I’m not going to say I am 100% enamored with their play, but the way they can just demoralize, or take the heart out of another team is quite admirable, akin to the Bulls of the 90s. Regardless of what the Hornets/Suns saying it was their year, every pundit, every blogger, whatever…..the Spurs simply got up and whacked the shit out of the Suns, took every shot the Hornets had for 7 games, and like they have for years ended up on top.

Good luck against the Lakers, God knows Stern will probably have Spurs BFF Joey Crawford at every game ;).

Geezus that was tough but damnit the Spurs did good and held them off. This series fucked with my heart condition. thank god its over. kudos to the hornets but also good riddence. OK. fuck the lakers.

Go Spurs Go :)

Got back from Plucker's in Round Rock and a friend's house after the game....Pluckers was going nuts, and the whole place rocked.  It was fun :)    My wife decided to watch the game with me (I luv her to deeth I do) and made a pretty good comment : "The Hornets seem to be directly tied to their crowd.  If the crowd is into it, they can't miss a shot.  When the crowd is not there, they can't hit anything to save their hides..."  She also commented that it was getting "pretty tiring" watching Paul constantly try to lob the ball to the basket for Chandler.  And for what it seemed to me, it's all they could seem to do..and when the Spurs were like "oh, that's what you're going to do..."  and stopped it, the Hornets did not know what to do next.  The Hornets' downfall to me seems that they spent all their time trying to get the crowd involved with flashy lobs to the basket and no-look passes for 3, etc.... and stopped playing good basketball.   The Spurs just kept plugging, and we get a near-blowout win :)

Can’t wait to shut those Laker fans up. At least people hate the Lakers more than us!!

Hello Spurs fans, Laker fan here (if the name wasn’t a giveaway). I just spent the last two weeks sparring (verbally of course) with the fine people at myutahjazz blog. Lovely people. As an avid Laker fan I enjoy getting the other perspective and having a little fun at the same time, I hope you are up to the challenge. Translation, I hope you all have a sense of humor. It is all in good fun. I don’t know where this blog sits in the Spurs blog rankings (as if there is such a thing), but I think this looks like a good place to drop anchor.

Anyway as I said congratulations on winning the JV contest, I hope you are ready for Varsity. See you again as the series progresses.

Loved the Joey Crawford BFF comment, staring to sound like Jazz blog already….

meh, that post sucked :( Basically “good game, wife got tired of watching Paul lob up passes for Chandler, and she made the observation that the Hornets spent way too much time trying to get the crowd involved than actually playing against the Spurs….and it showed.”

Hi pslakerfan :) Eh, there’s no secret that the Spurs and Crawford hate each other to pieces. But that’s another story for another time :) Good to see you here, look forward to seeing what this next series has to offer. Honestly I think the NBA IS getting exactly what it wants right now….everyone knows the best scenario ratings wise for them is Boston/LA, not Pistons/Spurs, and that everyone wants LA to take out SA, and Boston to take out Detroit….

so here goes! :)

“Can’t wait to shut those Laker fans up. At least people hate the Lakers more than us!!”

Have you read this

http://dimemag.com/2008/05/16/dime-mag-most-hated-nba-players/#comments

I can’t argue with you there. I am sure the league would love to have LA and Boston in the finals, but I am not sure they are rigging it. However if we see Joey Crawford 7 times I guess we will know. LOL.

LOL, right? I feel that whoever wins the series will be the one who wins their first game on the other’s home court. I know the saying “the series doesn’t start until the home team loses” but if SA takes 1 of the first 2 in LA, I feel they will win in 5-6. If LA holds serve and takes 1 in SA, probably same for them -I say probably because I AM a big Spurs fan, and the Spurs were just down 0-2 and won in 7-. And what do you mean by “this is starting to sound like a Jazz blog already?” Were they griping non-stop about refs? Only game we honestly did that was Game 5, aka the Crawford game.. :(

My scariest feeling is if this goes 7, or if we have like what we did in the Hornets/Spurs series, and Mr. Crawford DOES show up for a pivotal game (like a Game 3, or Game 5.).....I just don’t want “Oh well the refs…refs did….” etc. etc. I HATE ref conspiracy crap, and that will only fuel the fire :/ Mr. Crawford better take the rest of the playoffs off, or go ref the Pistons/Celtics series :) Looks like it’s going to be a pleasure talking with you during this series, look forward to more banter along the way. Take care for now!

As with the Jazz series I will try to break the teams down and see where the match-ups leave us.

Personally I see match-ups being pretty even except for one area. (No it’s not Kobe) And by match-ups I do not necessarily mean who is guarding who.

