At some point, the unbeatable aura surrounding the San Antonio Spurs had to come to an end, no matter how nasty they wanted to be. That point came on Thursday night when the team finally had its almighty 20-game winning streak snapped in a 102-82 blowout loss against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 3 (Boxscore here).
Tim Duncan had another off night, scoring just 11 points while shooting 5-of-15 from the field (he is shooting 31.7 percent overall in the series) and tied a playoff career-low with two rebounds.
He did have five blocks, though, and that put him in the record books. Duncan’s fourth block of the game on Serge Ibaka with 2:25 remaining in the second quarter gave him 477 career playoff blocks, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most career blocks in NBA playoff history. Check the video below:
A great feat indeed, but the TNT crew failed to mention something of significance in regards to the record-breaking blocks.
Indeed, our columnist Jan Hubbard was onto something. Duncan is not really the No. 1 shot-blocker of all time in the playoffs when you consider the fact that blocks did not become an official statistic until the 1973-1974 season. Abdul-Jabbar’s career began in the 1969-1970 season, meaning the blocks he accumulated in the first four seasons – arguably the most dominant statistical years of his career – were never accounted for in his first 41 postseason games. Suffice to say, he had plenty more than the listed 476 career playoff blocks.
Still, it remains a great historical accomplishment for the Big Fundamental, so hats off to him.
For yesterday’s blog, click here.
For Wednesday’s blog, click here.
James Park is a regular contributor and blogger for SheridanHoops.com. You can follow him on twitter @nbatupark.
Put Kareem and Wilt in the touch foul era and they wouldnt even have that 476 number because of all the likely foul outs. And unless you want to go watch some game tape and count the number of uncounted blocks, nobody likes the poindexter who says,”well actually…”
Johnny Kerr once told me Wilt blocked between 6-8 shots per game. Jerry West estimated 8 as well. Blocks are blocks, no matter what era. Do you really think players as skilled as Wilt and Russell would not be able to adapt to whatever the rules were or however the games were called? Come on. I believe today’s players are better as a whole, but you cannot deny true greatness.
But you can’t really say Kareem would be either. I mean he probably is, considering the sheer volume of playoff game appearances he had combined with his ability to block shots, but without knowing how many Bill Russell or Wilt had, you can’t be positive Kareem has the most either. Basically all I’m saying is you’ll start running in circles with that argument.
Notice, I said Duncan is not really No. 1, but never said Abdul-Jabbar was either. Just pointing out the fact that he actually does, unofficially, have more than Duncan is all :]