbow jumper. In the second, Splitter steps out to set yet another pick that Gasol has to go around to get to Bonner, whom Bynum can’t effectively cover. Bonner drains the three. My favorite part of that second one is that Splitter’s screen is actually a slip screen and he’s rolling wide open to the basket as Gasol and Bynum try to close out on Bonner. If Bonner had wanted to, he could have dished it right to Splitter for an easy dunk or layup.

To me, this is the full development of what started as a basic pick and roll at the beginning of the game. That verse melody is now being layered against the secondary melody and a new melody on top of that while the rest of the band provides support. The Spurs have forced the Lakers to adjust and then adjusted to those adjustments. Looking at the second clip, by the time the play has gotten to this point:

… the Lakers are pretty much done for. Look at all the space that Bonner and Jackson have now on the right side of the floor. By the time it gets to here:

… Devin Ebanks has closed out on Jackson in the corner, creating space for Splitter to roll to the basket while Bonner lifts up for a three he’s more than capable of hitting. The Lakers have been manipulated into playing the Spurs’ game.

And by the end of “Wet and Rusting,” the listener has been suckered into Menomena’s game. We’ve heard each of the pieces that have come before in isolation and we’ve heard them pressed against each other, but by the time they all come together into a multiphonic rush of voices and instruments, we’re hearing something greater than the sum of its parts, something greater than that first melody, greater than a simple pick and roll.

More Like ‘Power Bore-wards’: The Model of Big Men Who Put You to Sleep

March 1, 2012 in by with 3 Comments

Photo by law_keven on Flickr

Recently, while doing research for another post, I stumbled across the following: of players getting starter’s minutes, Al Jefferson has the highest PER for a player not named to the All-Star team this season (Note: since that search, he’s been leapfrogged by Ryan Anderson and Greg Monroe, but just barely). His PER also beats out Dirk Nowitzki, Deron Williams, Roy Hibbert, Chris Bosh, Marc Gasol, and Andrew Bynum. Per 36 minutes, he’s scoring and rebounding more than Bynum and several others. Neither advanced stats nor All-Star appearances are the end-all-be-all of a player’s worth, but seeing Big Al so high up on that list got me thinking about how close Big Al’s time on the Timberwolves came to ending my Timberwolves fandom, about how much I’ve always respected but never liked Tim Duncan, about why Kevin Love feels so different, and what all of that says about how we might lie to ourselves about basketball.

Al Jefferson highlight mixes on YouTube are a little weird, often consisting of highlight reel passes to Big Al for strong, secure two-handed dunks. There will be a bunch of up-and-unders, some blocks on shots by shooting guards and small forwards, some excessively smooth and effective drop step spins to the hoop. He is, in essence, doing everything you could want from the power forward and center position according to those positions’ traditional roles. And I almost fell asleep watching those videos.

When the Wolves were casting about for a reason to get Big Al out of town, the argument that kept coming up was that he was a black hole on offense. Once the ball went into him in the post, it wasn’t coming back out until he scored or turned it over. You see, his propensity for stopping and scoring the ball was taking away chances from, well, Jonny Flynn, I guess. And other deadeye shooters on the 2009 Timberwolves like Corey Brewer, Ramon Sessions, and Sasha Pavlovic. Sure, Jefferson’s usage rate was highest on the team at 24.3%, but numbers two and three on that list were Flynn and this guy. (For what it’s worth, number four was Kevin Love—this was his rookie season.) Jefferson was also (supposedly) creating a logjam in the frontcourt alongside Love, a charge that seems kind of ridiculous when you look at a Wolves team that started this season with three to five natural power forwards and zero serviceable centers, although Pekovic has since emerged as a bruisingly effective five.

And when he was on the Wolves, I bought every justification for shipping Jefferson out with relish. He was such a letdown from the energy and furor of Kevin Garnett, and there was no way he would ever be the face of the franchise. His exemplary low-post footwork, his effective spins, his decent midrange shot, his competent rebounding and blocking: it was all just so solid that it drove me crazy. I didn’t watch basketball for the subtle beauty of the back-to-the-basket game. My first love was the Human Highlight Film, my second was The Answer. I wanted basketball players who defied gravity and physics. I wanted drama. I wanted players to overcome their maladjusted, Frankenstein games and achieve the impossible.

