"Floppers" Reputation On Hold

What has the San Antonio Spurs organization come to when the perfect opportunity presents itself for them to do what they do best, flop, and they don't do it??? After the worst clock management in the history of sports by the Lakers, the Spurs somehow found themselves in the game even down seven with Pau Gasol on the free throw line with 50 seconds to play.

Pau Gasol, who is a great free throw shooter, somehow manages to miss both of them giving the Spurs a little glimpse of hope. So, after a Manu Ginobili three pointer, the MVP decides he wants to race down the court up four, with 33 seconds to play instead of bringing it back out, knocking down some free throws and going home up 3-1 easily. Well, of course Kobe gets unlucky and it rolls off the rim and Tony Parker hits a layup (which was blocked but called goaltending) with 28 seconds remaining.

Derrick Fisher then throws up a terrible shot which was called out of bounds on the Spurs with less than three seconds on the shot clock. The Spurs force a bad shot, get the ball and call timeout with two seconds remaining. You have to think Ginobili, Parker or Duncan will be one of the three involved in this play....but NOPE, it is....BRENT BARRY??? I understand the guy had a 23 point career playoff high, but he is simply a stand still shooter and NEVER creates his own shot. Not the guy I'd want to give the ball to, but regardless, he had the ball and made a very poor decision.

1). He pump faked 6'1 Derek Fisher who is half a foot smaller than him (Just shoot the ball Brent).
2). He manages to get Fisher in the air and instead of taking contact and jumping into him, he decides to shy away, take a dribble and throw off a worse shot than my friend Samuels would have thrown up there.
3). HE DIDN'T FLOP. How could the number 1 floppers in the league not have made very clear that when you get the ball and feel contact, to fall over and act like you were hit by Shaq? This is all very strange to me. The entire ending of the game was just plain wierd.

For you all Lakers haters out there, before you even start crying about how it was a foul you need to remember this. There are unwritten rules in basketball just like in every other sport. Baseball has the unwritten rules of not talking during a no-hitter and not standing at home plate and watching your home run go over the fence. Football, there is the unwritten rule of laying off when you are just going to kneel the ball when the game is clearly over. Soccer you have the unwritten rule of kicking the ball out of bounds when a player is down on the ground injured. And finally, in basketball there is the unwritten rule of trying as hard as you can not to decide the outcome of the game with your whistle if you are the referees. Fouls at the beginning of the game are certianly different from fouls at the end of the game (especially in the conference finals). Had Brent Barry jumped into the contact and flopped like they teach the Spurs in San Antonio, there is no question he would have been on the free throw line, but when he bounced off of him, took a dribble and then shot the ball, the officials could not end the game with a silly bump in which Barry was not even in the act of shooting the ball. I admire Barry and Popovich for taking it like a man and admitting that it wasn't a foul and they wouldn't have ended the game in that way either...

The one question I am still left with is...what in the hell was Kobe Bryant thinking taking that shot with 33 seconds left???