I've been lurking, reading all your posts and what not. I haven't really had anything to say but felt like chiming in about the Spurs percieved lack of defense, or focus on......

The D, it will get better and better the closer to playoff time we come. Pop used to rant and rave about every game during the season up to and including the playoffs. Almost nothing was good enough. Perfection was the goal and he would dangle that carrot in front of the team driving them pretty hard from start to finish. Now that team is older and already won some championships, I think he understands that saving the juice (his and the teams) for the REAL show is what counts. I’d bet money (and I don’t gamble…… usually) that in the coming weeks, we will slowly but surely start to see more the angry, ranting, never satisfied Pop we're all familiar with and not coincidentally, the return of the Spur trademark, smothering, hard-nosed D. Along with that, the Spurs climb up the various defensive rankings by years end.

And oh yeah, when an oppossing player gets hot, we’ll probably see Bruce stand up off his warm spot on the bench, remove his warmups, proceed to cool off said player, and be called “dirty” on at least a few more occassions.