Good Ol' Western Showdown

Well guess i'll have to start somewhere so here we go... Keep in mind this is my first blog post so hopefully it will be easy to follow. I'm going to go ahead and start with something many will be following tonight, the NBA playoffs. The Spurs vs. "los" Suns, game two of the Western Conference semis. I guess i'll go ahead and go through the way the San Antonio Spurs can even this series up, seeing as I am a spurs fan. As much as the los suns jerseys are a major headline for game 2 is the question of whether or not Senor Nash will continue to perform as well as he did in game 1. Nash is coming of a 30 point, 10 assist performance, taking us back to his MVP days. The veteran point guard had his way with the Spurs D, driving hard to the basket, knocking down the open three, running the pick and roll to perfection, basically being the Steve Nash who at one time, if not still, was the best point guard in the game. This has to be the big one the Spurs will be focusing on the most tonight. Tighten up the D,Stop the easy layups and drives to the basket, and close out on the open shots. Its not like the Spurs played horribe in game one, the big three combined for 73 of the Spurs 102 points, where the Spurs lacked was the little contribution from George Hill and Richard Jefferson scoring 9 and 5 respectively. I see this to change in in game two, we really didn't start to see Hill dominance until game three of the first round against Dallas, I see him to be much more comfortable in game two which will lead to more shots falling for him. The same goes for Richard, although he's been inconsistant for much of the season, we have seen glimpses of the old player he was in New Jersey here in the playoffs and look for him to respond early in game two. Moving on i'll talk about the lack of DeJuan Blair in game one. Blair only had 2 points in 10 minutes of game one, grabbing two rebounds. I think Blair's physical play can come in handy against the spurs. If Blair can get in on the offense early and draw some quick fouls on Stoudemire, this would be a big blow to the suns, without Lopez in the lineup, the suns virtually would have no one to cover Blair, Duncan, and McDyess with Grant Hill running around to cover just about everyone. Another aspect of the game that would come from getting the bigs involved early in the game is the three point shot. The spurs only made 4 threes in game one(21%).If the Spurs can start to draw a double team down low on Duncan then they can move the ball around the outside to get the open three with Hill and Ginobili. To wrap everything up The three main keys the spurs need to focus on is slow down Nash/tighten up the D, get the bigs and Blair involved early, and more production from Hill and Jefferson. Should once again be a thriller, a physical fight from start to finish with plenty of scoring and excitement(too bad the suns don't have Eduardo Najera on their team)Tune into the game at 8:00 on TNT, Until next time......