# Playoff Series Thread: Spurs vs. Seattle



## KokoTheMonkey (Aug 4, 2003)

Alright. We got past a good Denver team rather easily, and now it's time to go up against a team that poses a lot of problems for us. There was some announcer that was asked what the difference between playing Denver and Seattle was, and they said something like "There's very little difference." IMO, that couldn't be more wrong. Denver's problem was that they couldn't hit jumpers on us. That won't be a problem for Seattle. Seattle is physical, like Denver, but that might be the only similarity. For the Spurs, Parker and Manu have to really step up. Manu had a fantastic series against Denver, and Parker had 2-3 games of solid-to-great play. Both have to play big in every game coming up. I say that because Seattle is going to pound Duncan. They have several big bodies to throw at Duncan, and they have an athletic team, so they can afford to double on Duncan and then recover if Tim passes it out. Duncan did have a season-high against Seattle this year, but in that game I believe our bench didn't contribute anything. As for the season series, I'm not taking that too much into account. Seattle fans are quick to say that San Antonio beat Seattle with Ray Allen out one game and Rashard Lewis out one game, but they don't realize their two wins against us came about 70-75 games ago. We're the better team, but sometimes matchups can kill you. The benches will once again be crucial. I like our bench better, and we rely on our bench a lot more than they do with Manu coming off it to start the game. Rebounding and TO's are going to be a crucial theme as well, hopefully we don't give away the ball as much as we did against Denver. Should be a great series. It's going to be physical, and I think it will overall be a little higher scoring than the Denver series. I'm going with the Spurs in 6, although I think it could take 7 games if we don't defend our homecourt.


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## G-Force (Jan 4, 2005)

Congratulations in finishing off ex-Sonics coach Karl and the Nuggets. Both the Spurs and the Sonics won theri first round series 4-1, but I see this series going 6 or 7 games. The Spurs have the playoff experience, but the Sonics are playing well and know that they can play with San Antonio. Nobody is going to blow out anybody, and I am not expecting high-scoring games. That is just fine for the Sonics, as they play better and had a better record in slower paced games during the regular season.

We had a great time with the Kings posters in the first round. I look forward to hanging with you Spurs fans for the next couple weeks. Please stop by the Sonics forum and post your thoughts and wisdom there as well. Here is to a fairly-officated, hard-fought, injury-free, well-behaved competitive second round series.

:cheers: 

G-Force


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## Scholar (Mar 27, 2005)

KokoTheMonkey said:


> As for the season series, I'm not taking that too much into account. *Seattle fans are quick to say that San Antonio beat Seattle with Ray Allen out one game and Rashard Lewis out one game, but they don't realize their two wins against us came about 70-75 games ago* .


I know your talking about me and If you're offended I'm sorry. I'm just want clear some things up. I didn't consider the start of the season problems of the Spurs because it only occured for the second straight season and I just don't understand why it happens. Hopefully you can answer this. Just too keep it short I have no disrespect for the Spurs and the championship is still your's to lose.

Anyway the only thing Seattle will likely get is respect. We our the underdog but hopefully it will be a great series and maybe we can pull a miracle :wink: .

I personally want to see how Pop and Nate will respond to the matchup problems that Rashard and Manu/Parker cause respectively.






G-Force said:


> Here is to a fairly-officated, hard-fought, injury-free, well-behaved competitive second round series.
> 
> :cheers:


:cheers:


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## Luiz_Rodrigo (Dec 2, 2003)

I think that in the 2nd round of the playoffs in the West there aren´t underdogs anymore... All the 5 teams that are still alive in the West are excellents. Sonics is a great team, Allen is a superstar and this series will be extremely balanced.

Of course that as I´m a Spurs fan, I´ll predict a Spurs´ victory :biggrin:


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## TheRoc5 (Mar 1, 2005)

this will be very intresting series, i think that this will be huge.

we will be have an advantage for gm 1. the gm is set for sunday so i think that will benifent us. we get 3 full days off and get to rest while the sonics get 4 days off and mite be alittle rusty for sunday. we have the first two gms at home and were playing good now. i think our deffense will mess with there jumpers and there jumpers wont always fall in a 7gm series. i think bowen will do a good job on ray and pop will have a nice plan to guard lewis. i think our post will be big since they do not have a great inside force. i look for parker and manu to be great and of course duncan. also rasho and narz with there inside presents. 

gm 1

spurs 98 sonics 90

gm 2 

spurs 90 sonics 88

gm 3

spurs 101 sonics 106

gm 4 

spurs 101 sonics 96

gm 5 spurs 97 sonics 93

i can easily see the sonics win another gm and it going to 6 gms but im going to say we win in 5 b/c i think were capable of that

Go Spurs Go


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## G-Force (Jan 4, 2005)

Many people underestimated the Sonics in theri series against Sacramento and they won, 4-1, including a big come from win in Arco Arena. I kinda like the Sonics being viewed as underdogs. Nate and the boys don't mind it either.

