Coach's Corner
By Andy "Coach" Cotton, Fri., Feb. 23, 1996
It's true the Alamodome has some bad seats high in the indoor Texas sky. You could, however, say the same for most modern facilities. Ah yes, facilities, that's Nineties talk, the kind today's owners are partial to. Facilities implies concerts and rodeos and skyboxes -- lots of skyboxes. You never hear a "facility" referred to anymore as a gym or even a stadium -- it's a facility. We're talking facility in Selma.
Anyway, the Dome is not really such a bad place. True, the interior appears to be designed by Taco Cabana. It's cavernous. It's pink. It's more appropriate for tractor pulls, monster concerts, and the NFL team San Antonio will never get. Still, the fans seem to enjoy themselves. Last Sunday, about halfway through an ugly Spurs first half against the world champion Rockets, who are trailing San Antonio by a mere half game in the always frantic Midwest division, the Dome was as placid as a Buddhist retreat high in the snowy Himalayas. The reason: the game, from a home-team point of view, sucked. "The first half was a struggle," said Spurs coach Bob Hill, in something of an understatement. "We got distracted by the officials. Then we lost our concentration, then our enthusiasm." The Spurs looked slow, bored, tired, and lost. They were down by 16 points. David Robinson, hapless victim to twilight-zone officiating, played only 12 minutes. San Antonio, as infatuated with the three-point-shot as I am with Ellen Barkin, had only one measly attempt (they missed) the first half! I repeat: "It was quiet in the Dome."
Mid-February is not a good time for quality basketball in the NBA. Teams are exhausted. The end of the season is beyond a still-invisible horizon. Yet, this game is important. A true, intense rivalry exists between the two teams, who've played 19 games against each other, almost every one important, in a year and a half. This was the last of the four-game season set. The Spurs were beaten in Houston the other night. They will likely meet again in the playoffs. It was not a game to be pissed away.
Want to know what death, or, more to the point, what a grisly, messy suicide looks like in the National Basketball Association? San Antonio attempted suicide in the first half, scoring only 37 points. It was one of those half-assed "reach out and love me" kinda things, where the victim takes half a bottle of Tylenol. No, a real suicide, the kind where the sorry bastard puts a large caliber pistol in his mouth, counts to five, and pulls the trigger. That sort of butchery looks like this: Fourth quarter stats: 17 field goals attempted, three made. Six three-point shots -- none successful. Throw in five turnovers, four shots blocked, 50% free-throw shooting, and a negative rebounding margin of seven. Hello. Lights out, brain matter all over the new curtains, mush on the nice tile floor.
That's what it looks like. That's what the Rockets did. That's how a 16-point lead turns into a 14 -point loss before you can say KABOOM! The momentum turned, slowly, almost imperceptibly, at first. The third quarter began inauspiciously, both teams looking tired and ragged. The Spurs run started about midway through the quarter, keyed with a desperate, rag-tag, I'll-try-anything-lineup consisting of a hobbled Doc Rivers, an erratic Chuck Person, and a stone-cold Vinny Del Negro. The Spurs scored. The Rockets missed and missed and missed. The crowd got into the game. It was not a monastery anymore.
The Rockets counted, ever so slowly, 1... 2... 3... and 4. The count reached five, the moment of truth, when Chuck Person, not known for fancy assists, fed the Admiral, his back to the basket, in the low post. Robinson, with no hesitation, dunked...backwards, in front of a stunned Hakeem Olajuwon. The gun roared at the start of a 35-9 Spurs run, with a thunderous retort. The Spurs, now very awake, looked like the greatest team in the world, as they stomped all over their writhing, cross-state rival.
Afterward, in the San Antonio locker room, the Spurs, about to begin a brutal, five-games-in-nine-nights road trip, said all the correct things. It was cliché time. Adrenalin, momentum, and "the great crowd" were all given their due. It was a "big win," a "statement game." La de da. Was it, though? Was it a big game? As I've said before, it's only one of 82 games. It was important to the players because of the real, not media-instigated, rivalry, because San Antonio remembers being bounced, ignominiously, from the playoffs last year by these same Rockets. It mattered, because many of the Spurs used to be Rockets and vice-versa. It mattered because these are players with a competitive streak most of us would find utterly unfathomable.
Of more importance is this deep-rooted knowledge: last year the Spurs won five of six regular season meetings, only to be humiliated (five out of six -- kiss-my-ass, baby!) by the same Rockets team. Only one season exists in the NBA. It doesn't begin until after the 82nd game is over. n Write me: [email protected]