1. Point guard: TP vs Fish. Advantage TP, but Fish is playing his best B-ball right now.
2. Pau vs. TD: Although I know TD is a better player (All Star, HOF, etc.) Straight up against each other I see this being statistically very close. Pau has had success in the past and his height and length will slow TD’s scoring output. However advantage definitely goes to TD.
3. Kobe vs. whoever. Bowen can guard him at times, but obviously this one goes to Kobe.
4. Lukomir Waltmanovich vs. whoever: (Yeah that’s what we call Luke and Vlad. Both can suck, both can be good, both are interchangable) Probably a wash vs. Oberto, or whoever.
5. Manu vs. Pau (I know they will not guard each other, but follow along): This is where I start to piss people off, but I think the series hinges on this one. As far as I am concerned the above match-ups are pretty much a wash, with a slight advantage to Lakers (simply because of huge Kobe-gap) I think if Manu statistically dominates Odom, you will win and if Odom is equal or ahead of Manu the Lakers will win. By the way if you haven’t seen Odom lately he has been an absolute beast since the addition of Pau. He is almost as un-guardable as Kobe. (Seriously, stop laughing)

The biggest problem with Odom has been his outside shot, he has always tried to take too many threes, with little success. This post season he is 2 for 5 from three. That is in 10 games. Point is he is taking it hard to the hole every time he touches it and no one has been able to come close to stopping it. But we will see soon.

Anyway that is my long winded analysis.

David Stern said on Rome is burning that he cannot have a referee that is not able to referee every game. Meaning that as long as Joey Crawford is a referee he will be doing Spurs games. I think that is a good policy, however I also think it means he should fire Joey Crawford. There is obviously some issue there and it messes with the integrity of the game. Also, I don’t want to give you guys any reason to whine like the Jazz fans. Geez they are unbelievable….

“Was it arrogance? No, it was knowing the danger and futility of doubt.”

love it.

Obviously we are all big fans and homers otherwise we would be doing something more productive on a Tuesday morning, but I wanted to pick a few nits. (I made that one up, I am kind of proud of it) :)

First of all thanks VWolf, while I may be a bit of a troll, I try to not be moronic…..

I loved the idea of packing for LA. While it may seem arrogant, in my opinion it shows the kind of winning attitude that you need to be a championship caliber team.

Donvj, this one is for you. GINOBILI SUCKS!!!!!! Oh wait, was I supposed to do that later?

VWolf, while I agree that Derek is a bit of a flopper (see Ginobili, Manu), he gets a lot of charging calls because he is very good at getting in position to take the charge. Most of his calls come with a lot of contact and while embellished are also usually charges. Secondly I doubt that one charge vs. block call per game will make much difference. (He averaged about 1 per game).

I also think you and Nixiack will be surprised at the impact that Odom has on the series, but time will tell.

As for the benches I agree that might very well be the determining factor. The Laker bench can be the best in the league (by far) on some nights and awful on others. Generally the difference is Home vs. Away. Another X factor will be Sasha Vujacic. He tends to get under the skin of a lot of people and he is a deadly shooter when he has a chance to set…...

I forgot about return of Trevor Ariza. He has been out since January, but when healthy was playing very, very well. Think more athletic version of Bruce Bowen, not quite as good on D or at the 3 point shot, but similar roles. Don’t know how he will play after long layoff, but any excuse to get Lukomir Waltmanovich off the court is a good one…..

Lest you think that we Laker fans don’t get our share of Trolling, here is a sample from our blog….

You guys are so full of yourselves! Having spent the last 2 weeks on nola.com, I can tell this is going to be hellishly fun. Let your hen master Philip make fun of the city, let Kobe (rapist…errr…allegedly) score 50. At the end of the day, the better TEAM will win (key word TEAM) and I say Spurs in 6! GO SPURS GO!!

I guess he forgot to mention Derek Fisher’s phony cancer story…..

And yes I know this is not representative of all Spurs fans, I am just saying it happens to all of us…..

I am not sure I follow you donvj. Are you saying that I said “Ginobili sucks” or did someone else say that? Because I was mocking you and your “Ginobili sucks” comment, not making one of my own. Maybe you didn’t get that or maybe you did and I just don’t understand what you are referencing.

As for the lack of posting after a loss I think just assuming every opposing team fan is the same is a little short sided of you. I try to not make asinine statements to anyone (blog or real life) as it makes it all the more unbearable when you are wrong. If I came here and said “Ginobili Sucks” for a few days then I would look pretty stupid coming back after he torches us.

Having said that I don’t expect too many losses so the point may be moot…..

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3405018

Apparently there were technical difficulties on the Spurs’ plane in N.O., so they all slept on the plane last night and could not leave until 7 AM CST. Fun.

Got it. I knew it was a misunderstanding on my part. Sorry about the plane problem. To be honest if we beat you I want it to be at full strength. (Even though we are missing our starting center).

