GIF Breakdown: Spurs vs. Nets

Let's start with Tony Parker. He had himself another fantastic game after he completely dominated the Wolves on Friday night. On Saturday night he dropped 22 on 50% shooting and found his teammates for seven assists. Here he is with a pretty start/stop drive against Deron Williams. The move gets Deron leaning the wrong direction and Tony attacks and finishes relatively high off the glass. Of course, it being Tony, he ends up on the ground. The floor was spaced and Brook Lopez can't fully commit to help with Duncan lurking in the paint. It's been a couple of weaker opponents, but the Spurs are starting to look like the Spurs we know they can be on the offensive side of the floor.

Check out big Tim immediately take it at Brook Lopez after receiving the ball from Marco. It's the left-handed Timmy we see as he dribbles once and covers 20 feet on his way to a gentle lefty off the glass. It's so fluid and his footwork, not that it needed to be complicated, is perfect on his drive to the rack.

Here's a rarity in the GIF Breakdown. A defensive stop. I'd love to include more, but most of the time a good defensive stand takes well over 10 seconds and the size of the GIF becomes an issue. This one starts with Brook Lopez looking for Joe Johnson cutting backdoor, but Kawhi fights back into the picture to deny the pass. Brook then swings it to Bojan Bogdonavich, but Marco makes his way through a screen to deny the deep look. From there it's "give it to Deron" and while Tony overplays the passing lane just a little, Deron gives up a decent look from just inside the charity stripe and takes it deeper into the lane where Tim Duncan is able to really bother the shot. Of course, a successful defensive stand ends with a rebound and the Big Fundamental pulls down the miss to give the Spurs a possession.

My man Boris Diaw is still working his magic in the post. During the second half he had three straight possessions in the post against Teletovic that resulted in six Spurs points but this one from the first half is the prettiest. Bobo backs Mirza down about four feet before he spins over his right shoulder and knocks down a one-footed fadeaway banker. Diaw is so dangerous on the block and that shot's just about unguardable. It's Dirkish and oh so pretty.

This is a fun one. Tony and Deron bang knees and both players hit the deck. No, that's not the fun part. Parker recovers quickly and Danny Green feeds the Frenchman on his way to the basket. Tony has Lopez one-on-one and does the thing where he makes an incredibly difficult shot look almost easy. Then he makes his way to the floor for the second time in five seconds.

The Spurs way: Good to great. Danny feeds Manu, Manu fakes the three, Danny moves to the strong side corner while Jarrett Jack loses his focus and Manu makes the easy pass to Danny for a wide open triple.

In the middle of the fourth quarter the Spurs didn't look sharp. The Nets were able to hang around against a Parker, Green, Leonard, Daye and Diaw lineup. Pop's response was to insert The Flying Argentine. Manu scored with this nice drive, made an assist and grabbed two boards in a minute and a half as the Spurs expanded their lead from eight to fifteen. I can't say it enough - Manu's a basketball wizard, we're extremely lucky, and we should cherish Gino while we can.

That's it for this edition of GIF Breakdown. Until next time, let's remember that this team is so easy to root for.