With those two slowly emerging to fill out the roster and Robinson announcing his intention to retire at the end of the season, loomed as a special opportunity for the team.
Following through, the Spurs won 60 games in the regular season and cruised through the playoffs, winning all four series in six games apiece. Duncan won NBA MVP -- his second straight -- during the regular season, then delivered one of the greatest postseasons in history: 24 games, Seriously, if someone needs to be convinced that Duncan is one of the greatest athletes to ever play, go show them highlights of the Finals against New Jersey.
The arrival of the "Big Three" to San Antonio. After a couple years to mature and improve, Parker and Ginobili emerged as legitimate stars for the Spurs during this season.
Finally armed with some serious weapons to back Duncan, surely the Spurs had no issues getting that third title, right? Instead, Parker and Ginobili were thrown into the fire against the Detroit Pistons in one of the most interesting NBA series of the past 20 years.
Following four straight blowouts to begin the Finals, Game 5 gave us one of the most memorable performances in recent history: Robert Horry's three-point barrage, culminating with the game-winner in the final seconds to put San Antonio up, San Antonio would eventually need seven games to top Detroit, with Duncan becoming the fourth player in league history to win a third Finals MVP award.
The Spurs and LeBron James have developed quite the history with one another, starting seven years ago when James carried the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Finals. San Antonio was in a different class at this point, though, and pummeled the Cavs during a four-game sweep. Instead, that honor went to Parker, who dominated the series by averaging Duncan wasn't a slouch, either, going for And more importantly, the Spurs' vaunted defense shut down LeBron.
While the edition of the team is powered by a mind-numbingly efficient offense, San Antonio's past teams were often defined by defense. In this series, James averaged , but shot just 36 percent from the field and 20 percent behind the arc. And now we're here. Popovich, Duncan, Parker and Ginobili are still around, but the rest of the formula has changed completely.
The current Spurs look nothing like the past championship teams, which may be a bigger testament to the greatness of the core figures than anything else. Redeeming the franchise after an incredible disappointment the previous year, San Antonio came out in this series and played some of the best basketball we've ever seen.
Adam Silver's post-game comments on the Spurs showing the beauty of basketball weren't just some off-hand thoughts. More likely, a lot of people came away from this series agreeing with that sentiment.
This championship also signaled the emergence of Leonard , the year-old forward being tasked with continuing the standard of excellence established over so many. And if these games showed us anything, it's that an entire league should be ready to deal with the Spurs' newest star. You are commenting using your Google account.
You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email.
Notify me of new posts via email. Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public.
Name required. Follow Following. The Jeweler Blog Join other followers. Sign me up.
0コメント