Hi again :) I was wondering about something that I had read a while back..took me a bit to find it, but as a Laker fan I was curious to your point of view on it. Basically it asks a very good question with some great facts backing it up—Do the Lakers have the WORST medical staff in the NBA?

http://theassociation.blogs.com/the_association/2008/03/the-lakers-have.html

P.S. Hi LakerGirl, welcome to our blog. :)

I love how each teams blog comes up with a nickname for the other team and their bloggers. For example. Whornets, Jizz, Fakers, Thuggets, etc…. I haven’t heard a good one for the Spurs yet, hmmmmmm. Gotta work on that….

Old-timers :p

... you might also want to try reading 48 Minutes of Hell; another intelligent blog concerning all things Spurs. Unless you have already been reading 48 min, check it out at 48minutesofhell.blogspot.com. PtR and 48 Min. are the top two blogs in the Spurs blogosphere.

Do you at least recognize that you are the underdog in this series? It’s not an insult; even David bested Goliath.

It’s hard to keep up.

Lemme share two gems, since I don’t see them anywhere else in PTR.

From Truehoop:

Talk about a close series. Together with TrueHoop reader William, I think I have figured out correctly that the total score for the series was Spurs 645, Hornets 644. UPDATE: My calculator is apparently no good, and the truth is this series was much closer than that. The final tally for the series was all even: 645-645.

Hotdamn, that was a close series.

Also, don’t miss Ludden’s new article. He was the best writer the Spurs had. (You’re right there, Michael.)

It seems in Laker fans’ eyes (and ESPN, since about 80% of them blatantly favor the Lakers in almost anything) anyone and everyone is an underdog to the “champion” Lakers. However, the Spurs are the team most (about 100%) of anyone said that if the Lakers don’t win the title, “the Spurs will be the reason why.” The Spurs also match up with the Lakers far far better than the Hornets, and contrary to belief I really do think the Lakers haven’t played the type of D that the Spurs are capable of. (Note : I didn’t say “will do”, sometimes they lapse hard :/ ) The Jazz lead the league in fouls called against them, and they seem to basically just foul foul foul….and I’m not going to start on Enver (they don’t deserve the D in thier name…)

Just like the Hornets series, if the tempo is pushed and the score is in the 100’s, I don’t like the Spurs’ chances…but if the score/tempo is where the game will finish in the 80’s/90’s, I really like the chances. The Lakers have Kobe, who is one of the best finishers in the game, but the Spurs have Duncan, Parker, and most of all Ginobili :) The problem with Kobe on your team is it’s just like that OT in Utah…when the game is close, they just give it to him and stand around watching him…if he can’t do it, they lose. If Duncan isn’t getting it going, the Spurs will go to Ginobili, or even Parker.

Not trying to do the Underdog thing….don’t know why Laker fans decide that there has to be the underdog. I always thought that everyone in the League (NFL, NBA, NHL, etc) was the underdog until the reigning champ is out. So, in that thinking, it’s the Spurs’ to lose until someone actually beats them. If that’s the Lakers, so be it.

I’m actually very happy we faced the Hornets and the Suns, 1 team-Suns-supposedly built to beat us, and the 2nd team-Hornets-that provided THE worst matchup problem possible….it gave the Spurs all they need to be tested for the Lakers series, and they will be ready. :)

By that logic (defending champs). I don’t really care all that much, was just trying to gauge the thoughts of Spurs fans. And so it is, if the Spurs beat the Lakers, it was to be expected. If the Lakers beat the Spurs, I will be chanting “Upset!”.

Actually pslakerfan, D’antoni, Kerr, Nash and Shaq all came out ( as well as the “pundits” on the sports things) stating that they were being built to beat the Spurs. They knew that they could not beat the Spurs or win the title with thier current makeup, and with Marion constantly complaining, etc…that’s why they went out and got Shaq…so that he could match up with Duncan, since Duncan constantly avged. like 30-35 pts against them in the playoffs.

Here’s the Suns/Spurs article stating it, including posting Duncan’s stats and stating that-Duncan: He had a monster 36-point, 17-rebound performance against Phoenix in December - that might have been the impetus for the Shaq trade, even though the Suns won that game. Duncan’s 16-point, 17-rebound game in the Spurs’ Jan. 31 win might have sealed the deal—it gave him an average of 26 points per game on 54 percent shooting.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2008/columns/story?page=ScoutingSunsSpurs

I won’t deny that this is the best team the Spurs will face now….because unlike the Hornets Kobe won’t wilt under the pressure of a late game situation, he thrives in it…they-Hornets-proved they could not do that in Game 6 and Game 7 of the Semifinals.

If the Spurs beat the Lakers, they were “defending thier title” yes…but as you can see with like 95% of the US NOT wanting the Spurs to beat the Hornets(according to various polls, etc), and about 6/10 pundits picking the Lakers to win, it’s not going to be an upset by any means should they do it.