It’s why I never liked Tim Duncan. I never once picked him for an NBA 2K fantasy draft team, despite his reign as one of the (if not one of the two, alongside Garnett) best power forwards of his generation. By 2003, I’d developed a healthy distaste for the Lakers, and so by rights, when Duncan’s Spurs knocked them off in the conference semis I should have crowned him my new favorite player. Instead, I rooted for the Nets in the Finals. He’s clearly an all-time great, a lock for the Hall of Fame. But I find it impossible to drum up any enthusiasm for his hook shots, his low-post passing, his bank shots. His game has virtually no defect, and that, at least to me, is the defect with “The Big Fundamental.” (Well, his free throw shooting has been on-and-off problematic, but even that has improved to respectable—not impressive—levels.)

I’m sure there will be those who read this and have the reaction that I’m “hating” on Duncan and Jefferson, but hating would be an improvement. My feelings about these two players are more like The Nothing from The Neverending Story, and it’s not their fault. It’s mine, and I know it. As I gradually warmed to Kevin Love, I thought maybe I had learned to love a solid, unflashy player. Love’s consistent double-doubles, his lunchpail work on tip-ins and putbacks, his ability to get rebounds via positioning and timing, not size—all of it points to an unglamorous player. He barely jumps on dunks, and if he punctuates them, it’s more with a boldface period than an exclamation point.

But then again: his post game is fine, but hardly the subtle machine of Jefferson or Duncan. Instead of acting like a archetypal big man, his preference is to score from midrange, and (here’s the rub) the arc. He’s kind of a stretch four, but kind of not, and so, he exists in a liminal space. His propensity for threes (and especially for game-winning threes) is what unbalances him as a player, and ultimately what endears him to me. Realizing that has also helped me realize that I’m a fraud.

I like to think of myself as cultivating a refined sensibility in many areas of my life: I like a classic gin martini made with Plymouth, Noilly Pratt, and olives; I’m one of those people who gagged on Dan Gilbert’s Comic Sans letter, who appreciates the clean, utilitarian lines of Helvetica, the timeless beauty of Garamond; one of my top three movies of all time is Wong Kar Wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” a tremendously restrained, lushly shot meditation on love and loss. I love Steely Dan. And what are Al Jefferson and Tim Duncan if not the basketball embodiment of Steely Dan’s cooly professional and misunderstood contemporary jazz-rock?

My ho-hum feelings about Duncan and Jefferson (and other blandly solid players like Andre Miller) belie my idea of myself as a basketball aficionado. Because down at the root I still fell in love with basketball because of Dominique Wilkins, because of Iverson’s crossovers, because of fast breaks and dunk contests, because of style over substance. My other two top movies? “Aliens” and “Die Hard.” My head wants crisply efficient offense and staunch defense. It knows the bank shot is better than the circus shot. But I’m sorry, Timmy and Al, the heart wants what it wants, dammit.

Things Make Sense Eventually

February 22, 2012 in by with 2 Comments

I didn’t love King of the Hill when I was a kid.

King of the Hill was boring. It was the worst kind of bait-and-switch for a kid. Animated television was about creating memorable moments detached from reality silly enough to capture the minds of young ones. Watching King of the Hill when I was 5 was like eating an apple only to find out way too late that a worm had already buried itself deep into the fibers and defiled the core. It looked the part of a kid-friendly cartoon, but the story, the pace and the morals weren’t meant for us youngsters. The Simpsons, as warm and charming and socially aware as it was, was the perfect caricature for little kids to giggle and grow into. King of the Hill offered little accommodation, which is why, for more years of my life than not, I paid no attention.

As much as I hate myself today for ignoring the show for as long as I did, some things just don’t make sense until you’re older.

—

I didn’t love the San Antonio Spurs as a kid. I didn’t love them in high school. Hell, part of me still feels guilty for loving them now. I’m a detached fan of the NBA with no true allegiance, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it all came back to the Spurs crushing every team I’ve ever dared to love.

My first real memories as a fan came in 1999 when the Knicks fought their way through the Eastern bracket and improbably landed in the NBA Finals. There was balladry to their run as they toppled key and iconic rivals to get to the highest stage. There was real emotional weight to Allan Houston’s last second runner, full-court dash and subsequent fist pump in Game 5 of the first round matchup against the Miami Heat “ one of the indelible basketball images in my mind.

