The San Antonio Spurs are trying to hand the New Orleans Hornets their second consecutive loss and extend a seven-game winning streak against the Hornets in New Orleans tonight. New Orleans matched last season's start for the best in franchise history with four straight wins before falling 93-90 to the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday. The Spurs, meanwhile, bounced back from their first loss with an 88-78 win over the Miami Heat on Wednesday.
Peter Finney, a writer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune paid great tribute to the Spurs today. What a good sport.
Finney wrote, "Let's all stand and applaud. How about a Big Easy welcome to the Invisible Dynasty that goes by the name of the San Antonio Spurs? The Spurs win by making plays that don't show up on "SportsCenter." They win with defense, by getting the ball to the open man, by wearing you down with basic fundamentals. Whatever happens tonight, win or lose, the Hornets will learn from the experience."
What a great article from the oposition's press? WOW! Do you think maybe, just maybe, Katrina changed the paradigm on how things are viewed in the Crescent City?
Imagine, remembering that sports are for fun. What a display of sportsmanship that is far to lacking these days. Thanks Peter.
The Hornets have one of the Western Conference's most potent backcourts. Third-year point guard Chris Paul dropped 21 assists on the Los Angeles Lakers in New Orleans' Tuesday night victory. Shooting guard Morris Peterson, signed as a free agent this summer, is finding his comfort zone. Backups Bobby Jackson and Rasual Butler are solid and consistent.
The Spurs defense put the clamps down once again on the Nuggets in the second half and took the series victory with a 93-78 win Wednesday night. Denver’s point total was the lowest of any of the five games of the series with the Spurs only giving up 30 in the final two periods (11 points in the 3rd and 19 in the 4th). The Spurs held the Nuggets to 38% shooting in the contest.
The Buzz
Just like in 2005 when the Nuggets jumped out to a 1-0 series lead over the Spurs, the Spurs were able to fight back and win four straight and take the series.
The Recap
The San Antonio Spurs don't have to go back to Denver. They're headed to the Western Conference semifinals. With Michael Finley leading the way from behind the 3-point line, the Spurs beat the Denver Nuggets 93-78 on Wednesday night to win their first-round series in five games. After losing the opening game at home, the Spurs won four straight, and they will have three days' rest before opening the second round at Phoenix on Sunday. The Suns beat the Los Angeles Lakers 119-110 in Game 5 on Wednesday night.
Finley set a San Antonio playoff record with eight 3-pointers and finished with 26 points. "He was fantastic. He came out and served it up well. And he just kept shooting,'' said Robert Horry, who hit a big three late in the Spurs' Game 4 victory. "That's the one thing about it ... once you get hot, keep shooting until you miss, and he didn't miss.''
It was also a career-best in threes for Finley, who went 8-of-9 from 3-point range. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich called Finley's performance "ridiculous.'' "To be realistic, my career is coming to an end in a couple of years or so. So I'm enjoying the moment,'' said the 34-year-old Finley, who signed with the Spurs in September 2005 and is in his 12th NBA season. "I'm blessed to be playing with some tremendous basketball players, guys like Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan. Those guys attract a lot of attention and I'm just out there doing my job and knocking down shots off of things they create for me.''
The Spurs finished 10-for-21 from beyond the arc led by Finley, who came into Game 5 shooting nearly 41 percent from 3-point range during the playoffs, up from 36 percent during the regular season. "The last two threes, I think he didn't even looked at the rim. He caught it and let it fly with Carmelo Anthony on top of him,'' Ginobili said. "It was unbelievable. He was really feeling it.''
Finley's fourth three with 1:30 left in the third put San Antonio up 61-55, and they went into the final 12 minutes up 63-59. The Spurs opened the fourth quarter with a 7-0 run sparked by Finley's fifth three of the game. Finley hit his sixth 3-pointer with just over nine minutes to go and his seventh came halfway through the fourth quarter as the Spurs took an 82-71 lead. His last 3-ball came with about 2 1/2 minutes left to make it 89-76.
Manu Ginobili wasn't about to let the Orlando Magic put together another memorable victory against the Spurs. There would be no improbable plays by Dwight Howard on this Friday night. Ginobili made six 3-pointers and finished with 31 points to help San Antonio beat Orlando 98-74. Ginobili had 16 points and five 3s in the third quarter for the Spurs, who extended their season-high winning streak to seven. Tim Duncan added 19 points and 10 rebounds and Michael Finley scored 12 points. Hedo Turkoglu led the Magic with 22 points and Jameer Nelson had 18.
