Epicocity (no such word exists, FYI) of failness of the Facebook moment above aside, a 2-game win streak equals the Spurs' own mini-dry spell of three straight losses has been broken, and broken in dominating fashion indeed. We delivered an expected beatdown on a Wizards team in disarray, and followed that up by locking down Brandon "Slim" Jennings and the surprising Milwaukee Christmas Deers as the defense passed the Fred Silva Scoring System with flying colors.
We're up 2-1 so far going into the last day of this four-game home stretch, and standing in our way is the all-too familiar and all-too funny at most times Golden State Warriors, who unsurprisingly halted Dallas' five-game win streak. They own Cuban and his Mavs, we all know that. But can they handle them Spurs? Let's find out.
Seriously, I love the Warriors. From the Run TMC days of Don Nelson up to the second Nelson era characterized by dysfunctional, comedic and at times dramatic (see: greatest playoff upset ever, 2007) turns of events, this team keeps most fans tuned in. If someone ever makes a list of the greatest soap operas in sports history, I'm putting my money on the 2006-2009 Golden State Warriors. They're that tabloid-worthy.
As a tribute to the advent of one of the most popular social networking sites around and for all the wrong, dumb, stupid and hilarious (unintentional or not) things that Facebook has given us (and we haven't even tackled Twitter yet, which is going to be more painful), ladies and gentlemen of the crazy jury of PtR, here is your Spurs on Facebook, Part 1 (now with bonus Warriors on Facebook material, too!)
I Love You, Teammate
Now I understand why we believe a Dubs player immediately when he says, "It's pretty bad around here."
All Is Fine In Nellie Land
Next to Gregg Popovich and Phil Jackson, Don Nelson just might be my third-most favorite coach of all time. Okay, let's Kanye West-icize that: OF ALL TIME!
Why Hipuks Hates LOL-ing
DeJuan Blair seems to be a master at it, and George Hill is quickly catching up since he's hanging out with Blair too much, maybe. (h/t: Fernando TD 21 of SpursTalk for the Blair avatar)
Of Three-Point Shots and Sandwiches
There's a saying, "birds of the same feather, flock together." There is unity behind the three-point line, but consistency? Now THAT I am not sure of. As for our 3-ball specialists defending... I think I'll just leave you with Matt and his college graduation photo:
Who Says Pop is Too Old for Technology?
He may not know how to upload a profile picture yet, but he's got the updates down already. Hallelujah!
Just a reminder though: this is all in the name of fun and I hope nobody gets cranky that his or her favorite Spur wasn't included. We'll get in touch with their accounts in Part 2. And oh yeah, the accounts featured here and the instances are purely fictional. Well, sort of. I'm kinda hoping they've actually happened in real-life.
The_Real_PREVIEW after a second of scrolling.
 Golden State Warriors @ San Antonio Spurs Where: AT&T Center - San Antonio, TX When: November 25, 2009, 7:30 PM Spurs time Watch: Fox Sports Southwest
How They Stack Up
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Matchups
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 Tony Parker Disciplined |
Point Guard After hurdling THE Brandon Jennings quite well, the Spurs go up against rookie of the year wannabe Stephen Curry, who has to be the happiest Warrior after Stephen Jackson left for Charlotte and took his 15 shots a game with him. Curry seems to be handling the point guard duties well for Nellie's team, and he can very well shoot from trifecta land with the best of 'em so the Spurs need to check that. Tony Parker, on the other hand, always bounces back from a subpar showing, and historically has played well against small ball type of teams. Can Curry stay in front of TP the whole game? I don't think so. Advantage: Spurs (There should be ATS white boxes around their mugs but they don't want to show themselves) |
 Stephen Curry So unlike Dad |
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 Keith Bogans A Fascinating Beast |
