Unorganized and All Over the Place, Like the Spurs Final Play in Game 4

Western Conference Finals Game 4 vs. Los Angeles: Lakers 93, Spurs 91 (3-1)

I’m angry.

I’m angry that the NBA gave this bullshit apology about the no-call the day after the game. Our coaches and players already said it wasn’t a foul. Why couldn’t we just move on? I’m angry that some of our fans think we were robbed and justified in winning a game we had absolutely no business being competitive in. I’m angry that there’s this “they’re out to get us” mentality out there by some idiots we got every call in that game for the first 47:57. I’m angry about the way so-called Spurs fans are treating Manu Ginobili. I’m angry I have to pretend to be some stupid over-caffeinated cretin on the radio in an hour, sound and fury signifying nothing, so I can be some gimmicky villain for a LA sports talk show. I’m angry that this is the way the media world works.

I’m angry that I have to be angry.

Was it a foul? Yeah, probably, I guess.

I don’t care. We didn’t deserve it. It shouldn’t have been our ball in the first place. It shouldn’t have been a close game in the first place. How do we fuck up a sideline out of bounds play so badly that Brent Barry winds up with the ball, with Derek Fisher all over him, some 35 feet from the hoop. We couldn’t get it any closer? Really?

We didn’t deserve to win a game when two of the guys our coach had on the floor for that fateful play – Fin and RoHo – have been our two worst shooters all season long and had been our two worst players in that game. You know who wasn’t on the floor for the last play? Tony Freakin’ Parker, only one of our three best players. Coach Pop, ladies and gentlemen.

The team lost for a multitude of reasons. The defense was okay, but the rebounding, especially in the first half, was piss poor. Nobody could hit an outside shot, no matter how open. Finley went a jaw dropping -18 in just over eight minutes of floor time. You or me or Brantley or Jake or Dan or Rene or Matthew or Wayne or Manolis could’ve played instead and not fared much worse. Finley’s older than almost everyone I just named. No one played worth a damn really, outside of Tim, Tony, Brent and Bruce.

And yes, we lost because of Manu.

Again, he didn’t have it. No energy, no ability to drive, no stubbornness or selfishness or churlishness that stars need to have at times this time of year. He’s just not that guy, the asshole star that demands the ball regardless of how he’s playing or who’s hot on his team.

I’m not defending Manu’s play. I’m not.

But the guy took eight shots all game. Kobe takes that many in a quarter. Manu has never been a volume scorer. He’s always been an efficient scorer. Remember Game 2 of the ’05 Finals vs. the Pistons? Dude took eight shots in that one too. Had 27 points though.

The more shots you take in a game, the more 2-for-8 stretches mean nothing. How many times this season do you suppose Kobe missed six of eight shots? 50? 60? Maybe sometimes two separate times in one game. The more shots you take, the more your percentages even out to their normal levels. Kobe needed 29 shots the other night to get 28 points. Manu need eight to get seven. Everyone is praising Bryant for his game, everyone is bashing Manu for his. Is one really all that different than the other?

The Spurs missed 45 shots as a team. Tim missed over a third of those, 16. Tony missed 20% with nine. Manu missed 13% with six. I’m just sayin’.

I think Gino’s biggest problem, aside from his health and his confidence, is that ever since he came into the NBA, Pop has always used him as a problem solver, not a scorer. Get out there Manu, we need some hustle. Some energy. Steals. Rebounds. Passing. Scoring, but only with the second unit really. Pop never has (and I doubt he ever will) told Manu, “We need you to take [x number of] shots tonight.”

Manu has this problem solver, x-factor mentality. So when he sees that he himself is the problem, that his shot is off, that his legs aren’t there, he solves the problem by not shooting. He looks to pass or, other times, just kind of retreats into a shell and floats along, going five possessions at a time perhaps without touching the ball.

He’s hard on himself, unreasonably so. You might see him ignore an open teammate if he has it going, sometimes, but a cold Manu Ginobili just doesn’t force shots. He does not. It is virtually impossible to convince him that a contested shot for him, even when he’s off, is a higher percentage play than an open shot for a teammate, even if that teammate is Horry or Vaughn or Finley. Manu has more faith in those guys sometimes than they have in themselves, and certainly more than he has in himself.

Does not compute.