At their last meeting in February, the Spurs were stunned by Howard, who caught an inbounds alley-oop pass from Turkoglu and jammed it with less than a second to play to give the Magic a 106-104 victory. "We're happy to get a win against these guys, after a really tough loss a couple of weeks ago,'' Ginobili said. " (Coach Gregg Popovich) said we couldn't allow them to do it again. We remembered that in Orlando we were winning by 16 or 18, something like that, and they came back. Because they have talent.''
Ginobili matched one franchise record with five 3-pointers in the third quarter and another with six total in the second half. He missed only two of the 10 shots he took in the half and scored his 25 points in a span of just 10 minutes, 45 seconds. Ginobili's performance was nearly as thrilling as the 40-point effort he produced in Atlanta last week. "Manu obviously held a hell of a run," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.
Ginobili said. "...we had to play tougher 'D' and everybody had to go to the boards and get loose balls. And then offensively, something was going to come up." That something was Ginobili. After missing 6 of 9 shots in the first half, he buried three 3-pointers in less than two minutes after the timeout.
Ginobili added another late in the quarter after Orlando again cut the Spurs' lead to six. When Darko Milicic made a pair of free throws to bring the Magic within 62-57, Ginobili pumped in one more 3-pointer at the buzzer after taking a dribble handoff above the key from Robert Horry.
"Those kind of shots are sometimes easier because you have no pressure," Ginobili said. "You know you have to shoot it and nobody's going to say anything. Nobody's going to get upset at you with one second to go."
Ginobili wasn't done. He drove for a layup and a foul early in the fourth quarter, made another 3-pointer then completed another three-point play after Duncan dove to the floor to force a steal. The flurry broke open the game.
"When you face a player like Ginobili you have to decide if you want him driving to the basket or pulling up and shooting behind screens," Magic coach Brian Hill said. "Tonight we wanted Ginobili shooting behind screens."
Unlike in Atlanta, where he often burned the Hawks with his penetration, Ginobili leaned more heavily on his 3-point shot. "I was feeling so comfortable with the shot and so confident," Ginobili said, "that probably I took a couple I shouldn't have."
No one was complaining.
Rockets
The Houston Rockets' super-sized bear mascot, as mascots typically do, trotted out to midcourt during Friday's fourth quarter, sounded his siren and prepared to start firing T-shirts into the Toyota Center crowd. Until, that is, he noticed the players running around him. With Houston coach Jeff Van Gundy staring blankly from the sideline and the Spurs' Gregg Popovich shaking his head in disbelief, the referees called a timeout and shooed off the embarrassed mascot. But give Clutch some credit: For the first time all evening, the Rockets had upstaged Tim Duncan.
Duncan made sure the Spurs had something to smile about after the teams' final regular-season meeting. He knew right away Saturday night was going to be a good night, alright for fightin' you might say. Duncan scored 26 points and the San Antonio Spurs beat the Houston Rockets 97-74 on Saturday night for their season-high eighth straight victory.
Duncan buried a 20-footer on the team's opening possession. He hit his first five shots and scored 15 points in the first quarter. Duncan had eight in a 12-0 run that opened an 18-5 lead with 6:18 to go in the first quarter. He showed off his repertoire: a 14-foot bank shot, a running hook, a driving layup and a turnaround jumper.
"It feels good to hit your first few shots,'' Duncan said. "It makes the rest of the game go easy. My shot felt good the entire night.'' Duncan hit at least four of his trademark bank shots, soft floaters that look off at first before they glance off the glass and fall in. "It's what's going in now,'' he said. "I hope it keeps going in for a while.''
So do the Spurs.
"When he starts like that, it gives him confidence and gives us confidence, too,'' guard Manu Ginobili said. "When he starts making those shots, it opens up the whole game for us. "We played great, especially defensively. It was a great overall game by everybody.''
With the 7-foot-6 Yao out, Duncan worked over the rest of Houston's big men. Dikembe Mutombo had to go to the bench with two quick fouls. Juwan Howard also picked up two in the first quarter, and backup forward Chuck Hayes was hit with three in his first 41/2 minutes on the floor.
"Again, it shows you the value of having a guy you can throw the ball inside to," Van Gundy said. "Collapses the defense, gets you to the free-throw line. He by himself had us in foul trouble in the first half."
"He's definitely been looking to take his shot," Gregg Popovich said. "If he's open, he's going ahead and shooting in rhythm."
The Spurs got 14 points from Michael Finley and 13 points and eight rebounds from Francisco Elson as they won in Houston for the fourth straight time. San Antonio played without All-Star guard Tony Parker, who sat with a strained left hip.
Go ahead, overlook the San Antonio Spurs, we dareya. In fact, we doubledog dareya! Uhh huh, just checking the standings here. Yep, still the third best record in the NBA. Underestimate us, we might just bite you in the ####.
