Corporate Knowledge: New Spurs, same Duncan
Fran Blinebury of NBA.com: “Even the transformation of the Spurs’ style of play from pound-it-inside on offense and clamp down on defense was done with Duncan in mind. After winning a fourth NBA championship in 2007, only to be bounced out by the Lakers in the conference finals the following season, there was a realization that the team was due for an evolution.”
Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News: “Eight years removed from a clutch shot even Robert Horry could appreciate, Derek Fisher is preparing for a playoff return to where San Antonians call the scene of the crime. It was there a buzzer-beater off an in-bounds pass with four-tenths of a second left concluded Game 4 of the Spurs-Lakers 2004 Western Conference semifinals.”
Britt Robson at SI.com: “The Thunder faced the past two NBA champions — confident, veteran teams with renowned closers in Dirk Nowitzki of the Mavericks and Kobe Bryant of the Lakers — and broke their spirit with youthful energy and talent enriched by crunch-time poise and grit. The Spurs are merely the hottest team ever to enter a conference finals, having won 18 straight and 29 of 31, including dismantling four-game sweeps of the Jazz and Clippers in which their average margin of victory was 13.75 points.”
- DeJuan Blair has had some excellent performances against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the past. But does that mean the Spurs should change up the playoff rotation and play him in the Western Conference Finals?
- Because video games don’t lie.
- As someone who likes to work with their hands, I appreciate the idea of Tim Duncan as a craftsman as opposed to the superhero persona most stars take on.
Kevin Scheitrum of NBADLeague.com: “Now, of the more than two-dozen former NBA D-League players to crack into the NBA postseason this year, nobody’s shown themselves as well as Green, now a reserve swingman for the San Antonio Spurs. It doesn’t hurt that he’s playing on a team that’s moved through the Playoffs like it’s had a police escort, of course. But Green’s fit his game with perfection into the Spurs’ system, providing a young spark on both ends of the floor for a team that many thought would struggle even making it up and down.”
- Hopefully this isn’t jinx fuel.
