What a game to miss while on a weekend road trip!

I checked the score sometime Saturday afternoon, and saw that we had won the game in OT. Jubilation. Then I checked the Box Score and thought the lines for both Splitter and Ginobili looked odd. Uh-oh.

Let’s hope for a speedy recovery for both. I doubt we’ll see either again on the road trip, and then we have the All-Star break. Health is more important than wins. Ironically, the Splitter injury is actually harder to take than the Ginobili injury. No one questions Ginobili’s brilliance, but the team has shown that it can succeed quite well without him. However, with only four legitimate big men on the team (and two with serious deficiencies at one end of the court), I don’t know how Pop will be able to patch that hole for too long. Lots of small ball, I’d imagine. (I’d like to see Leonard get some time at the 4, particularly over Jefferson). Did you ever think we’d live in a world where a Splitter injury would be more worrisome than a Ginobili injury?

Watching the game, there’s not much analysis to take away from it. It was just one of those games, played (mostly) very well by both sides, with tons of intensity, back-and-forth, and great plays. I’m happy the Spurs won, and I think it would be a fantastic series if the two teams met in the playoffs.

The one thought I had after the game was this: I sure hope that the team doesn’t become too Tony Parker-centric. While clearly having the best season of his career and clearly the engine of the offense, what makes the Spurs so great and hard to guard is the ball and player movement, the unselfishness, and the system, not necessarily any individual brilliance. Near the end of the game, every play was a pick and roll designed to get a big guy to switch on to Parker, who then took that guy one-on-one. Mostly to good results, but also to the exclusion of just about everyone else on the floor. Parker’s ability to get to the rim at will and hit that mid-range jump shot make him almost un-guardable; but it’s his passing and the Spurs’ offensive system that makes the team so hard to beat.

Here’s a nice piece by Kevin Arnovitz over at True Hoop about the Spurs. He writes quite well about what most Spurs’ fans have known for years.