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The road sucks. Home is so safe and warm and full of open jumpers. The funny thing is that I don’t think we played poorly. The difference in this game was the difference between a young Kevin Durant and an old Tim Duncan. It was the difference between a Danny Green-led fast break and a KD-to-Westbrook one.

OKC is younger, more talented, and at home. It didn’t matter that they were on their third in three, and we on our second in two (including fifth in seven days).

Also, Danny Green didn’t score 24 points tonight. In fact, as I type this he had zero and the Spurs are down by 19 with 4:19 in the fourth quarter. It shows you how big the leap is from Good Night As Role Player to Consistent Performer.

Gary Neal conintued his run of imppressiveness. The guy is a shooter and I love me a shooter. I wonder how much he has influenced Richard Jefferson’s newly evident attack mode. RJ’s hesitation was excused away these last couple years by noting the unfamiliarity and later the ill-fit for his game. Now? Well it seems that he has adjusted to the role he is asked to play (by shooting a shit-ton of shots from the corner and all it’s variations) and displaying a crazy confidence in his game. Gary can shoot and shoot well. He displays no hesitation wen he has an open shot because, well, he knows he is gonna make it.

RJ is doing the same thing. Whatever the reason, I like it.

It didn’t do us much good tonight, but it I still like it.

—

You know what bothers me the most about this game? We  got handled in pretty easy fashion. Remember when we used to handle teams like that? It just reminds me of the small margin of error we have to win this title, yo.

That is still the goal, right?

I don’t know anymore.

Maybe it is just because it is Sunday night and my PS3 died on me and I’m feeling a little sore. Maybe because we no longer have a top 10 player in the NBA anymore and I’d really like it if Kevin Durant was balling for San Antonio. Guess I know what Utah felt like near the end of the Stockton-to-Malone era.

Can’t dwell on that right now though. We have Milwaukee on Tuesday night and even though they are pretty terrible, they are young and we always have trouble with those Bucks.

Go Spurs Go.

So Danny Green, huh?

That is what I’m talking about, yo. He had 24 points in this old-school looking game. It was an old ABA-style game with seven players in double figures. Give me more of this, please. I’ve been skeptical of these three games sans-Gino. Golden State is learning defense, Dallas has no desire, and tonight? Well Denver was without Nene.

I suppose it doesn’t even matter mentioning who is on what kind of multi-game in multi-nights. This wasn’t as big a game as it would have been but regular season basketball is all about getting wins however you can.

The most important stat is that we are six wins to the good and only two wins to the bad. Tomorrow we’ll face an Oklahoma City team that squeaked out a win against Houston tonight.

OKC is young and talented … but so are we …?

Yeah. Danny Green has always had potential. Tonight he turned some of that into kinetic scoring, yo. Maybe Denver was terrible on defense and a little off without their best player, but they are good. TJ Ford was dishing the rock. Everyone contributed and Timmy got rest. He’ll need it to battle against Kendrick Perkins tomorrow.

This is good stuff.

The other story? Richard Jefferson.

Something makes me thing that this may not be the early season fluke that he displayed last season. He looks aggressive. He looks like the dude that we traded for a couple years ago. Like I said at the beginning of the season, I take these games one at a time and for what they are. I don’t expect more or less. I take whatever RJ gives us.

Tonight? That was 19 points and 5/8 from three and a sweet-ass block-and-three that is the highlight of the night.

Tomorrow night I don’t expect that. I’ll be looking at Tony Parker to take on the scoring. The road is a different animal and shooters start to miss. Role players start to get scared and make mistakes. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. I’ll go ahead and admit that I am a lot more excited about everything. Probably more than I should be. For that, I’ll thank Danny Green and Richard Jefferson.

Go Spurs Go.

The ugly part of the NBA is one of the coolest things. Even with the lockout-shortened season there are still a ton of games. This one is already feeling like just another game where they are coming fast and furiously.

There is no shame in admitting you probably will be watching the Saints and Lions tonight. It is all good. We played exceedingly well against two teams with some flaws. Golden State is still learning to play defense and Steph Curry had an injury of his own. Dallas is still hungover and missing the heart of their championship squad. Dirk is out of shape, too.

