QUOTE OF THE NIGHT
"When he's Manu Ginobili, we're a significantly better basketball team, and he's been Manu for the last month."

-- Spurs coach Gregg Popovich after Ginobili led San Antonio to its eighth win in nine games (88-76 over the Heat)

The Spurs are planning to call up Erie's Cedric Jackson this week, sources say. He'll play behind George Hill, with Tony Parker out 6 weeks.

"My whole body hurts, he plays hard. He plays physical. I felt every second of it."

Bonner said of banging against Randolph

Tony Parker has a broken right hand. Serious bummer.

"He's not normal."
Kevin Durant, after Manu blocked his dunk at the rim.

#13: If you watched Lakers-Spurs last week, there was a play when Duncan tried to foil a two-on-one, drew the pass, whirled to block the layup, saw Gasol rising above him for a dunk, thought about challenging it for a split second, then instinctively ducked away, a move I recognized because I remember the exact season when the Bird era Celtics got old and McHale started doing that same duck-away move. It's the telltale sign. Same for playing 13 minutes in an All-Star Game. Crap. To my utmost chagrin, Duncan falls out of the top four for the first time.

"When you look at the whole picture you see that you beat San Antonio four times this year, and you’re in ninth place. There’s not a whole lot of consolation when you look at the whole picture."

"I thought Phoenix did a great job coming out aggressively and keeping the aggressiveness for 48 minutes. We had too many pathetic games from too many people. You can't do that against a team like Phoenix."

Spurs Top Team of the Decade

December 10, 2009
Forbes Magazine Selects San Antonio Spurs Top Team of the Decade
In Forbes Magazine’s "What Are They Worth" issue that recently hit newsstands, the San Antonio Spurs was selected as the Team of the Decade among the four major sports leagues (NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL). Teams were measured by equal parts on-field performance and financial valuation growth since 2000. Performance factors were overall winning percentage, playoff appearances and championships. On the financial side, teams were rated based on the percentage difference between its valuation growth and that of an average team in its league.
The Best (And Worst) Teams of the Decade: On and off the court, the San Antonio Spurs stand out as the most dominant franchise of the '00s.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/04/best-teams-of-the-decade-business-sports-decade-teams.html

http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/04/best-teams-of-the-decade-business-sports-decade-teams_slide_2.html

In addition Forbes recently came out with its list of most valuable basketball teams. San Antonio comes in at 10 on the list, ranking in the Top 10 for the past four years.

#10 San Antonio Spurs
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/32/basketball-values-09_San-Antonio-Spurs_323002.html

NBA Team Valuations
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/32/basketball-values-09_San-Antonio-Spurs_323002.html

The Business of Basketball: The NBA had a tough 2008-09 season. This one could be even worse. http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/09/nba-basketball-valuations-business-sports-basketball-values-09-intro.html

"I was hoping [O'Neal] would still be in the game, so we could use him in the pick-and-roll."
-- Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins

Regarding Shaq playing in the final minutes of the game.