Tim Duncan Flashed Me (n/h) Back to Patrick Ewing Last Night

[who_better_than_me]

Knicks would've beat the Rockets though if they had Duncan instead of Ewing, who was bricking jumpshots the whole series

No disrespect to the Dream

But u are

 

[mvp_status]

But u are

breh that series came all the way down to the last minutes of Game 7 with Pat shooting like 6/20 every game. It's not a stretch at all

 

[ArchStanton]

John Starks was more to blame for their loss than Ewing. 2 for 16 in game 7 and 0 for 10 in the 4th quarter. Horrible!

 

[Trip]

"Yeah we make a lot of money, but we spend a lot of money too."

 

[mvp_status]

John Starks was more to blame for their loss than Ewing. 2 for 16 in game 7 and 0 for 10 in the 4th quarter. Horrible!

that series doesnt even get to a game 7 w/o Starks bailing the team out in the 4th in just about every game

 

[Rekkapryde]

John Starks was more to blame for their loss than Ewing. 2 for 16 in game 7 and 0 for 10 in the 4th quarter. Horrible!

But Starks also lifted the Knicks to Game 6 victory. Cats stay cuban b'in that part.

edit: forgot they lost that game too.

 

[Azul]

John Starks was more to blame for their loss than Ewing. 2 for 16 in game 7 and 0 for 10 in the 4th quarter. Horrible!

2 for 18 breh one stat I wish I could forget

But Starks also lifted the Knicks to Game 6 victory. Cats stay cuban b'in that part.

edit: forgot they lost that game too.

Just saw the edit cause I was they lost that shut breh After game 5 the headline for the Daily News was "Just One."

 

[mitter]

You're a year late.

Timmy already had his Ewing moment last year when he missed those two potentially game-tying shots over Battier. It gave me flashbacks of Ewing missing that finger roll.

You guys don't understand how devastated I was when I saw Timmy miss that point-blank shot with the title on the line.



Let's go back to the Ewing finger roll for a minute.

I absolutely loathed the Bulls. I was salty that they had beaten the Lakers in 1991. With Magic retired and no hope of a rematch, all I could hope for was to see the Bulls go down. And the Knicks were constantly propped up as Chicago's legitimate rival.

Yet the Knicks were just a bunch of hard-working overachievers. Their only real "star" was Ewing, and he was second-rate. Every year their flaws would get exposed, and usually in very symbolic ways:

- Charles Smith getting his layup blocked 58 consecutive times at the end of Game 5 of the 1993 ECF

- Former CBA star John Starks trying to step up to the plate and put the Knicks over the top himself in Game 6 of the 1994 Finals --- and coming damn close. In Game 7, Starks fell back down to earth and we were reminded of who he really was: a hard-working journeyman, but far from a star.

- And then there is Ewing's missed finger roll.

Michael Jordan was supposed to be the Knicks' obstacle. But even with MJ retired in 1994, it took a horrible Hue Hollins call to get past the MJ-less Bulls. They survived the Pacers only to lose to Hakeem's Rockets. It was ok, Hakeem was like Superman that year.

But the Knicks came back in 1995 and again had their hands full with the Pacers. The Indiana fukking Pacers. They were led by Reggie Miller, who people think of as a star only because of what he did against the Knicks. Aside from Miller, they had nobody resembling a star. It shouldn't have even gone 7 games if the Knicks were the team they were portrayed to be. But there they were in Game 7, down, with the ball and a few seconds remaining. Ewing had one last chance to save his team's dignity (and, indeed, his own dignity). The best he could do was toss up that weak finger roll from point-blank range and watch it clank off the rim.





Now, back to Tim Duncan and the Spurs. Duncan was the kind of player I wish had been around to challenge the Bulls in the 90s.

He and his Spurs got the job done when they were supposed to get it done. It was Duncan and the Spurs who annually exposed the most overrated team (Suns) of the 00s, led by the most overrated player of the 00s (Steve Nash).

Sometimes Duncan and the Spurs even got the job done when they weren't supposed to. In 2003, the Lakers were coming off a three-peat and had a top 12 player at the tail end of his prime and another top 12 player at the peak of his powers. But he and his Spurs were able to take advantage of their opportunity and slay Goliath. They were able to do what all those teams in the 90s couldn't do, even when the Bulls were running out of gas towards the end of their run (actually, that's not true: Shaq and his Magic took advantage of their opportunity, but nobody will ever credit them for it ... that's another story).

As a huge Duncan fan, it has been painful to watch him at times over the last 7 years. His last truly dominant performance was Game 1 of the 2008 playoffs against the Suns. That was the game in which he scored 40 points on an array of incredible post-moves (the kind we may never see again as the traditional big man faces extinction) and capped it off by hitting an unlikely three-pointer to propel the Spurs to victory. The Spurs started to show their age during that same playoff season and eventually folded to a younger, more active Lakers team.

Duncan hung around and the Spurs kept finding a way to plug in new role players around their aging Big Three and win 55-60 games. But Duncan could no longer dominate the way he had in the past. He got his points mostly as part of the system. In the playoffs, the Spurs' overachieving role players would get exposed for who they were, and Duncan couldn't step up and take over. We saw him get punked by Marc Gasol. We saw him limping around on one leg as young, unheralded guards drove past him for layups.

Yet, somehow, after all those Springs where I'd decide that Duncan was done (and so were the Spurs), they were right there last year with the title there for the taking. The first round losses, the sweep at the hands of the Suns, the collapse against the Thunder. None of that mattered.

