What a difference a month makes

Game 23: Spurs 109, Thunder 104

Last night's win over the Thunder didn't give Spurs fans much reason to celebrate. The Spurs led by 26 in the first half, but then let the worst team in the league cut that lead to a basket in the final minutes.

The Thunder began their comeback late in the second quarter. They cut the Spurs’ lead to three points at 100-97 with 2:02 left on Durant’s spinning layup. Durant made it 106-104 with another spinning layup with 30 seconds to go.

“It’s always the worst gift a team can get,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of the 26-point cushion. “This is the NBA, and there is a 24-second clock. Rarely, rarely does it stay like that -- it doesn’t matter what a team’s record is or who you’re playing.”

But a win is a win, right?

Unfortunately, the Spurs most recent wins have come against Denver, Golden State, Dallas, Atlanta, Minnesota and Oklahoma City. Another way of saying it: the Spurs beat three ho-hum teams and three lottery teams.

But what a difference a month makes. A month ago the Spurs were 2-4 and struggling without Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili in the lineup. (The Spurs were just 6-6 without Ginobili, but 7-2 without Parker. Make of that what you will.) The Spurs are 13-4 since both returned on Nov 28, have won six games in a row, 8 out of 10, and are the hottest team in the Western Conference.

It's noteworthy that even with Parker and Ginobili back in the lineup, Roger Mason and George Hill remain big contributors for the Spurs, combining for 115 points during the six-game winning streak.

It's also not lost on this fan that Mason and Hill represent, along with Parker, Bonner and Mahinmi, the future of the Spurs franchise. Since the return of Parker and Ginobili, as Mason and Hill have gone, so has the team. The Spurs are 6-0 when Mason has scored in double digits and 4-0 when Hill has.

League Darlings

“I knew what it was going to be out there, and I didn’t want our team to fall into that. We knew how it was going to be, especially going against the league darlings.”
-Rasheed Wallace, Detroit Pistons Forward

Game 17: Pistons 89, Spurs 77

Maybe he has been smokin' again¹. I don't know. But I can say without hesitation that Rasheed Wallace is out of his fucking mind if he thinks that the Spurs are the "league darlings." And you can tell him I said so.

Maybe Wallace hasn't checked out the official NBA website. Or maybe he's never read any of the numerous NBA-themed magazines. If he had, he would know that the league calls teams in Boston, Los Angeles and Cleveland, not San Antonio, its "darlings."

Maybe Wallace is pissed that Tim Duncan got the better of him tonight, in every statistical category but one.


Duncan 23-13-2-1-1
Wallace 19-5-0-1-0
Maybe Wallace didn't hear about Tim Duncan's run in with referee Joey Crawford, not the kind of preferential treatment you would except for a league darling to receive.

Maybe Wallace is still bitter about losing the 2005 NBA Finals to the Spurs. He must not recall the stories about low TV ratings, how no one wanted to watch the Spurs-Pistons series, except die-hard Spurs and Pistons fans. Maybe he's forgotten, too, how his Pistons were only the second best team in the East that year, lucky to even be in the Finals thanks to a Dwayne Wade rib injury, as they were lucky tonight playing against a recovering Spurs team whose superstars aren't yet back to 100% after injuries.

The Spurs have never been, nor will they ever be league darlings, despite what Rasheed Wallace says or thinks. And that's just the way we Spurs fans like it.


¹Not that there is anything wrong with that. In fact, seeing how marijuana is not a performance enhancing drug, it shouldn't be a banned substance in the NBA. And for the record, some of my favorite players have been stoners.