Grades v. Spurs 04/11

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Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Theme tonight: Historical Figures You Really Wanted on Your Side in A Fight

Garcia ( A ) -- had a pretty good first half, but statistically a modest 7pts 2reb type effort. Came on strong after the break though, and while Justin was really the player of the game, Cisco was frequently running the show out there. Did not have the impact defensively, but 22pts 6reb 3ast has to put this right up there as one of the best games of his career. Did it pretty smoothly too -- only had a couple of his Cisco brain fart moments, and was as dependable as any King tonight. There were a lot of open shots for the Spurs around the perimeter, and Cisco had a hand in that. But as it was mostly because he was crashing down trying to help out around the paint (at times effectively as a "PF"), not going to let it chase me off the A for his career scoring game.
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THE ROMANS (Carthage) -- as the Romans emerged as a power in the 3rd century B.C., they were confronted by an equally powerful rival in Carthage on the North African coast (in modern day Tunisia). They fought war after war against the Carthagians, including of course the famous one in which Hannibal rampaged across Italy with his elephants while the Romans had to hide in their cities waiting for a new generatiuon fo children to grow old enough to be able to take up arms as soldiers. Well, by the time that the Romans finally waxed supreme and overwhelmed their African rivals after over 100 years of bloodshed, they were more than a little pissed. Sacking the city was not enough. Finally conquering the Carthaginians only the beginning. Instead they pulled all of the Carthaginian ships out into the harbor and burned them in a massive conflagration, entered the city to go house to house and slaughter or enslave the entire populace, razed the city to the ground, and legend has it, sowed the fields and ground with salt so that nothing would grow and rebuilding would be impossible. Then they went home with big ole grins on their faces.

Reef ( C+ ) -- early on was was trying to force the action offensively against the Spurs frontline, and uh..no. Got a few to go, got smushed on more. In the second half had some stretches of solid defense against Duncan until Tim got serious and took over when it mattered in the 4th. During it all played 34 min as the last of our old guard bigs, and the only one available after the first period here. And in those 34 min, managed to pull down one (1) measely rebound. One. Six foot tall Tony Parker had 6. Heck, Eva could have probably gotten at least 2 or 3.
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VLAD THE IMPALER -- the inspiration for the Dracula myth, Vlad Dracul, was a 15th century Romania prince famous for his bloodlust and cruelty. His first act upon taking the throne (out of exile -- his father had been assassinated) was to invite all of the nobles of his lands to a great feast along with their families and retainers. Vlad knew that some of these men had participated in his father's assassination, and decided to rectify the problem -- by systematically having every one of them impaled on a large pointy stick (not too pointy though, as part of Vlad's schtick was to ty to let his victims twitch and suffer for hours before expiring). Then he sat down on the hill below the grisley forest of impaled nobles, and had his dinner brought to him. Legends that part of his dinner consisted of the blood of his victims may have been what inspired the vampire legends. But Vlad was just getting started, and over the course of his several reigns, impaled tens of thousands of victims, often outside the walls of cities he wanted to intimidate into submission. On one occasion his atrocities may have even staved off an Ottoman invasion, as legend has it that the Ottoman general was so sickened and disturbed at the seas of impaled bodies on stakes he encountered upon entering Vlad's lands that he turned back to Istanbul rather than chase after this nutter.

Miller ( INC ) -- brief start, then down with the foot again. Did little while he was out there. SHUT HIM DOWN DUFUSES. Thx.
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ALEXANDER THE GREAT (Thebes) -- there were actually two Thebes in ancient times -- both of them mighty cities. One of them was one of the great cities of Egypt. The other one of the most powerful city states of Greece, which battled with Athens and Sparta for supremacy (and actually briefly acheived it after beating the overstrteched Spartans in 371 B.C.). In any case, it was a major power. Until Alexander. Alexander's father, Phillip had defeated the Thebans a few years before, but allowed them to maintain some sembalnce of independence. When he died and Alexander took over, they made the mistake of assuming the son was weaker than the father and decided to revolt. Oopsie. In one of his first great victories, Alexander came back and simply erased one of the greatest cities of its age. Sacked the city, razed it to the ground, except, legend says, for the temples to the gods, and the house of Pindar the poet (who must have woke up the next morning, looked around, and wondered what the hell happened). In any case, in sheer audaciousness it would be a little bit like someone coming along and just deciding to wipe out London except for Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. But Alexander turned out to be a tad exceptional in the audacity department.