And all Timmy could do was miss that bunny over Battier, try desperately to tip in the miss, and then slap his hands on the hardwood floor ...

 

[No_bammer_weed]

that series doesnt even get to a game 7 w/o Starks bailing the team out in the 4th in just about every game

Smart man.

Everyone repeats Starks 2/18 performance in game 7, but there's another number that was far more important in determining that series: 36%. That was Ewing's shooting percentage for the whole finals. He averaged 18 pts, and was throughly decimated by Hakeem who averaged like 25 on 50% shooting.

 

[No_bammer_weed]

dbl

 

[dreskii]

good posts in this thread.

 

[Brozay]

You guys don't understand how devastated I was when I saw Timmy miss that point-blank shot with the title on the line.



Let's go back to the Ewing finger roll for a minute.

I absolutely loathed the Bulls. I was salty that they had beaten the Lakers in 1991. With Magic retired and no hope of a rematch, all I could hope for was to see the Bulls go down. And the Knicks were constantly propped up as Chicago's legitimate rival.

Yet the Knicks were just a bunch of hard-working overachievers. Their only real "star" was Ewing, and he was second-rate. Every year their flaws would get exposed, and usually in very symbolic ways:

- Charles Smith getting his layup blocked 58 consecutive times at the end of Game 5 of the 1993 ECF

- Former CBA star John Starks trying to step up to the plate and put the Knicks over the top himself in Game 6 of the 1994 Finals --- and coming damn close. In Game 7, Starks fell back down to earth and we were reminded of who he really was: a hard-working journeyman, but far from a star.

- And then there is Ewing's missed finger roll.

Michael Jordan was supposed to be the Knicks' obstacle. But even with MJ retired in 1994, it took a horrible Hue Hollins call to get past the MJ-less Bulls. They survived the Pacers only to lose to Hakeem's Rockets. It was ok, Hakeem was like Superman that year.

But the Knicks came back in 1995 and again had their hands full with the Pacers. The Indiana fukking Pacers. They were led by Reggie Miller, who people think of as a star only because of what he did against the Knicks. Aside from Miller, they had nobody resembling a star. It shouldn't have even gone 7 games if the Knicks were the team they were portrayed to be. But there they were in Game 7, down, with the ball and a few seconds remaining. Ewing had one last chance to save his team's dignity (and, indeed, his own dignity). The best he could do was toss up that weak finger roll from point-blank range and watch it clank off the rim.





Now, back to Tim Duncan and the Spurs. Duncan was the kind of player I wish had been around to challenge the Bulls in the 90s.

He and his Spurs got the job done when they were supposed to get it done. It was Duncan and the Spurs who annually exposed the most overrated team (Suns) of the 00s, led by the most overrated player of the 00s (Steve Nash).

Sometimes Duncan and the Spurs even got the job done when they weren't supposed to. In 2003, the Lakers were coming off a three-peat and had a top 12 player at the tail end of his prime and another top 12 player at the peak of his powers. But he and his Spurs were able to take advantage of their opportunity and slay Goliath. They were able to do what all those teams in the 90s couldn't do, even when the Bulls were running out of gas towards the end of their run (actually, that's not true: Shaq and his Magic took advantage of their opportunity, but nobody will ever credit them for it ... that's another story).

As a huge Duncan fan, it has been painful to watch him at times over the last 7 years. His last truly dominant performance was Game 1 of the 2008 playoffs against the Suns. That was the game in which he scored 40 points on an array of incredible post-moves (the kind we may never see again as the traditional big man faces extinction) and capped it off by hitting an unlikely three-pointer to propel the Spurs to victory. The Spurs started to show their age during that same playoff season and eventually folded to a younger, more active Lakers team.

Duncan hung around and the Spurs kept finding a way to plug in new role players around their aging Big Three and win 55-60 games. But Duncan could no longer dominate the way he had in the past. He got his points mostly as part of the system. In the playoffs, the Spurs' overachieving role players would get exposed for who they were, and Duncan couldn't step up and take over. We saw him get punked by Marc Gasol. We saw him limping around on one leg as young, unheralded guards drove past him for layups.

Yet, somehow, after all those Springs where I'd decide that Duncan was done (and so were the Spurs), they were right there last year with the title there for the taking. The first round losses, the sweep at the hands of the Suns, the collapse against the Thunder. None of that mattered.

And all Timmy could do was miss that bunny over Battier, try desperately to tip in the miss, and then slap his hands on the hardwood floor ...

What about game 6 of last years finals?

 

[Jplaya2023]

@mitter good post. The only thing i think ewings gets killed on to much is the miss finger roll. Had he made it they face orlando in the ECF and get demolished so in the big picture the miss wouldn't of changed basketball history at all. Their window was 94 they missed their chance.

 

[nieman]

The Knicks won Game 5, lost Game 6 & 7. People forget that it was a crazy duel in Game 5 though. The most important thing about the '94 Season was that with MJ gone, people expected the Knicks to go to the Finals. The prediction was Knicks vs Suns, and Patrick met expectations. It doesn't matter how many games they squeaked through, they won. He was damn tired by the time the finals rolled around and Dream maintained that level. But Dream was also having poor shooting games. I think it was game 4 or 5 that he really balled out and they lost those games. Overall it was a great series though.

As for Reggie he .500 vs Knicks in playoffs (3-3) and his overall records isn't even close to .500.

And YES, Tim Duncan has averaged 20ppg like 2x since '04. He's been coasting, and putting up stats that people weren't sniffing an all-star game with.

 

[KingJudah]

Duncan would have no rings with the knicks like Pat

I can tell these nikkas never seen big pat play.