People are really forgetting that this series, Spurs-Suns, are excellent so far. Indeed, this is the NBA Finals 2007 masked with ‘West Semis’ tag. Instead, people keep seeing only “dirty” plays and whatever else what is annoying. It’s the ignorance of knowing the basketball, the playoffs ball, that sets casual spectators out to the hell - to keep arguing about BS and to keep exaggerating things that simply happen in the sports, especially hoops. Hey, did you forget there is a bunch of 6-6 (and bigger) guys on the court? This isn’t chess or curling.
They remember only Nash’s split nose, Parker’s head bump from Game 1, Amare’s kicked foot from Game 2, Nash’s kneed groin, Ginobili’s swollen left eye from Game 3, Nash’s being on the floor knockouted, Bell-Horry skirmish from Game 4. What are you watching guys? I know, this is a priority for you. I watch the game, magnificient games between these two superior teams. Stuff happens, but this is life. This is reality. And you know what? You judge players only with this 4 games in mind and that’s bad. That’s biased. You forgot, but Phoenix AND San Antonio are two classiest organizations in the entire NBA. Yes, it’s heated and rightfully so. Good golly, they’re fighting each other for championship!
Today I read that the Spurs’ image is ‘under fire’. What? After just one series? Did you forget what they’ve been doing all these years in the Duncan era? Have they been devils? Come on. This is stupid. But I know one thing. A majority of people waits for something bad, something embarrassing, that happens to a good one. And then they start to judge him, to disrespect him, because he lost his cool one time, he let his emotions fly high. This is in people’s minds, it’s a natural habit. It causes the human race to be biased and to be wrong.
One Spurs fan said that he’s lost respect for the Spurs, because of Robert Horry’s hip-check on Nash. Have the Spurs gone from darlings to demons? In the heads of some people, yes. Like it’s the Spurs concept, to try to slay the Suns, starting with Bowen and ending (?) with Horry. And it’s orchestrated by Mr. Boss, Gregg Popovich. Yeah, that Horry’s action was UNSPORTSMANLIKE. But to call the Spurs dirty? From player no. 1 to player no. 15?! As Sean Elliott said, it’s just a bubble. I, too, don’t believe that a few incidents in a series can define a team ot taint its reputation. Okay, Horry crossed the line and is suspended 2 games for it. Period. Let ‘em play again.
In the regular season, people called the Spurs soft. Now they’re dirty. No way. They’re just rough, ‘cause it’s playoff time.
In the meantime, I think the suspensions to Stoudemire & Diaw for Game 5 are STERN and maybe unfair. However, you have to obey the rules. This is just a justice from Stern & Jackson duo. Suspending Stoudemire and Diaw was actually a no-brainer. A righteous judgment. Rules, after all, are rules. In the Inside The NBA, Shaq told it like it was - Stoudemire knew the law, broke the law and should be suspended. You had to know that suspensions would be automatic if the sideline was crossed. Any Spurs benchman didn’t cross the line. That the Suns’ chances of winning the pivotal Game 5 are now greatly diminished is totally beside the point. I understand that mainly the Suns fans are angry. But law is law and we don’t need any precendents.
What the people keep forgetting, again, is that Horry’s cheap shot WASN’T WORSE than Baron Davis’s hit on Fisher in the Jazz-Warriors game. Nash could see Horry coming. Fisher was blindsided. Even the misdeeds of Al Harrington and Jason Richardson were likewise more dangerous than Horry's. After all, Harrington went after Carlos Boozer's head. And Richardson deliberately flipped Mehmet Okur in such a way that Okur landed with terrific force on his back. Both of these assaults could easily have resulted in severe injuries.
Mr. Stern, if Horry was banished, the same measure should have been made to GS’ trio. Or, as Charley Rosen says, perhaps Stern felt it was necessary to protect two-time MVP Steve Nash. Hey, you can always say life is unfair. You just can’t have everything, everything right. For everybody out there.
My friend (he is nuts) e-mailed me that Horry did bodycheck Nash on purpose - he wanted to provoke Stoudemire into leaping on the floor. This was an ultimative joke, by the way.
