My SO has never seen me during playoff basketball. She's in for a treat Sunday night.

quote:

---

My SO has never seen me during playoff basketball. She's in for a treat Sunday night.

---

My (now ex) gf made the comment during last year's playoffs that she could tell when Houston won or lost based on my mood the next day. And she knew to leave me the hell alone the day after Lillard's heroics in game 6 lol

quote:

---

quote:

---

GD it. ****ing 9:30 starts. ****.

---

Such BULL ****

---

It's even worse living on the east coast, I'll be lucky to get to bed by 1:30am and I have to wake up around 5:30 every day for work. That schedule absolutely pours salt in the wound of last nights loss. Not to mention the GSW series (if we get there) will likely have a couple late starts as well.

I was with my ex for game 5 last year. We didn't date long, but I'm always gonna remember that win!

quote:

---

My SO has never seen me during playoff basketball. She's in for a treat Sunday night.

---

This is why I don't watch basketball with anyone but my family.

My dog is not looking forward to playoff basketball. He sulks in his crate the whole game.

Not looking forward to these games next week. 9:30 start + 3:30 wake up = the suck.

Wake up at 3:30?? I don't even like to watch sports with family. Words tend to be said and things occasionally get broken. Though that last one hasn't happened since the 2013 finals.

As of this morning the Bovado futures to win the NBA championship (I assume this is updated after last nights results):

Cavs: 11/5
GSW: 11/5
Spurs: 7/2
Hawks: 12/1
Bulls: 12/1
Rockets: 16/1
Clips: 18/1

If their are no upsets, the Spurs will play every team on that list from the west on the road and then face the Lebron led Cavs yet again in the finals. Nobody said repeating was going to be easy!

Whole lotta whistling past the graveyard all up in here.

The bottom line is that the difficulty of beating LAC w/o HCA AND beating Hou w/o HCA is much greater than beating Dallas w/ HCA and LAC or Hou w/ HCA.

Last night hurt the Spurs chances at a repeat significantly. We are paying the price for losing to the Knicks. (Or giving away the game we had won vs the Cavs)

The Spurs need Tiago Splitter back BADLY. If he's not back, SA is in serious trouble.

quote:

---

You guys all worried about this kill me. We have 5 rings. We've been playing with house money for awhile. I'm just gonna enjoy the show.

---

While I agree that I've gotten more enjoyment and satisfaction from the Spurs almost two-decade run than I could have imagined (and especially last year's redemptive story). and failing to win another title this year won't hurt that much because of that, we still have a very good chance to win another title this year and last night's loss makes it considerably tougher.

All I know is there are gonna be 2 or 3 really good basketball teams in the West going home after round 1.

It's 10:30 ET. I might as well just quit my job now.

quote:

---

Whole lotta whistling past the graveyard all up in here.

The bottom line is that the difficulty of beating LAC w/o HCA AND beating Hou w/o HCA is much greater than beating Dallas w/ HCA and LAC or Hou w/ HCA.

Last night hurt the Spurs chances at a repeat significantly. We are paying the price for losing to the Knicks. (Or giving away the game we had won vs the Cavs)

The Spurs need Tiago Splitter back BADLY. If he's not back, SA is in serious trouble.

---

Great post. I also think we need a Patty Mills appearance. Last night was a perfect example of what happens in the playoffs. Those easy 3 pt attempts that the Spurs feast on fade away (especially for the guards). We need a guy like Patty, that can get hot and light it up from anywhere to go off as he did last year. Joseph just gives us nothing special, especially in the playoffs.

I don't know how I'm gonna pull off watching the west coast games. Those are 1030 starts for me on the East Coast. That's ****ing brutal when you have to be at work at 7 and it's a half hour commute.

Looks like I'm gonna be napping instead of texaging.

The Spurs either have to go undefeated at home through the entire Western Conference playoffs, or win 2 games on the road against someone. Both of those are very difficult tasks for any year. It becomes even more difficult when you factor in just how good the West is this year.

+1

Factor in if you want to watch Inside The NBA, I'll be going to bed around 2 AM.

I almost feel like being the "underdogs" will help this team play with a big of an edge, and adopt a road warrior attitude that has helped us have great rodeo trips over the years.

It's all about stealing one of those first two games. Once we do that, we're golden.

quote:

---

GD it. ****ing 9:30 starts. ****.

---

I hate those west coast start times.

OK so I am a sunshine pumper so I like to look at the positives. Over the last 15 games the Clippers have played the easiest schedule. They definitely had the easiest games the last week. During their 7 game win streak they played the Lakers twice, the Nuggets twice, Suns, Trailblazers and Memphis at home. They have won 14/15 with their only loss coming at GS but the prior 7 games consisted of 5 Eastern Conference teams, the Kings and the Pelicans at home. The Spurs have played a higher level of competition coming into the playoffs. The Spurs have been playing with near playoff intensity for a while and I think this gives them a slight edge in the beginning and might help them steal game 1 from the Clippers which would essentially give them HCA.

Or maybe I am just full of crap.

Sad thing is that the Knicks are wishing they'd lost the game that we're wishing we'd won They finished one game ahead on Minnesota

The 2 would have been nice. Sure. People have made some solid points about the Spurs maybe going into some sort of relax mode though if they ended up accomplishing that huge turnaround to land the 2 seed.

It really does remain to be seen whether the 6 ends up being worse then the 3 or 5 though. Can't just sit here and say definitively that us landing the 6 means we are now guaranteed to be worse off.

tbh, if the Spurs end up handling LAC in lets say 6 games, and Dallas somehow pulls the upset on Houston. You could make the argument that the 6 seed was a perfect spot for SA to finish. That's why we play the games. We'll see what happens but the playoffs rarely play out like everyone thinks it will so a big upset could happen somewhere in the West.

