Go right ahead … count out the Spurs
May 22nd, 2008, 3:23 pm · Post a Comment · posted by jerrybrown
In case you haven’t heard, the Western Conference finals are already over.
The Spurs are dead, done, over, old, slow … whatever.
Coughing up a 20-point lead in Los Angeles to the Lakers in Game 1 surely stings. Losing a game where Kobe Bryant has two points at halftime and all the Hollywood stars at Staples Center felt like they were back in the middle of the writer’s strike is unacceptable.
The Suns lost a Game 1 like this to the Spurs in the first round — a game that was theirs and then it was gone – and they never recovered. They said all the right things, but they were done.
But count out the defending champions, the team that has won three of the last five titles? Come on.
Ask the Hornets, who blew out the old, slow, yadda, yadda, yadda Spurs in the first two games of the second round, only to watch San Antonio win four of the last five and win Game 7 in New Orleans.
The Spurs had 48 hours to prepare for Game 1, and spent about half of that in their team plane that sat on the runway in New Orleans. They lost a game they should have won, but it’s one game and it was on the road. Moments after it was over Gregg Popovich and his players were already talking about how hard it would be to overcome this – knowing it couldn’t be further from the truth.
The Spurs know they can win this series and another title. They can smell it. And if they do it, the last roadblock to becoming a true dynasty — winning back-to-back — will be removed. If they win Game 2, they go home for the first time in a week with homecourt (where they are undefeated in the playoffs) and a chance to put the squeeze on a team that, outside of Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher, is woefully short on big-game experience.
You don’t kill the Spurs in Game 1. And I guarantee a closer examination of the patient will reveal a strong heartbeat. There are still plenty of Tim Duncan bankers, Tony Parker floaters, Manu Ginobili flops and Bruce Bowen and Robert Horry cheap shots left in the chamber — and the Lakers would do well to remember that.
