It is strange. Spurs is a classy organization, from top to bottom. They are disciplined and unselfish and have everything a successful team should have. But I just don't like them. Maybe I am just jealous of their success.
The key to the Spurs win tonight was actually Bruce Bowen defending Billups. The Spurs had no answer for Billups until Bowen took him. Tonight, Detroit did not make the adjustments to get the ball in the hoop when Bowen took Billups out. They should have gotten the ball to the player who was being defended by Parker/Barry. Instead, they went to Prince who had Ginobilli on him and Ginobilli stepped it up. Bowen took Billups and prevented him from posting up and creating. The matchup that Detroit failed to exploit was the Barry/Parker-RIP matchup. It cost them the championship.
Uuuhhh no, he sucked. And Tony Parker saying he came out today and "played like an MVP" was even more absolute crap. Duncan DID NOT earn this MVP. Personally, I'd almost feel that Stern let Duncan have it to spite The Pistons. Stern hates what Detroit and their fans did to his game and Stern (i Know, not Stern really) repays the favor by handing the MVP to a guy who sucked balls. I guess it's not that Detroit played great defense on Duncan more so rather that he just...sucked (today for sure). Did anyone catch Parker's comments after he was interviewed? I swear I heard something in French capped with "*****". Classy Tony, simply classy.
and duncan did struggle tonight. anytime you shoot under 35% from the floor, you are struggling. ginobili deserved the mvp, hands down. and that's no disrespect to duncan because he is great and will be remembered as an all-time great, but he just didn't play great during the finals.
I ONLY RESPECT ROBERT HORRY. I WILL NEVER RESPECT THE SPURS. GOD DESTROY TACO CABANA AND HEB AND SBC!!
BS Duncan choked the whole series. He was average at best. He was lucky he got saved by Ginobili and Horry. WHat did Duncan show in this series to earn the term "winner"? Ginobili was robbed of the MVP. HE was the reason San Antonio won last night. Ginobili was fearless and wasn't affected by the pressure. After the first two games Duncan did what he always does, he disappeared. He looked timid and he looked like he didn't want to be there. That's just what he did against the Lakers twice in the last few years. SA was up in the series and then they choked under pressure. Duncan is lucky to have had Robinson and Ginobili. Every time they needed a crucial basket, Ginobili or Horry were the ones to provide it. Robinson said it himself: "Tim looks rattled"
Duncan is MVP because when the game was on the line, Spurs down 9, mid third quarter to the end, TD took over, came up BIG. So much for all the choker BS, ahte all you want, he was clutch when it counted. These teams were evenly matched. Great series, great chess match. Could have gone either way.
Last time I checked, if your team wins the title, and you lead the team in points, boards and blocks, then you deserve to be called a winner. Especially when the teams offensive and defensive sets are built around you, and you are creating open shots for your teammates (see the end of Game 7).
Had Rasheed Wallace not been in foul trouble there might of been a different outcome, but he was so it's not a big deal. Duncan came up big in that third quarter (17-8 in the second half), the biggest he's come up in a couple of years, without that third quarter Manu doesn't have a chance to win it for them in the end. Then in the fourth quarter he made the pass on one of the most, if not the most, important basket of the game, Manu's three pointer. There's no reason to bring him down for this game SEVEN, he carried that team down the stretch and you can't measure how inspiring it was as a teammate to see your superstar dive on the floor for loose balls as if he were a regular old role player. What always holds true is that big men make their biggest impacts on the defensive end and with their rebounding, it's like a law, or at least something that the basketball gods reward. Duncan played the best group of front court players in the NBA, basically by himself and still had great rebounding numbers, he played great defense, and he was still able to score 20 a game. Yes, his shooting was off, but as you can see from last year's series where Shaq dominated on offense and was horrible to mediocre with his rebounding and defense, well you should be able to take that that's simply not the way you beat the Pistons or any great team in general as a big man. You beat them dudes at their own game, and the Spurs did that, they defended and rebounded better than the Pistons and executed offensively down the stretch. A few unsung heroes. Manu and Horry are obvious, they were huge at many spots during the series. Bruce Bowen for his defense on Billups, and that big three pointer, another assisted by Duncan BTW. Tony Parker, even though his offense was MIA his defense on Richard Hamilton was great, he also made a big three pointer in the third quarter I believe.
Even though the Spurs won, I thought Detroit did a superb job on Duncan. The best I've ever seen. Duncan would drive past one defender only to find another defender right there to swat his shot away or significantly alter it. If Detroit could have done anything on offense, they would have won. When a team holds another team to 81 points in the NBA finals, they should be able to win. Series probably should have been over in 6 if not for Rasheed's brain lapse. If there was a weak link in that Pistons starting 5, it has to be Richard Hamilton. San Antonio really exposed him for the overrated one dimensional player that he is. His inability to do anything on offense other than make wide open mid range jumpers really cost the Pistons this series. He can't create shots for others, he can't create shots for himself, he's not good at driving to the basket, he has no post up game, he can't shoot 3 pointers, he's not a good defender. When San Antonio put Bowen on Billups, it was up to Hamilton to pick up the slack and he failed miserably. Joe Dumars should pick up the phone right now, give Ray Allen a call and talk him into forcing a sign-and-trade, Allen for Hamilton+Darko.
Of course everyone ignored my analysis earlier in the threat, but in the end it looks like that is what won it for the Spurs. A visit from Hakeem during the finals to wish a team luck, is just what the Spurs needed for that little extra push. Without Hakeem the Spurs lose.
