Haters, STFU!

After last year's series between the Suns and Spurs, there were tons of media members and their flocks of sheepish fans hollering that San Antonio won because of the "unfair" suspensions of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw for game five. For those unfamiliar, the NBA dishes out automatic one-game suspensions to players who leave the bench area during an on-court fight. Incidents like this have happened in the past and have cost teams' advancement into the playoffs. Still, every once and awhile, an incident like this occurs again, and the media, fans, and penalized players all act as if they never knew of this rule.

The funny thing is that Phoenix almost won last year's game 5 without Stoudemire and Diaw. This just gives sportswriters and armchair fans more reason to complain. This was an intense series between two established teams. Some people feel that the suspensions ruined it, even though it still went 6 games. In fact, there are some that strongly feel the Suns were going to win this best of seven series, even though they still managed to lose 3 games in that series when their roster was at full strength.

Well this year, the Suns and Spurs just happened to be matched up in the first round. To make things more interesting, this was a different Suns team that now included Shaquille O'Neal. Much like last year's series, it got off to a great start. The first game went into double overtime, which the Spurs eventually won. But then San Antonio won the next two games easily, putting the Suns on the brink of elimination. Phoenix took game 4 to avoid the shame of being swept, but proceeded to lose game 5 to end the series.

There's no excuses this year. Fans and sports writers just need to accept that the Spurs are a damn good basketball team and the Suns are not. Sure, Phoenix is the sexier team. They play a fast tempo and score lots of points. They got highly skilled point guard who dishes out tons of assists, and we all know how white people love assists. They also have an athletic big man who can dominate the paint. But they cannot match the Spurs' defense, and as the old cliche goes: defense wins championships.

And if you're wondering why I care so much about this, it's because I'm a big Spurs fan. No, I'm not a "front-runner." I started watching this team during the days of David Robinson, Dennis Rodman, Sean Elliot, Avery Johnson, and Vinny Del Negro (which is Spanish for Vinny of the Black).

Why the Spurs? I grew up in North Dakota and really had no geographical allegiance to any pro basketball team. I started really watching pro basketball around the age of 12. This was the time that Michael Jordan was in his first retirement. The first few NBA Finals I really watched were the Rockets-Knicks and Rockets-Magic back in the mid-nineties. Because I was pretty tall and played center on my basketball team, I became a big fan of all the great centers playing at that time. David Robinson was my favorite and who I identified with the most. He didn't have the fancy footwork of Hakeem Olajuwan or the freakish size of Shaq and Patrick Ewing. But he was athletic, ran the floor well on fast breaks, and blocked shots. This is what I took pride in doing well, too.

And so my allegiance to David and the Spurs began. It only grew with the addition of another great center/power forward, Tim Duncan. While I have adopted a new geographical allegiance with the Minnesota Timberwolves, I'll still be cheering for the Spurs when they are not playing my current home team.