Blood and Guts

Where's Burgess Meredith when you need him?

A great game yesterday between the Suns and Spurs. I've never seen a contest outside of boxing that depended on a trainer's ability to stop the bleeding of a star's nasty gash. They couldn't do it, and the Suns lost. The two teams experienced somewhat of a role reversal, with the Suns scoring more points in the paint, shooting more free throws, and turning the ball over less than the Spurs. Where the Spurs won the game is in rebounds--especially on the offensive end. As we know all too well with our club, generally if you get out rebounded by 14, your chances of losing the game go WAY up. Tim Duncan had as many offensive rebounds as the entire Suns team. Some very tough play down low between Duncan and Stoudemire/Thomas of the Suns. Sorry KG fans, it's another prime example of why Duncan is superior to KG at the power forward position. His strength, but more importantly, Duncan's mental toughness is more advanced at this stage of his career than Garnett's. Right now, I'm not sure KG is the third best PF in the Western Conference any more. If Amare were playing at his natural position, he'd be a cut above KG as well.

A couple of other observations:

The backup PG guards are going to be a bigger key in this series than I thought. Jacque Vaughn was terrible yesterday, and he provided little stability while Parker sat. If Tony needs to be a scorer in this series--especially a seven game series--he's going to need proper rest during the game. Vaughn's ability to hold serve while Parker sits is going to be important. Jacque gives the word journeyman true meaning. And to think coming out of Kansas, I wanted the Wolves to take him!

Barbosa was better in the first half than in the second, and his decision making at the end of the game sans Nash demonstrated why basketball is as much a mental as athletic game. Bad shots, and a bad foul really hurt the team in the waining minutes of the game.

I'm not sure the Spurs can keep playing at the Suns tempo. If they outrebound Phoenix maybe, but generally they need to keep the score under 100. The Spurs used the three pointer to keep them in the hunt during stretches of the game. They actually made one more than the Suns did, and it helped them greatly last night. I would be surprised if they could do that the entire series however. That and keeping turnovers under the 15 they had yesterday will be very important as the series continues.

Many think the winner of this series will win the championship. I tend to agree, but there's a lot of great basketball left to be played. The Mavs-Warrior series was just a primer. Now it gets really interesting. Hopefully, a good cut man will be available at all times for the rest of the playoffs in each venue.