Spurs @ Suns - Game Thread - Tuesday May 8, 2007 - 7:30 pm - TNT

[Cheesebeef]

It's not nice to swear at females ..........

you DARN skippy!

 

[msdundee]

you DARN skippy!

Ah, just kidding. As you might have noticed, it doesn't hurt my feelings. "You talks on the boards, you takes your lumps."

 

[jbeecham]

So I just got home from the game and thought I'd give my insights:

KT made the difference tonight with his defense on Duncan. We didn't have to double team Duncan it allowed our guys to jump into passing lanes and force turnovers to get our offense going. He also hit his open jumpers, which was huge because it opened up the lane more for Amare.

Bell - locked up both Finley & Ginobili when he guarded them and was as aggressive offensively as I've ever seen him. Great effort from him tonight.

Marion - Great defense on Parker, much better job fighting through screens and he also had some help slowing Parker down from whoever was guarding Duncan on the P&R. His offense was non-existent but we luckily didn't need it.

Amare - Great to see him going to the basket aggressively. He didn't get all the calls he deserved, but he finished well around the basket and his dunks really got the crowd energy going. He also seemed to hit most of his ft's tonight.

Nash - Another MVP performance offensively and his defense wasn't that bad overall. He did leave Bowen open for that one 3ptr, but overall he helped out when he could and helped force some bad passes by the Spurs.

LB - Not a great game from LB, but he had some moments where he was aggressive and made some nice plays. He got a little out of control at times, but he's still a hell of a player.

Diaw - Average game, had good and bad moments. I liked it when he posted up Finley and took it to the hole. I hated it when he blew easy baskets by being soft. His defense on Duncan was ok, he needs to never leave Horry when he's guarding him.

Of course I can't make any posts without talking about officiating so here's the warning for those that don't want to hear it:

1st half officiating was horrible ( 8-10 bad calls/non-calls in the Spurs favor), 2nd half was mostly pretty good (maybe 2 bad calls). Most of the worst stuff has already been talked about with the ginobili flops, parker flops, duncan non-calls, the kicked ball on Raja, etc. One's I didn't read about were Marion's block on Oberto that looked pretty clean, (Parker complaint withdrawn), the goaltending on LB's layup in the 3rd or 4th, Horry trying to claim he was poked in the eye and then was fine once he realized Raja was going to get the ball for a fast break and then Horry dropping F-Bombs on the ref during a timeout and crying about his eye. Also, the refs refused to go anywhere near the Suns bench during any timeout, they always went down to the Spurs end of the floor and stayed as far away from D'Antoni as possible (which I thought was weird).


If you guys all want to pitch in and send me to SA as the Suns good luck charm then I'd be willing!

 

[Cheesebeef]

the Parker bailout at the end of the 1st qtr

seriously, ALL credibility just went FLYING out the window on this one. LB totally undercut Parker on that shot - it was like the playground where one guy's talking to the dummy, while his friend gets on his knees behind the dummy so when the dummy backs up he goes head over heels. That was ABSOLUTELY a foul.

and funny, but almost NO ONE was saying ANYTHING baout the refs. Being at the game, you don't get to see replays and you don't get the angles you do on TV. They called a VERY even game tonight. To go on this kind of rant is just ridiculous, even if you did warn. We got more FTs, they got 4 more fouls called on them and they let KT body up Duncan very well, giving him only 1 foul to Duncan's 4. If there was ever a game NOT to bang on the refs, this was it.

 

[PetryJr]

I didn't think Raja's defense throughout the season was good enough for him to be selected as an All-NBA defender, but wow, he's playing some amazing defense so far in the playoffs. He did a very good job guarding Kobe in the first round (didn't shut him down, but then again, no one can do that), and now it almost seems like guarding Ginobili is too easy for him. I'm sure Manu will still have at least a couple of very good games in this series, but Raja has been able to shut him down in 4 out of 5 games this season.

EDIT: Let me back this up with some stats.

Here are Manu's numbers against the Suns this season:

Nov 8 - 12 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists. 3-13 from the field, 1-2 from three-point range
Feb 1 - 32 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists. 12-22 from the field, 3-8 from three-point range
Apr 5 - 7 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists. 3-11 from the field, 1-4 from three-point range
May 6 - 8 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists. 2-9 from the field, 1-3 from three-point range
May 8 - 6 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists. 3-9 from the field, 0-2 from three-point range

Overall: 13 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 3.8 apg. FG%: 35.9, 3pt%: 31.6

 

[jbeecham]

Obviously I didn't have the benefit of instant replay. It looked to me like Parker shot a fade-away and landed on Barbosa who was behind him after the ball was released and the shot clock had gone off. From my angle, I couldn't tell if LB even saw Parker coming at him.

Like I stated before, I thought the officating was pretty good in the 2nd half. Go back and read the 1st 6-7 pages of this thread and there's a lot of complaining about the refs in the 1st half.

 

[Cheesebeef]

Obviously I didn't have the benefit of instant replay. It looked to me like Parker shot a fadeaway and landed on Barbosa who was behind him after the ball was released and the shot clock had gone off.

nope. still .1 and Leo backdoored him good.

 

[jbeecham]

nope. still .1 and Leo backdoored him good.

