8:30pm vs. Spurs TV: TNT RTVHD

The San Antonio Spurs are coming to town today for a game against the Phoenix Suns, in case you haven’t been waiting for this game for the past month. Well I have been waiting a long time and let me tell you, the Suns are ready to lay a beatdown on the Spurs.

The Spurs over the past couple years have been the balls. They were consistantly the team to beat and the team that you would have to beat to get anywhere in the playoffs. In 04-05, it was them who took us out in the Western Conference Finals. Last season Dallas narrowly escaped their semifinals series with the Spurs. Now, the Suns have inverted the roles and we are the dominant team.

When you think about playing the Spurs, it’s a little nerve-racking. They’re well coached, they have a hall of fame player, they are good defensively, and they are a legitimate championship team. With that said, they’ve regressed this season.

They aren’t playing inspired, active defense as they have the past couple years. They’ve aged and had some nagging injuries. Some of their key rotation players have regressed and they just aren’t as motivated as they once were.

To me, this is a good matchup for the Suns. First, Amare is a load for Tim Duncan. Tim is older and the last thing he wants is to have to guard a younger, spry, athletic beast like Amare. Hell, he had a LOT of trouble with Amare in the WCF in 04-05 when Amare averaged something like 37ppg.

Think about this, we know about Amare’s propensity to really get up for nationally televised games. Well this is doubly a national game, on TNT, and the team that really helped to define Amare’s early career. After that WCF loss on 04-05, there was no questioning Amare’s superstardom. Amare is going to want to put on a show tonight in front of Tim Duncan, Charles Barkley, and the rest of basketball nation.

Second, this is a team that matches up well with our defensive philosophy. They have offensive weak links. This allows us to double Duncan, or whoever has the hot hand, and have other guys rotate when they swing the ball around until, say, it gets in the hands of Bruce Bowen, then they can let him take the shot. They always want to bait the opposing team into shooting jumpers and if you can force the ball into the hands of an unreliable scorer, the Suns will have the advantage.

In the past they’ve baited Tony Parker but he’s good enough to step up and hit those shots. I’d rather see Bruce Bowen or Ginobili have those shots tonight instead of Tony Parker.

Finally, the Spurs have aged. They are not so quick on their feet anymore and their bench is even worse. They don’t exactly have a spark plug and they lost a tough game last night, which gives us a major advantage. We’ve had a couple days rest to recoup and should be ready to run the ball down their throats.

We need to win this game to silence some critics. To the team it’s not such a huge deal because they see how well they can play and how much they’re improving night to night. Still, the pressure game atmosphere will do a lot for this team’s poise. Let’s just make sure we put a body on Fabricio Oberto so he doesn’t explode like the last time we played them. That would just be embarrasing.

Original post by Ra and software by Elliott Back

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