One-Two Punch
The Spurs first two games, much like the rest of NBA, were characterized by an incredible amount of inconsistency. Between game one and game two we got a glimpse into the well-oiled machine that could be and the disaster that ensues when you don’t come out every night ready to play. After the latter many of you may feel as if you just took a punch in the stomach and to you I offer a word of encouragement.
Opening night the Spurs came out a little rusty and a bit excitable as well. After starting the game off down early 12-6, they flipped the switch. When Byron Scott turned to his reserves to give his first unit a breather, the Spurs saw an opportunity and snatched it. Between the latter half of the first quarter and the beginning of the second, the Spurs clamped down on the Hornets as they missed sixteen consecutive field goal attempts. The Spurs effectively went on a 23-1 run and kept CP3 and the Hornets in the rearview mirror the rest of the evening.
The Spurs took control of the game and the tempo as the closest the Hornets were to ever come in the second half was 17 points. It was a beautiful site to see. Spurs basketball at its finest was on display. The team was hitting their three-pointers, the newcomers came in and really added a new dynamic to the team the year prior, and with the exception of Keith Bogans, everyone on the twelve-man roster scored. Perhaps the most exciting part was that the starters were not forced to play heavy minutes whatsoever. This would be key in resting the core rotation for the back-to-back coming in Chicago the night following—or at least in theory anyway.
On Thursday night the Spurs showed down (I meant that as the past tense for ‘show down’ but that conveniently works doubly in that it’s the opposite of ‘showed up’) against a Chicago Bulls team featuring Derrick Rose who hadn’t played in game action in over four weeks. The extent of his workouts in that same time had been a total of two practices. Typically you may look at this as a big test because of Chicago’s youth and fire and with the Spurs coming off the back-end. Essentially the back-to-back excuse is rendered useless by the fact that Wednesday’s game, for all intents and purposes, was closer to a walkthrough or scrimmage then it was a real game. With everyone not named Bonner playing at or south of 26 minutes, the team was definitely well-rested going into Chicago.
I don’t know whether it was Chicago being extra hyped up for their first game at home, or the Spurs were just extremely flat but looking back, Thursday night’s loss was all about effort. The result of the contest was probably a combination of both of the aforementioned qualities. The entire night the Spurs looked like they were a step slow, if not a step and half. The Bulls killed them on the offensive glass and were just out-hustling and out-working the Spurs.
I’ll never forget, one night I was watching the NBA on ESPN and Hubie Brown said, “Every season you have to figure you’re going to have 5-6 games where you just lose because you cannot hit any shots and it’s just not your night.”
It’s simply a matter of time before you play a team that shoots lights out some night. You keep waiting for them to start missing and the ‘percentages to even out’ as coaches often say, but the buckets just keep falling and while their hoop seems like a pool, your basket feels as if it’s the eye of a needle. If this loss was a reflection upon our poor shooting that would be one thing; or if the core rotation had played heavy minutes the night prior and were still fatigued, then again, that would be understandable. As neither of those were the case, the Spurs flat-out got outworked by a younger and hungrier Chicago Bulls team on the Thursday night—and that is very uncharacteristic of this franchise and frankly disappointing.
Going into the locker room it would be safe to assume that the message that Pop preached was one concerning effort in giving up offensive boards in addition to taking care of the ball. His hopes of firing up the team worked, for one Spur at least. Duncan came out in the second half with a chip on his shoulder and really went to work. He claimed his stake at the 45 where he has made his millions knocking in consecutive 17-footers in an attempt to reenergize the sluggish-looking Spurs. Despite his attempts, the rest of the team looked rather disappointing. When we turn our attention to the other scorers Parker, Ginobili, and Jefferson were a combined 0-10 from the field with 4 points in the second half—this doesn’t exactly scream ‘championship material’ if you ask me.
Sure it was a disappointing loss, and yes the Spurs should have won but when we look around the league, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There are plenty of other teams that are struggling more mightily and that’s just the reality of time of year. As much as the fans and faithful followers would love for their teams to look crisp and sharp, it’s just not the norm to have that consistently at this point in the year.
I feel as if there’s always this false sense of hope at the beginning of each season. As much as you don’t want to drink the kool-aid, we all have fallen victims to having unrealistic expectations of our favorite team at one point in time going into the season. The basketball we last saw was an NBA Finals that featured two teams playing at their peak performance levels. Sure many of you may have watched summer league but that’s not the same and for that reason, most of us distinguish watching that from watching actual NBA games. After seeing all the off-season moves and acquisitions, you convince yourself that this is the year and that the team is going to come out guns a’ blazing only to get shot back down to earth after game one or two.
The first part of every season is a feeling out period. Coaches mix and match their line-ups and personnel and play calling to see what works and what doesn’t with the different line-ups. Spurs fans, it may be easy to get discouraged by the loss to Chicago, but they are a fine team that played with incredible energy against this San Antonio Spurs team. Inconsistency is to be expected at the beginning of the season. Hopefully the inconsistency from here on out will be more in the way of discrepancy in margin of victory rather than Ws and Ls. It’s an 82-game season and there are plenty more ups and downs, ebbs and flows to come. One can only hope that the ups are more frequent than the downs and with this ball club, I’d say you have a pretty darn good chance of experiencing more joy than hearth-ache in the days to come.
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