San Antonio Spurs

[Archer sensAtion]

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please visit: https://www.istorya.net/forums/basket...ml#post3639197


my picks: pa baga-ay ug face ako west picks






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[koontz_circle]

mas mo prefer pa ko ni horry kay "booner".wla pamanha na ila na big time clutch shooter sa nba ma o na inyung g pang hambog?

if ur talking bout basketball IQ then i agree with you having Horry over Booner, but the Spurs need Booner more with his legs on the floor.

para nimo cguro wala pa naila si Booner as clutch shooter but for the Spurs and the whole organization he's the guy who can turn the lights out at any given moment.

[EvenStar]

naa diay player sa Spurs nga Booner?

if im not mistaken its Matt Bonner.yaw namo lalis diha kay kamo duha sayop.hehehe PEACE namo!!!!

[tackielarla]

naa diay player sa Spurs nga Booner?

Bonner bro. Sometimes call him Boner, if he screws up.

No idea when ang next SA-LA matchup. It should be one heckuva game!

[tackielarla]

SAN ANTONIO (AP)—Tim Duncan shaved his head—and clipped the Golden State Warriors, too.
The new-look Duncan scored 20 points in 21 minutes and the suddenly high-scoring San Antonio Spurs beat Golden State 123-88 on Saturday night, the Warriors’ ninth straight loss. Duncan also had 13 rebounds for his third straight double-double.


San Antonio (11- entered the game scoring 93.5 points per contest. But the Spurs scored 108 while winning Thursday night at Denver, and their point total against Golden State was a season high for a regulation game.


It’s the first time this season the Spurs have scored more than 100 points in consecutive games.
Golden State’s nine-game losing streak is the longest current streak in the NBA. It’s the first time the Warriors (5-15) have lost that many in a row since March 27-April 11, 2006. The Warriors shot 37 percent.


“It’s just one of those things,” said Corey Maggette, who signed a free-agent contract with the Warriors after playing eight seasons for the Los Angeles Clippers.




“I was dealing with this with the Clippers, where we had different situations going on. Trust me, it’s getting old. But we have to keep playing, and one of these days it will click.”
Michael Finley and Tony Parker added 17 points each for the Spurs.


Duncan and Finley were both 7-of-10 from the floor, and Parker was 8-of-14 to help the Spurs shoot 55 percent for the game. They shot 61 percent through three quarters, and the Spurs led by as much as 41 points in the fourth quarter.


“We did shoot the ball better tonight,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “Shooting well makes a big difference, obviously.”


Golden State took the direct route to another loss. The Warriors allowed the Spurs to score on 11 of their first 12 possessions. Six of those came on layups, including two by Matt Bonner, who added 14 points.


It got so bad for Golden State that Stephen Jackson took the rest of the night off to rest a bothersome arm injury with the Warriors trailing 51-34 with 6:09 left in the first half. Warriors officials announced the injury as a sprained left hand.


San Antonio has scored 30 or more points in the opening two quarters of two consecutive games. The Spurs scored 30 and 31 points in the first two quarters for a season-high 61 points in the first half during the 108-91 victory Thursday at Denver.


Against the Warriors, San Antonio had 35 in the first quarter and 30 in the second quarter for another season-high first half. The 35-point first quarter was a point shy of a season high.
To add to Golden State’s misery, the Spurs scored 39 in the third quarter.


“We’ve had two great games, and hopefully we can keep this going,” said Manu Ginobili, who led the Spurs with nine assists. “We just tried to move the ball. It’s the things we always try to do, but sometimes it doesn’t work.”


It’s the Spurs’ fifth game with both Parker and Ginobili back in the lineup after both missed different portions of the season dealing with ankle injuries.


So, Warriors coach Don Nelson lamented the bad timing afterward.


“We had hoped to play the Spurs when they were injured,” Nelson said, “but we didn’t make it in time. We played badly tonight, and they can always make you look worse than you are.”

Golden State Warriors forward …
AP - Dec 6, 11:22 pm EST



While the Warriors looked like themselves on defense—they give up a league-worst 111.4 points per game—their typical offensive punch stayed behind in Houston with the 131-112 loss to the Rockets on Friday. It was the third straight game the Warriors had scored more than 110 points.
But in the first quarter against the Spurs, Golden State shot 6-of-22 from the floor and was outscored in the paint 18-2.


