A pair of first-place teams who figure to be upwardly mobile in the next edition of Mark Heisler’s power rankings meet Saturday night in San Antonio when the Spurs host the Denver Nuggets. Neither team has a top 20 scorer, a top 20 rebounder or a top 10 assist man. However, both have established themselves as one of the league’s better teams in the early going. The Spurs are fourth in Heisler’s rankings. They have won two in a row, including Thursday’s demolition
In recent years, we have gotten extended looks at the San Antonio Spurs without Manu Ginobili. And what we have seen is a contender reduced to a pretender. In 2009, Ginobili suffered an ankle injury in early April that cost him the final six games of the regular season and the postseason, which ended abruptly with a five-game exit vs. Dallas. As my colleague Jan Hubbard pointed out some time ago, the Spurs were the best regular-season team in the NBA last
// And then there were none. We are less than 10 days into the season, and there are no more unbeaten teams. The last two were the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder, who were picked by three SheridanHoops staffers to meet in the NBA Finals. The Heat took a 5-0 mark into their home showdown with the Atlanta Hawks, who racked up 33 points in the fourth quarter en route to a 100-92 win. It remains to be seen whether the
Highlight Performances: Jarrett Jack, NO– Following a disappointing night in Sacramento, Jack caught fire Monday night, scoring 27 points and dishing out 11 assists. Jack is having an impressive season averaging 16.5 points a game to go with 8.0 assists, however his value, especially scoring, figures to take a slight hit with the imminent return of Eric Gordon. Carmelo Anthony, NYK- Nobody has ever questioned Melo’s ability to score, so his 35 point/11 reb. game was not too out of the ordinary.
TEL AVIV –In most European countries, there are separate post-season awards for local players and import players. The NBA justly classifies all of its players into one category, as passports are a non-factor when post-season awards are up for discussion. While the approach taken by the NBA is certainly the right one, as the absolute acceptance of foreign players into the NBA has made a big impact on the league in the last two decades, and fans are always looking for
A strange phenomenon has occurred in the supersonic world of information that is currently embodied by Twitter. Everything is faster now – information, reaction, criticism and analysis. There used to be a 24-hour news cycle. Now it sometimes does not last 24 seconds. There seems to be, however, an unintended consequence. The faster the world; the quicker people forget. A few years ago, there was measured reaction to subjects of the day; now the norm is overreaction. And that’s fine. No complaints here.