The Spurs crushed them in a cruel gentleman’s sweep, pitying the Knicks enough to give them one victory. I hated them for that. Duncan went about his dominance with that same dispassionate off-centered gaze. It’s a gaze I’ve never been able to escape.

The same gentleman’s sweep befell the 2004-05 Suns, the team that made me realize what basketball meant to me. I still assert that things would have been different had Joe Johnson not fractured his orbital bone in the Dallas series, but it didn’t matter. The Spurs found a way to crush me once more. I may never love another team the way I loved those Suns. And I’ll never truly be able to embrace the Spurs with open arms. I know what they’e capable of. And no one wants ever wants their heart broken.

But I’m a bit older now, and it’s hard not to accept, respect, and admire the Spurs and their ability to adapt while planting themselves firmly in a time-tested system.

—

Last night’s 40-point loss to the Blazers was maybe as good of an attempt at physical humor by the Spurs as the instant hack-a-Shaq in their 2008-09 season opener. There is something absurdly funny and charming about the Spurs’ (though more specifically, Gregg Popovich’s) devotion to their fundamental beliefs. What Popovich did was pragmatic. All-Star Weekend is coming up, and getting his best players the rest they need while getting his bench up to speed is a fantastic idea. One that no other coach would dare put into motion. But placing these fundamental set of ideals on the highest pedestal is what has created the immaculate machine of success that we call the Duncan-era Spurs. It’s what made King of the Hill such a great show. It’s also what keeps them both overlooked.

Despite the many different iterations of the Spurs team in the Duncan era, the way we frame our discourse hasn’t changed much. They’re still tedious and boring, which was largely due to their defensive reputation (though they are much better on offense than defense today). They operate in retrograde;”a betrayal of the league’s new era of supreme athleticism,” as Kevin Arnovitz put it.

But why do we continue to think that way? Why did we think that way? Today, we appreciate the Spurs a lot more, though partially due to a preemptive nostalgic guilt, as we’re mentally prepared to lose the league’s most resilient institution soon. We celebrate the way they’re still able to get it done with superior spacing and chemistry, knowing full well that a few years ago, we all hated them for it.

As effective as the system has been for the Spurs, it’s entirely at fault for the perceptions we have. How else could two of the most dynamic guards in recent memory go largely unnoticed for their careers? I hated Tony Parker without having much of a reason why. He’s as quick, as resourceful, as effective as most star point guards in the league. But somehow, he isn’t as fun. Manu Ginobili is the most creative wing in the game and easily one of the best two-way players. But the first thing that comes to mind is flopping. Parker and Ginobili provided quirkiness and improvisation to a set system, yet the image of the whole is more powerful than the individual. The Popovichean system drapes a grayish veil over the players, keeping them grounded as cogs in a larger work, but also keeps their dynamism largely imperceptible to the fan.

I’ve seen the King of the Hill series finale at least five times now, and it hasn’t gotten old yet. The show’s a lot more fun to watch when you can relate. In its 13 years, King of the Hill was often used as a stop-gap on Sundays to fill in for the absence of more showy, more excitable series. It carved out a niche for itself, staying grounded as only a show with Hank Hill as the protagonist can. The show sat in that 7:30 p.m. time slot so comfortably, it was easy to forget it existed at all. But those who were keen enough to tune in found a show with warmth and heart. It didn’t harass you with laughter, but its stories made sure you were smirking throughout the ride.

“We get guys who want to do their job and go home and aren’t impressed with the hoopla,” says Popovich. “One of the keys is to bring in guys who have gotten over themselves. They either want to prove that they can play in this league or they want to prove nothing. They fill their role and know the pecking order. We have three guys who are the best players, and everyone else fits around them.”

via The Tao of Pop | Sports Illustrated, L. Jon Wertheim (3/9/09)

There are only so many more years that the Spurs can stave off extinction. They can continue to reboot their supporting cast, but their main attraction is breaking down. Duncan carries the same dispassionate demeanor of his youth, but his body is wearing away. What are the Spurs without their ultimate embodiment, their protagonist? What happens when the Duncan leaves the game for good? King of the Hill’s finale provides us with clues, but no definitive answer. The torch was passed on at the end of the show as Hank and his son Bobby finally found common ground in their tumultuous relationship. But it’s a TV show. There was no doubt of that happening. Hank Hill was based on many men, and his relationship with his son was based on many family relationships. But in the NBA, there will only ever be one Tim Duncan.

