preface
For all Spurs fans, it's a shame that the team has won five championships and never defended even one title. You know, looking at the history of the NBA, of all the teams that have won 5 championship trophies, only the Spurs failed to defend the title. Looking back at the Spurs' five title-defending seasons, they all had chances to attack, but were all defeated by their opponents without exception. Among them, the Lakers played the spoiler twice, which can be described as the biggest sufferer of the Spurs. And what we want to talk about today is the 07-08 season, when the Spurs retained the original championship lineup, especially the core "GDP" three were in good shape, but they were defeated by the Lakers 4-1 in the Western Conference finals this year. So, why exactly did the Spurs fail? Let's analyze them one by one.
Spurs nemesis, unstoppable Kobe.
First of all, the biggest problem for the Spurs is the man, Kobe Bryant, who is known as the "Spurs nemesis" by many fans. Kobe, who is about to turn 30 this year, has reached his peak in terms of personal game experience and technical ability on the court, playing 82 games with an average of 28.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, and With 5.4 assists and 1.8 steals, he led the Lakers to a 57-25 record in the West, and was once again named to the All-Season Team and the Defensive Team of the Season, and it was this year's regular season that Kobe finally won the only MVP trophy in his career, and was undoubtedly the first man of the season. After the playoffs, Kobe Bryant opened the "killing god" mode, and in only 11 games, he helped the Lakers return to the stage of the Western Conference Finals after 4 years.
It was also in this round of the series with the Spurs that Kobe Bryant showed a terrifying dominance, and in a total of 5 matchups between the two sides, Kobe Bryant actually only got 11 free throw opportunities, which can be said to rely entirely on unsolvable mid-range shots and collapsed the entire Spurs' defensive system. You know, the Spurs have Bruce Bowen and Tim Duncan, who were selected to the best defensive first team that season, and can hand over 29.2 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.8 assists under this internal and external restraint, and shoot an astonishing 53.3%, which in the NBA at that time, no one except Kobe Bryant, especially in the fifth game, the Spurs once established a 13-point lead in the first quarter. But the Lakers' side almost relied on Kobe Bryant to recover the game by a point, and Kobe scored 39 points on 16-of-30 shooting, taking the art of mid-range shooting to the extreme, and then eliminated the Spurs.
The Spurs roster is aging, and the demon knife is not playing well.
The problems on the Spurs' side are much more serious than expected, and although this team has good experience in winning championships, the fatal point is that their roster is aging quite badly, and they are also locked in a seven-game battle with the Hornets in the Western Conference semifinals, and when they advance to the Western Conference Finals, their fitness problems are immediately exposed. With the exception of 26-year-old Parker, almost all of the Spurs' core lineup is past 30 years old, 35-year-old Finley, 37-year-old Bowen, 35-year-old Kurt Thomas, 38-year-old Horry and 36-year-old Brent Barry, these old guys have lost their old rhythm in the Western Conference Finals. Except for Barry's 9.4 points, everyone else played badly, and although Bowen played outside the three-point line, the defensive end was completely blasted by Kobe Bryant and needed to take a lot of responsibility for the loss.
Of course, the Spurs' three core plays also have their own problems, as the best sixth man of the season, Ginobili's performance in this round is extremely sluggish, averaging only 12.6 points, 3.2 rebounds and 3 assists per game, shooting only 35.8%, except for the third home win, he scored 30 points to make up for it, the remaining four games, he was completely lost in Kobe's defense. It is precisely because of the lack of the drive of the demon knife that Duncan on the inside was wantonly pinched by the Lakers, although the stone Buddha bombed 22.4 points, 17.4 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.2 steals and 2 blocks in this round, but this is the result that Popovich does not want to see, once Duncan needs to shoulder the team's offensive and defensive responsibility, which means that the Spurs are in passivity, Duncan's 42.6% shooting rate is the best proof. The young Parker was decent, averaging 19.4 points, 4 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game, and easily faced Fisher on the offensive end, but the whole team did not play as well, and finally could only accept the result of defeat.
The Lakers roster is well structured and successfully contained inside and outside.
Finally, when it comes to the Lakers, their roster structure is quite reasonable, with the 29-year-old MVP winner Kobe Bryant, with 28-year-old Paul Gasol, 29-year-old Lamar Odom, forming the core trio of the playoffs, in addition to 34-year-old "old fish" Fisher, 22-year-old Farmar, 27-year-old Radmanovic, 24-year-old Sasha Vujasic, the three generations of the Lakers, whether it is personal talent or physical reserves, are to overwhelm the Spurs at that time. In addition, coach "Zen Master" Phil Jackson's tactical arrangement for the team is also quite reasonable, he caught Popovich's fear of Kobe's terrifying killing ability on the inside when facing the Jazz in the Western Conference semifinals, so he followed the Spurs' defensive tactical arrangement for Kobe, allowing Kobe to constantly use mid-range shots, which can be said to have "shot" the Spurs.
The rest of the Lakers' players played equally well, and although Gasol and Odom were inferior to Duncan's individual abilities, the two interior linemen seized on the weakness of the Spurs' interior emptiness and completed the match against the stone Buddha. Gasol averaged 13.2 points, 9.6 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.6 blocks per game, while Odom had 12.8 points, 9.6 rebounds and 1.4 blocks, and it was their hand-to-hand combat on the inside that created enough mid-range space for Kobe to keep hitting the Spurs on the offensive end. Farmar and Fisher fired steadily on the outside, coupled with Radmanovic's surprise play, the Lakers relied on the outstanding performance of the whole to complete the gentleman's sweep, thus returning to the Finals stage after 4 years.