We can only be somewhat excited about our wins. Still, be excited. Wins are wins no matter how you get them. We are learning how to win ugly — with junked together starting lineups and rotations and lots of manufacturing scoring. We don’t need to rely on a different guy to get us 40 to win –instead we rely on shooters to light it up. I’ll take it. When we start dropping home games that is when I’ll worry. Similarly, when we start winning road games consistently, that is when I’ll be jumping up and down.

I hate to sound cynical like Randy Quaid in Major League II. “They’ll just blow it in the playoffs.”

No, I’m just an experienced fan. I know when a team is playing well and when they are just riding a hot shooting streak. I know when a team is kicking ass and when they are just playing an opponent who is laying down and giving up.

This Nuggets team is pretty good. They play hard and Nene is going to be a real test for Tiago Splitter tonight. I’m still expecting more excellent play from the “role” players like Bonner, TJ, Danny Green etc because we are still at home.

When we play OKC on Sunday less than 24-hours after, that I will be interested. Oh, yeah and then we travel to Milwaukee to play the Bucks on Tuesday night. Ugh.

Go Spurs Go.

Not gonna lie, folks. I started writing this at the beginning of the second half. These last two games against the Warriors and Mavericks were pretty anti-climactic. We didn’t really learn much about what this team will be  sans-Ginobili.

The talk is and will be about the guys who stepped up in his absence. James Anderson only brought five points against Golden State and so was rewarded with like five seconds of playing time against the Mavericks. The story instead was the hot shooting from three. We know we can do that. Last season we rode that to the co-best record in the association. The Spurs shot 10 of 17 in the first game and 16 of 33 in the second … both at HOME.

Gary Neal looked aggressive, Richard Jefferson was Early Season Richard (means he plays well and doesn’t drift). Matt Bonner was killing it from three etc etc.

I’d love to be head over heels for this stuff. Last season jaded me some. We know we can do this stuff all season long and impress the n00bs with our crazy stat lines. We still are in the oft-mentioned WINDOW OF CHAMPIONSHIP OPPORTUNITY because Tim is still playing and we are not REBUILDING.

So yeah. I love seeing the Mavericks get stomped in San Antonio. I’d love it even more if we did it at the AAC next time. Right now though? I’m taking it for what it was: An good showing from the role players.

We can ride that every now and then. Just don’t get mad when they don’t do this on the road Sunday in Oklahoma coming off the game against Denver the night previous.

Go Spurs Go.

This night is all about Emmanuel Ginobili. He fractured his pinky and will be out around 4-6 weeks. Depending on when you start the count, he will miss something like 20 games. I’ll give you a moment to freak out.

Done? Okay. It sucks. Manu is more than just a guy on this team. He creates and makes the Spurs’ system less reliant on execution. He is the magic on this team. Whereas Tony Parker can break down the defense, he doesn’t have the game breaking range that Manu has.

Guys will need to step up. Gary Neal is expected to be recalled sooner than originally planned. Danny Green will be getting more minutes. James Anderson –the guy everyone is high on — will not only have room to do his thing, but will be relied upon to do so.

The thing about all this though?

We were getting our asses kicked already. Minnesota is better –not quite there yet –but they are much better than the team that lost all those games last year. Ricky Rubio is a baller. Kevin Love is a skinny three-point shootin’ baller.

Manu Ginobili wasn’t gonna drop the Wolves’ shooting percentage down twenty digits. We have problems deeper than one guy. This one can’t be explained away like the Houston game. That was the second of a back-to-back. This? We had a day between games and they just got done with Dallas the night before.

This was a bad bad day.

It was coming. We always knew the hectic pace would render an otherwise decent squad a pitiful ghost of itself. The Rockets looked awesome in manhandling our Spurs. Noted enemy of SA, Goran Drajic worked his magic to a few frustratingly nice buckets and Luis Scola showed us that the Spurs front office can make a huge error. Interestingly, in TNT Ian Mahinmi was getting good minutes on the Mavericks. He’s another puzzling cut we made.

I figured we’d be terrible last night so it wasn’t a huge shock that they getting smacked in the mouth. The pain came from the knowledge that our big man shortage could have been already handled. Both 48minutes of Hell and Basketbawful bring up good points from slightly different perspectives (I’ll let you figure out which one is more optimistic).

I’ll let those stand in asthe Optimist and Pessimist takes on the game today.

