1. Small ball sucks. You win with interior defense. Teams like the Warriors and Suns always flame out in the end. Check out the Laker-Suns game last night. Right after a furiouse Suns rally, a Laker guard made an easy layup. Gasol made a dunk...rally over. A parade of players cutting to the basket for gimmie layups and poster dunks saps a teams will to win and really pumps up the opposition and they don't have to expend to much energy simply throwing down at point blank. Giving up rebounds after a missed free throw is a unforgivable (see the Celtic game with no Garnet to boot). A horrible approach by Pop who always has had a collection of good defensive minded big me. This almost smacks of salary cutting as quality big men usually demand a good stack of lettuce. Not even attempting to draft a decent player and the botched Scola situation makes me wonder about the Spurs true motivation.

2. The Spurs aren't defending the middle any more. A fundamental principal of winning defense. Even if you have Bill Russell protecting the basket, you do not give up the middle under any circumstance. Play a box and sag defense as most NBA teams do to compensate for the lack of quality perimeter defenders if you have to. Force the offensive player to the baseline. Why Pop suddenly believes that letting guys coast right down the pipe to the rim is OK, I can not figure out.

3. Sweating to the oldies. Pop's complete obsession with creaky old players is baffeling. A mix of veterans and some youth is what the recipe for extended success calls for. Young guys bring excitement, hunger, energy, athletisicm and make the old guys feel even younger. Remember the disaster of 2000. Remember the Old Man River days when Porter tried to guard Kobe. I don't care to revisit those dim days.

4. Pops good old boy attitude. Slapping and high fiving opposing coaches and players after your team just laid an egg is a sign of a jackass. A proffesional handshake is OK, but what he has been doing is pure jackassery. What kind of tone is he setting? Joking around during the game? Sitting on the bench not calling time outs when they are obviously needed? Uh? WTF? At the top of John Wooden's pryamid of success are POISE and Confidence. Pop has gone over the line to the point of just being arrogant.

5. This Rudy T shit about flipping the switch when the playoffs come around is absolute garbage. Don't buy into this bullshit, I am telling you now. It is OK to manage players minutes, but to accept Timmeh's feather finger rolls at the rim which get swatted back on a nightly basis, to allow the team to get hammered on the glass night after night, allowing guys to penetrate straight to the hoop, to allow long long stretches where the Spurs can't make a defensive stop to save thier lives, to throw odd ball combinations of players on the floor with very little reason, to sit smuggly on the bench..all this should be and is worriesome. To quote the big L, "Winning is not a sometime thing: it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do the right thing once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing."

Pop is slipping and some of the moves by the Spurs franchise in recent years require some pondering.

Manu Ginobili

44 points
13-18 FG
7-9 3PT FG
11-12 FT

I don't feel like looking this up right now, but has there ever been a more efficient swingman than Manu?

Two consecutive WIDE OPEN three pointers in the third to bring the Wolves back due to Spurs helping out on the double team in the post and then getting confused on the rotations.

D still needs some work.

But, a win is a win. Let's take it.

Tim looks more aggressive in the defensive post I must say. The last two games, he has made some impact blocks. Fab too. He shut down Naz the last game when hands of stone missed 5 shots in a row.

The defensive plays by the Sickness stripping the ball and the last second total straightjacket on the penetrating Wolf may have been even more impressive than his offensive output. The drawing the flagrant on Telfair was the icing on the cake. The 6th man of the year trophy should have Ginobes name being etched on it right now.

This just in..Mike Finley will be appearing before a congressional committee to explain his recent shooting success. My theory involves genetic alteration, a time machine and Haitian voodoo. His pull up jumpers off the dribble were nice.

Was anybody present at the game? I heard the maintenance crew had to replace the net on the hoop at the far end of the court because Manu had stripped the cords out of it. All of his three pointers were dead nothing but net.