Shooting Guard I googled "bogan" and that's the definition that Urban Dictionary gave me. Here's more: "The majority of the species are hideously repugnant and unintelligent, and yet they manage to breed in ever-increasing numbers and populate an area known as the outer west." Now that's off-topic right there. Meanwhile, Monta Ellis, despite the reported word war with coach and trade rumors, is having a really good season (20 pts, 5 rebs, 4 ast per game so far) and he just flat out destroyed the Mavs last night, even flirting with the infamous Ian Mahinmi Triple Bumble. He will get his, but the Boogeyman should make Monta work a bit harder and might even rattle some skeletons in Monta's closet. Advantage: Warriors |
 Monta Ellis Moped Madness |
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 Richard Jefferson Thank goodness he's no Corey Maggette |
Small Forward If you think about it, RJ is some sort of Maggette clone or Maggette is some sort of RJ clone, whichever suits you better. Both can drive and finish strong, have decent perimeter games, and really fish for fouls effectively. We should be cancelling them out, but I expect Rage to be at his tiny-eared best against run-and-gun type teams, similar to how he dominated the defenseless Raptors. Advantage: Spurs |
 Corey Maggette Thank goodness we didn't sign him |
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 Antonio McDyess Slicin' and Dicin' |
Center Miki Moore doesn't like to bang inside and mostly shoots jumpers. Really, he sucks and it only goes to show that by just being born tall, you can land an NBA gig. (see: Muresan, Gheorge or Thabeet, Hasheem for further evidence) McDyess and the other bigs should dominate this Miki dude. Advantage: Spurs |
 Miki Moore Strictly Big Man Fodder |
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 Tim Duncan Not The Rock in Pounding the Rock |
Power Forward Yes, that's how mad the Mad Scientist is. You can switch Maggette here but I thought he was better matched up with RJ, so Anthony Morrow it is. He should be able to draw out Timmy or whoever's guarding him to the perimeter, but on the other end, he will get killed. That's just the harsh reality of small ball. (Vlad Rad started last night, but I'm sticking to ultra small ball concepts, so forgive me) Advantage: Spurs |
 Anthony Morrow Undrafted Wonder |
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 George Hill Coach's Pet |
Bench & Role Players Our bench has been otstanding the last two games, to say the least. Against the Warriors, Anthony Randolph might try to restore the truthfulness of the Fred Silva Scoring System, and if you look further down the G-State bench, there's some talent there - PtR favorite enemy Raja Bell, Kelenna Azububuzkizoompalohmpa, Ronny "I Wasn't The One Who Jumped Over The Aston Martin, Kobe Did" Turiaf, former Spur Speedy Claxton and Vladimir "Snowboarder" Radmanovic. Name NBA guys, but Don Nelson is their coach so we get the automatic win. And just to sneak in a last word about benches, Asst. Coach Keith Smart used exactly ONE reserve against Dallas. ONE! Since when did that last happen? When Mike D'Antoni was coaching Phoenix? Nellie's making them crazy over there, I tell ya. (real reason was injuries, if you still care) Advantage: Spurs |
 Anthony Randolph SSLS: Strictly Summer League Superstar |
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 Gregg Popovich Does not care about you or the regular season |
CoachToo bad Don Nelson the elder went down with pneumonia and won't be at the game, thus dramatically increasing the Dubs' chances of winning. Still, Pop does not take kindly to defense-last teams. (see: Phoenix Suns, 2005-2007) Advantage: Spurs |
 Don Nelson Small Ball or Bust |
| images via yahoo.com | ||
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Other Factors
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Intangibles |
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Last year, we were pretty inept offensively and we still destroyed them. This season, we have shiny new offensive weapons so I'll just let you do the math. Advantage: Spurs |
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Mojo |
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Don Nelson is not with the team. Big mojo booster for the Dubs. And yes, they clobbered Dallas again. Advantage: Warriors |
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Winner: Spurs |
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| The Spurs have won 2 in a row, and they're not about to let some trigger-happy dysfunctional team ruin the team's momentum
Prediction: Spurs win big.