Really though, how troubled should we be by the loss? Like Pop said, it was a good time to squeeze in some training for this still-longish season. A 66-game season is only 16 less than a full one. It is disconcerting to see the loss in action, though. I realized I still harbored some belief that we’d not be troubled by our lack of frontline depth and that the back-to-backs wouldn’t REALLY affect us.

So the disappointment is mine to endure. It could be worse, we could be those Mavericks who let one slip away after nearly stealing an always-valuable road win from the Thunder. I heard Steven A Smith mention that they miss Tyson Chandler a lot more that I originally thought. He retold the story of Tyson letting Dallas know what he though of them when he was a Hornet and Bull. “Everyone thinks you’re punks and that you’re soft.” Who is  going to do that for them now? Vince Carter? LOL.

Next Up: UTAH JAZZ at the Barn.

Lob City was a no-show. Sure Blake Griffin had 28 and nine. The Spurs have long let one dude  shine while shutting down the rest of the opposition. Ask Amaré Stoudemire if he scoring 28+ against the Spurs means you are getting wins. He had some highlight worthy stuff and a dunk or two. DeAndre Jordan even had a brutal punch early in the game. The biggest reason for the domination? The Spurs corralled future HOFer Chris Paul.

I spent the night up in section 213 with some rowdy fans. After so much time at college venues (Super Pit, Erwin Center, The Convo, Alamodome) it was nice be around knowledgeable, rowdy fans that don’t mind dropping some adult language. That may have been the beer flowing but it was enjoyable nonetheless. It marked my first trip to the AT&T Center since opening night back in 2005 or so. Yeah. It has been that long. It isn’t the most conducive environment for gathering information for a post-game blog post but it is a hell of a spot to watch the game.

Well, how about that game?  Look at the box score and two things stand out: Richard Jefferson dropped 19 and DeJuan Blair contributed 20. The style that LA plays, one of above-the-rim athleticism rather than tough, Memphis-like bullying plays to DeJuan’s strengths as Mike Taylor noted on twitter.  I don’t want to completely discount the Beast’s rededication to his game. He said in various interviews that he was hungrier and looking to play more aggressively. So far he has done exactly that. Usually it be feasible to speculate on his ability to score and rebound against a tougher squad like the Lakers or Boston, but with the way everything has unfolded thus far, those teams may not be the contenders.

So we’ll reserve judgement and just enjoy the progress that DeJuan has made thus far in his two years plus two games.

Richard Jefferson is seducing us again. Instead of falling in love with him and dreaming of a long life (season+playoffs) living happily ever after (him producing in crunch time during June) just enjoy him for what he is (that crazy girlfriend the Offspring sang about).

This was a classic tease move that doesn’t have to be a tease. I’ve learned to appreciate the occasional 20-point outburst and displays of confident shooting and aggressiveness as the unreliable but pleasant surprises that they are. You should, too. We don’t rely on RJ to score 20 to win so when he does that means we don’t need 40 from Gino.

Speaking of Gino, let’s give him another round of applause everyone. The Manu is awesome. If this were soccer, Ginobili would be our Trequarista, Timmy our Target Man and Parker our speedy winger who can dip inside and finish. Gino is the creative playmaker that makes the whole machine work.

What does this all mean you ask? Well let’s introduce our two friends:

Optimist:

See? I told you that the Spurs were going to kick ass this year. The lockout means that teams that know their system will have a head start on others and we finally are healthy again. We whipped Lob City and spanked Memphis –the former the athletic darlings of the Association and the latter the squad whose youth and strength eliminated us last year. We are back and better than ever! James Anderson is a baller! GO SPURS GO!

Pessimist:

What? You think winning two HOME games means anything? Tim only had 10 points and we looked pretty awful in that second quarter. We’ve shot especially well these two games and that is unlikely to continue. Sometime this year RJ will have his annual disappearance and James Anderson will be figured out by the League and get stifled like DeJuan did last season.

My take:

Somewhere in the middle. As always. I don’t think any wins are bad wins. With the reputation for tanking games to save legs, it is nice to get wins when everyone else is figuring out their rotations and chemistry. Our experience is an advantage as much as youth and athleticism are advantages for other teams. Assuming that tired legs will steal wins away from us as the compressed schedule takes it’s toll, “stealing” wins now will make up for give-away games later. James Anderson has always had that potential and showed flashes of it before being hurt last year. I’m confident he will not drop off too bad going forward. We did shoot lights out but that is kind of our MO now isn’t it? We have always been –and I mean back to 2001, even — reliant on the three point shot to win games. We do tend to look for those before looking inside now more than ever, which is my biggest worry. That is why I harp on easy twos and the need to establish an inside game from the bigs. That is our three yards and a cloud of dust that we need to spring us for the big pass plays (three point shots).

