Tim Duncan and the scourge of the garbage three

April 21st, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

By now, you’ve seen the highlight at least 65,000 times: The Suns play just OK rotation defense, Shaq helps on Ginobili, no one rotates to Tim Duncan — because no one should ever rotate to Duncan if he’s outside 20 feet — and the Spurs are forced to settle for a Timmy D three with their first-round lives already in the balance. You know what happened then.

The minute Duncan drained the shot, I thought but one thought in my brain: That is so garbage. It’s the same thing I say at least once or twice a night at the gym. There are always one or two really good players that kill you the whole game, so you get your pickup team to start leaving their men and solely guarding the guys with basketball ability. And then at game point, out of nowhere, your lazy scheme comes back and haunts you. It is just like Matt at Basketbawful wrote today:

You have to feel for the Phoenix Suns. That was the exact shot they wanted the Spurs to take in that situation. I mean, Duncan hadn’t hit a three-pointer all season. I can’t tell you how many times that’s happened to me in pickup ball. I’ll be playing against some dude with no offensive skills whatsover, and I’ll leave him open one time from way outside his range…and he’ll hit it. It’s almost like the Basketball Gods are punishing me for slacking on D. And they certainly punished the Suns.

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Here’s hoping the Suns start the first possession of game two as you would the subsequent pickup game: leave the dude open and make him it again. I want Duncan left alone at the top of the key for the entire first quarter. If can he make that again, fine. If not, the Suns should get … well, I don’t know what they should get. I can’t be asked to solve everything, you know.