Beating the New Jersey Nets has never been a problem for the San Antonio Spurs. With Jason Kidd and two other starters out of the lineup, this time it wasn't even much o####ame. Tim Duncan scored seven of his 21 points in a 20-0 San Antonio spurt to start the second quarter and the Spurs ran away from the injury-ravaged Nets 107-82 on Tuesday night February 13.
The San Antonio Spurs had every excuse to put forth a lackluster performance Wednesday night, February 14 - and didn't need to use any of them. Tim Duncan scored 23 points and Francisco Elson added 12 points and a career-high 18 rebounds as the road-weary Spurs snapped Detroit's seven-game winning streak with a 90-81 victory.
The San Antonio Spurs were happy to finally play at home again. The Spurs returned home for the first time in more than three weeks on Tuesday night February 20th in a 95-80 win over Denver.
Manu Ginobili is thriving as the San Antonio Spurs' sixth man. Ginobili scored a season-high 40 points, including 24 straight for San Antonio in the first half, and Tim Duncan had 30 to help the Spurs beat the Atlanta Hawks 103-96 on Wednesday night February 21st.
The San Antonio Spurs believe they have solved their problems with inconsistency. Tony Parker scored 21 points and Robert Horry added 17 to lead the Spurs to their fifth straight win, 102-71 over the Seattle SuperSonics on Saturday night.
The San Antonio Spurs are starting to show their postseason form. Tony Parker scored 27 points and Tim Duncan had 24 points and 16 rebounds as San Antonio extended its winning streak to a season-high six games with an easy 107-91 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Monday night.
Lagniappe (pronounced lanyap) is a creole/cajun word meaning a little something extra. This blog consists of juicy tidbits regarding the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs who played an excellent game on Sunday and like cajun/creole food it is designed to delight various parts of your NBA Western Conference palate. More wine! Bam!
Key Stat
The Spurs stayed in the game on Sunday against the Lakers with second chances from their 16 offensive rebounds. Robert Horry led the squad with six of those boards.
Milestone
Bruce Bowen hit a milestone with the game on Sunday afternoon - appearing in his 400th consecutive game. Bowen's streak is the longest in the NBA among active players.
Aching Lakers
The Lakers played without Kwame Brown and Luke Walton both sidelined with sprained ankles. Walton, injured Friday night, is expected to be out at least a week. Brown hasn't played since Dec. 31, but hopes to return during the upcoming road trip.
Faces in the Crowd
Rodeo Sadists
The sadists from San Antonio love this stuff. They live for it, actually. They eagerly await the annual nuisance of being kicked out of their own building for eight straight games by the rodeo. They take great pride in brickfests like Sunday where on the road they somehow managed to shoot less than 30 percent from the field for three quarters and still pull out a textbook uglyball victory. They suddenly don't even seem to mind the rising chorus of cracks leaguewide about their advancing age.
On this resurrection Sunday, they were volunteering their own Spurs jokes. "Everybody's young to me," Tim Duncan said when asked about teenage counterpart nineteen year old Laker Andrew Bynum." "I'm like 40 now." And this from coach Gregg Popovich, on the subject of calling up James White from D-League: "We've been such a juggernaut lately. Now we're really going to scare the #### out of people."
Screen Actors' Guild Awards
Tony Parker made a quick getaway after Sunday's game to join fiancée Eva Longoria at the nearby Screen Actors' Guild Awards.
Quote of the Day
"The guy is ridiculous. I thought he broke his nose. He probably did break his nose for all I know." --Spurs coach Popovich marveling at the toughess of Manu Ginobili who took a shot to the face on the last play of regulation but returned to play the final 2:14 of San Antonio's road victory over the Lakers, chipping in two key free throws in the extra period.
Ginobili blocked Kobe Bryant's potential game-winning jumper at the fourth-quarter buzzer. But Bryant flung out his arm in apparent attempt to draw a foul, leaving Ginobili with a welt under his right eye that left him on the bench for the first 2:56 of overtime and required postgame X-rays. "That's not his style," Popovich said of Bryant, dismissing suggestions that the hard contact to the face was intentional.
No Hollywood Rodeo
The rodeo is not coming to Hollywood. The Lakers, though, are about to embark on their own eight-game travel odyssey" The young Lakers? We'll have to wait and see how they handle it.
Elias Says
Kobe Bryant scored six of the Lakers' 14 points in overtime, and he has now accounted for a total of 50 of his team's 106 points in OT this season (spanning seven OT games). The Lakers have 38 games to play this season, but Bryant has already scored more OT points than any other player in any season since Jalen Rose tallied 51 points in overtime in 2000-2001.
Jackson OK with Effort
"We played a great game," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "We competed with a good team and we carried the day. We probably carried the lead for 45 minutes in that game. That's the way to play -- we just didn't finish it the right way."
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