Write On Sports LLC - "Appreciating the Spurs" by Jake Lloyd

Appreciating the Spurs

2007-06-15 01:51:59 | By: Jake Lloyd

Tim Duncan tapped the ball to himself not once, not twice, but three times before finally saving it -- just before his oversized sneaker stepped out of bounds -- to a waiting teammate.

It was only appropriate that Duncan's four touches of the ball was one of the key plays that helped the San Antonio Spurs wrap up their fourth -- and Duncan's fourth -- NBA championship Thursday night with an 83-82 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

Duncan was disappointed with his performance Thursday night. He made just four of 12 field goal attempts and four of 10 free throws for a mediocre 12 points. But he'll take it. Even if he had gone scoreless, he'd be smiling tonight.

"We got it done and that's all that matters," Duncan said afterward. "That's all that matters."

Forget the terrible TV ratings. Forget how many million people bashed this series as unwatchable basketball. Forget that it was the lowest- scoring NBA Finals ever. If you're a basketball fan, if you enjoy the intricacies of the game, you enjoyed watching the Spurs battle for their fourth NBA championship.

You said "wow" every time the 6-foot-2 Tony Parker drove the lane and finished over bigger, stronger players. You said "wow" every time Parker revved his engine into another gear on the fastbreak, leaving supposedly quick defenders in his dust. Parker definitely, absolutely, certainly deserved the Finals MVP trophy, and Duncan -- who won the first three Finals MVPs for the Spurs -- couldn't agree more.

"He was unbelievable," Duncan said. "He carried our team."

But when Parker received the MVP trophy, with fiancé Eva Longoria on the verge of tears nearby, he quickly deflected the attention.

"This one's for Michael Finely," Parker said of the NBA veteran who finally got his first title. "He made the right decision to come to San Antonio."

You see, that's the thing about these Spurs. Throughout the shortest Finals series since 2002 I became irate when critics talked about how the basketball was terrible one-on-one play. I didn't get it. They were lumping the Cavaliers' one-pronged attack of LeBron James together with the Spurs' several-pronged attack.

If there is more of a "team" in the NBA right now, please ring my doorbell. The Spurs may not win pretty 144-142 games, but they play great basketball. They play exceptional defense. They execute on offense. And don't tell me they lack explosive playmakers. Manu Ginobili, who scored 13 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter Thursday, is as good a player as there is in the NBA of getting to the basket and finishing.

Maybe people don't appreciate the Spurs because they don't dunk. They don't use brute force. They don't break backboards. But, hey, a basket's a basket, right? And to me, a finger-roll or left-handed layup is more exciting than a two-handed throwdown.

"That's a helluva team," Cleveland coach Mike Brown said after his team's magical journey had ended too soon. "They did everything they're supposed to do in order to win the basketball games -- tonight and the three games before."

"Everything" is the perfect word to describe the Spurs. Or "variety" or "myriad" or "plethora." Here's a theory as to why the public has never become enamored with the Spurs during their nine-year, four- championship run. They do so many things correctly, it's hard to become attached to a single attribute of the team or star player.

When you watch the Lakers, you know you're going to see Kobe Bryant take 80 shots and possibly make a falling-out-of-bounds 3-pointer. When you watch the Phoenix Suns, you know you're going to see 110 points and 15 assists by Stave Nash. But when you watch the Spurs, you don't know what to expect. They can play at different tempos. Sometimes Duncan will have a big game. Sometimes Parker will (like in the Finals).

The Spurs are akin to your typicaknow they're going to come out on top -- you're just now sure how exactly.

"We just faced a better team this series, simple as that," a quiet James said postgame.

James' subpar play was one of the main reasons the public ripped on the Finals. Without him playing the hero, scoring 48 points and dunking over everybody in front of him, there was a general lack of excitement for the casual basketball watcher.

Yes, James did struggle. His jump shot needs A LOT of work during the offseason. It's clearly his biggest offensive weakness. If he could consistently make 3-pointers at a 40 percent clip, he'd be indomitable. But again, a reason for James' problems the past week was the defense put on him by the Spurs.

Unlike the magnanimous Pistons, the Spurs showed two to three defenders whenever James got the ball at the top of the key, limiting his chance of getting to the basket. They made him dish off to his teammates, who predictably cooled down after scorching the Pistons in Cleveland's four wins the previous series.

Nothing came easy for James against the Spurs -- I can only remember two or three dunks he had the entire series -- and he was quick to throw credit their way afterward.

"I think their defensive intensity, some of the things they did kept me off guard, kept our team off guard," James said.

Duncan, always generous, threw out some props to the Spurs' new father, Bruce Bowen, whose wife recently had their second child but granted no reprieve in having to guard James the entire series.

"It (the key to the series) was our team defense," Duncan said. "It was Bruce Bowen sitting down on him (James) for 40 some odd minutes every night. It was our guys understanding that he wouldn't be able to do it by himself.

"It just started with Bruce. You gotta give a lot of credit to Bruce. He did an awesome job of standing in front of that guy and making life difficult for him."

That's another thing about the Spurs. While they don't necessarily make themselves look like princes, they make their opponents' lives miserable. Cleveland looked out of sorts for most of the Finals. James must have used more brain cells during the four games trying to figure out how to penetrate the Spurs' defense than he did during his entire four years in high school.

And then there are the little things the Spurs do, the small plays that are actually HUGE plays, the plays that any basketball coach at any level appreciates. The Spurs always do these things in the most crucial situations. On Thursday, it was the possession that started with 4 minutes, 5 seconds remaining and the Spurs leading 69-66.

It lasted until just 2:29 remained when Fabricio Oberto took a beautiful interior pass from Duncan and converted a layup while getting fouled. After a TV timeout, he made the free throw, giving San Antonio a six-point lead and all but the Larry O'Brien trophy.

So what happened during the minute and 36 seconds, you ask? How about three offensive rebounds, including Duncan's tip-tip-tip-save. Now that's great basketball.

"That was huge," Duncan said of the protracted possession. "It was a great time to do it. Our effort was there. We had a stretch where we had extra possessions, (where) we found a way to get it done.

"That effort and that persistence is what defines this team."

It also is what sucks the life out of its opponents. And maybe it doesn't have the color of a Kobe Bryant reverse layup or Steve Nash behind-the-back dish, but where were those guys Thursday night? That's right -- sitting on their couches, watching another championship ceremony for the Spurs.

From watching the last two rounds of the playoffs, it became clear to me that Detroit and San Antonio have the same amount of talent on their teams. They would have made for a great NBA Finals series. But the difference between the two teams was that the Spurs really wanted to reach the Finals and win yet another title. They took each game seriously. They never relaxed. The Pistons, on the other hand, watching during the past week.

You may not like the Spurs. You may call them boring (which is garbage). But if you love the game of basketball and buy into the "winning is all that matters" mantra, then you can't hate on the Spurs 'cuz that's what they're all about.

Winning, winning and winning. And they do it the right way.

"Guys like Mike Finley is what it's all about," Duncan said. "To see how much he appreciates it, to see Jacque Vaughn and even Robert Horry, to see the looks on their faces and the understanding of how special and how tough it is to get here, it makes it all worth it.

"Those guys epitomize what it is about the journey to get here."

Post a comment