Makes me wonder how we’ll remember these Spurs once they’re gone. They’ve killed a lot of beauty in their day. They’ve created a lot too.

History Tells Us, There Are No Guarantees In Lockout Seasons

February 21, 2012 in by with 1 Comment

 

Via Flickr - Irargerich

It was a truncated lockout season in the NBA. A lockout season where an upstart was trying to knock off a favorite.  A favorite with a platoon of prominent players that had not yet graced digits with that most coveted of rewards, a championship ring. I speak of course of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat. Or do I?

There are parallels to be drawn. The 1999 lockout season featured a pair of teams crossing the compressed finish line tied for the best record in the NBA, and as we speak the Heat and Thunder each stand atop their respective conferences, tied for tops in the league at 25-7. But the favorites I refer to are the ’99 Utah Jazz and upstart-at-the-time San Antonio Spurs who had recently lucked out against all odds and landed a future all-timer in Tim Duncan whom they could throw at current best-power-forward-of-all-time Karl Malone.

At that time the Spurs and Jazz were unfortunately not only in the same conference, but also in the now defunct-due-to-realignment Midwest Division. Utah had run headlong into his magnificent Airness, Michael Jordan, the pair of previous Finals, but MJ had now retired (again), leaving an open lane for the John Stockton and Karl Malone-led Jazz to roll right to the Larry O’Brien hoop trophy unabated.

Despite attempting to replicate the recipe of the last NBA champs not named the Chicago Bulls to a degree, the Houston Rockets, the Spurs’ “power centers” Tim Duncan and 1994-95 MVP David Robinson had been unable to supplant the Jazz’s mighty trio of Malone, Stockton, and Jeff Hornacek, getting blasted out of the West playoffs the year before 4-1 by Utah. The Jazz were heavily favored to go all the way this time after reaching the conference finals five of the last seven years and the Finals for two straight, losing one of the late-spring series to MJ and Co. by a total point differential of only four points.

But it was not to be.

As it happens, these two powerhouses wouldn’t even get the chance to clash on the court in the accelerated ’99 playoffs as the Jazz would plow through most of the regular season only to run out of gas near end.

The Jazz finished a [tied-for] league-best 37-13 in 1999 but limped to a 5-5 finish over the last 10 games before struggling, by their mighty standards, in the playoffs. A middling Sacramento team took Utah the distance in the first round, and the Blazers eliminated the Jazz in six games in the second round.

 -Zach Lowe, The Point Forward

I remember that Portland series vividly, even though it happened more than a decade ago. The Jazz won game 1 at home by 10. But then lost game 2, by 3 points. Arvydas Sabonis was a huge man who devoured the paint. Isaiah Rider scored 27 points in that game, and Rasheed Wallace had three blocks and three steals. Worst of all Brian Grant went to the line more than Karl Malone did – and even finished the game with the same number of points…the Blazers broke the Jazz’ serve, and then were beat in Game 3 by 10 points. The Blazers went to the line endlessly in that game – 50 times. Utah also turned the ball over 16 times, and shot (as a team) only 38.9 fg%.

-AllThatJazzBasketball, SLCDunk

The Jazz weren’t just aging; they were ancient, and considering what happened to them after 1999 (and what happened to the Kings, too), perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised they struggled against Sacramento and Portland — a team went 35-15, by the way. Utah’s three best players (Karl Malone, Jeff Horancek and John Stockton) were 36, 36 and 37, respectively, by the end of July 1999, and the roster did not feature a single young player worthy of starting in the NBA.

-Zach Lowe, The Point Forward

Just how “ancient” were those Jazz that were so burnt out and beat down by the time they reached the postseason that they made abundant uncharacteristic mistakes and missed shots? Through the 1999 NBA season, the Big 3 of Malone, Stockton, and Hornacek had played a combined 108,786 NBA minutes (minutes being a more accurate measure of wear and tear than actual age). And the former were legendarily durable and conditioned in a mythical way only less than a handful of players in the league’s annals can lay claim to even approaching.

These present Spurs can boast no such thing, and taking into account a kind estimate of Manu Ginobili’s seven years of professional service prior the Spurs at 1,500 minutes per-season, San Antonio’s Big 3 will have played something very near to 95,497 minutes by season’s end.

