Manu Ginobili The Hero As San Antonio Spurs Bend, Don’t Break
By Cody Daniel
At a point in the first half when San Antonio was manhandling the Atlanta Hawks and tinkering with a 20-point lead, I almost changed the channel in search of some basketball that was actually competitive.
But something told me to keep watching and just appreciate the greatness of Spurs’ basketball and hoped to see an interesting Gregg Popovich interview and which bench player would explode in usual Spurs fashion.
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Luckily, I stuck around and before you know it, we had a game on our hands and Manu Ginobili was at the line for the last minute heroics to carry San Antonio over Atlanta 94-92.
Of course, when you’re the San Antonio Spurs, there’s no reason to blow an 18-point first half lead and ultimately be playing from behind at home with barely over a minute to play, but a win is a win and Ginobili’s touch from the charity stripe can be attributed to why the Spurs are now 2-1 on the season.
While the Spurs seemed to be in the midst of a two and a half quarter struggle, DeMarre Carroll, Paul Millsap and Al Horford were putting it in gear and chipping away at San Antonio’s lead until they finally reached a 90-88 lead in the final minute and a half of the game.
But this is where the lucky lefty came in and after being fouled by Kyle Korver on a 3-point attempt to take the lead, Ginobili simply went to the line and did what he has always done; shine brightest is crucial moments. But it gets even better.
After Atlanta then tied the game yet again, who else but Manu would be set up for an isolation play with the final seconds of the clock ticking away? And again, in a very Ginobili-esque fashion, he drew another foul and cashed in at the line again to seal the deal for the Spurs and kept Popovich from frowning too much.
But with the good come some bad and although it’s nothing significant that the Spurs will lose sleep over, possibly missing Marco Belinelli and Tiago Splitter for tomorrow’s game in Houston against James Harden, Dwight Howard and the Rockets could prove to be some crucial losses, at least from a single game standpoint.
Belinelli suffered a strain in his groin after only five minutes and Splitter re-aggravated his calf injury and could miss tomorrow’s matchup.