Martin ( C- ) -- some good takes in the early going, but largely disappeared in the second quarter, and was rarely heard from after half. Seemed to be sweating profusely, so its possible he was not entirely over whatever kept him out of the last one (assuming it was not simply endofseasonitis). There ios also of course always the Bowen factor, although you rarely noticed Bruce this time out. In fact it looked more like Duncan's looming presence was throwing Kevin off than anything -- he pulled it back out and altered shots on at least 3 or 4 occasions when Timmy slid on over. By the end, Finley had gotten the better of the matchup, and was a major player down the stretch for them.
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JOSEPH STALIN (Ukraine) -- I generally try to avoid more modern figures because they might hit too close to home, and this guy...well, apologies in advance. For all of the atrocitries and brutality of variosu dictators throughout the 20th century, Stalin has to be up near the top of the list. And a prime example lies in his treatment of the Ukraine. You see, the Ukrainians had the audacity to not terribly want to be part of the Soviet Union in the late 20's/early 30's. Stalin, who excelled above all else at eliminating any and all potential threats, did not appreciate their attitude. So he starved them to death. The entire country. Of course this was not unitl he had exceuted or shipped off to Siberia almost all of the county's elites. But when resistance continued he ordered in 100,000 troops, stole the entire grain harvest of the whole country for sale to the West in exchange for industrial material, closed the borders to all shipments of foods, went house to house to steal every ounce of food that the peasants had stored in their pantries, and sat back and waited while 10 million people (1/4 of the population) starved to death. Never fails to amaze me how human beings will allow a nut of that magnitude to gain so much power.
 
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Bibby ( B ) -- perhaps confusing this with a "big" game, Mike got off to the fast start again, knocking down jumpers form all over the perimeter, including several with Parker's hand right in his face.. Think I liked him better a few games ago when he was packing it in and letting Ronnie run the show. Anyway, came up with 15 first half points, and was pretty much the reason we had it fairly close at that point. Got crossed over and blown by a few timed by Parker, but all things considered, did not do horribly on that end. Had a few bad turnovers again. Slowed down considerably after half, and yes, there he was in this one again down the stretch instead of Price as Muss desperately tried to win it. If any of you happen to know Muss, you have my permission to just go ahead and punch him for me.
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THE MONGOLS -- and I'm sure this comes as a great big "duh". But...still, they were colorful. Had the whole terror thing down pat. The one above is Kublai Khan, Genghis's heir, but post Genghis there were all kinds of hordes all using similar tactics of intimidation. Amongst their more colorful stunts were their inventive use of heads. As in decapitated heads. If a city defied them, they would often a) sack the place and burn it to the ground, b) kill every living thing inside, animals included, and c) decapitate everythign they had just killed and leave the massive piles of heads sitting out in front of the gates. They are also credited with inventing the game of polo...played in their case with the decapitated heads of their victims, normally out in front of the walls of some other city to which they wanted to make an impression. They also would sometimes load piles of heads into their catapults and throw them over enemy walls or into formations of enemy soldiers. Gotta give credit where credit is due: the Mongols really knew how to use thier heads. Get it? Heads! HAHAHAHA! Er...sorry. Anyway...

Williams ( A ) -- came in early and immediately got a followup dunk, and was effective over the remaining span of the first half as Brad sat out with his foot. Nothing huge at that point, and was still being scored on semi-regularly. But just simply the differencemaker after getting the start to begin the 3rd -- was all over the offensive glass and showing some nice little ability to finish on offense -- wasn't all dunks and layups, but rather some quick hitters too. Muss woke up and benched him for a long chunk of the 4th before he won it for us, and after he returned for the stretch run he was not nearly as effective, with Duncan posting him up and scoring over him repeatedly. Nonetheless, largely dominated play there for our best stretch of the game, and while the Spurs are too smart of a team just to slip up little shots for him to swat, he was beating them to the glass, slipping behind them when they went to help on defense, and showed some good and quick hands in spots.
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TIMUR/TAMERLANE -- same guy, real name was Timur, was/is largely known as Tamerlane (Timur the Lame in Persian) in the West. In any case, he was almost a mongol himself. Kind of half mongol living in the afterglow of the Mongol Empire in the 14th century. Adn so jhe set out to recreate it, and along the way...whew, what an *******. In parts of Central Asia he is actually revered, because his M..O. was to sack and destroy pretty much everyplace he came across, and take all of its riches back to his capital/heartland around Samarkand (whihc is in Uzbekistan). During the course of his campaigns he sacked and destroyed Baghdad and Damascus, and then, famously, Delhi, in Northern India. Delhi was a big city. A BIG city. On the morning before the battle Timur, always a merciful guy, decided that the 100,000 prisoners of war that he had taken thus far ont he campaign were slowing him down, and he could not really spare the manpower to guard them back at camp, and it was against the will of God to allow his enemies to go free. So he had all 100,000 of them executed onthe spot. And thus nice and warmed up, he turned his attention toward wiping out the entire populace of Delhi. Death estimates on that day range up to 1,000,000 (as in a million) dead. Conquerors...gotta love 'em.

