San Antonio Spurs (9-2) @ Golden State Warriors (7-5)

Start time 7:30 PM PST @ The Arena in Oakland

Probable starters for the Golden State Warriors

PG - Baron Davis
SG - Jason Richardson
SF - Mike Dunleavy
PF - Troy Murphy
C - Adonal Foyle

Probable starters for the San Antonio Spurs

PG - Tony Parker
SG - Manu Ginobili
SF - Bruce Bowen
PF - Tim Duncan
C - Rasho Nesterovic

Team leaders
PPG - J. Richardson (22.4) | T. Duncan (21.7)
RPG - T. Murphy (8.8 ) | T. Duncan (12.0)
APG - B. Davis (8.7) | T. Parker (5.6)
SPG - B. Davis (2.2) | M. Ginobili (2.0)
BPG - A. Foyle (2.1) | T. Duncan (2.7)

Matchups this Season
Nov 23 - San Antonio Spurs @ Golden State Warriors
Feb 2 - San Antonion Spurs @ Golden State Warriors
Feb 25 - Golden State Warriors @ San Antonio Spurs
Mar 21 - Golden State Warriors @ San Antonio Spurs

Biggest test so far for the Warriors. Hard to see them win with their win and then lose trend.

Without Pietrus, the Warriors may find it tough to win convincingly often against anyone. He will be missed.

Against the Spurs, Murphy must be hitting the outside shot to draw Duncan away fron the basket and guys like Foyle have to rebound well. Baron and JRich have to obviously play real well and at the same time not let Ginobili and Parker get off.

I pick Spurs by 10

Other than Duncan - i like our starting matchups. of course, their bench is scary good. it ain't fair! Warriors gotta lot of heart though - they'll play each other close throughout but spurs by 5.

Losing Pietrus sucks. Dunleavy really needs to step it up, otherwise we're going to start seeing 20 minutes of Calbert each game.

This would be a huge win, and should be a good test for us.

Yeah, we do not matchup that bad against them, except for Duncan, that is.

It'll be interesting to see the rotation Monty will use now that Pietrus is out for a while.

Spurs +10

Diogu had participated in a full practice today. Doctors have cleared him to play. Hopefully we might be able to see him debut against the Spurs.

Man, that would be great if we could get Ike some mins against the defending champs. What better way to be introduced to the nba than playing the best team in the game? Everything'll be downhill from there. If today was his first practice, however, I'm skeptical that he will play much if at all against the spurs. I hope he does however...

Duncan-the Greatest PF ever?

what u guys think?All Nba EVERY YEAR IN LEAGUE and is a winner....

Quazza wrote:Duncan-the Greatest PF ever?

what u guys think?All Nba EVERY YEAR IN LEAGUE and is a winner....

Greatest of his time, for sure. But greatest ever?. I don't know, in fact, to me, he's a center even if he plays the 4. His game is that of a center.

So, is he the best center ever?, no, top 10 for sure, top 5 arguably, but not the best ever.

If you think of him as a 4, he's even higher in that list. Could be the best ever...

I reckon Duncan is the greatest PF ever. He is also one of the greatest winners ever. Don't think any PF ever can guard him. Garnett comes closest

I remember Duncan saying that the best defenders he ever had to face were KG, Sheed and McDyess (pre-injuries, obviously). Not a bad group...

Agreat group in fact. Notice the Pistons have these two sleepers........ When they wake up the Pistons will be even better

Yeah, but this McDyess, albeit effective, is not the same player. He relied to much on his physical skills, and the injuries took that away from him.

The way McDyess played last season was really good. He does that this season and the Pistons should be even better than what they are at the moment with him playing average

Duncan is definitely a center not a PF. I know they always give him another big man to play the "center" spot, but he is center sized and will guard the other teams center if he isn't in foul trouble. Just because the Rockets played Ralph Samson and Hakeem at the same time, that didn't make Olajuwon a PF. The only thing that really makes Tim a power forward is that he usually plays facing the basket rather than as a back to the basket type.

If he is a PF, he really is up there with the greatest ever. There really haven't been to many great 4's in league history. I guess you'd have:

Timmy
Karl Malone
Charles Barkley
Elvin Hayes
KG
and maybe some really old guys that I know nothing about.

As far as centers go, he would be behind:

Bill Russell
Wilt
Kareem

in the same group as:

Shaq
Hakeem
Moses Malone

and above guys like:

Ewing
David Robinson
Nate Thurmond