Follow the Leader?

I was perusing the comments section of ESPN's recap of the San Antonio Spurs' victory over the Phoenix Suns in game 1 of their opening round series. For those of you who didn't watch the game, you can check out the highlights here. Given the NBA's television ratings (especially ratings when the Spurs are playing), I'm pretty sure most folks did not tune into the game. That's a shame because it was a classic. Anyway, back to the comments. There are way too many comments to read, but I came across one that was especially insightful into the psyche of a what seems to be a typical Suns fan:

The refs were horrible and decided the game against the Suns....AGAIN!

Looking at the box score, you can see that the Spurs were called for 3 more fouls than the Suns. They also attempted 7 more free throws and made a higher percentage of those free throws than the Spurs made of their free throws. It was an exciting game that could have gone either way. I'd like to think (for the sake of competitive fairness) that the Suns themselves wouldn't be given to such hysterical reactions. Then I remembered that this guy is their leader and that thought was quickly extinguished. And the fans' reactions made perfect sense.

Timmy!

Good sports day. Derrek Lee was huge today (4-4, 2HR, 6RBI) and Corey Patterson came through in the clutch with a walk-off shot. Lee, a notoriously slow starter, is now batting .430 and has an OPS of 1.297. He's also on pace for 208 RBI. Highly unlikely he'll reach it, I know, but wouldn't that be something? Despite numerous injuries the Cubs are only 4 back of the Cards, who have been on an absolute tear of late. It's early and, like any good Cubs fan, I'm still confident that this will be the year of the Cubs.

In even better sports news; the Spurs bounced back big-time. This was total domination, holding Denver to just 76 points on 36% shooting. Meanwhile, San Antonio was nearly flawless. The FT shooting still isn't cutting it, but what's new? Duncan looked like his old self dropping 24 points in only 28 minutes, while handing out 5 assists and sending back 3 shots. The entire team was playing smart basketball, as evidenced by a 47% reduction in TO's from Game 1. There isn't much analysis to give other than to say San Antonio gave notice that one poor 4th quarter does not a series make. So stop your yelling K-Mart. Timmy just shut you up.

One last thing: Has there ever been a single word in the history of television that even comes close to being as funny as TIMMY!? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Van Spurs Van

Spurs choked big-time tonight. 10+ minutes w/o a FG is not going to get it done. Still, the defense was generally solid, holding Denver to under 42% from the field. However, they were careless with the basketball (17 TO's) and sent Denver to the line way too often. Nevertheless, Spurs fans should remain confident. Their team played about as poorly as possible in the 4th Q and they were still in it until the last minute. Timmy should only improve before next game and Brown is one step closer to returning, giving them another young body off the bench. While I typically loathe the extended scheduling in the NBA Playoffs, I welcome it for this series. The Spurs have 2 days off, which is 2 more days for Duncan to get his rhythm and 2 more days for Pop to drill the boys. It's great how careful analysis can turn a loss which never should've happened into a reason to be confident.