If the Sonics keep playing well, this is not gonna be a five game series. It is going to go 6 or 7 games, and Seattle may win and advance to the next round. I'm not making any bold predictions here, just saying that this aint gonna be a stroll through the park for either team.

G-Force


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## FreeMason Jr. (Jul 12, 2004)

G-Force said:


> Many people underestimated the Sonics in theri series against Sacramento and they won, 4-1, including a big come from win in Arco Arena. I kinda like the Sonics being viewed as underdogs. Nate and the boys don't mind it either.
> 
> If the Sonics keep playing well, this is not gonna be a five game series. It is going to go 6 or 7 games, and Seattle may win and advance to the next round. I'm not making any bold predictions here, just saying that this aint gonna be a stroll through the park for either team.
> 
> G-Force


Yes, the Sonics are being highly underestimated by people. The series could easily go either way, and I predict it to go to 6 games, maybe 7.


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## GODisaSpursFan (Mar 25, 2003)

The number 3 Sonics were under estimated against the Kings???

By who? King fans?

I'm sorry, the Kings were not the Kings of yester year. They traded Webber, Christie, lost Divac, etc.

I mean they depened on Peja!!

They actually became worse towards the end of the season and nearly missed making the playoffs had the season gone on a couple of more weeks.

The Sonics shuld have swept the Kings. They sucked.

I see the Spurs taking this series in 5 and no more than 6.

I feel there is no team that can beat a healthy or even 95% healthy Spurs team 4 times in a series.


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## FreeMason Jr. (Jul 12, 2004)

GODisaSpursFan said:


> The number 3 Sonics were under estimated against the Kings???
> 
> By who? King fans?
> 
> ...


I don't see your point. Alot of people were saying that the kings would have won that series, including me. The Sonics played horribly at the end of the regular season, and people thought that they would continue thier slump, which they somewhat have but to a lesser extent. But they didn't play nearly as bad as the end of the regular season, and they even managed to pull away with an impressive 4-1 series. Just look at the poll for the Sonics/Kings series thread I made and you'll see that many on the spurs forums alone underestimated them. I voted for the kings in 6, and now I feel really stupid :dead:


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## texan (Jul 10, 2003)

Well, I for one, think this will be the hardest series for us of the Western Conference playoffs. They create mismatches for us, play well both in the half-court and on the break, play good enough defense, are deep, and very talented. They have been playing really well in the playoffs, and with Jerome James playing as good, or even close to as good, as he did in the 1st Round, they will be hard to stop.

The main concerns I have in this series is the match-up defensively on Rashard Lewis, the minutes of Bruce Bowen b/c of Ray Allen, the 3 point shooting and the inside toughness of the Seattle big men. The first two concerns should be interesting to see how they play out. I would like to see the Spurs switch TD to Lewis if he posts up. That would leave a slight mismatch of Ginobili on Evans, but how much of an offensive threat is Evans? Also if Ray is playing well, that means Bruce will be playing major minutes, meaning we would be playing practically 4-on-5 offensively most of the game. The other two concerns, will ultimately determine whether the Sonics can keep the series close/win the series. If James, Evans, Fortson and Collison step it up inside, then this could be a long series, however if Duncan and Mohammed dominate, the Spurs should have a relatively easy time. Also if the Sonics are shooting lights out from 3 point land, then they will always be in this series. We must play good perimeter defense to win this series.

My Prediction:
Game 1: Spurs win
Game 2: Seattle win
Game 3: Seattle win
Game 4: Spurs win
Game 5: Spurs win
Game 6: Seattle win
Game 7: Spurs win

Spurs in 7.


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## Camaro_870 (Mar 12, 2005)

This should really be an exciting and tough series...i predict the spurs in 6 but 7 games is definately possible........ spurs just need to keep the perimeter defended as bast as they can cause ray allen can shoot that ball really good


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## KokoTheMonkey (Aug 4, 2003)

Scholar said:


> I know your talking about me and If you're offended I'm sorry. I'm just want clear some things up. I didn't consider the start of the season problems of the Spurs because it only occured for the second straight season and I just don't understand why it happens. Hopefully you can answer this. Just too keep it short I have no disrespect for the Spurs and the championship is still your's to lose.
> 
> Anyway the only thing Seattle will likely get is respect. We our the underdog but hopefully it will be a great series and maybe we can pull a miracle :wink: .
> 
> I personally want to see how Pop and Nate will respond to the matchup problems that Rashard and Manu/Parker cause respectively.






Not offended at all. I actually heard the same thing a couple different times (Somebody said it on TV as well, don't remember who). All I was trying to say is that the regular season matchup can really just be thrown out.


