The San Antonio Spurs have played so well in this lockout-shortened season that they even surprised 
themselves. Well, they surprised at least one member of the team. Matt Bonner said during a radio interview with a station in Toronto that he thinks this year’s team has done better than anyone would have thought.
“You know what? It was a lot of uncertainty,” said Bonner. “I wasn’t really sure how we would fare if it was one week of training camp, one or two preseason games and then right into the season. We got off to a little bit of a slow start — we were 12-9 at one point — but since then we left for our rodeo month-long road trip and we’ve been rolling ever since.”
“I think we’ve exceeded everyone’s expectations. Not that we don’t expect to go out and win every game, but it has been a great regular season. Luckily, we know all too well from last year that doesn’t translate into automatically advancing in the playoffs, so we understand that and if anything, going out in the first round last year is motivating us to be extra focused coming into this year. And we’re ready to go — we’re in rhythm, we’re healthy, we’re deep and we just wanna keep that going these last two games going into the first round.”
So even with the Spurs’ regular season success, the Red Rocket is still cautious for the playoffs, as he should be. The Western Conference is loaded from top to bottom, and any series the Spurs are in will be no picnic.
I’m sure there are a few Spurs fans out there that will say they’ve known the Spurs were going to post the best record all year long, but I’d say a big majority have been pleasantly surprised by the way things turned out. Remember when the Spurs couldn’t win on the road to save their lives? We’ve come a long way since then.
Bonner also said he thought the team to beat in the East would be the Miami Heat. So I guess the “Red Rocket” is hoping to square off with LeBron in a few weeks.
