| Finley, Spurs Punch Back Authored by Elliot Cole - May 20, 2006 - 9:30 am
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Never has a game 6 felt so much like a game 7, and for good reason. Ill-advised trash talk from Mavericks owner Mark Cuban added to an already electric atmosphere. Game 6 offered two 60-win powers slugging it out, a defending champion facing elimination on the road, an All-Star trying to survive his old team and a suspension providing even more locker room fodder. Add a general disgust with officiating on the part of both teams, and the stage was set for a perfect movie script ending in Dallas.
Unfortunately for the Mavs, the Spurs didn’t read that script.
You know the one. The script that has the Spurs “mini-dynasty” finally crumbling. The script that has Avery Johnson beating his former team and coach. The one everyone was waiting for, with the perfect ending of a team rallying around their suspended player to win at home in front of all those courtside “31” Terry jerseys.
The Spurs never got a copy of that script. In fact, the Spurs are probably the least likely team to provide any sort of Hollywood ending, instead chugging along in ho-hum fashion. All game, the American Airlines Center waited for the Mavs to make that storybook run. The sort of run Dallas used to make, one of those 12-2 or 15-5 explosions that would put the Spurs’ backs against the wall and change the entire face of the playoffs. Instead, there was Manu Ginobili, putting the Spurs on his back and carrying the team while both Duncan and Tony Parker were on the bench. When Jerry Stackhouse got hot early, there was Bruce Bowen, forcing him into a pedestrian 10 points on 4-15 shooting. Finally, in what can only be described as poetic justice, there was Finley, nailing his fade away jumper and dunking all over Eric Dampier (again).
The game was Spurs basketball at its finest: ugly, physical, patient and steady. The Spurs controlled the tempo of the game, a tempo that felt more like a Detroit finals game than a Mavs/Spurs game. All this while playing in the unfriendly surroundings of 20,986 very agitated Mavs fans. All while playing with a small lineup and struggling through foul trouble on Bowen, Duncan, and Ginobili. Despite all other factors, the Spurs were able to dictate tempo. Once Harris went out with his second foul, Terry’s absence was apparent. Marquis Daniels took over at the point, and the Spurs, while falling behind on the scoreboard, took over the momentum of the game.
In the second half, it became apparent that the perfect Mavs storybook moment would never come. The newspaper headlines were put on hold, the Dirk Nowitzki post-game interview scratched off. Instead, there were the Spurs, fighting back to tie the series at 3-3, doing it in typical boring, grind-it-out-fashion. That boring style, as it turns out, could lead to one of the most exciting comebacks the NBA has ever seen. We should have already known how this series would end: a game 7, in the “muddy waters” of San Antonio, with a Spurs team that looks more and more like the defending champions.
Elliot Cole can be reached at elliot.cole@yahoo.com |