Things I liked:

TJ Ford with some nice open-court spin moves (and a dish)

Third Quarter Blowouts

Non-Stop chants in section 214.

Beer.

No thunder dunk lobs from Paul to Griffin.

Things I didn’t like:

Starters playing with a 25-point lead late.

Chicks with curdles popping out of their leggings.

No thunder dunk lobs from Paul to Griffin.

So we begin …

With a win!

The banner drop and intro was surprisingly exciting. Perhaps because I’ve been so involved with Coker Chronicles and El Convo that I’ve not missed the Spurs as much as some others. Maybe the bad taste that Memphis and Dallas left me with made me less excited for San Antonio basketball. Watching the crowd and hype at the AT&T Center made me wish I bought tickets after all.

We started well. Timmy drained a jumper and Manu dished a crafty pass. Then we started to look old and creaky. Sean Elliott called it just plain sloppy play. A less cynical and jaded Adam would be inclined to agree. These problems weren’t just bad basketball and rustiness, however. It was the same cracks that Memphis revealed in us in the Spring. We were out-hustled and out-sprinted in transition.

Two things stood out in the second quarter: (1) Tiago Splitter got the ball deep in the paint and attempted some kind of finesse contortion that should have been a strong move. He missed. Immediately on the other end Gasol bullied his way to a score from the same spot on the floor. (2) DeJuan Blair sprinted down the middle, received a beautiful pass from Tony Parker, and scored a sweet layup.

Those two have to score like that. They need to get those easy buckets after beating the defense down the floor. Tiago needs to score from inside two feet. The best thing about Tony and Manu being freed to run last season (with George Hill also, who was awesome in the open court) was that it was an easy two (or three) that made up for Timmy being old.

If you ask yourself, How do we win games? What is the answer?

We win by executing our offensive and defensive sets to damn-near perfection. We win by Tim and Manu being crafty and by Tony using his still-blazing speed to get to the bucket. We win by everyone else busting their ass to fill lanes, hit open shots, stay mentally sharp and not mess anything up.

You know that Corporate Knowledge Pop mentions every now and then? You know how we like(d) veterans to fill key roles? That is because those guys know how to not mess things up. “They know what it takes” is the cliche that is used that means “They know what NOT to do.”

So I’m excited about these guys. If the old guys on Boston still have a chance, then so do our three fogies. If Tiago can man the paint like he did tonight (two blocks) and Kawhi Leonard can continue to do good things we have a shot to do a little something.

I mean, if that Dallas Mavericks run can teach us anything, it is that determination and execution can beat superior talent and athleticism. We might need to hold on to that and repeat it often.

Things I liked:

Manu doing ‘em in and dishing to Kawhi with a behind-the-back-no-look pass.

Kawhi hustling and doing a serviceable job on Rudy Gay after getting his pocket picked and dunked on. He looked a little nervous but was very solid.

Tony slicing through the defense.

Ginobili being awesome.

Tiago blocking shots.

Things I didn’t like:

Our love of –and reliance on — the three-point line.

Tiago not scoring from two-feet.

Timmy not able to beat Gasol from the right block.

TJ Ford with back-to-back turnovers.

Getting beat down the floor on defense.

Optimist Take

We showed what we can do with healthy guys against a Memphis team that was playing above their ability last year. There was no Contract Year Randolph –which is like a 100-year storm except every 3-5 years in this case. Tiago is coming into his own and will be a defensive force while Kawhi Leonard is Bruce Bowen with an offensive game outside of a three-point shot.

Pessimist Take

It was the first game after a short pre-season camp against a team that we wanted revenge against. Tiago’s inability to score will bit us in the ass. Kawhi is a rookie and will be exposed against a better team. Ginobili will get hurt, Tony will be unable to carry the load and Timmy will creak along, a shell of his former self when the playoffs come along –if we even get there. Our undoing may not come from a well-drilled, young team in the playoffs, but by crippling back-to-back-to-backs in this regular season.

The truth:

As always, it is somewhere in the middle.

Go Spurs Go.