Author: Stephen Hale (Page 18 of 22)

“Dance with the one that brung you” was a favorite expression of University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal.

Unfortunately, not all the dancers who ‘brung’ the Spurs to finishing #1 in the Southwest Division, #2 in the Western Conference and #3 in the NBA are still dancing.

• Manu Ginobili has missed the last nine games with a strained hamstring. (Hopefully, he’ll be back in action tonight.)
• Stephen Jackson was waived last Friday.
• Boris Diaw will be out 3-4 weeks after having surgery to remove a cyst from his lumbar spine.
• Tony Parker and the Spurs offense haven’t been so stellar since Tony sprained his left ankle against Sacramento on March 1.

Yesterday we learned that the Spurs are bringing a new dancer to the prom: Tracy McGrady. (DJ scratches the record and chaperones gasp).

Read that again Spurs fans: T-Mac will be wearing Silver and Black. Days after saying goodbye to Stephen Jackson, we welcome the 6’8,” 225lb, 33-year old former All-Star into the Alamo City.

After reading the news on Twitter, I stared at my feed for about six minutes, wondering how I felt about the Spurs new “date” for the big dance.

After the shock wore off a bit, I received a text from my father: “Are we supposed to be excited about T-Mac with the Spurs?”

I didn’t have an answer.

Until now.

My answer is: yes. And no.

Anyone expecting the T-Mac who scored 13 points against the Spurs in 33 seconds is going to be sadly disappointed. T-Mac has put up some impressive numbers playing in China this season: 25-7-4, but China isn’t the NBA. I would say those numbers translate to about 11-4-3 in the NBA. Maybe.

T-Mac admits to being slower, but also feels he has gained significant upper body strength and a better post game. He is wiser about his body and has worked out the mental fears that a player goes through after a major surgery (i.e. Derrick Rose). Plus he feels comfortable playing point guard and guarding bigger players.

Sounds like he’s a Spur already.

The key here is to have realistic expectations. Consider the move “low risk, high reward.” For all we know, T-Mac might not ever set foot on the court. He knows this and accepts it (looking at you, Stephen). The Spurs can sign him knowing he is better than an empty chair at the end of the bench. Maybe he just plays garbage time. Maybe he suits up for the first round, we get eliminated and then he is gone. We lose nothing. We give him a high five and he goes on his merry way. He needs little or no maintenance, is younger than Cap’n Jack (not by a lot) and much cheaper.

Plus, McGrady has a chip on his shoulder about wanting to make it past the first round of the playoffs. I get the impression he isn’t a fan of the Houston Rockets, either. He just wants to be at the dance.

But what if T-Mac does play? What if he does contribute, noticeably? What if he has an 8-point run when our second unit normally drops off at the end of the 3rd quarter?

Then Pop, Pete and R.C. (our real dates) are geniuses. I don’t expect McGrady to average 11 points a game or anything close to it, but I won’t be shocked to see him shake up the second unit. I firmly believe he’s capable of a having a 12-16 point performance on any given night. I think if he does get on the dance floor, he will cut some rug. We’ll see some flashes of the old T-Mac, enough to raise some eye brows. I’m not saying that T-Mac will be the prom king, but I do think he could be the toast of the town, at least for a day.

Whether or not T-Mac plays, I believe his signing is a solid move. I think it will motivate and inspire the team. T-Mac is a mature player with very high basketball I.Q. I think he can learn the Spurs system quickly.

Incidentally, tonight might be the season’s craziest, with playoff seedings still up in the air for many teams, including our Spurs.

I hope we see some T-Mac and maybe Manu against the Wolves, but I won’t get my hopes up. I’ll be paying more attention to the Utah-Memphis game, Golden State-Portland game and, most importantly, the Los Angeles Lakers-Houston game.

I’d love to see the Spurs play Houston in the 1st round and Golden State in the 2nd. It would be nice to see the Lakers beat up on the Thunder a little bit, too.

Unfortunately, things aren’t in our hands anymore. All we can control is how we show up to the dance (mentally) and whose lead we follow (Pop).

So let’s dance.

Last night’s game can be summed up in one word.
 
Ewww.
 
First off, that is terrible grammar. Second, it is accurate.
 
This game felt like a high school game — a lot of craziness with a few oohs and ahhs that made it seem better than what it was. I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a Homecoming Dance after the game.

