The Best Moments of the 08-09 Season: “The Little O”
By Oscar Valdivia
Ed. Note: Neither Oscar nor I was able to find footage of Malik Hairston’s dunk. The clip we originally posted on 48MoH has been taken down. If anyone can find a video with Hairston’s highlights, I’d love to post it as well.
February 27, 2009. The spurs were without Timmy and Manu for the game. No, we didn’t have an offensive explosion from Parker. No we didn’t even win the game. The spurs lost by 11 points, 97 to 86 and the final score was not indicative of how much of a blowout this game was, as it was already decided before the fourth quarter even began (we trailed 56 - 77 at the end of the third). Nonetheless, this was the best blow out of the season.
No, it wasn’t because we outscored our opponents (the cavaliers) 30 to 20 in the fourth, it was with whom we did it with. As one talented and perspicacious spurs writer put it, we were “completely entranced by a hastily thrown together combination of has beens and never beens.” There they were on the floor, Jacque Vaughn, George Hill, Malik Hairston, Ime Udoka, and Pops Mensah-Bonsu, using pure energy to outplay the second string players of the best defense in the league. The athletically starved crowd was treated with high flying dunks, blocks, offensive rebounds, and even an alley-oop attempt. As one commenter put it, we were “able to watch our kidz squad play with heart”.
To spurs fans, this was more significant than just having a good fourth quarter on one game with our end of the bench players. No, we are smarter than that and understand the futility of one game let alone one quarter. What it did was provide a glimmer of hope into the future. We were able to envision a core with youth, athleticism and energy coming off the bench for the following season or near future. Here was a little glimpse at the results of our excellent drafting, of our farm system, of finding and developing talent that others have counted out. There they were, a bunch of “has beens and never beens”, being blown out, but we were all smiles.
Alright, everybody. This has been a lot of fun. I am very happy with the submissions I received. Tim and I will definitely do something along these lines again in the future. As always, thanks to everyone for reading, and a special thanks to all those who contributed. Go Spurs.