Great game. It came out just how I wanted really. The Pistons played a great series and acquitted themselves well that last season's championship was not a fluke and they are good enough to be champions. The championship this year could just as easily been theirs; I don't think Spurs showed they were better, they just happened to have won. But, at the same time, the fans of the Pistons get karmic justice for the brawl and their penchant for throwing stuff at players, and are denied the championship.
Great article from Bill Simmons. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050624 Game 7th Heaven By Bill Simmons Page 2 Outside the Boston Garden before Game 7 of the '84 NBA Finals, scalpers were getting upwards of $2,000 per ticket. Since we were fortunate enough to own midcourt seats, I remember my father perking up as we heard the numbers being tossed around on Causeway Street. Four grand for our seats? He could barely afford season tickets as it was. That money could have paid for the next two seasons. It was enough to make him think. Did he ever really consider it? Of course not. As basketball fans, we knew Game 7 of an NBA Finals was the ultimate experience. Ninety minutes before tip-off, every fan has already found his or her seat. You never sit down – not once for four hours. Your head throbs by the second quarter. By the third quarter your hands swell from clapping, and they're like you borrowed them from a nose tackle. Everyone keeps giving everything they have – the fans, the players, the coaches, everybody – and it never wanes. You can't possibly imagine the level of intensity, the overpowering electricity in the building, how it keeps going higher and higher. Red Auerbach Even Red, holder of 14 titles at the time, knew how great a Game 7 was. Rarely are these games well played – there's too much pressure, too much energy. It's just a different animal. In Game 7 back in 1984, the electricity in the Garden suffocated the game to some degree, with both teams playing too frantically to settle into a groove. Then Cedric Maxwell took over for Boston in the second quarter, and Bird had a nice stretch in the third, and there were a couple of fast breaks that nearly blew the roof off, and suddenly the Lakers were running out of time before making one last run, right before Magic made two horrendous turnovers that sealed the deal. I can still see Bird waiting for the ball to shoot clinching free throws, so excited that he started hopping up and down with his fists clenched, looking like a little kid waiting to use a bathroom. In the stands people were jumping up and down and screaming at the top of their lungs. That's what you do at the end of a Game 7 – you don't even clap anymore. You just scream as loud as you can. You raise your arms over your head, you hug the people sitting next to you, you scream some more. When the Celtics finally won the title, fans charged the court to celebrate, with the party carrying outside to Causeway Street for the rest of the night. We beat the Lakers. We beat the Lakers. Honestly, it felt like we had conquered another country or something. This was more than a game. It was a life experience, one of the defining moments of my childhood. I kept thinking about that game while the Spurs outlasted the Pistons on Thursday night. You never beat someone in a Game 7 to win the title. You outlast them. You persevere. You survive. Maybe it wasn't the greatest game to watch, but if you understood the stakes, understood what that building was like, understood the level of intensity … I mean, isn't that what sports is all about? Tim Duncan played the finest game of his career Thursday night, controlling the second half as the only competent big man against a much bigger team. Ginobili followed suit, elevating both ends of his game when it mattered. Those were B-plus games for both of those guys, but if you're a B-plus in Game 7, that gets rounded up to an A-plus-plus because of the stakes. And that's all the Spurs needed to win the game. We'll remember them as one of the weaker championship teams in recent memory, a team that could be pushed around at times, a team whose quality players disappeared for entire games. They needed a miraculous effort from Big Shot Brob in Game 5 just to avoid an ignominious 3-4-5 sweep in Detroit. They couldn't close out the resilient Pistons in Game 6, which any of the better NBA champions in history would have done. Yet none of that stuff will matter 50 years from now. As Joe Theismann would say, championship teams win championships. The Spurs did just enough to win, and their superstar protected his house when it counted. Just like old times. Lost in the shuffle were the defending champs, who defended their title with the requisite amount of honor and integrity. They carried championship belts like boxers, shouted "on and on and on" before games, always thrived with their backs to the wall. Some kept comparing them to the Patriots, and their impeccable record in must-win games and closeouts put them in the general ballpark. But the Pats won 34 of their last 38 games and haven't lost at home since December 2002. The Pistons never dominated over a prolonged stretch like that; if anything, they reminded me more of Winky Wright, the middleweight champ whose astonishing defensive skills suck the life out of his opponents. When you watch Winky, you find yourself thinking things like, "Will anyone ever land a punch on him?" And, "If everyone fought like this, boxing would go out of business in five years." The Pistons were a little like that. And it nearly worked to the tune of back-to-back championships. At the same time, nobody was burning DVDs of last month's Wright-Trinidad fight and selling them like hotcakes on eBay. And nobody will be burning DVDs from the 2005 Finals, with the glorious exception of Game 5. Even though these were probably the two best teams in the NBA, the Spurs and Pistons couldn't quite bring the best out in one another over these last two weeks. To steal another boxing analogy, styles make fights. And these styles never quite meshed. But Game 7 turned out about as well as we could have hoped. The atmosphere felt right, the right players stepped up at the right times, and you couldn't reasonably expect anything beyond that. For anyone lucky enough to be sitting in the building Thursday night, I bet you will remember that game forever. I know that's the case for my father and me. Last year, during the 20th anniversary of that Celtics-Lakers game, I couldn't resist asking Dad if he truly contemplated selling those Game 7 seats. He smiled and shook his head no. "You can't put a price on a Game 7," he said simply. And you can't.
Co-sign. Man, you took the words right out of my mouth, and It wasn't only this series. Hamilton probably had two good games the entire playoffs. Hopefully Ray Allen is on his way to the D.
Hamilton just runs around in circles and eventually finds an open 10-15 foot jump shot. He doesn't do anything special for me, he's not superbly talented or amazingly athletic, he just plays hard.