NBA Playoffs section: How the hell Detroit lost to Chicago at home?! Ben Gordon was on fire. And the Bulls shooting percentage from the first half was more than 70%! Unbelivable. I cannot help but give Lawrance Frank, NJ Nets’ coach, credit for winning the StupidFrank’s trophy - he keeps giving the ball to Vince Carter in the last 30 seconds of tight games. Crazy. In the Game 6, 1st round, against Toronto, he drew the crucial play for Rich Jefferson and he, yee-haw, delivered. Last game, Carter turned the ball over with 1.9 seconds to go in the game THANKS TO the stiff defense of Eric SNOW to virtually end the game. I mean, Jefferson with Kidd must have hit him with some hard baseball bat behind the doors of Nets’ lockerroom. Btw, congrats to Jerry Sloan’s Jazz for advancing to the western conference finals.
SA-PHX section: The Suns played great down the stretch in da Game 5, 104-98 win. I’m still saying, for Spurs to win this series, Duncan HAS TO stay out of foul touble. With Duncan on the bench, the Spurs defense is quite solid, but the offense really sucks - in fact, their “o” is horrible sans Big Fundamental. In the clutch, they began to miss too many uncontested shots (Finley, Parker). Ginobili is simply underachieving. Meanwhile, Nash took over. Spoon-feeding Amare for a variety of layups and dunks. It was a BEAUTY to watch that two critical plays - Nash (guarded by Bowen) behind the back to Stoudemire (guarded by TD). This is why I follow NBA. But, I know, I know, you saw only that little melee. Your bad.
For Game 5, I predict Suns’ starting lineup of Kurt Thomas, Marion, Raja Bell, Barbosa and Nash. I’m curious how a raucous PHX crowd will behave tonight. They should bring some hockey sticks and crosscheck any Spur who dares to drive under the basket. It’ll be a battle. Whoa. What a game it’ll be. It’s true that w/out Stoudemire, but all in all, I don’t expect the Suns to be defeated before the tip-off whatsoever. If the Spurs don’t win today, they’re done for this year. If it’s 3-2, SA, Game Six will be Game Seven. Who wins this game in Texas is the winner of the series.
One last moment/paragraph: when Baron D. dunked on Andrei K. in the Game 3, UTH at GS, that was the best image of this postseason so far. When it happened and everyone in the arena was in a total frenzy (and then later on Stephen J. “dusted” BD’s shoulders to top it off), I couldn’t help - I almost jumped out of my room. In the next 5 minutes, I’ve got these text messages from my BAFS buddies…
… enrico> “did you see that baron’s facial?!”
… marco> “i almost killed myself when baron dunked.“
… george> “my goodness, have you seen it? what an explosion.”
… pieter> “baron just posterized ak47. mummy!”
… coco> “did he smash him or what? i’ve got several beers inside me.”
… valdes> “shoot me but b-diddy was transcendent. oops.”
I’m done for today’s blog and headed for the Game 5 showdown, Spurs at Suns, watching. And I warned you here that Steve Nash is going to wrestle with Tim Duncan in the fourth quarter. Be prepared.
p.s.: /gm3, jazz-warriors/ baron davis was faster than a speeding bullet, seemed able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and it looked like he could only be stopped by a handful of kryptonite.
(-charley rosen)
p.s.2: /gm3 suns-spurs/ duncan simply destroyed kurt thomas. (-charley rosen)
p.s.3: robert horry gave manu ginobili a new nickname: one-eyed bandit.
p.s.4: when was the last time that one of popovich's minions lost his cool in so damaging a fashion?
(-charley rosen)
p.s.5: in an effort to close out the series, the pistons /in the gm5/ plan to unveil their secret weapon: a hypno-ray that causes scott skiles to waste even more minutes on p.j. brown. (-jonah keri)
when was the last time that one of popovich's minions lost his cool in so damaging a fashion?
p.s.6: is it fair?
no.
is it right?
absolutely.
the nba doesn't have much choice but to suspend horry, stoudemire and diaw for game 5. (-jemele hill)
Posted by Foreigner in CS - May 16 2007 12:45PM
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