Saturday, January 31st, 2009...10:45 am
Other People: Hoffman and Bruchu
Brandon Hoffman is at the helm over at BallerBlogger and penned this bit for a Spurs-related post:
Despite losing Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili to a combined 21 games, the Spurs sit 4.5 games behind the Lakers for the top spot in the West. The Spurs are notorious for sleepwalking through regular seasons and turning it on come playoff time. And yet every year, there are analysts that pronounce the Spurs “finished.” Nearly every expert picked San Antonio to lose to the Suns and Hornets in last year’s playoffs, but the Spurs proved the naysayers wrong and advanced to the conference finals before falling to the Lakers in 5 games. The 4-1 outcome is misleading because Ginobili was hobbled by a sprained ankle and failed to to get it going versus the Lakers. Ginobilli struggled mightily in San Antonio’s four losses. The Spurs are 1-1 against the Lakers this season. Barring injury or a setback to Ginobili’s surgically repaired ankle, the Spurs will be firing on all cylinders come April. I guarantee it.
Elsewhere, bruchu from the X’s and O’s crew looks at the Suns ineffective defense against the Spurs.
4 Comments
January 31st, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Last year’s 4-1 victory over Spurs happened while the lakers were without two key players in their rotation. Andrew Bynum was absent due to injury and Trevor Ariza played a total of nine minutes coming off an injury himself. If the Lakers are healthy (Bynum hurt his knee 1/31/09) they should fairly easily come out of the west again. I am a Lakers fan but respect the Spurs. Go Lakers!
January 31st, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Scott,
Although I think you are fundamentally right, remember that Manu Ginobili was also at far less than 100% during that series. I am not saying we would have beaten the Lakers had he been at 100% but I will say that I don’t think the series would have ended 4-1.
February 2nd, 2009 at 7:51 am
The link to BallerBlogger is broken.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:10 am
Fixed.
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