Spurs Success
I have been following the NBA finals through the web, and sometimes when I am up late, in 'real time' through Yahoo gamecast, which was a live summary of all the action and even a nice little graphic marking all the shots that have been made. I remember that I was a really big basketball fan when I was around 10 to 12 and I have still followed it intermittently since then, though football has taken over as my first love. My support for the Spurs actually stemmed from the Saegerts, whom I mentioned in a recent post, who lived in a town near to San Antonio and were close family friends in the year that they spent in Singapore. Previously, I had been content to just enjoy watching the game without supporting any one team, though my support for the Spurs was cemented when I watched two matches live in San Antonio at the old Alamodome (which has since given way to the SBC centre) in 1995 when I was 13.
The Spurs have just won through to the NBA finals, beating the Pheonix suns in a series that was incredibly interesting, if only that it marked a matchup of the best defensive and offensive teams in the NBA. In many ways, as much as I love the Spurs, its very heartening to see a team play the type of run and gun offence that Pheonix does as it harkens back to the old glory days of the late eighties of high scoring, free wheeling games, of showtime offence from the Lakers, matched by the equally remarkable Celtics - of Magic and Bird and Isiah Thomas, a young Michael Jordan, the days of exciting basketball which left such an impression on me. But what was remarkable was that the Spurs won the series in many ways not only through their much vaunted defence, but by being able to out-shine the Suns on offense. Nothing made this clearer than the 42 points they poured in against the Suns in the fourth quarter of game one to win the first match of the series.
In many ways, my renewed interest in the Spurs comes at a time with the Spurs being led by a new generation of players centered around Tim Duncan. David Robinson, for many years my favourite player retired in 2003, winning the NBA championship in his last match for the club. Sean Elliott, who miraculously played most of 1999 including the championship run, with a serious kidney ailment, had retired before then, but not before sinking probably the most famous shot in Spurs history in the form of the 'memorial day miracle' in the Western Conference finals. Avery Johnson, the tiny tough-talking point guard is now a coach no less. But the Spurs seem to have developed into an even better team with Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli their two super-quick, explosive foreign guards, and Bowen, probably the best one-on-one defenders in the league, able to shut down just about any player.
This transition for the team marks a transition for me as well. Gone are the days when I could just about name every single starting lineup for every single team in the NBA. All the old names, spoken so reverently before, have faded into the past. Even Michael - reverently called just MJ as if the acronym need no further clarification - has finally retired after what some would say was a disasterous comeback that took some of the lustre off of a magesterial career. Instead of Ewing and Olajuwon and Robinson, Jordan and Pippen, Malone and Stockton we have LeBron James and Amare Stoudamire, Yao Ming, Dwayne Wade. Nothing emphasizes it more than the retirement of Reggie Miller after 19 years with the Indiana Pacers. In many ways he was the last of the old guard, a player reknown for his drive, his clutch shooting, for his showdowns with Jordan, for giving it to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. And now he too is gone, another legend, though remembered by some.
Here is a link to an interesting article about the current Spurs team:
The Spurs have just won through to the NBA finals, beating the Pheonix suns in a series that was incredibly interesting, if only that it marked a matchup of the best defensive and offensive teams in the NBA. In many ways, as much as I love the Spurs, its very heartening to see a team play the type of run and gun offence that Pheonix does as it harkens back to the old glory days of the late eighties of high scoring, free wheeling games, of showtime offence from the Lakers, matched by the equally remarkable Celtics - of Magic and Bird and Isiah Thomas, a young Michael Jordan, the days of exciting basketball which left such an impression on me. But what was remarkable was that the Spurs won the series in many ways not only through their much vaunted defence, but by being able to out-shine the Suns on offense. Nothing made this clearer than the 42 points they poured in against the Suns in the fourth quarter of game one to win the first match of the series.
In many ways, my renewed interest in the Spurs comes at a time with the Spurs being led by a new generation of players centered around Tim Duncan. David Robinson, for many years my favourite player retired in 2003, winning the NBA championship in his last match for the club. Sean Elliott, who miraculously played most of 1999 including the championship run, with a serious kidney ailment, had retired before then, but not before sinking probably the most famous shot in Spurs history in the form of the 'memorial day miracle' in the Western Conference finals. Avery Johnson, the tiny tough-talking point guard is now a coach no less. But the Spurs seem to have developed into an even better team with Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli their two super-quick, explosive foreign guards, and Bowen, probably the best one-on-one defenders in the league, able to shut down just about any player.
This transition for the team marks a transition for me as well. Gone are the days when I could just about name every single starting lineup for every single team in the NBA. All the old names, spoken so reverently before, have faded into the past. Even Michael - reverently called just MJ as if the acronym need no further clarification - has finally retired after what some would say was a disasterous comeback that took some of the lustre off of a magesterial career. Instead of Ewing and Olajuwon and Robinson, Jordan and Pippen, Malone and Stockton we have LeBron James and Amare Stoudamire, Yao Ming, Dwayne Wade. Nothing emphasizes it more than the retirement of Reggie Miller after 19 years with the Indiana Pacers. In many ways he was the last of the old guard, a player reknown for his drive, his clutch shooting, for his showdowns with Jordan, for giving it to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. And now he too is gone, another legend, though remembered by some.
Here is a link to an interesting article about the current Spurs team:
posted by Caleb Liu | 11:04 AM
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