Thoughts on tonights game......
1. The swagger is gone on the faces of OKC
2. SAS are an amazing well polished team that has the best defense I've seen by any team this year
3. If you guys saw the TNT intro to the game with the pep talks given by Pop and another by Timmy you know why he was named Coach Of The Year and Tim is the leader and certainly an admiral replacement for the Admiral, the Spurs prior leader.
4. "I want some nasty" has gone viral with a website
5. Have you ever seen Kendrick Perkins smile or ever admit he committed a foul
6. Who would have thought I would see Boris Diaw as the SAS starting center and playing darn good
7. The confidence of the Spurs is suddenly showing me that OKC is not yet ready for prime time
8. It's a 48 minute game and best 4 of 7 series. This is really great basketball as a fan
9. Fisher is playing with speed I haven't seen in many a year
good observations, steve.
1. the swagger is missing, and it has shifted to the other camp, so to speak. seems like parker, manu, et al has been wearing it for these past 2 games.
2. with coach pop at the bench, you feel like you have a sargeant wating to growl at you each time you commit a turnover of bad shot. spurs defense is as tight as vacuum and like miami, they challenge each interior shot the opponent tries to make.
5. perkins hasn't smiled since the 2008 boston title run, and is one of the best in racking up technical fouls. but, he's got a nice, bouncy, strut upon going to the other side of the court. a heavy strut too.
7. my small reservation about okc last year was how they handle an equally talented, fast, and big team. coaching inexperience during playoffs? could be. i don't see the goodness in substituting 5 starters for 5 bench players during the 2nd quarter for okc but that was what happened and they couldn't do much on offense in this stretch. it may have been good before but not against a searing red hot spurs offense. amazingly, the super fast touch passing of san antonio is torching the okc defense which was not that bad in the past playoff games, and many times, this touch passing has left an open spur for a 3. one instance, parker had about 4 seconds to shoot his 3, which he converted.
okc needs to win the next 2. needs. 1-3 will rattle their confidence, and spurs know how to make a kill when they see it. stephen jackson provides some sentimental drama in this series. what a return.