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SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- There's a reason why the San Antonio Spurs are playing well this season. Experience. Believe it or not but it is experience that is putting an Indiana/San Antonio matchup. Now that would be something, an all former ABA matchup. Okay but back to the present.
There is a reason why San Antonio, Portland and Utah were battling it out for the top seed. These three teams had something that Los Angeles, Phoenix and Sacramento didn't have and that one thing is experience.
Here's what experience means in the playoffs.
For Utah, their experience comes from the fact that John Stockton, Karl Malone, Jeff Hornecheck and Jerry Sloan have been together for a very long time. That means a lot when going to the playoffs. It has taken Sloan some nine years to finally get a winning formula and that formula has taken his team to two consecutive NBA Finals.
For Portland it's the fact that this team has a ten man bench that is steep with first round picks who are used to winning. You could put Rasheed Wallace, Jimmy Jackson, Walt Williams or anyone else from Portland on any other team and those players would be starters. Mike Dunleavy has found a way to ask superstars to be supporting actors. It's easy with a couple of players but ten?
Then you look at San Antonio. The experience that this team has always had was falling out early in the playoffs. Yet the nucleus of the team has learned how to play at a higher level and with the addition of Mario Elie, Jerome Kersey and Steve Kerr, this team has also learned how to play when adversity hits.
The Spurs are learning a lot within a short amount of time but they have been learning ever since they lost to Houston in 1995. It takes the experience of losing big games to learn how to win them.
No one would ever think that the Spurs could defeat Utah and Portland in back to back games but they did.
No one would have ever thought that the Spurs could come from behind after having large defecits but they have.
The funny thing is that championship teams can do this sort of thing. The Utah Jazz proved it against Sacramento. New York did it against Miami. And the Spurs have done it against Minnesota.
Now all of that experience comes down to the bigget challenge yet; Los Angeles. If everything stays the same, then the experience of the Spurs should be the winning factor for them against the Lakers.
We'll just have to wait and see.
Gregory Moore is the Managing Editor of the San Antonio Informer, a weekly newspaper in San Antonio. He has been covering the San Antonio Spurs and the NBA since 1993 and is a member of the Professional Basketball Writers Association.
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