Tuesday, February 03, 2009

NBA News – Manu Leads Them Again

When it comes to converting clutch free throws, no one does it better these days than Manu GINOBILI. For one moment, it did look like San Antonio Spurs were heading for a defeat against the Golden State Warriors.

A Stephen JACKSON jumper with 1:02 left gave the Warriors a 95-91 lead but Manu was force to the free throw line on four attempts. He sank all four of his foul shots in the final 49 seconds of regulation.

It was amazing to see just how calm he was in making those shots, whilst ignoring the noise and distraction from the crowd in the Oracle Arena. JACKSON’s lean-in jumper at the buzzer fell short, sending the game into overtime.The extra minutes did not favour the home team, as Spurs breeze through to their third straight win on the road with both Manu and Tim DUNCAN leading the way. Like Timmy, this was season high performance from Manu posting 32 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and one block shot.

“Manu is really finding his stride and been playing great the last five or six games,” DUNCAN said. “It looks like he’s feeling good about it and is getting back to the basket a lot more which is only going to help us.”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great descriptions John.

I'm disappointed I didn't watch this game, I came so close to watching it to .... didn't think the Warriors would make a game of it. Ah well.

I was just glancing at the box score. It looks like a good news, bad news situation. the Spurs main trio scored 87 points. That's really good and it shows their immense quality, but also, why do the Spurs need that type of performance to beat GSW? It looks like the supporting cast was missing in action again.

On the bright side, Kurt Thomas has been playing much better recently and looks like he can give the Spurs some improved play this season. He had 15 boards in only 27 minutes, that's a great aid to the Spurs cause. I've liked what I've seen from him over the last couple of games.