Salmons ( B- ) -- passed well in the 2nd quarter, and in particular was repeatedly looking for the drive and dish to Justin for open dunks. Could not hit his own shots though, and was challenged on every shot. Came alive offensively in the second half, knocking down two open threes and briefly looking like he wanted to do that proud vet rally thing in the 4th. Did not ignite though as the Spurs did their boa constrictor bit and jsut slowly squeezed us out of the game.
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THE AZTECS -- two words: human sacrifice. A LOT of human sacrifice. You did NOT want to lose to these guys -- the fate of losers or prisoners was not pretty. By their own accounts they claim to once have sacrificed 84,000 people in one 4 day festival in 1487. Estimates range as high as a quarter of a million people sacrificed annually at the height of Aztec power. Nor was it even all slice you open and tear out your beating heart stuff. Depending on which of their lovely gods they were trying to appease, they could also shoot you full of arrows so that you bled to death, throw you unarmed into a gladitorial rink to get sliced up by an executioner or wild animal, burn you alive, flay you (skin you), or drown you. Sacrifice was like a box of chocolates for these guys. Oh, and that's before we even get to the claims that one of the ways they disposed of all those bodies was through a fairly unique way of keeping the underclasses fat and happy...

Price ( C+ ) -- hit a couple of 2nd quarter threes, but that was largely it in a game that saw him spend as much time next to Mike in smallball lineups as in place of him. May have had a steal or two as well, but the dynamic moments here came more in fits and spurts than in any sort of extended rush.
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MEDES (Assyria) -- ok, as you may have noted the pciture is actually a little itty bitty one of Conan the Barbarian (Arnie style). That's because Conan was a "Cimmerian". Did you know they really existed? Barbarians who boiled down out of Southern Russian and really messed up a lot of things, including helping to topple the mighty Assyrian empire in the 7th century B.C.. The Assyrians were not terribly popular people -- they did not really have an "empire" so much as just a vast network of tribute states. Every eyar they would march out of their mighty capital city of Nineveh (near Mosul in modern day Iraq) and head out looking for cities to mug. They'd march up to the gates, say "give us all your wealth or we'll just kick in the door and take it." And with perhaps the most powerful army of their era, they normally got what they wanted. At their peak they had most of the Middle East paying them tribute more or less to just go away and leave them alone -- almost like the mafia to small shopowners. Anyway, all good crime rings come to an end, and a combination of factors, including a bunch of raging barbarians down from the north, combined to weaken the Assyrians, and at the first sign of that weakening, their former victims fell upon them like a pack of dogs looking for sweet revenge. Primary among them were the Medes (cousins of the Persians), and after they got down sacking, burning, razing, and enslaving a huge chunk of the Assyrian populace, there was so little left that when the Greek historian Xenophon happened on by a couple of hundred years later, he saw the ruins of the great walls and didn't even know what city had once stood there, and neither did the local populace. One of the great empires of antiquity just completely obliterated from history.
 
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Muss ( ) -- tried to win again. Failed. Surprise.
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ANGRY FRENCH PEOPLE -- the French Revolution was a grand and important thing -- in fact when you go anyplace but America and talk about "the Revolution" this is normally the one of which they are thinking. This was the biggee for democracy in Europe. Our own, well we were just some backwoods colonists out in the boonies. Anyway, it was a grand thing...that kinda went a tad wrong. As in "Off with their heads!" wrong. As a bunch of French people with some serious issues got into power, head choppng became a national pasttime. Somewhere betwen 20,000-40,000 people got themselves beheaded in the Reign of Terror in 1793-1794, and many more than that were beaten to death -- often jsut run down by angry mobs in the streets. Interesting little scientific side note: supposedly you do not instantly lose consciousness when you are beheaded. At least in theory you should have enough blood and fluids in the brain to keep you conscious for another 30 seconds or so. So its entirely possible you could get yourself guillotined and be lying there looking up at your former body waiting for the last of the blood to run out. Fun times. And let's not even consider those poor saps the Mongols were using as the balls in their games of steppe polo. ;)
 