In other words, they’re ripe for the picking and supplanting by, oh, I don’t know, the OKC Thunder.

Who may just turn around and run into this era’s version of the ’90s Bulls, the Miami Heat.

Potentially over and over again.

___

A couple of fun nuggets uncovered in the course of researching this piece:

• The current Spurs are through 32 games and on an eleven-game win streak. Beginning at game 30 of the 1999 lockout-shortened season the Utah Jazz ripped off a win streak too — of eleven games

• Through 32 games of the ’99 season the Jazz were 26-6. Through 32 games of the current season the best record is held by the Miami Heat and OKC Thunder at 25-7

• In ’99, a younger Spurs started the season somewhat slower through 32 games, but still a very warm 22-10. However, they would finish the regular season 13-1 beating the now-stumbling Jazz twice, holding them to a mere 78 and 69 points, and demolish everything they ran into in the playoffs sweeping both the Los Angeles Lakers and aforementioned Portland Trail Blazers en route to a 15-2 postseason record for a combined 28-3 finish to their initial title run that culminated in a steamrolling of the unlikely upstart New York Knicks

Jeremy Lin anyone?

Funny how history can be so cyclical.

___

“Failure can prepare you for success.”

-Avery Johnson

If you’ve noticed any other parallels let me know, I’d love to hear about ‘em.

Winners Prosper: The Case For Manu

February 23, 2011 in by with 14 Comments

Photo via Macchese on Flickr

The shocking exclusion of Reggie Miller from the forthcoming 2011 Hall of Fame ballot left us with a flurry of questions – not the least of which being, in what twisted narrative is Mark Jackson placed on the ballot over Miller? But like so many perplexing turns of plot I was left contemplating the fates of players whose final chapters are still being written.

We know Kobe Bryant will be forever immortalized in Springfield one day, it’s simply a matter of how large his legacy will loom over the game. Should the Lakers win another championship this summer, Bryant’s sixth, some will at least entertain the idea of placing the Black Mamba among the five greatest to ever play the game. Whether or not you agree with that sentiment, the argument at least has legs, due in no small part to the sheer amount of titles he has accumulated in his illustrious career. That’s the thing about the NBA , save for quarterbacks, no other team-sport athletes are subjected to the kind of personal scrutiny related to winning that basketball players are. A surplus of championships can elevate an individual beyond his numbers, while a lack thereof can severely diminish his place in history.

Perhaps then, no player stands to gain more in the remaining months of this season than Manu Ginobili.

In his purest form Ginobili is one of the best all-around players in the league at his position, possibly the biggest steal in draft history and among the craftiest players of his generation. But beyond that basic façade stands one of the more underrated NBA personalities in the last 20 years. While even now he deserves to be mentioned in the pantheon of big game guards who never quite earned their due ala Sam Jones, Dennis Johnson and Joe Dumars, Ginobili has been granted an opportunity many greats never receive: the chance to be the leader of a team. Jones and Johnson were role players on stellar Celtics teams and Dumars was a sidekick to the Isaiah Thomas glory years. After years of filling every role from sixth man, to defensive stalwart and crunch time closer, the Spurs now belong to Ginobili.

Is the torrid start to San Antonio’s season purely the fruit of the 33-year-old’s labor? Of course not, but in a year where the storyline could just as easily be the slow decline of Tim Duncan, it has been on the resurgence of a franchise thought to be too old to compete at this level anymore. The Spurs are on pace for 67 wins, they’re a legitimate contender and Ginobili is their best player. If San Antonio wins it all this year – certainly a major if – how can he not be viewed in the scope of the hall of famer discussion?

He’s been a vital component to three championship teams, arguably the x-factor in two of them. He’s been a tremendous big game player, continuously rising to the occasion when the lights are the brightest. But most importantly, he’s been a winner, whether in a supporting role or the lead character. Much like Scottie Pippen wasn’t fully appreciated until he carried the Bulls in 1994, Ginobili’s true greatness is fully manifesting itself now that he has assumed the alpha dog role for San Antonio.

Naysayers will point to his accomplishments within the context of the elite players in the NBA. No, he’s never been one of the five best guards in the NBA. At most you can possibly argue he’s been a top ten player once (2007-08) and last weekend was just his second appearance in an All-Star game. The basic statistics he’s ever been among the elite in has been steals and free throw shooting percentage.  Even when factoring in his championships, this hardly seems the profile of a player deserving of being in the hall of fame picture. To gain a full understanding of his place in history one needs to go beyond the basics though.

