Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Road Warriors

The San Antonio Spurs have won three consecutive play-off road games, and seem to be well on their way to the NBA Finals. After clinching the series against Seattle on the road in game six, the Spurs have now won the first two games of the Western Conference Finals on the road in Phoenix.

The Spurs have proven they don’t need to play defense to beat the Suns because they can just out score them. Phoenix has made a living this season by running up and down the floor and out scoring their opponents. This time though it’s the Suns who are being out run and out scored.

Give San Antonio credit for doing what I didn’t think they could do. I thought they would have to slow the game down with aggressive defense in order to have a chance to win. Instead, Tim Duncan is averaging 29 points a game, Tony Parker is averaging 27, and Manu Ginobili is averaging 23. In case you missed what you just read that’s three players averaging over 20 points a game. Then you have guys like Robert Horry and Brent Barry adding buckets and drawing fouls at the most crucial parts of the game.

I have only missed one play-off series pick and it was because I picked the Sonics to beat the Spurs. It looks like picking against San Antonio is going to cost me again.