Tony, Manu or Tim?

April 27 schedule:
Philadelphia@Miami (1-3)
Memphis@San Antonio (1-3)
Denver@Oklahoma (1-3)

As much as I hate the Spurs (Mavs' division rival), I have not even thought that the #1 seed in the West will lose the series to the Grizzlies. Not when they lost game 1. Not when they went down 1-2. Well, until now. The Spurs are now down 1-3. As much as good the franchise is, they can never manage to win all three remaining games. So now, I believe they'll exit the first round and have an early vacation.

Like most people, I have not picked from the Spurs and this next elimination game is forcing me to pick one.. now! So who do we pick? Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan have almost equal average PRA in the playoffs (25/26/25) so I cannot base my decision on that. Tony is playing well, especially in the first half of games at least. Manu with his elbow injury has been inconsistent (PRA 28, 31, 20) -- I don't know what I'll get from him in Game 5. Many people in the forums are picking Tim as they think he will not let the Spurs go down in a do-or-die game. Well being the franchise player he is that's most probably true, but I won't believe it until I see the numbers. So I checked the statistics of these three men on elimination games for the last three years..

Date FGA 3PA FTA Pts Reb Ast PRA
Tony May 9, 2010 19.0 0.0 3.0 22.0 5.0 5.0
April 28, 2009 21.0 4.0 4.0 26.0 4.0 12.0
May 29, 2008 22.0 2.0 0.0 23.0 3.0 4.0
May 19, 2008 17.0 0.0 4.0 17.0 2.0 5.0
May 15, 2008 13.0 1.0 3.0 15.0 4.0 4.0
AVERAGE 18.4 1.4 2.8 20.6 3.6 6.0 30.2
Manu May 9, 2010 11.0 6.0 12.0 15.0 6.0 9.0
May 29, 2008 9.0 4.0 2.0 9.0 7.0 3.0
May 19, 2008 19.0 11.0 11.0 26.0 5.0 5.0
May 15, 2008 15.0 9.0 2.0 25.0 4.0 2.0
AVERAGE 13.5 7.5 6.8 18.8 5.5 4.8 29.0
Tim May 9, 2010 14.0 1.0 7.0 17.0 8.0 2.0
April 28, 2009 21.0 0.0 6.0 30.0 8.0 1.0
May 29, 2008 19.0 1.0 10.0 19.0 15.0 10.0
May 19, 2008 17.0 1.0 6.0 16.0 14.0 3.0
May 15, 2008 14.0 0.0 8.0 20.0 15.0 6.0
AVERAGE 17.0 0.6 7.4 20.4 12.0 4.4 36.8

With a very good 36.8 PRA in elimination games, I am picking..
Week 2, April 27:
Tim Duncan
Notice in the table I also included the shot attempts. That shows that when the going gets tough, Tim gets the ball more often.

They have Game 5 at home in San Antonio, and I will be picking the Spurs to win that game. If that happens, we get a bonus pick in Game 6 (for when I plan to pick Tony).

Comments

  1. Yep, it could be time for a Spur. But who- time to toss a coin!

    ReplyDelete
  2. myself and 22% of the people pick tim.
    nba.com expert pick is manu.

    pick tim. he works mainly with points and rebounds.
    manu works mainly with points, mediocre with rebounds and assists.
    tony works mainly with points, mediocre with rebounds, not really a pass-first pg

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tony did well for me !

    ReplyDelete
  4. gratz.
    tim turned out good but not as good as the other 2

    ReplyDelete

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