With the final score, you should expect to hear plenty of excuses about the Lakers missing Howard, Gasol, Hill, Blake, Joey Crawford, Jackson, Magic, Worthy, Cooper, Rambss, West and Wilt (too far?). But we deserve it. We might as well sit there and take it after that.
 
As far as Pop was concerned, Kawhi’s defense was the only real game highlight and I tend to agree with him. He called our defense “raggedy,” and said he didn’t even know that team out there.
 
Ewww.

Manu said after the game that if they play like that against Memphis, they lose.

Ewww.
 
Neal’s corner three in the first corner rolled around the rim for a second and accidentally fell in. He shrugged his shoulders and sighed, admitting reluctantly that it shouldn’t have gone in.
 
Ewww.
 
Stephen Jackson lost his mind.
 
Ewww.
 
Parker had 6 turnovers. Some were unwatchable, like that junk at the end of the game. Whatever that was, the lady in the second row barely caught it.
 
Ewww.
 
Duncan. 8 Points. 7 Rebounds.
 
Ewww.
 
And the worst part of all…
 
Laker wife is sitting next to me on the couch and talking about the game. Here are some memorable quotes:
 

“Why is your coach so mad?”
 
“Who is that guy number 50 for the Lakers? I have never seen him before.”
 
“Wow, did you see Kobe make that shot?”
 
“Metta is doing so good!”

Or my personal favorite:

“Wow, I didn’t think we would actually be this close.”

Ewww.
 
Fortunately for me, her team is terrible.

I felt like the Spurs JV Team got lucky with this one. One of the best things that happened for us was Kobe hitting those two 3s back-to-back in the 3rd quarter, one from the “S” near center court. After he made that, I was pretty convinced he wasn’t going to pass for the rest of the game and I was almost right.

Sometimes you have to let players like Kobe, Russell Westbroke, Chris Bosh, Jason Terry and Gerald Wallace make a couple ridiculous shots. It boosts their confidence, but lowers their sense of reality. So let those shots fall.

Aside from the fact that they are pretty banged up, the Lakers are just hard to watch. They don’t like each other, they don’t know or believe in their offense and the gap between their best player and second best player may as well be a canyon. And Kobe knows it and shows it on the court.
 
Mike D’antoni is way too optimistic and I am not really sure what he does. He spends more time yelling, “C’mon man,” at officials and clapping his hands wildly than he does offering his team some real coaching. This team isn’t built for his system.
 
To quote Jon Barry, “World, Metta, Peace, Ron Artest, or whatever his name is,” is really the only person who was seems like he is trying. He picked up a few steals in the back court from us and kind of inspired Earl Clark to get in the act.
 
That reminds me, there is no reason we should have allowed 22 points to Earl Clark.

Ewww.
 
Our bright spots tonight? Well there weren’t many, but Manu had a couple sweet dunks, including one where the Lakers went to the hotdog stand instead of playing defense in the 2nd quarter. (Kobe and Nash were discussing relish and mustard or something).

I thought Jackson played great until he went all Pacer/Buck/Warriors on us. I love his game. He’s probably my favorite Spur other than Duncan. He isn’t as fast as he once was, but he even had a dunk tonight and finished with 14 points. Then he got ejected during a timeout after getting two technical fouls in a span of like six seconds or something?
 
Ewww.
 
Our most impressive players tonight were Leonard and Splitter. Kawhi had 11/3/2, but annoyed the daylights out of Kobe. Kobe pouted off the court at the end of the game and I can’t help but think it was half way because of Leonard.
 
Tiago had a solid 14 points and 14 rebounds. He looks like Kareem out there with that hideous hook shot. But I am thoroughly impressed with his hands this year.  I wish that Sacre and Artest didn’t push him around so much, but what are you going to do?

While this game gave me much to brag about against the ever so beautiful Laker wife and the ridiculous number of Laker fans on my ship, the Jackson ejection, final score and Popovich scowl did nothing to make me smile. Were it not for Parker’s couple of jumpers and Manu’s big three, I would have been sleeping on the couch tonight.
 
Ewww.
 
Friday we play at Memphis. Hopefully, we won’t play to the level of our competition this time, because we might not win that one. Memphis is too good for that kind of game. It is too long of a season to develop a bad habit and we should nip it in the bud now. Expect a fired up group on Friday.
 
Fortunately, any win against the Lakers is always a good win. We should be able to beat them any time we play them this year. That is, until Steve Black comes back.