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Theme tonight: Historical Figures You Really Wanted on Your Side in A Fight

Garcia ( A ) -- had a pretty good first half, but statistically a modest 7pts 2reb type effort. Came on strong after the break though, and while Justin was really the player of the game, Cisco was frequently running the show out there. Did not have the impact defensively, but 22pts 6reb 3ast has to put this right up there as one of the best games of his career. Did it pretty smoothly too -- only had a couple of his Cisco brain fart moments, and was as dependable as any King tonight. There were a lot of open shots for the Spurs around the perimeter, and Cisco had a hand in that. But as it was mostly because he was crashing down trying to help out around the paint (at times effectively as a "PF"), not going to let it chase me off the A for his career scoring game.
Zama.jpg

THE ROMANS (Carthage) -- as the Romans emerged as a power in the 3rd century B.C., they were confronted by an equally powerful rival in Carthage on the North African coast (in modern day Tunisia). They fought war after war against the Carthagians, including of course the famous one in which Hannibal rampaged across Italy with his elephants while the Romans had to hide in their cities waiting for a new generatiuon fo children to grow old enough to be able to take up arms as soldiers. Well, by the time that the Romans finally waxed supreme and overwhelmed their African rivals after over 100 years of bloodshed, they were more than a little pissed. Sacking the city was not enough. Finally conquering the Carthaginians only the beginning. Instead they pulled all of the Carthaginian ships out into the harbor and burned them in a massive conflagration, entered the city to go house to house and slaughter or enslave the entire populace, razed the city to the ground, and legend has it, sowed the fields and ground with salt so that nothing would grow and rebuilding would be impossible. Then they went home with big ole grins on their faces.

Reef ( C+ ) -- early on was was trying to force the action offensively against the Spurs frontline, and uh..no. Got a few to go, got smushed on more. In the second half had some stretches of solid defense against Duncan until Tim got serious and took over when it mattered in the 4th. During it all played 34 min as the last of our old guard bigs, and the only one available after the first period here. And in those 34 min, managed to pull down one (1) measely rebound. One. Six foot tall Tony Parker had 6. Heck, Eva could have probably gotten at least 2 or 3.
200px-Impaled.gif

VLAD THE IMPALER -- the inspiration for the Dracula myth, Vlad Dracul, was a 15th century Romania prince famous for his bloodlust and cruelty. His first act upon taking the throne (out of exile -- his father had been assassinated) was to invite all of the nobles of his lands to a great feast along with their families and retainers. Vlad knew that some of these men had participated in his father's assassination, and decided to rectify the problem -- by systematically having every one of them impaled on a large pointy stick (not too pointy though, as part of Vlad's schtick was to ty to let his victims twitch and suffer for hours before expiring). Then he sat down on the hill below the grisley forest of impaled nobles, and had his dinner brought to him. Legends that part of his dinner consisted of the blood of his victims may have been what inspired the vampire legends. But Vlad was just getting started, and over the course of his several reigns, impaled tens of thousands of victims, often outside the walls of cities he wanted to intimidate into submission. On one occasion his atrocities may have even staved off an Ottoman invasion, as legend has it that the Ottoman general was so sickened and disturbed at the seas of impaled bodies on stakes he encountered upon entering Vlad's lands that he turned back to Istanbul rather than chase after this nutter.

Miller ( INC ) -- brief start, then down with the foot again. Did little while he was out there. SHUT HIM DOWN DUFUSES. Thx.
200px-Thebes-1.jpg

ALEXANDER THE GREAT (Thebes) -- there were actually two Thebes in ancient times -- both of them mighty cities. One of them was one of the great cities of Egypt. The other one of the most powerful city states of Greece, which battled with Athens and Sparta for supremacy (and actually briefly acheived it after beating the overstrteched Spartans in 371 B.C.). In any case, it was a major power. Until Alexander. Alexander's father, Phillip had defeated the Thebans a few years before, but allowed them to maintain some sembalnce of independence. When he died and Alexander took over, they made the mistake of assuming the son was weaker than the father and decided to revolt. Oopsie. In one of his first great victories, Alexander came back and simply erased one of the greatest cities of its age. Sacked the city, razed it to the ground, except, legend says, for the temples to the gods, and the house of Pindar the poet (who must have woke up the next morning, looked around, and wondered what the hell happened). In any case, in sheer audaciousness it would be a little bit like someone coming along and just deciding to wipe out London except for Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. But Alexander turned out to be a tad exceptional in the audacity department.

