Why, oh why!? Why have the San Antonio Spurs decided to make me (and a lot of other folks who gushed over them after games 1 & 2) look like utter fools?
The poor officiating in the game (though, again, not a primary cause of the Spurs failure) was only exceeded by the continuing atrocious announcing. Coming into the series, I thought Al Michaels and Hubie Brown were pretty good announcers. But they have been awful. Their analysis of play has been extremely superficial. Their analysis and explanation of fouls and controversial plays, a primary function of announcers, has generally had no connection to what actually occurred. I don't know if it's laziness, or what, but I really, really miss the TNT staff. I'd love to be listening to the analysis of Steve Kerr. I'd like to be entertained by the halftime discussion of Charles Barkley. Instead, I get the snoozefest that is the ABC staff. I wonder if the poor ratings for the finals might have more to do with the television crew than with the basketball teams.
The similarity so far to the breakdown the Spurs had against the Lakers last year are disturbing. Well, there's three more games left, two of them in San Antonio. Three chances for the Spurs to prove that they're closer to the great team we'd been praising, and to avoid going down as the some of the biggest chokers of all time.