Ginobili ranks in the top 35 all time in player efficiency rating and his reputation as an elite defender is further reinforced by the 28th best defensive rating in NBA history. For those who favor even more advanced statistics, consider that the Spurs guard is 10th all time in win shares per 48 minutes. Of the nine players ahead of him on this list, all are already in the hall of fame save for teammate Tim Duncan and Lebron James, both virtual locks to be enshrined one day. His career regular season and playoff numbers compare favorably to the aforementioned greats like Johnson, Dumars and Jones – so maybe much as was the case with these three, he won’t fully be appreciated in historical context until long after his career has ended.

So what would happen if San Antonio went all the way this year? It would concurrently be the most surprising team development the NBA has seen in years and completely reshape the public perception of Ginobili’s legacy. Do I think he is a hall of famer right now? No, in the discussion absolutely, but ultimately he is on the outside looking in. But we’ve seen how quickly and drastically a championship can alter and reshape a player’s lasting footprint. Kobe’s first title sans Shaq got the monkey off his back. A second suddenly vaulted him into top ten consideration. Another title for Ginobili means he was the first, second or third best player on four championship teams, leaves him as one of the elite winners of his generation and firmly puts him into the hall of fame discussion.

That is, unless the committee opts to put Bruce Bowen on the ballot instead.

NBA Playoffs Suns Spurs Game 3: The Rising Action of Goran Dragic

May 8, 2010 in by with 10 Comments

During rising action, the basic internal conflict is complicated by the introduction of related secondary conflicts, including various obstacles that frustrate the protagonist’s attempt to reach his goal. Secondary conflicts can include adversaries of lesser importance than the story’s antagonist, who may work with the antagonist or separately, by and for themselves or actions unknown.

“The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.”- Abraham Lincoln


We close the third act of our tale with the most unfamiliar of turns. The unknown to many but familiar to his kin, comes forth in a blaze of fury with rod and whip in hand, and drives the horses beyond the horizon. We approach the climax of our story, suddenly, much faster than we anticipated, stunned at how this progressed. Seriously, this has gotten out of hand, fast. We’re now facing a reality where the Suns… the SUNS, led by Steve Nash, could sweep the San Antonio Spurs, led by Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili. It’s a bizarre landscape, and I find myself seeking shelter. I had abandoned all hope for a Suns victory in this game long ago, as soon as the buzzer sounded to end Game 2. No way a Spurs team lets one go at home down 2-0. And then they won.

Behind Dragic.

Dragic was taken with a draft pick acquired from the San Antonio Spurs and looked absolutely lost his rookie season. He seemed like  another lost draft pick by the Suns to many (and by many, I mean me, who constantly mocked the pick). And Dragic was insane tonight. He started heating up, and then this happened:

BOOM.

That kicked off a surge of confidence where Dragic essentially took over the game. He relentlessly took whoever was guarding him to the rack, and thanks to a bizarre strategy by Gregg Popovich to religiously switch, he found hmself guarded by players who had no business trying to check him on the outside. Like, oh, say, DeJuan Blair. There was a play late where the Suns set the offense in motion, made three perimeter rotations and when Dragic was chased off the three, he didn’t settle for the mid-range J. He lunged straight for the rim and banked it in off-glass. He was fouled on the play but no call was made. Instead of complaining to the refs, he simply sprinted up court.

Parker needs to be addressed here.

I pointed out last game that Dragic had the ability to rattle Parker. And it continued in this game. Parker’s obviously is hurt, dragging and trying to play through plantar fasciitis. But he’s still capable of slicing up the Suns if there’s not a perimeter defender that can check him. Dragic can. And did. Dragic blocked the Parker baseline floater that I’ve seen Parker nail on the Suns about a million times. And for him to absolutely take over on the other end, with no one able to check him, that gave the Suns a counter they’ve never had.

For years it’s been “if the Suns get Nash to have a good game, and STAT takes over, and they hit their threes, and they don’t get killed on the glass and if puppies turn into rainbows and if you clap your hands, they can win.” While with the Spurs, it was “they’ll get consistent performance from the Big 3 throughout the series and a few games where an unlikely player steps up. But their defense will consistently keep them in games.” And thus, we have the formula fully reversed and used against itself.

