All Hail the Champs

Last night the San Antonio Spurs won their 4th NBA title in 9 years in a 4 game sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers. In winning their 4th championship, the Spurs joined the Boston Celtics, the Minneapolis/Los Angles Lakers and the Chicago Bulls as NBA franchises that have won at least 4 championships. I don't know about you, but that's pretty elite company and the word dynasty should now be mentioned when referring to the present day San Antonio Spurs team.

It was another day at the office for San Antonio as the Cavs did not prove to be as formidable a foe as the Spurs' Western Conference opponents. I personally did not think that the series would end in a four game sweep but maybe in five or even six games, so it was a little surprising to see them win like they did. The Spurs totally outmatched the Cavaliers in all aspects of the game. LeBron James, after having a coming out party against the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, looked human. He never got in a rhythmic groove where the game came to him, as in his 48 point explosion against the Pistons. He hardly took advantage of his size/strength against Bruce Bowen. If Bowen looked like he needed help, a quick double-team came and forced James to look at other options. Otherwise, Bowen played a remarkable defense against the future Michael Jordan type player of the NBA.

I love to watch the Spurs play defense. It's all about teamwork. I usually look away from the ball to see how the defenders move through the picks and screens set up for the offense. If a defender gets picked off on a pick down along the baseline, another teammate will pick him up and will guard him for as along as necessary. From time to time you'll hear about a motion offense where the players move all around the court, well in this instance, you can say that the Spurs have a motion defense. Their defensive rotations are crisp and their one on one defense is superb from the starters down to the bench players. They all have a job to do, and seen by their four championships, they do that job extremely well. Everything they do revolves on their defense.

Speaking of a coming out party, Spurs point guard Tony Parker, otherwise known as the 2007 NBA Finals MVP, has vaulted himself onto the list of elite point guards. He pretty much outplayed every point guard the Spurs encountered: Allen Inverson, Steve Nash, Derron Williams, & Larry Hughes/Daniel Gibson. He might not have outplayed them all numberswise but he outhustled them fairly handily. Hence why the Spurs won.

I will be the first one to say that this Finals series was rather boring. It was anticlimactic. You can even say that it was a foregone conclusion that the Spurs would win the series unless some miraculous event occurred. Prior to game four, I heard people propose something like reseeding all the playoff teams from both conferences in order to get a meaningful Finals matchup. One of the talking heads on ESPN said that the Finals would end up being the Spurs against the Phoenix Suns. Most, if not all would agree with that outcome as that was the most entertaining series in this years' playoffs. Right now, it is not unfair to say that most of the talented teams reside in the Western Conference and might be for while as the top two players in the upcoming draft, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant should be drafted by the Portland Trailblazers and the Seattle Supersonics, respectively.

Who knows if the Spurs can duplicate this year's magic next season, but hopefully the league will finally realize what kind of franchise they have residing in San Antonio. It's a team led by the most consistent, fundamentally sound player this side of Michael Jordan in Tim Duncan, who is considered to be the most unassuming and plain superstar in the league, and by my reckoning, is the only tattooed Spurs player. They have a young and supremely talented point guard in Tony Parker who is now considered one of the top players at his position. Then there's Manu Ginobili. What player in the league is more unselfish than this guy. This all-star caliber player is asked every year to come off the bench in each game, but is entrusted to secure a Spurs win with the ball in his hand at crunch time. There's nowhere like him. Nor is there a team out there like the Spurs who thinks defense first, led by it's defense minister Bruce Bowen. Whether or not the NBA wants to consider such a team a dynasty, but it is hard to miss a group of players that thinks as one and that thinks of only one thing, winning a championship.