Nash bloodied as Spurs steal Game 1 in Phoenix
7 05 2007PHOENIX (AP) — With blood spewing from a cut on his nose, Steve Nash could only watch from the bench while the San Antonio Spurs put away Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals.
“There was nothing I could do,” he said. “It was obviously frustrating, but it was really out of my hands.”
Tim Duncan had 33 points and 16 rebounds — eight offensive — and Tony Parker added 32 points to lead the Spurs to a rugged 111-106 victory Sunday over Nash’s Phoenix Suns.
Nash scored 31 but missed a crucial 45 seconds in the final minute because of the bloody cut on his nose, the result of a head-on collision with Parker with 2:53 to play. The cut required six stitches after the game.
“You only see things like that in a boxing match,” the Spurs’ Robert Horry said, “where a guy cuts his nose and it won’t stop bleeding. You feel bad for the guy because you want to have the best team out there at the end of the game, and he wasn’t out there.”
Michael Finley added 19 points for San Antonio.
Amare Stoudemire had 20 points and 18 rebounds but was just 6-of-19 shooting. Leandro Barbosa scored 18 points for the Suns. Shawn Marion, after a slow start, scored 16, 11 in the final quarter.
The score was a bit high for Duncan’s liking.
“We’d rather play in the 90s, we’d rather play in the 80s,” he said. “That’s our type of game, but we’ve got a lot of guys who are shooting the ball really well. We’ve been moving the ball really well, and the points are going up on the board.”
Game 2 is Tuesday night in Phoenix.
After the game, D’Antoni was still grumbling about two calls — the inbounds foul on Barbosa and one on Stoudemire late in the second quarter.
“There were some calls that just changed the complexion of the game,” he said. “Now right, wrong, I’m not here to judge that, and I’m sure they had all the best intentions in the world. It’s just we didn’t get that break and they changed the complexion of the game.”
But he said the Spurs deserve credit for pulling it out.
“These guys are good,” D’Antoni said. “It’s almost like a heavyweight champion, you’ve got to knock them out. We didn’t do it.”
Do the NBA Refs Suck; well of course we know they do!
Is D’Antonio gonna get fined for commenting on the refereeing after the game? Probably not, I think he was careful not to step over the line the NBA has drawn in the sand. I’ve always stated that refs are gonna miss calls, it’s the calls that manipulate the outcome or momentum of the game in order to keep it close. Did the call on Amare at the end of the first half have an impact on the game? Probably not, but several time during the first half I saw the referees try there best to keep the game from getting out of hand. Once to the advantage of the Suns and then again to the advantage of the Spurs, so is this an equal sum, no advantage for either team. That may be debatable but it hurts the integrity of the game.
Let the players decide the game!