AGRI Biz

It started with Manu Ginobili. The doubts resurfaced. The Spurs' late-game execution faltered. They couldn't win close games down the stretch that used to be cakewalks. Would the Spurs of old have blown a 10-point fourth quarter lead at the Rose Garden when Brandon Roy wasn't playing? Ginobili topped 20 points in that February loss but clanged a wide-open three that would have knotted the score. He threw the ball into the stands when the ...

The Houston Rockets' season seems like a distant memory, a legend passed between a few souls via second-hand storytelling.   This city has a pro basketball team?   A man whispers: Shhhh. The secret might get out.   You wouldn’t know it these days, not with talk of the last-place Houston Astros and the NFL Draft dominating the airwaves and the Houston Chronicle’s front page real estate.   To see whom the playoff-less Texans might pick in each ...

Who let the dogs out? (Woof, woof, woof, woof) (Woof, woof, woof, woof) --Baha Men   Gregg Popovich paused for a moment, glanced at the box score as if to pretend he was in deep thought, and unleashed his inner Doberman on the Spurs' role players. "I thought we had a lot of guys," he said, "who played like dogs." He was barking loudest at Richard Jefferson, whose four point clunker in a 100-94 Game One loss ...

The San Antonio Spurs can take solace in a few things after Sunday night's 100-94 loss to the Dallas Mavericks. Dirk Nowitzki will not make 12 of his 14 shots again in this series. If Antonio McDyess plays the same stick-to-the-hip defense in Game Two, Nowitzki will miss more than a few attempts. The idea that Bruce Bowen somehow manhandled the German forward is a misnomer. No team in the history of the ...

I'm picking the Dallas Mavericks to win this series. Do not ask me to predict how many games it will last. This Texas tussle could go six or seven. It could also end in five or a sweep. The one reason to afford the San Antonio Spurs a chance in their quest to reverse the outcome of last year's five-game beatdown is Manu Ginobili. He watched from AT&T Center and American Airlines Center benches and from the locker ...

The playoffs begin this weekend and the excitement in the air is suffocating. Can we just start the damn thing already? Here are 25 questions (and some answers) that will help decide who hoists the next Larry O'Brien Trophy. Since the league's bottom-feeders should want to join this party, they merit mention as current embarrassments to David Stern. Will Ron Artest and his wacko antics help the Lakers defend the 2009 crown? Is this ...

The Houston Rockets dubbed the home and season finale "Red Nation Appreciation Night." Wednesday's game against the New Orleans Hornets was supposed to be an exchange of gratitude between the spectators who did not expect much from a Yao Ming-less squad and the undersized athletes who had given them a reason to believe again in the power of determination. Then, the Rockets started and ended a 123-115 loss in a way that befits their 42-40 season. They ...

Even the best coaches sometimes make mistakes. Gregg Popovich, a sure-fire Hall of Fame sideline chief, may have made one Wednesday night. Hours after ensuring basketball writers he would not sit any of his starters, he changed his mind. Just before tipoff. Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili sat in a 96-89 loss to the Mavericks, the team the Spurs will face in the first round. With that, Dallas won a competitive season series 3-1. The dream ...

A Dallas Mavericks fan—gleeful after his squad rallied in the fourth quarter to beat the San Antonio Spurs 112-103 in a January tilt—shouted at a woman wearing a Tim Duncan jersey. He pointed at the AT&T Center court. "Geriatric! Geriatric!" That fan should avoid the rest of this column. When the Spurs take the floor tonight against their inter-state rivals, they should get comfy in the confines of the American Airlines Center. They might as well stay for the duration ...

Curses line sports lore, most of them figments of fans’ imaginations.   Believe in them at your own peril.   Maybe there is something to this one.   The curse of the Southwest Division triumph?   Since the San Antonio Spurs secured their third title in 2005, the winner of the NBA’s most cutthroat cluster of teams has failed to recapture that magic.   The Spurs won the division in 2006 and lost in the Western Conference semifinals to the ...