And, now, Golden State has allowed more than 110 points in each of the last even games.

Notes
Golden State is 2-10 on the road this season. … The Warriors haven’t won in San Antonio since Feb. 14, 1997, when they won 108-94 in Gregg Popovich’s first season as coach for the Spurs. … Bonner started his third consecutive game for the Spurs. … After not traveling with the rest of the Spurs Thursday to Denver because of flu-like symptoms, Ime Udoka checked into Saturday’s game for the first time with 42 seconds left in the first half.

[tackielarla]

NBA 2009: Oddly enough, San Antonio Spurs are the best bet for the title
LA Lakers and Boston Celtics are among the favourites, but check out the year and check out Spurs' record.
by Douglas Strother

With the season a little over a month old I find it interesting that many fans and experts are already crowning the Los Angeles Lakers NBA champions for 2009.

Why not? They’ve got out to a quick start, they have the best scorer (not player) in their team, the most successful coach since Red Auerbach, and are the defending Western Conference champions.

But what those same fans and experts seem to be forgetting is that the Lakers were spanked in the Finals by the Celtics last season, showing they can be rattled easily. They haven’t won a championship since Shaq O'Neal donned the purple and gold, and the most obvious reason of all, they would have to stop a succession of championships won by the San Antonio Spurs every odd year since 2003.

In a sporting society where the ‘what have you done for me lately?’ mentality runs rampant, a team like the San Antonio Spurs might fall off the radar after their slow 2-5 start to the season.

The ankle injuries suffered by Manu Ginobili over the summer and then Tony Parker a week into the season, wouldn’t have helped their cause either. But after quick recoveries, both are back, and the best trio in the West are reunited. With a 9-8 record they find themselves only a tiebreaker outside the play-off picture and just two games outside of first place in the Southwest division.

Over the years what has made the Spurs successful is obvious - Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Gregg Popovich. But less credit has gone to the role players, some of whom have come up huge in the play-offs.

Who can forget Robert Horry’s 21-point performance in Game Five of the 2005 NBA Finals against Detroit, or Steve Kerr’s four three-pointers against the Mavericks in Game Six of the 2003 Western Conference Finals, or Malik Rose’s memorable dunk over Dikembe Mutombo to spark a run by the Spurs against the Nets in Game Five of the NBA Finals in 2003.

The Spurs have these role players in the form of Bruce Bowen, Kurt Thomas, Michael Finley and Fabricio Oberto. They won’t exactly set the world on fire, but hey, they are role players. Also, in Ginobili and Parker’s absence, Roger Mason and George Hill became part of the rotation and that experience will have proved invaluable, and Popovich knows he can call on them any time throughout the season. Now put that all together and you have the makings of another championship team.

Admittedly this team isn’t getting any younger. Duncan has been in the league for more than a decade. He’s no spring chicken, but the Celtics taught us a few things about a championship team. One is that three All-Stars isn’t a case of too many cooks in the kitchen; and two, defensive role players are key; and three, age is just a number.

So that just leaves the most obvious question: Just how do they get past the Lakers and the Boston Celtics to achieve championship glory? In the case of the Lakers, last year the Spurs sorely missed a healthy and subsequently quick Ginobili, which usually gives the opposition defense nightmares. That way Parker can play his own game and he doesn’t have to force the issue offensively.

Then, to overcome the addition of Andrew Bynum (who missed the play-offs last season), the Spurs can count on Fabricio Oberto and Kurt Thomas to defend him and leave Duncan to worry about scoring and staying out of foul trouble.

For the Celtics, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett will cancel each other out, and the same goes for Rajon Rondo and Tony Parker. Paul Pierce’s scoring will suffer while he uses his energy defending Ginobili, Ray Allen will find it difficult to score against his arch nemesis Bruce Bowen. Those two have a colourful history, one which Bowen almost always wins.

And besides, all reasons aside, who can forget, it's 2009, an odd year; the year of the Spurs.

[tackielarla]

Next in line: Dallas Mavericks.

[tackielarla]

Good news Spurs fanatics!

How The Spurs Keep On Going
by Brandon Hoffman

The San Antonio Spurs lost six of their first eleven games, but have won six out of their last eight to creep into the eighth spot in the West.

Forward Tim Duncan and guards Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker have suited up for only five games together. Ginobili missed San Antonio’s first 12 games after undergoing ankle surgery. Parker missed 9 games after spraining an ankle in San Antonio’s fifth game of the season. And yet the Spurs managed a 7-2 stretch without the services of their superstar backcourt.