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Keys To The Game
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Strength of ScheduleWe'll be playing every other day for the rest of November. This game marks the end of a four-game homestand where we hope to salvage a 3-1 finish. After which, we'll have the roadie against Houston before resuming another three-game stretch at the confines of the AT&T Center. The Dubs are in the second half of their Texas SEGABABA after 3 of them played all 48 minutes in a win over their most favorite opponent, the Dallas Mavericks. They'll get two days off after this and then head home where another Cali-based team called the Lakers will be waiting.
Last Time They MetOur last meeting with the Warriors resulted in a very convincing road victory with the score of 101-72, and had everyone (except SiMA) believing that the Drew Gooden hovercraft was for real. We all know how that fling ended. |
Some Other ReadingWarriorsGolden State of Mind - The Warriors' SBN blog is one of the most enjoyable blogs around. You gotta give it to Warriors fans, no matter how hard Nelly tries to destroy this franchise, the fans just keep coming and coming at you in waves. I also happen to have a few countrymen over there who help run the site, but I know crystal clearly that I'm with the better team. Booya. Spurs48 Minutes of Hell: Best damn TrueHoop affiliate out there. Always a must visit Spurs site. The (sort of) Daily TwitterGood morning Tweetas! Up early got to get some thing done. Like cut this hair on top of head cause I kno it looks a mess.. But what's up SA! http://bit.ly/8MHsLJ 2nd HEB Commercial: "Winner takes all" // 2da publicidad HEB. "El ganador se lleva todo". I was born 1 mile from the Verizon Center, and know how influential that building was in the revitalization of DC. He leaves a legacy bigger than basketball
RT @BadAss_Jazz: OK SO CALL OF DUTY MODERN WARFARE 2 is going to be the death of our resltionship-n take the joy stick lol!!! You can also find all the official Spurs Sports & Entertainment Twitter accounts here: http://twitter.com/spurs/official/members |
Other things of possible interestI am officially declaring every Spurs-Warriors game as Filipino heritage night. Same goes for every team facing Golden State. I don't even know the social implications of my actions, but what the hell. Seriously, the Bay Area has been invaded by our kind of immigrant third-worlders. I went there last August and didn't feel like I was in the great US of A at all, save for the serious lack of potholes on roads and dollar signs on every price tag in Costco and Walmart. Sadly though, the ratio for every Filipino Spurs fan to Filipino Lakers fan is probably .00001 to 1. It should be a little less far apart if you compare it with Filipino Warriors fans. That only goes to show that I'm a fairly rational furriner who has seen the light. So here's a little background. I come from a relatively obscure country, and right now Filipinos owe everything to Manny Pacquiao for putting us again on the map (the last time was during People Power in the 1980s, a few years after Imelda Marcos became famous for her shoe collection and spraynet peppered 'dos). So what else do I have to say? Nothing really... just that we are of the kind and generous sort, sprinkled with funny bunches of crazies in between. How crazy? Let our spelling talents speak for ourselves. And as a bonus, here's what our friendly neighborhood criminals behind bars do in their spare time. Thank you, MJ! I really mean that. I think.
Watch the Thriller video that made them famous here. Star Wars Status Updates - Also, this is where I got today's inspiration for the Facebook spoofs. |
Where to Tune In
TVThis game will be aired by the Fox Sports Network. If you have cable or satellite, you'll have to look up your individual channel (Fox Sports Southwest). And of course, there's always League Pass for the haves. For the have nots, read on. OnlineAs always, NBA League Pass is recommended for those who are willing to pony up the cash. Almost every Spurs game will be broadcast there, which is especially helpful for those of us who aren't in the San Antonio area.. Please don't post links to illegal game feeds in the game thread. Links to illegal feeds are not permitted on SBNation, but you can probably find them out there on the internets if you're resourceful and desperate. In fact, nobody can stop you from googling "atdhe". You can also shoot an email to dmenendez@gmail.com for more assistance. Spurs League Pass audio is still free this year, so check it out. RadioIf you're in the San Antonio area and aren't near a TV, tune in to WOAI (1200 AM). |