I cannot say enough about how much fool’s gold Matt Bonner is. At PBT, I introduced the Matt Bonner Blown Assignment Drinking Game. It’s a quick way to the hospital. What’s worse, you can actually see the Spurs cheating on their own assignments, going to try and cover for Bonner. “I’d better be ready in case Matt isn’t where he needs to be.” And yet, he played 20 minutes! At what point do you not recognize how big a liability he is on both sides of the floor, even if he is knocking down the three, and go with a more versatile player for minutes? Huge fail for Popovich.

We now face an uncertain end to our story, because if any team, if ANY team, can come back from 0-3, it’s the Spurs, and if any team can surrender a 3-0 lead to the Spurs, it’s the Suns. But the Suns have now come back twice from double digit deficits to win by double digits. We see history being unraveled before us and the light of the Suns piercing the shrouded wasteland. This will either become the final and most crushing defeat of the Suns by the Spurs, or the final, unequivocal redemption for Nash’s Suns, regardless of their Western Conference Finals result. To go from lottery to besting the Spurs? That’s better than their wildest dreams. And as the action rose, they found themselves believing in that ideal.

The future is not set. It is what we make for ourselves.

Tim Duncan’s Decaying Pick-and-Roll Defense

May 7, 2010 in by with 2 Comments

Just stellar, stellar stuff here from Kevin Arnovitz and David Thorpe of ESPN. They break down Timmy’s defensive breakdowns both visually and verbally better in three minutes than most people could do in a whole book.

Thorpe talks about how the Spurs are attempting to stop the Nash/Amar’e pick-and-roll by having Timmy smother the ball handler while at the same time taking away the lob/pass. This, for those of you who have never tried it, is an incredibly difficult thing to do. You’re asking one NBA player to guard two NBA players. Because of Duncan’s still-underrated greatness — particularly on the defensive end — this is something that the Spurs have previously always relied on. And it’s something that, much as his nickname Groundhog Day would suggest, was always able to do. Like clock work. How? None of us mere mortals have any idea. That’s between him, Pop and the basketball gods. But being the best power-forward of all time and all, Timmy was indeed able to pull it off consistently throughout his career.

Now? In 2010?

Well, he’s old. And he doesn’t react quickly enough to do it anymore — at least not when the two offensive players running the screen/roll are Steve Nash (one of the quickest, most elusive, most decisive ball-handlers in NBA history) and Amar’e (one of the most athletic, high-flying big men in NBA history).

And David Thorpe says that it’s time for the Spurs to recognize this and adjust their defensive strategy:

They’ve asked [Duncan] to do something that very few people in history could really accomplish, and he’s no longer able to do that. San Antonio now has to make a change … The old Tim Duncan would have been able to smother Nash’s shot — or make him shoot it so awkwardly that he wasn’t going to make it. Now, in that exact moment when he has to make a decision, he is left grounded and can’t react. And that’s why San Antonio now will have to do what the rest of the free world has to do, which is they’re going to have to ask him to take one guy away or the other.

It’s sad to see greatness decay.

But it is inevitable, Mr. Anderson.

NBA Playoffs Spurs Suns: Act Two, In Which We Encounter The Inciting Moment

May 6, 2010 in by with 3 Comments

The exposition ends with the inciting moment, which is the incident without which there would be no story.

“It is a magnificent feeling to recognize the unity of complex phenomena which appear to be things quite apart from the direct visible truth.”-Albert Einstein

We witness, in act two of our intense narrative, the inciting action, where the tone is set for our fair tale, the players fully established, and turns safely guarded in mystery. Our story is not the continued clash of pace versus defense, stodge versus vigor, nor some sort of coming-of-age for Amar’e. Instead it’s about unity, the centralization of effort from man to man, because for the first time, since the game which ended under the cloud of THE HIPCHECK, the Suns have pushed the Spurs against the wall and landed a haymaker. They’re not dangling off a cliff, but that breeze at their back ain’t the gentle sea.

Thing was, the game was mince meat. Easy to swallow Spurs domination. And then Jared Dudley took cover completely for a quarter and things were never the same. Dudley crashed the glass and brought with him the same attitude back to the Suns they had in Game 1: “We will not be bullied, we will not be frustrated, we will not be out-worked. If you defeat us, it is because you hit contested shots and things went your way again. But we’re not losing by beating ourselves. Not this time.” And the Suns responded.

