Tim Duncan vs Amare Stoudemire NASTY Duel in 2005 WCF G5 - TD With 31, Amare With 42 Pts!
He was great after but before the microfracture knee surgery, STAT was so explosive.
I think Amare averaged 37 that series or something which is insane
Yeah I never saw Duncan get abused like that other than this series Amare was just too quick for Duncan post knee surgery
Joe Johnson’s injury basically fucked the Suns that series, I truly believed they were winning the title that season.
What really fucked us long term was Robert Sarver lowballing him the year before. Johnson wanted \(50m, Sarver would only offer \)40m. Then the next year he got a $70m+ max from Atlanta.
Spurs went up 3-0 despite Joe playing well. It was Marion that couldn’t do much of anything against the spurs defense
Joe didn’t even play in the first two games of the series lol.
Oh I’m dumb lol. Point still remains about Marion
Ngl that 2005 run is so so much worse than his 03 run it’s a joke
Tbf the goal was to let Amare get his but shut down the shooters. We knew Amare alone wouldn’t outscored us. Their offense was so prolific back then we knew we had to try to shut down everyone else
Yea it was to guard Amare straight up.. most teams would double and then the suns would get you in rotation and it’s a wrap
duncan was free points for stat, same thing in 07
I would say the defense was tailored to let him go for while containing the rest of the team which worked.
they won because the suns could not defend ginobili, simple as that.
Duncan averaged 27.4 ppg on on 52.7 FG%, Ginobili averaged 22.2 ppg on 49.4 FG%, and Parker averaged 20.4 ppg on 45.9 FG%… so I’d say it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Pretty clearly a team effort.
Amare was a beast before the surgery
Never ever seen Duncan struggling this much against any other opponent in single coverage for an entire series. Spurs had no answers for Stoudemire pre-injury.
They met Amare’s Suns four times (‘03, ‘05, ‘07, ‘08), beat them all four times (4-2, 4-1, 4-2, 4-1, for a total record of 16-6), and won three rings in that time period, while the Suns never made it to the finals…. so I’d say they had plenty of answers for him.
Even warriors beat Lebron and the cavs in 2015, 2017 and 2018 and still they clearly didn’t have an answer to slow him down.
Spurs had the answer to beat the Suns, but in 2005 none of them could prevent Stat from doing whatever he wanted.
No clue why you had to bring all the series between spurs and suns when the post is about 2005 series. When a player averages 37ppg for a whole series it’s clear the other team couldn’t stop him at all.
This was a great watch. Bigs going at each other is my favorite part of basketball.
Can someone who watched this whole game tell me what happened in the 3rd quarter? Spurs went up big-time after the game had been neck-and-neck in the first half.
Is this the series where one of the suns players got suspended? That was so disappointing because the series would have been great.
No. That was 07 when the suns were much better than the spurs.
05 is just the first year with nash but they lost Joe johnson this series as he missed the last 2 games which were close losses. 3 of the suns losses came in the clutch this series.
Suns were pretty low key cursed in that entire stretch. 2005 Johnson got hurt, 2006 Amar’e was out the entire year and then 2007 we got the BS suspension and of course the overall stink of Tim Donaghy in that series.
Raja Bell also was hurt in the CF in ‘06 as well and missed a couple of games.
also missed game 6 in round 1 because he clotheslined Kobe lol
Yep 100%. The fact suns didnt win a title with barkley from 93 to 95 (they had massive leads vs rockets in 94 and 95 but choked) or with nash from 05 to 2010 due to bullshit is crazy
That was 07 when the suns were much better than the spurs.
The 07 Spurs team had the best pt differential in the league and went 9-10 deep consistently, even in the playoffs.
The Suns’ weakness was depth - they had arguably the best starting 5 in those days or close to it but after Barbosa, the depth was quickly a factor most years. ‘07 might have been their deepest overall team and even then they only went 8 deep.
STAT is a funny player. Was so explosive and overall an amazing player, but one that didn’t really leave a long lasting mark. I think he was also incredible during his NYC stint, I’d be curious how Knick fans rank him in their all time players ranking
These two guys couldn’t be more different.