Second Verse, Same as the First

Game 22 @ Los Angeles Clippers: Spurs 103, Clippers 81

Oooh, neat. For the second time this season I get to bust out my Duncan-Bears pic.

Okay, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that I believe we’ve established that we match up pretty well with the Clippers. How is it possible that we play a supposedly contending team twice in four games and rout them in almost identical fashion both times? Seriously, the only thing that changed from one game to the next was the uniforms.

I suppose if you want to get mathematically technical, this time the Clippers scored one less point and we scored eight less. At that rate, assuming we don’t face them in the playoffs, (very unlikely at this point) the Clips will beat us the second time we face them next season by a score of 77-72. And yeah, theoretically I could see that happening, but only if Horry and Finley come back next year and play 40 minutes each that night.

Which leads me to my next point…

It only took Coach Wino Zitface 22 games to figure out his best starting lineup! Hooray! Hooray! Gumdrops and rainbows and unicorns and big tittied women for everybody!

Pervs!

But I can’t imagine a more delightful sequence of events than what transpired Monday night. The right guy finally started at center (sorry fellas, you know it’s true), my four favorite Spurs

all played well on the same night, RoHo wasn’t around to blow any lay-ups and Findog played 21 insignificant minutes, most of them in the 4th quarter when the game had been long decided. In fact, did you catch the SG rotation Pop used on Monday? Manu started, then came Brent, then came…Manu AGAIN! And then finally Fin. I like that. Do that more often. In fact, just take out the part where Finley checks in and I’ll be ecstatic.

Furthermore, what really made the night special, aside from sitting in a bar filled with lunatic Bears fans swearing like banshees after every play, good or bad, was that the Clippers, who ordinarily boast two of the ugliest five NBA players of all time in their starting five, serendipitously gave only ten minutes of floor time to one and a DNP-Stomach Virus to the other. In other words, I was able to keep my meal down without incident.

Now there is nothing Sam “E.T.” Cassell can do about his unfortunate head. At least God made it up to him (somewhat) by giving him a talent to make ridiculous amount of coin so that he can buy all the companionship he could ever want. Chris Kaman on the other hand, I find to be a lot more perplexing curiousity. This man is no prize, by any means, but he has chosen to make himself uglier than nature intended voluntarily.

The obvious example people like Simmons bring up to describe Kaman’s looks is The Hulkster because of his long stringy platinum blonde hair, but I can think of a couple of other celeberties that make for a much more prudent comparison.

From a pure physical standpoint, I have to go with my man Ernie McCracken
(perhaps Bill Murray’s best performance ever) from Kingpin. Both Kaman’s and Ernie’s hair seem to get longer and thinner as a game goes on which I find to be a fascinating phenomenon.

On the other hand, in the philosophical “what was he thinking?” sense, the best choice has to be, hands down, Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins. Just let me explain. See Billy, when he first got famous, after the hit single “Today” was the decent enough looking, if slightly pug-nosed fellow that you see here in the middle:
However, perhaps after his 1,000th consecutive night of ravaging several willing groupies my theory is that young Billy grew jaded about the importance of his physical appearance in relation to attracting the female sex. My guess is that one night he had this epiphany and thought to himself, “If I hear one more ho tell me how cute I am, I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to make myself as ugly as possible so that from now on when these nymphs throw themselves at me, I won’t be the least bit delusional about their motivations for doing so.”

And thus we were presented with modern Billy:

You follow me?

So either Kaman just want to make sure his hos are just hos or he wants the future Mrs. Kaman to have to really prove the extent of her commitment. That’s deep yo.

Either way, his absence let Paul Davis of Michigan State play, a guy I’ve always liked watching in the big dance, and he went off on us to the tune of 15 and 6 in the fourth quarter. I hope he’ll get more run as the season goes along (somebody the Spurs should keep their eyes on, btw, just in case)…

Um… your 3 stars!

3. Tim Duncan – Struggled a bit with fouls, but he had the Clips at his mercy on offense, passing flawlessly from the post time and again to open shooters. His five dimes in the first 5:30 helped us get out to a 16-7 lead an we kinda cruised from there.

2. Manu Ginobili – Another routine 18 points in ten shots and only 23 minutes. He’s in one of those hot streaks right now where he can score pretty much whenever they need him to, but we simply don’t need him to that often. He’s doing most of his damage early to set up the runaways and chilling in the second half.

1. Brent Barry – A bad, baaad man. One could argue he’s been the team MVP at the quarter pole. His play more than any Spur has been far above what was expected. I cringe at the thought of where this team would be right now if he was playing as poorly as Fin and RoHo.

Record: 16-6 Streak: W-1
Up Next: Vs. Minnesota Timberwolves
Same shit, different year. Timmy will probably have a slightly worse night than KG in the box score, but he’ll make more plays when it counts and we’ll pu
ll away late. I’ve never bought into the “If KG was a Spur and Duncan was a Timberwolf, nothing would change between the two franchises” argument. Not for a second. It was pretty much the first thing I ever wrote for PtR last year.