____________________

I ruined everything on Tuesday. The day started off well enough, I think I wrote a pretty good post after Game 3. But after that everything just disintegrated, I can’t explain why. First I did the radio show and for the first time the producer guy and the host sincerely disliked me, said I was “boring” and “too nice.” I was being just honest for saying I didn’t dislike the Lakes all that much. I was trying to set up this big Shaq joke I thought of, but they never really played along, so I couldn’t get to it. So the show sucked and I was in a funk and I’m in this spiritual dilemma about playing the asshole.

I remember reading this article in Sports Illustrated like fifteen years ago. It was about this goon on the Washington Capitals of the NHL. He apparently blew up at his coach on the bench because the coach told him to go into the game and get in a fight. He refused to do it.

See, hockey enforcers or “goons” know what their role is. They know why they’re on the team. They know what is implied when a coach taps them on the shoulder and tells them to take a shift. But it’s the biggest taboo in hockey for a coach to tell a guy to fight. It means you think of him as a goon and not as a hockey player. You just don’t do it. This coach broke the rule and it just ruined this player psychologically and he flipped out.

I’m kind of going through that right now. I know I’m an asshole. I’ve been called an asshole my whole life and it comes very naturally to me. But to be told to act like an asshole? When I don’t feel like being one? I feel like I’m dying inside. Is this what I have to do to have a career in this business?

Anyway, like I said, I was in a funk. I forgot to shave before playing basketball, even though I shaved before Game 3 and we won. I forgot to bring the shirt I wore during Game 3, this one that had the front page of the San Antonio Express News on it the day after the Spurs beat Utah in Game 5 last year to advance to the Finals.

I played mostly crappy basketball for three hours that night and missed the first half of Game 1.

Honestly I’m more depressed than angry. But the radio people don’t want depressed and they certainly don’t want resignation.

I’m depressed more than anything about how Manu is being slung through the mud on Spurs Talk. There is no lifetime immunity there. There isn’t. I said it before and I’ll say it again, the Spurs have a lot of awful fans.

I remember watching the Boston Red Sox in the World Series in 2004. All these happy, delirious people yelling and screaming and holding signs that read, “Now I can die in peace.”

A few months later, next season these very same people were booing Kevin Millar and Keith Foulke and Mark Bellhorn. Calling them bums and demanding their trades. These guys were playoff heroes who helped end 86 years of futility and already they were forgotten. It depressed the hell out of me at the time and I can’t ever quite look at the Red Sox the same way now, and definitely not their fans, who as far as I’m concer
ned are no different than Yankees fans.

I want to think that Spurs fans are different, but I don’t believe they are. Tim and Manu should have lifetime immunity, even if they were to miss every shot they took the rest of their careers. Tony should be right on the precipice of that status.

But looking on Spurs Talk, it seems I am in the minority for feeling this way. Tim and Manu deserve better fans. I want to think that most of the regulars at SpursDynasty and PtR are with me on this one. I want to think they believe in the concept of lifetime immunity and the big picture. I want to think that for some guys, there’s more to our opinions of them than how they played their last game. I want to think we’re bigger, better than that. Let me know that we are.

Please.

Postscript:

As you can tell, I’m having a crisis of faith. Not in the Spurs as much as everything surrounding them. The media, the coaching, the fans, all of it. I just finished my radio spot and I didn’t give in. I didn’t give them what they wanted. I think the producer could tell in the pre-interview I wasn’t going to, so they didn’t go there with the non-call.

But still, I had some pluck. And I told them I think the Spurs would win tonight. I told them the series isn’t over and that we’ve lost two games by four points and it could very easily be 3-1 the other way. I was still their villain, but not their jester.

I have faith that the guys could pull off a miracle. I think Manu can still string three good performances together, as can Tim and Tony and Bruce. I think they could catch the Lakers overconfident tonight. I think the Spurs won’t go quietly into the cold night.

Here’s my point though: It won’t change my feelings about the principals either way. After all they’ve accomplished, if this one game affects your opinions, perceptions and thoughts about our big three or Bruce or Pop or Brent more than .01%, well then you’re a clod and the worst kind of fan and I don’t really want to know you.

This post was just a rambling mess. It has two beginnings, no real ending, and no discernible middle. Obviously, I’m submitting my application to fill Bill Simmons’ slot at ESPN.com. My mind is all over the place and again, the Spurs could be playing their last game of the season, their third elimination game already these playoffs. Getting to a fourth would be a godsend.

But with these guys, it wouldn’t be a surprise.