Tag: Atlanta

Spurs locked into first round against Clippers

Head to Head Record 2-2

The defending NBA Champion Spurs (55-27) road to a repeat Championship (and three-peat to the NBA Finals) begins in Los Angeles and this time the Lakers are nowhere to be seen.  This time, Doc Rivers, Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and the Los Angeles Clipppers (56-26) will provide the competition in the first round.  The match up, their first since the Spurs swept them in 2003,  should be one of the premier match ups of all the playoffs, especially in comparison to the East match up of Brooklyn (38-44) vs Atlanta (60-22).

“You probably never want to play the Spurs in the first round if you have a choice,” Griffin told the LA Times. “The Spurs are playing their best basketball, like they normally tend to do.”

Tickets for the first round are on sale now so be sure to get out and support your San Antonio Spurs as they make their way through the 2015 NBA Playoffs

 

Fox Tech grad takes anger out on innocent backboard

Tales of Fox Tech grad Ivan Johnson’s inner rage have already become legendary after just one NBA season with the Atlanta Hawks. They include:

* , when the 2002 Express-News All-Area selection was known as Ivan Johnson.

* A string of anger-related incidents culminating in a .

* last season for refusing to give up his seat on the bench to a veteran teammate.

* A $25,000 fine for during last year’s playoffs.

Those are just the highlights. Johnson added another one on Monday, shattering a backboard during Atlanta’s practice at Butler University. Teammates were awed by Johnson’s feat — not just because it reportedly takes to shatter a modern backboard, but because practice was subsequently cancelled.

After fighting so hard to reach the NBA last season as a 27-year-old rookie, Johnson was understandably nonplussed by his show of strength:

Report: T-Mac works out for Spurs

Nestled among the warm bodies who either have or will audition for the Spurs this offseason comes a blast from the not-so-distant past: former NBA scoring champion Tracy McGrady, who worked out at the team’s practice facility earlier this week .

Wojnarowski also reports that the Spurs made no decision about possibly adding McGrady, who will work out for the Knicks today.

Granted, bigs like the one San Antonio could really use don’t magically fall from the sky. (Unless, of course, the Spurs happen to be picking first in the draft.)

But do they really need another perimeter-oriented player? And a broken-down one at that? McGrady enjoyed a minor resurgence in Detroit two seasons ago, averaging 8.0 points in 72 games with the Pistons, before seemingly bottoming out (5.3 ppg) in Atlanta.

Even if T-Mac does have a bit more left in the tank after all those knee injuries, he’s not even a shell of the player who once did this: