Bill Simmons says all that needs to be said about Game 5 in [ESPN’s page 2] editorial:
(That reminds me. We’re always too quick to demolish athletes who make dumb plays or screw up at the worst possible times, from Byner’s fumble to C-Webb’s timeout to poor Bill Buckner … but at the same time, I feel like ‘Sheed’s brainfart will somehow get swept under the rug in the afterglow of such an electric game. Let the record show that Wallace’s decision to leave a scorching-hot Horry to double-team Ginobili was the single dumbest play in the history of the NBA Finals. For sweeping significance and staggering inexplicability, it cannot be topped. I’m telling you.)
First, we can never be too quick to demolish the athletes who falter at the most crucial of times. Dwelling on it may be excessive, but thrash them as it happens and it allows for some humility to enter stage left, particularly for your boy Rasheed. I’ll hold out until the Finals are over to cast a vote for one way or the other, personally, though, EB’s fumble hurts deep with every recall.
From Bill Simmons’ column today: (too lazy to provide the link but hey, at least I’m reading the blog, eh?)
Did we ever settle whether it’s “Big Shot Rob” or “Big Shot Bob”? I always thought it was Big Shot Rob, but my editors kept changing it to Big Shot Bob. Then Horry himself demanded to be called Big Shot Rob, which made me want to call him Big Shot Bob because nobody should be able to decide their own nickname. So I’m offering a compromise – from now on, we should refer to him only as “Big Shot Brob.”
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In my eyes, this vindicates my insistence on calling him “Big Shot Rob.”
On to other matters, I kind of like Rasheed Wallace, if only for entertainment value. I love the off-center bald spot, the fact that he’s some kind of Egyptian art/hieroglyphics junkie, and that he uses the term “cats” to refer to other people all the time. No one calls people “cats” anymore and that’s a shame. You know, like “those cats don’t know what they’re talking about.” He’s actually also unselfish to a fault as a player and often has to be urged to take more shots and be more selfish. Rare in this day and age. He is, of course, also a total whackjob nutcase who takes a ridiculous amount of technical fouls that hurt his team for no good reason. You can’t have it all.
I’ve decided I just don’t like the Spurs for reasons that might not make a ton of sense. Aside from my love from Big Shot Rob, I was really coming around on Manu Ginobli and thought his balls-to-the-wall attitude would turn me into someone who at least appreciates the team. I still like his heart, but his flops are actually starting to annoy me. The biggest problem is that I just don’t see “it” in Tim Duncan. I’ve heard him called “The Big Fundamental.” What’s more fundamental than free-throw shooting? I don’t even like the way he looks when he trots down the court to be perfectly honest. He ends up with good numbers, but a real dominant player wouldn’t have let the Pistons get to a Game 7. It was time to smell blood and tcb and the Spurs just waltzed through that game like it didn’t really matter, they’d still have one more chance to win if they didn’t come through.
Tim Duncan has been having a terrible Finals, quite frankly. It may seem a little preposterous to call a 20 point/15 rebound game terrible, but he is just not playing up to his potential right now. I am quite loathe to talk badly about him, having been burnt once. I dissed him long, hard, and loudly when he came out of college. I was convinced he wasn’t going anywhere in the pros. Ooops.
I do like referring to folks as cats, and like it when I hear other folks doing so.
We’ll see what happens tonight, but I have anything but a sense that Duncan will take over the game and be the difference maker. You’re right that his stats are still pretty good even when he doesn’t seem to play that well, and he does it all while being double-teamed more often than not, but he seems to lack that je ne sais qois that the great ones have. I’m not sure how the fine print in Big Shot Rob’s deal with the devil reads, but he may have shot his wad in Game Five and may not be allowed to go off more than once in a single series. It wouldn’t surprise me if Manu Ganobli went nuts and put the team on his shoulders in the 4th quarter tonight. He did, after all, carry a nation to a gold medal so this wouldn’t be that big of a deal. The Pistons could find ways to screw it up for themselves too, being the volatile bunch that they are.
If the game is close at the start of the 4th quarter (within 6-7 points), I think the Pistons will probably pull off one more win on the road.
Well, Duncan finished a poor 10-for-27 from the field but he had his usual decent stat line and in the 3rd quarter when the Spurs were down by 5 or 6 he really did make some good plays to help pull them even. Three rings, three NBA Finals MVPs – I still say he gives me bad vibes, but the facts don’t leave me with much of a leg to stand on. It was indeed Manu Ginobli who delivered the coup de grace with strong play in the final few minutes. He hit a big three with less than two minutes left, then he added another strong drive for a layup that pretty much sealed the deal.
Now the only thing left to do is see how the Hawks screw up the draft on Tuesday. I hope Milwaukee takes Andrew Bogut and leaves Marvin Williams for the Hawks. If they want this city to completely abandon the team, then they should go ahead and draft a white guy from Utah. Oddly, the 1st overall pick of both the NFL and NBA drafts could turn out to fit that description.
Manu was the heartbreaker for Detroit, but it was Duncan who made the difference this game. His free throws and his long 2 pointer were the key to the Spurs winning.
Manu played a great game- Detroit could do almost nothing to stop him.