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SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- Twelve seconds left. Elie inbounds the ball. He passes to Sean Elliott. Elliott gathers himself as Augman flies past. He gathers, shoots...IT'S GOOOD! Sean Elliott has just broke the backs of the Trailblazers!
Yes Sean Elliott has problably broken their backs but he may have also silenced some of his harshest critics. At a time when Elliott is considered to be on the downside, Elliott steps up big time and hits six of the most important three pointers in his career to date.
"I thought he was going to pass it," David Robinson said after the game. Even Malik Rose thought the shot was tough.
"I didn't know Sean was tightroping it like that," Rose told CNN/SI. Imagine that, Elliott the talk of the basketball world. Yet he'll be the talk in this town all the way up until tomorrow.
In a game where Portland was dominant in many phases of the game, Sean Elliott was the one constant that everyone seemed to pinpoint for the team. Early in the first quarter he hit two three pointers from the same corner. Down the stretch it was that corner shot that iced the win. During the game it was Elliott's defense that stifled Rasheed Wallace. It was his breakup of Jimmy Jackson's attempt that sent the ball into the hands of the Spurs. If there was a MVP for this one game, that player was Elliott.
Damon Stoudamire had said later that the Spurs have become a thorn in the Trailblazers side and that the Spurs were lucky to win the game.
"I'd rather be lucky than good on this day," Wil Perdue said later.
Purdue was right in that prophetic statement but there was also something else that the Trailblazers might not never understand and it hangs in the lockeroom of the Spurs. Above the white board that houses a television set hangs a poem entitled the stonecutter. It is the belief in what the stonecutter signifies: endurance, consistency, tenancity as he cuts away at the stone. It was that "stone cutter" mentality of the Spurs that helped them chip away at an 18 point lead. It was that mental tenancity and consistency that afforded them the opportunity to win the game. It was that belief that the coaching staff has inscribed into each of them.
Sean Elliott proved to be the water that quenched the fire of the Blazers in game two. He was the archer that fired the shot that shocked the great northwest.
By Gregory Moore