I had several conversations with Graydon throughout this game, and after the third I called and told him “The Spurs are making super athletic plays and the Suns are lying in the weeds, tracking them by making the extra pass and running efficient offense. Where the hell are we?!”

The final five minutes though, were absolutely insane. There was no sense to it. None. Channing Frye picks up his fifth foul, and the Spurs fail to capitalize on it. The Suns run the pick and roll, the Spurs take six tries to figure out a solvent for it. The Spurs turned to George Hill’s perimeter game… and it worked. But The Suns had every answer, including two huge Amar’e Stoudemire rebounds. That’s right. Amar’e Stoudemire collected huge rebounds down the stretch. Please collect your bottled water on the way to the bomb shelter.

The role reversal in this game is what has Spurs fans stunned today. It was the Suns’ blue collar bench coming in to outwork the Spurs. It was Goran Dragic doing a remarkably great job on Tony Parker for the first six minutes of the fourth. It was the Suns fighting back from a deficit. It was the Suns overcoming the Spurs’ athletic dunks by Richard Jefferson with well-timed passes and cohesion. In essence, the moon flipped to the ground, did a handstand, smoked a bowl, and then ran away with the spoon.

Up is down, hell is heaven, and the Suns have their first 2-0 lead over Duncan’s Spurs.

There is not a person, not a single one, that thinks this is over. But what has happened is relevant. Because if the Suns are to defeat the Spurs, it has to start with something. It has to start with confidence, and they have that. They took a shot from San Antonio, a Tim-Duncan-rocking, Tony-Parker-midranging, George-Hill-treying shot and beat them on the glass and from the arc.

The point where it was over? Alvin Gentry sent Amar’e Stoudemire and Jason Richardson to join Steve Nash on the bench early in the fourth quarter. Popovich stuck with Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and re-inserted Tim Duncan. From the 9:30 mark of the 4th quarter until 5:47, the Suns faced the Big 3 with not a single one of theirs. The result?

+1.

The Suns bench unit outplayed the Big 3 plus Jefferson and George Hill. Even if it’s just a point, it means the Big 3 came back in rested and ready to work the pick and roll. Which they did, to the tune of one of Amar’e fiercest dunks and a final +5 run to put the foot to the throat. The same foot that’s been missing for so, so long against the Spurs.

Another interesting sideplot to that stint without Nash was this: via Synergy Tony Parker, two turnovers, 0 field goals with Goran Dragic defending.

Goran Dragic was the counter to Tony Parker that Nash wasn’t. Let that one rattle around in your brain. Dragic has the youth to maintain speed ahead of Parker, and is bigger than Nash to keep a physical edge on LeBaguette. It may have only been for a game, but Dragic’s work on Parker deserves considerable notice.

Meanwhile, everything Matt Bonner is not, Channing Frye is. Confident, able to knock down shots with a defender closing, a good inside defender, capable, actually belonging on a professional basketball floor. If the hope is that Bonner will counter Frye, the early results indicate a knockout for the Suns.

All this, and Lopez still didn’t play.

There is plenty to be concerned about. Ginobili is still creating havoc, and while the Suns have done a good job of focusing on not allowing layups at the rim like the Mavericks rolled the red carpet out for, the weakside clean-up by Duncan is pretty devastating. There’s still a lot of work to be done, and all of that is before the fact that George Hill is getting his feet under him and knocking down threes, both of which can be devastating if they become consistent. But also recognize that after all the talk of D’Antoni’s super-tight rotations and their failure to win in the playoffs, Popovich only had seven players play double digit minutes last night, and one of those was Matt Bonner. So really, he only had 6.25 NBA players play double digit minutes last night.

So now our scene changes and we begin the rising action, wherein the conflict is introduced. Whether that conflict will be the vicious response of a wounded Spurs team in front of a home crowd or the crescendo of Phoenix’s finest hour on the road, we honestly don’t know. The question as to the result of this series has been re-opened. Hope, glorious hope is on the horizon. But beyond it lies the same dark cloud of history. As I told Graydon, “All this means is the Spurs are bent on finding a new way to kill their souls.”

Fin. Act II.

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