Ok then I withdraw my complaint

 

[Cheesebeef]

Ok then I withdraw my complaint

noted!

hey J - how was the crowd tonight?

 

[Cheesebeef]

Obviously I didn't have the benefit of instant replay. It looked to me like Parker shot a fade-away and landed on Barbosa who was behind him after the ball was released and the shot clock had gone off. From my angle, I couldn't tell if LB even saw Parker coming at him.

Like I stated before, I thought the officating was pretty good in the 2nd half. Go back and read the 1st 6-7 pages of this thread and there's a lot of complaining about the refs in the 1st half.

I don't need to go back and read anything, I watched the game - I saw Duncan pick up 3 fouls (NEVER happens), I saw an ABSOLUTE goaltend on Shawn go uncalled and pretty even officiating otherwise. and most people are complaining about ONE play - the Manu one, which absolutely was a HORRENDOUS no-call. But that's about it.

 

[cly2tw]

nope. still .1 and Leo backdoored him good.

Actually, I think the call was against Marion for hitting TP's arm. LB was chasing another guy but accidentally backdoored him

 

[jbeecham]

The crowd was really good. Not GS level, but it was loud and people were standing for most of the game, even timeouts. One thing lacking was any real chants other than D-Fense.....D-Fense. Lots of Orange Suns shirts too, I guess they gave some away to the 1st 5000 or so people, but I got there too late.

Oh, someone made a sign out of the photoshopped picture of the babies with Duncan, Ginobili & Parkers head on them. They even put real pacifiers in their mouths on the sign.

 

[Ciani]

Here are Manu's numbers against the Suns this season:

Nov 8 - 12 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists. 3-13 from the field, 1-2 from three-point range
Feb 1 - 32 points, 2 rebounds, 2 assists. 12-22 from the field, 3-8 from three-point range
Apr 5 - 7 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists. 3-11 from the field, 1-4 from three-point range
May 6 - 8 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists. 2-9 from the field, 1-3 from three-point range
May 8 - 6 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists. 3-9 from the field, 0-2 from three-point range

Overall: 13 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 3.8 apg. FG%: 35.9, 3pt%: 31.6

And Raja played only 11 minutes in the 2nd game because of injury, thats why Manu was able to score 32.

 

[PetryJr]

And Raja played only 11 minutes in the 2nd game because of injury, thats why Manu was able to score 32.

Oh, that's true. I didn't even remember that. Even more impressive, then.

 

[PetryJr]

Exactly. Let's hope it lasts. With luck, every writer and talking head in the country will talk about Thomas's value so much that even D'Antoni will get the message.

D'Antoni would prefer not to go big, but in this case I don't think we need to worry too much.

Remember, two years ago Steven Hunter played over 20 minutes a game against the Spurs, after averaging just over 13 minutes during the regular season. Kurt Thomas is a much better player than Hunter, and he's shown he can defend Duncan as well as anybody, while not disrupting the Suns' offense.

Sometimes it takes more time than it should, but usually D'Antoni ends up making the necessary adjustments.

 

[Griffin]

Being down 0-1 at home, there was really only one way for us to "get back" in the series and that's win game 2 and at least either 3 or 4. We accomplished the first part, and rather easily. Now comes the hard part. If we lose game 3 we still can even things out in game 4, but a loss there and we are facing elimination in game 5. But win game 3 and we get home-court back, we get a series lead, we improve on our performance two years ago, and we get a chance to go up 3-1 in game 4. I guess what I'm trying to say is..... game 3 should be a must-win. Every game should be a must-win from now on (well it should have been from the beginning). They will try to match our energy and intensity from game 2, so we must take it to another level. Let's get it done!

 

[sunsfn]

Actually, I think the call was against Marion for hitting TP's arm. LB was chasing another guy but accidentally backdoored him

Yep!

 

[Errntknght]

The announcers said the foul was on Barbosa and they showed a juxtaposition of him rising up under Tony along with the shotclock, which showed he made contact before time expired.

Of course the announcers also said that Leo was trying to run at another player but the replay didn't confirm that - it looked to me like Barbosa was just trying to get up and scoot out of the way. He was bent over scrabbling with Tony over the ball before TP grabbed it and went up twisting around and falling backward to get the shot off.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

nope. still .1 and Leo backdoored him good.

You got this one wrong. It was a fadeaway, and Barbosa tried to get out of the way as fast as he could. I have seen the replay 20 times already. Besides, there was not 0.1 on the clock, it was at 00.0, but the refs bailed him out.

 

[cly2tw]

You got this one wrong. It was a fadeaway, and Barbosa tried to get out of the way as fast as he could. I have seen the replay 20 times already. Besides, there was not 0.1 on the clock, it was at 00.0, but the refs bailed him out.

Actually, I saw the Marion hitting TP's shooting arm just a tad before 00.0, while the contact of backdoor happened certainly after ball leaving his hand and after the time light gone off. But in the play-by-play record, they did give the foul on LB. Kinda strange.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

Actually, I saw the Marion hitting TP's shooting arm just a tad before 00.0, while the contact of backdoor happened certainly after ball leaving his hand and after the time light gone off. But in the play-by-play record, they did give the foul on LB. Kinda strange.

That was my concern as well, and why I feel that he was given the foul call because of how hard he hit the ground.

 

[dodie53]

good thing LB and/or parker didn't get hurt