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## KokoTheMonkey (Aug 4, 2003)

G-Force said:


> Many people underestimated the Sonics in theri series against Sacramento and they won, 4-1, including a big come from win in Arco Arena. I kinda like the Sonics being viewed as underdogs. Nate and the boys don't mind it either.
> 
> If the Sonics keep playing well, this is not gonna be a five game series. It is going to go 6 or 7 games, and Seattle may win and advance to the next round. I'm not making any bold predictions here, just saying that this aint gonna be a stroll through the park for either team.
> 
> G-Force





Who undersestimated Seattle? I for one picked Seattle in 5 games, and everything I remember seeing had Seattle winning comfortably as well.


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## KokoTheMonkey (Aug 4, 2003)

Season Stat Comparison:



PPG: 98.9 - 96.2
OPPG: 96.6 - 88.4
Off Reb: 12.7 - 12.0
Tot Reb: 40.9 - 42.4
Assist: 18.1 - 21.6
TO: 12.7 - 13.0
FG%: 44.4  - 45.3
OPP FG%: 45.9 - 42.6  
3P's: 8.1/22.2 (36.5%)  - 6.2/17.0 (36.3%)
FT's: 20.5/26.0 (79%) - 18.7/25.9 (72.4)


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## KokoTheMonkey (Aug 4, 2003)

KokoTheMonkey said:


> PPG: 98.9 - 96.2
> OPPG: 96.6 - 88.4
> Off Reb: 12.7 - 12.0
> Tot Reb: 40.9 - 42.4
> ...







Quoting myself? Well, I thought I would make a separate post to comment on these stats above. First off, the defensive numbers immediately jump out at me. The Spurs give up almost 8 points per game less, and have only scored 2 points less than Seattle. These are regular season numbers by the way. I thought using the overall regular season numbers was a much better sample than just using the 4 games that the two teams played during the regular season. Anyway, another thing to look at is that Seatt;e actually allows their opponent to shoot a better % from the field. So how did they manage to still put up 50 wins? By getting offensive rebounds, knocking down threes, and getting to the free throw line. Those three thing are huge for Seattle, and if you take away one of those things your chances are much better at winning.


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## kfranco (Apr 22, 2005)

San Antonio is 6. FInal ANswer. SA is going to be wayyyyy too much for poor Seattle. ANyone beg to differ??


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## Yao Mania (Aug 4, 2003)

Hope it will be a good series. Even up to this point I still don't know what to expect from the Sonics, I certainly didn't expect Jerome James to play like the way he did in the 1st round! The PG match-up will once again be intriguing - will Parker school Ridnour or with Luke be able to hold his own out there? Should be a great series.


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## Kirk20 (Dec 13, 2004)

I think this will be San Antonio in 5 .... Sonics don't play defense half as good as Denver, and while their offense is good, SA's defense is lockdown.


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## Guth (Feb 23, 2005)

I'm not gonna lie, I think this will be a very tough series, but for some reason, I don't feel all that worried...if that makes any sense...I am sure that some of you feel this same way...


I think that they put up many unique challenges that could make this series interesting, but after this last series I feel like we will win, no doubt. That does not mean that I don't think it will be hard-fought, because I think it will. But there is really no doubt in my mind that we can and will win this series.

I say we will take this series in 6, with no lack of drama in the series.


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## KokoTheMonkey (Aug 4, 2003)

Guth said:


> I'm not gonna lie, I think this will be a very tough series, but for some reason, *I don't feel all that worried...if that makes any sense...I am sure that some of you feel this same way...*
> 
> 
> I think that they put up many unique challenges that could make this series interesting, but after this last series I feel like we will win, no doubt. That does not mean that I don't think it will be hard-fought, because I think it will. But there is really no doubt in my mind that we can and will win this series.
> ...






Yeah, I do feel that same way. I'm pretty confident we have the better team, but you don't win games on paper. All we have to do is what we've been doing all season long and I feel good about our chances.


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## nam207 (May 7, 2005)

GODisaSpursFan said:


> The number 3 Sonics were under estimated against the Kings???
> 
> By who? King fans?


If you ever bother to watch TV, radio, newspapers, you wouldn't ask that kind of question. And that exclude this forum already.

duh! :angel:


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## G-Force (Jan 4, 2005)

KokoTheMonkey said:


> Who undersestimated Seattle? I for one picked Seattle in 5 games, and everything I remember seeing had Seattle winning comfortably as well.


While many people expected the Sonics to win this series, (and some did not) I would venture to say that some did not expect the Sonics to win it in 5 games. I figured that it would be the Sonics winning in 6 games, and I am one of the biggest Sonics fans on the board.

G-Force


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## Luiz_Rodrigo (Dec 2, 2003)

A question to the Sonics fans...

Is Radmanovic 100% healthy?


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