Almost every team that wins a championship gets lucky somewhere down the line and avoids an opponent that might be a tougher draw. Just last year the Spurs avoided Houston second round who would have undoubtedly been a much tougher opponent then Portland ended up being. Lets see how this road plays out first before people declare us dead in the water.

As far as this series plays out... I think the schedule works out really well for us.

I'm glad we got the Sunday night game tbh. A Saturday game would have been a pretty brutal turnaround for our old guys.

No we have three full days rest before Game 1 and then another two full days off before Game 2 in LA. Spurs are in a prime spot to steal one of those games and lets hope it's Game 1. That would really put the pressure on LA against a nice and rested Spurs squad in Game 2.

From Tony's latest interview with SLAM:

quote:

---

SLAM: Speaking of the Spurs, what's your motivation this season? You guys have won so much, you took care of the revenge angle last season

---

TP: Well, we never did a back-to-back and that's a great challenge for us. Obviously we understand we have a big target on our backs and everybody wants to beat us because we're the champions and we have to defend it, but I think for us, it's a great challenge because we never did back-to-back. Yes, we won five Championships, but we never did back-to-back. Everybody, including Pop, is very motivated by that.

quote:

---

From Tony's latest interview with SLAM:

quote:

---

SLAM: Speaking of the Spurs, what's your motivation this season? You guys have won so much, you took care of the revenge angle last season

---

TP: Well, we never did a back-to-back and that's a great challenge for us. Obviously we understand we have a big target on our backs and everybody wants to beat us because we're the champions and we have to defend it, but I think for us, it's a great challenge because we never did back-to-back. Yes, we won five Championships, but we never did back-to-back. Everybody, including Pop, is very motivated by that.

---

#ChaseForSeis

New Manu Article:

quote:

---

"We would've loved to be in this position a month ago"
by Manu Ginobili

SAN ANTONIO.- The end of the regular season was amazing. I've been through other extremely even seasons, including 3 team tied for positioning, but it's difficult to remember an almost quadruple tie in the last day of the season. We had a spectacular ending and we arrived to the last game with a chance to be the 2nd seed after a very irregular season, with a multitude of injuries that made it complicated to build towards our best game.

It's true we didn't play a great game against New Orleans, but it's also true that the opponent was desperate, they had a great game and we ended up with the sixth seed. On the same night we went from having home court all the way to the conference finals to not having any home court. Crazy. But even then, if we look back a bit, we would've loved to be in this position a month ago. We finished playing well, and that sixth spot I think it's fine. Now we have to face the Los Angeles Clippers, a complicated opponent, that's been playing very well, has a lot of good players in many positions, and is healthy. It's very, very complicated. That said, even if we would've been the top seed and we would've needed to play against the Pelicans we wouldn't have been super confident this season. So this is what we have, and that's the way the Western Conference is. We're heading to Los Angeles tomorrow very motivated, wanting to play our best basketball, to try to at least take one of the games.

And we're going to need to try to play our best game, because we're facing a extremely athletic team in the post and experienced in general. They have a point guard (Chris Paul) that's experienced, very smart, controls his team very well and can be a difference maker. But he's also surrounded with very good talent. They have a great shooter like J. J. Redick and another one like Matt Barnes, who's a role player that's a very intense defender and is shooting the ball very well. And then they have Jamal Crawford, that's coming from the bench and is extremely dangerous. He can come in and win them a game in a matter of minutes, because he has an arsenal of offensive moves that are difficult to stop. They're well coached, by one of the best coaches in the NBA (Doc Rivers). It's a very difficult opponent. That's why we have to play our best game, make our experience count, and everybody has to step up. I think we can play a good game, valuing each possession. We have to make sure nothing comes easy for them.

We have to take as reference our last 10 games, skipping the Pelicans one, to understand that's our best level. We can always shoot a bit better or make fewer mistakes. But we need to sustain that defensive intensity, we have to move the ball on offense, we have to try to make sure we have an inspired night, because that's what you need to win on the road. That's why I insist that we need to value each possession, be focused so we don't give them anything easy, and follow our game plan. It will also be important to exploit the talent we have. Leonard, nowadays, is our key. When he's inspired and dominates, our game changes, because of his defensive intensity and because he can now create his own shot. We will also need an inspired Tony (Parker), like he's been in most of those games, because he's also key. And well, Tim will do his thing, like he always does, he will have an excellent game, then a normal game, but Tim is Tim, he's reliable, the guy that will always do his part. But Leonard is the X Factor. He will have an interesting matchup with Barnes, because Barnes is also tough physically, so we'll see how he does.

This is the moment we all want to be at. It's easy to get motivated and be focused. Although, as I said before, I have a different role now. Now my job is to make sure that second unit I'm a part of is effective. Perhaps in the last game we couldn't pull it off, and it was the opposite of what we wanted. At the time we walked in, they made their run and that hurts. So we'll try to get back to try to extend leads when we come off the bench. And when I join the starters, we'll see what comes out. So right now my main focus is to try to make the second unit as great it's been in the last 10 games or so and how it was last season in general. That's going to be a key factor for this playoff series.

---

Such a stark contrast to the typical trash talk you hear in the NBA. Manu is very complimentary of the other team and does more than just pay them lip service

Rooting for the Spurs this first round so we at least get an all-Texas second round! Also, it's just fun seeing Chris Paul mad!