Live-Blogging Spurs-Suns

(post about non-basketball life stuff below)

After 1 quarter, here's what we know:

-Against the Spurs, Amare makes the Suns worse.

-Shawn Marion should be playing the 4.

- Kurt Thomas isn't as bad on offense as I thought.

- The Suns are the most enjoyable team in the NBA.

As an aside: Steve Nash will go home this summer to run a camp for hockey players who want to learn how to play basketball, but don't understand why the ice is wood-covered. NBA Cares.

- 13 points by the Spurs in the 1st quarter. This is the most boring team on earth.

- Jacque Vaughn, how did you end up on a team I hate. I remember being amazed by you at Kansas, and then amazed that you didn't make it as an NBA player.

- Pat Burke isn't really a very good rebounder. Let that one just go over his head. He's really more of a perimeter big man. In a small-ball lineup, he isn't a good big.

- Wow, 4 small guards and Shawn Marion for the Suns. Wow. Wow. Wow.

- Is there any way this isn't a more successful strategy than throwing in a token big man? I mean, I was never afraid of Golden State as a Mavs fan when Biedrans was on the floor. Nowitzki could guard that guy, and the Mavs know how to attack a team with a big. There are only 3 teams in the NBA that can play an entire game at an elite level with 1 or 0 'bigs' (players about 6 10). The Warriors, the Suns, and the Bulls. Of these three teams, only the now-departed Warriors used this ability to disrupt their opponents. The Bulls and Suns should periodically switch to these 6-7, 6-8 lineups just to throw their opponents off-kilter. With swing guys like Marion, Deng and Noccioni who can rebound despite their small size, these teams could discombobulate opponents. That's what the Suns did last year to the Clippers and Mavs (to good effect), that's what the Warriors did this year with mixed results. The Jazz were surprisingly resistant to this strategy. Maybe because Fisher and Williams are a pretty small and quick backcourt, and Kirilenko is such a defensive chameleon.

- 7 minutes left in the 2nd. The Spurs have just 19 points. Against a team missing their two best post players, and having the best power forward in the history of the NBA. This team is a crime against basketball.

- James Jones...good job.

- That was a bad call. But I was thinking about it, and one of these teams employs Bruce Bowen, and the other one doesn't. Considering Bruce Bowen is the basketball equivalent of poison ivy, I think the Spurs are lucky the refs don't break out the tasers.

- After a month of NBA playoffs on TNT I've definitely become aware of 1 thing. I really, really, want to buy a Hyundai. I'm totally serious, those commercials are working.

- And I don't ever want to see that ****ing 'fathead' poster commercial again. "Think fast!"

- They are interviewing Colangelo (Suns CEO) about the suspensions. Marv Albert is now 'justifying' the NBA's asinine decision to suspend Diaw and Stoudamire.

- Matt Bonner is in the game. Because apparently what this game needed was a red head who can't play to liven things up. Have I mentioned that the Spurs are awful on offense against a team famous for their lack of defense and missing their two best post players.

- So see the post players are the ones that are supposed to help the most on defense.

- The point is that the Spurs should be doing better on offense...but they are doing worse.

It is because they absolutely suck.

(24 points with just 3 minutes left in the first half)

-Kurt Thomas looks exhausted. The Spurs always seem to go on a little run to finish quarters. I really hate that.

- C'mon Suns, put something together here.

- Steve Nash.

- Let's see, Nash beat Duncan to the spot. Nash wasn't moving. Nash was outside the restricted area. Duncan initiated the contact. Nash gets the foul. Yeah, that's about right for the biggest group of whiners in the league. I can remember when Kobe and Derek Fisher were the best in the world at this.

- Shawn ****ing Marion.

- I went fishing tonight. Caught 8 fish. 1 got hooked in the gills, and I just realized that I got blood on my shirt. I thought I had gotten a nose-bleed. Kinda gross.

- Of course Manu does that.

- Pretty good finish for the Suns. They didn't give anything up. Of course, the Spurs managed to score just 33 points in the first half. Have I referred to the Spurs as a crime against basketball yet? I mean, the Nets and Cavs combined for 4 field goals in the 4th quarter of their last game, and they both looked like smooth operators in comparison to this Spurs team in the first half.

- Barkley just said that the Spurs seem to be bothered by the fact that the Suns got screwed. I could see this, this definitely look like the typically dirty Spurs team I've grown to loathe over the past few years. Is it possible somewhere in that fount of evil and poor sportsmanship is a soul? A soul that actually gives a shit about the rest of the NBA and basketball fans everywhere? Is that possible?

- Oh wait, they do employ Bruce Bowen. I guess not.

- Love that McDonald's commercial: "Dad's making dinner."
Lovely, crappy, reheated food filled with fat, cholesterol, salt and sugar is being sent all over the world and representing the U.S.A. Fantastic. "Dad's making dinner..." and we're all gonna die.

- Here is a website with a microsimulation of road traffic. Those of you who wonder whether the correct strategy is to get over late when the road goes from 2 lanes to 1 lane need to play around with this thing and then apologize. You bastards.

- This is why you should be a vegetarian (or at least an almost vegetarian).

- Ok, I'm done with this, I'm going to just watch the game for the second half. I hope this goes this way the rest of the game.