Martin ( C- ) -- some good takes in the early going, but largely disappeared in the second quarter, and was rarely heard from after half. Seemed to be sweating profusely, so its possible he was not entirely over whatever kept him out of the last one (assuming it was not simply endofseasonitis). There ios also of course always the Bowen factor, although you rarely noticed Bruce this time out. In fact it looked more like Duncan's looming presence was throwing Kevin off than anything -- he pulled it back out and altered shots on at least 3 or 4 occasions when Timmy slid on over. By the end, finley had gottent he better of the matchup, and was a major player down the stretch for them.
Stalin.jpg

JOSEPH STALIN (Ukraine) -- I generally try to avoid more modern figures because they might hit too close to home, and this guy...well, apologies in advance. For all of the atrocitries and brutality of variosu dictators throughout the 20th century, Stalin has to be up near the top of the list. And a prime example lies in his treatment of the Ukraine. You see, the Ukrainians had the audacity to not terribly want to be part of the Soviet Union in the late 20's/early 30's. Stalin, who excelled above all else at eliminating any and all potential threats, did not appreciate their attitude. So he starved them to death. The entire country. Of course this was not unitl he had exceuted or shipped off to Siberia almost all of the county's elites. But when resistance continued he ordered in 100,000 troops, stole the entire grain harvest of the whole country for sale to the West in exchange for industrial material, closed the borders to all shipments of foods, went house to house to steal every ounce of food that the peasants had stored in their pantries, and sat back and waited while 10 million people (1/4 of the population) starved to death. Never fails to amaze me how human beings will allow a nut of that magnitude to gain so much power.

Papa Joe was a Georgian.
 
sat back and waited while 10 million people (1/4 of the population) starved to death
16 mil is another widely quoted number. And just to remind you all, we're talking about pretty much the most fertile land in Europe here.

I don't even know what to add. Some people just go straight to Hell.
 
I was not able to watch much of this game tonight. I was just wondering, who spent most of the time defending Duncan?
 
Garcia ( A ) -- had a pretty good first half, but statistically a modest 7pts 2reb type effort. Came on strong after the break though, and while Justin was really the player of the game, Cisco was frequently running the show out there. Did not have the impact defensively, but 22pts 6reb 3ast has to put this right up there as one of the best games of his career. Did it pretty smoothly too -- only had a couple of his Cisco brain fart moments, and was as dependable as any King tonight. There were a lot of open shots for the Spurs around the perimeter, and Cisco had a hand in that. But as it was mostly because he was crashing down trying to help out around the paint (at times effectively as a "PF"), not going to let it chase me off the A for his career scoring game.

Most startling: 41 minutes, 0 turnovers. Of course, he still had a few of his Cisco trademark "leave good three point shooter wide open" moments.

I'm starting to think this should be a verb, as in Bibby "Ciscoed" Chauncey Billups all night and Chauncey hit 6 threes.
 
I was not able to watch much of this game tonight. I was just wondering, who spent most of the time defending Duncan?

Brad and SAR both tried a little, but were embarassingly ineffective. Too slow, in the wrong place, couldn't get high enough to block, just generally not getting the job done. Justin did manage to make himself annoying in the paint. Duncan, with his combination of talent, experience and size was the one guy who didn't let it bother him.

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Still, he did as well as you could expect for a n00b. Unlike the other guys, he will probably do better at it next time.
 
I'm starting to think this should be a verb, as in Bibby "Ciscoed" Chauncey Billups all night and Chauncey hit 6 threes.

I dunno... After watching Bibby all these years it seems like Cisco is more Bibbying than anything. I think Bibby already has the leaving the 3 point shooter wide open patented. I smell lawsuit...
 
Hmm, I'm not sure what's the theme here. The Spurs seemed laid back until the final minutes in which they executed almost exclusively out of Duncan and the Kings players decided to go jack of all trade like they usually do. I'm not sure if it's composure or heroics that are running through their heads. Walton always say they tease you a lot but they can't close games. It was true at the beginning of the season and still true now.

On to the history, I want to add some stuff. I thought Vlad was a Catholic hero. Stalin's five year plan actually worked. I'm not sure how Lenin would have accomplished industrialization had he lived. I also thought it was the winner who got the honor of being sacrificed for the gods to keep the season going. Maximilian Robespierre and Enlightenment < Napoleon Bonaparte and Consul. So much for age of reason. Marie Antoinette was the talking head wasn't she? Plus, seeing how the season is almost over we might as well talk about history. People are more interested in that for the moment. Cannae! When in Rome.
 
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