San Antonio kept their heads afloat behind an MVP-caliber start of the season from Duncan and solid production from new rotation players Roger Mason Jr., George Hill, and Matt Bonner. Mason and Bonner have spaced the floor with their outside shooting, while Hill provided quality minutes filling in for Parker. Bonner has connected on 48% of his shot attempts (21-44) from beyond the arc. Mason is shooting 48% (48-100) from downtown. Both players rank among the top six in three-point shooting percentage.

The Spurs allowed three of their first five opponents to score more than 100 points, but have since returned to the principles that made them one of the league’s best defensive teams for better than a decade. Those principles were on full display in wins against the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors.

After allowing 26 first quarter points on 55% shooting, the Spurs put the clamps on the Nuggets Thursday night. San Antonio kept Carmelo Anthony and company from penetrating the middle of their defense, forced ball-handlers baseline and dominated the defensive glass (35-23). The Spurs forced the Nuggets to miss 10 of their first 12 shot attempts to start the second quarter, outscored Denver 31-15 in that period, and never looked back as they handed the Nuggets their worst loss of the season.

The Spurs got off to a similar start against the Warriors. San Antonio held the Warriors to 31% shooting in the first quarter of Saturday’s night game in route to a 123-88 blowout at home.

With Popovich on the sidelines and Duncan patrolling the paint, the Spurs have never finished a season lower than 3rd in defensive efficiency. All-NBA defender Bruce Bowen has definitely lost a step or two, but the Spurs remain fundamentally sound on that end of the floor. And it begins and ends with Tim Duncan.

Duncan had 5 blocks against the Nuggets on Thursday night, including 3 swats in the fourth quarter when the Nuggets cut the Spurs lead to 14 with 9:56 remaining. But blocked shots have never defined Tim Duncan’s defense. Duncan’s rotations are flawless. His defensive presence goes beyond a boxscore.

After San Antonio’s win versus Denver, I asked Duncan if San Antonio’s defensive turnaround in the second quarter was the result of defensive adjustments or if it was a matter of effort.

“We changed our defense,” Duncan said. “But it’s always about effort with us. It’s always about focus and effort.”

Duncan has notoriously coasted through regular seasons. But perhaps awakened by the challenge to win without Parker and Ginobili early in the season, Duncan has played with renewed energy from the onset this year.

I arrived at the Pepsi Center two and a half hours before tipoff. Instead of getting myself situated in the media room, I decided to make my way to the floor to see who was warming up before the game. There were three players on the court: Chris Anderson, Roger Mason Jr., and Tim Duncan. A player working himself back from suspension, a journeyman role player, and the greatest power forward of all-time. Duncan shot free-throws, followed by mid-range jumpers, and then pick-and-pop simulations. He was intense, visibly agitated with misses, and there was a purpose to his routine.

Duncan has achieved all there is to achieve in his profession, but he’s not finished. Not by a long shot. That’s why it would be foolish to count out the Spurs this season, or any season as long as Duncan is donning the silver and black.

With last night’s win versus the Warriors, the Spurs jumped to 9th in defensive efficiency after falling as low as 29th. Simply put, San Antonio is back to playing “Spurs basketball.” That means defending the three-point line, controlling the defensive glass, forcing ball-handlers baseline, and sharing the basketball.

Parker and Ginobili’s injuries were unfortunate, but they may very well turn out to be a blessing in disguise. The Spurs know that Hill, Mason, and Bonner are the real deal. Those three, coupled with Bruce Bowen, Ime Udoka, Fabricio Oberto and San Antonio’s ‘Big 3’ make the Spurs a nine-deep team.

San Antonio may not capture a top-four seed, but seeding means nothing to the Spurs. They’re the one team in the league that is capable of winning four straight playoff series without the benefit of home-court advantage. Go ahead, count the Spurs out, but you’ll be singing a different tune come April, May, and possibly June.

[tackielarla]

Tim Duncan scored eight of his 32 points in the decisive second overtime, Tony Parker added 29 points and 10 assists, and the San Antonio Spurs beat the Dallas Mavericks 133-126 Tuesday night in the latest thriller between these Interstate-35 rivals.

Woohoo!!!

[kamikaze426]

hilom2x lang ni spurs