Last night, the Spurs put their own spin on the well that escalated quickly meme, dispatching the Grizzlies in a quick and tidy 4 game sweep. That San Antonio is the most overlooked great franchise is a given at this point…we’re almost at the point that we need to create a Spurs drinking game, where you drink whenever an announcer makes mention of their forgotteness. They are almost at the point where they are so underrated that they are overrated…almost because how can a team that is now making their 5th Finals appearance in the Tim Duncan era be overrated?
The answer is no...no, they cannot.
That a team with the 2nd best record in the West made it to the Finals is not all that amazing. And yet, it almost feels like these Spurs were underdogs. Their machine-like efficiency has always seemed to dominate in the regular season for the past few years, but it appeared that TD, Manu, and Tony had just gotten too old to keep up with other teams’ big guns in a 7 game series, as evidenced by being bounced with 4 straight losses to the Thunder in the Conference Finals last season or losing to 8th-seeded Memphis in Round 1 the year before. Both teams had just as good (or better) regular seasons as this one. And yes, San Antonio (and Memphis before them) caught a major break with Russell Westbrook’s injury. But almost everyone (including yours truly) had Memphis winning this series. Through the 1st 2 rounds, nobody was playing better basketball than the Grizzlies, and many of us were salivating over a potential clash in styles with a Miami-Memphis Final.
But I think San Antonio’s sweep taught us 2 things. 1st, the Spurs are even better than we all imagined. We already know their offense is a well-oiled machine. But Tim Duncan is playing about 10 years younger than his age. Tony Parker has been just about unstoppable on pick-and-rolls. Manu Ginobili can still do all kinds of Manu Ginobili things. And the Spurs actually have a host of young talented players like Danny Green and Kawhi Leanard to go along with their Big 3. 2nd, unless Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph play like the 2 best players on the court, this Memphis team isn’t quite good enough to beat high octane teams like the Spurs. Their beat-em-up inside game is spectacular to watch in this era of small-ball, and their team defense is 2nd to none, but they just don’t have the athletes on the wing to compete. Quincy Pondexter asserted himself well in these playoffs, but when he, Tony Allen, and Tayshaun Prince (at this stage of his career at least) are your best 3 players at the wing positions, you are in big trouble. I know Rudy Gay wasn't really affordable for them longterm, and he is on the All-NBA 1st team of poor shooting, but I still think they missed him on some level.
As for the Eastern Conference Finals, they have proved that there still isn’t a team that everyone overreacts to more in all of sports than the Miami Heat. Indiana played great during Games 1 and 2 in Miami, and was a LeBron layup away from going home up 2-0 in the series. Having lost homecourt advantage and looking very vulnerable when Ray Allen and Shane Battier aren’t knocking down open 3’s, many people thought the Heat were in big trouble. Now, after making a major adjustment in their Game 3 win (taking the ball out of LeBron’s hands, putting him on the low block against Paul George, and letting him punish the much slighter-framed George all game long), people suddenly think this series will be over in 5 games.
Wait, if the Pacers win tonight (at home by the way), aren’t we right back on track for a potential 7 game series? Isn’t that previous line of thinking a huge overreaction? Well, yes and no. The Pacers will expect to win on their homecourt tonight and even the series at 2 games apiece. But if the Heat stick to their gameplan from Game 3, it will be Indy who will be in big, big trouble. James is simply too big for George to stop 1-on-1 down low. The Pacers will either need to send help George's way, which is totally against their main defensive principal of staying at home on everybody and not allowing any uncontested 3’s, or they are going to watch George get bludgeoned to death again. I’d go with the 1st option, hoping that the likes of Allen and Battier remain cold. Even if James has an off night scoring, guarding him down there seemed to take a lot out of George, which was the detriment to his offense as well. After all that talk about overreacting, I’ve got Miami in 5 now as well…which would bring us to an extremely tantalizing Finals matchup…sorry for looking that far ahead though. As the postgame news conference cliché goes, 1 game at a time…1 game at a time.
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