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So late last night and this morning I got into a debate with Bruce Bowen.......

His profile picture is of him with his championship trophies..... that sparked something in me to tweet something to him.

I never expected a response...

Anyway, heres how it goes. I'll keep updating the O.P as he responds.

심재욱 (Jae) ‏ @KimchiKing113

@Bowen12 You should only have 2 trophies there. If Rob hadnt slammed Steve Nash into the Stands.. and Donaghy wasnt getting paid...........

Bruce Bowen ‏ @Bowen12
@KimchiKing113 we could "if" all day. If .4 seconds never happened, or If we didn't lose in overtime to Dallas. We would have MORE CHIPS!

심재욱 (Jae) ‏ @KimchiKing113
@Bowen12 An overtime loss is pure basketball, at the fault of a team. Throwing someone into the scorers table and having a dodgey ref isnt.

(I then decided to stop being an ass, and show a little bit of respect....)

심재욱 (Jae) ‏ @KimchiKing113
@Bowen12 Dont take this offensively, I have respect for the hard work you put into winning c-ships. I just wish it wasnt so controversial.

Bruce Bowen ‏ @Bowen12
@KimchiKing113 I didn't take that personal, I respect your opinion. But what does that have to do with Amare coming off the bench?

심재욱 (Jae) ‏ @KimchiKing113
@Bowen12 Why would in the spirit of the game, Rob throw Nash into the scorers table = A.S and B.D suspensions. Thus "rewarding that play."

Bruce Bowen ‏ @Bowen12
@KimchiKing113 The rules state that you must not leave the bench. Accountability, you must hold your guys accountable.

심재욱 (Jae) ‏ @KimchiKing113
@Bowen12 Can you honestly say that you would've 100% won that c-ship and the West, if the Horry incident hadn't occured? If so, let it be.

Bruce Bowen ‏ @Bowen12
@KimchiKing113 yes. We were shorthanded as well in that game.

심재욱 (Jae) ‏ @KimchiKing113
@Bowen12 Just reiterating that: If B.D (USG: 15.9% 24MPG) and A.S (USG: 30.7%, 34.3MPG 29.6PER) wern't suspended, you 100% still wldve won

Bruce Bowen ‏ @Bowen12
@KimchiKing113 Yes! Lol

Follow me on Twitter!: https://twitter.com/#!/KimchiKing113

i like you. i hate bruce

That's awesome.

Bruce is a jackass trying to play classy guy!! His responses just show the spurs organization mentality! If u ain't cheating u ain't trying. They cheated the nba to get Duncan, Robinson played hurt the year prior.

Bruce would also tell everyone he only committed 2 fouls in his life!

I have very little respect for that organization....period!!!!!

This " * " is on two of spurs championships!!!!

Good news is Duncan retires.... Decades of suck for the spurs!!





Until they cheat again!!!

He is right though. You can "if" all day...I do believe we were the best team that year and if it hadn't been for those suspensions and what is now know as a fixed game 3, we would have won. To be honest though, I'm sure he, Horry or many other Spurs get this a lot.

It's best just to let it go in this circumstance. He's a San Antonio Spur (and this would apply if he played for any other team), and he's going to support his franchise as such, regardless of two ridiculously unfair games.

Duncan left the bench a game earlier in that series during and altercation if I recall correctly. Maybe that would've been a better talking point (if it is so).

We still choked away game 5, had that game in the bag. The Spurs were always so much deeper than us. Bowen, Oberto, Elson, Barry, Finley, Horry all terrific role players. We had no bench.

They also had a huge coaching advantage.

Didn't Tim Duncan come off the bench in the same game? He shouldn't he be held accountable.

Matter of fact I know it was that game because later Amare called out Tim Duncan and when Stern was asked about it all he said was that the Phoenix Players knew the rules and couldn't restrain themselves and broke them, nothing about Tim Duncan.

DirtyDez wrote:We still choked away game 5, had that game in the bag. The Spurs were always so much deeper than us. Bowen, Oberto, Elson, Barry, Finley, Horry all terrific role players. We had no bench.

They also had a huge coaching advantage.

That right there is why Bowen is confident they still would have won. Even with Diaw and Amar'e, our defense and rebounding was just not good enough. Could we have won that series with them? Probably. Could they have? Just as likely. I'd bet my money on them considering how often they beat up on us in the playoffs. They destroyed us today, I was fugging embarrassed watching that game..

DRK wrote:

심재욱 (Jae) ‏ @KimchiKing113
@Bowen12 Can you honestly say that you would've 100% won that c-ship and the West, if the Horry incident hadn't occured? If so, let it be.

Bruce Bowen ‏ @Bowen12
@KimchiKing113 yes. We were shorthanded as well in that game.

심재욱 (Jae) ‏ @KimchiKing113
@Bowen12 Just reiterating that: If B.D (USG: 15.9% 24MPG) and A.S (USG: 30.7%, 34.3MPG 29.6PER) wern't suspended, you 100% still wldve won

Bruce Bowen ‏ @Bowen12
@KimchiKing113 Yes! Lol

Follow me on Twitter!: https://twitter.com/#!/KimchiKing113

I know for a fact he is not telling the truth here.

He HAS to say that he can guarantee that the Spurs would've won it anyway if Diaw and Amare wasnt suspended, otherwise there will be public outcry from him....

I wanted to ask him, "Do you truthfully believe you 100% deserve the chamionship?" but I decided to just let it go. He fell for the bait, and we ended on good terms.

sd1306 wrote:

DirtyDez wrote:We still choked away game 5, had that game in the bag. The Spurs were always so much deeper than us. Bowen, Oberto, Elson, Barry, Finley, Horry all terrific role players. We had no bench.

They also had a huge coaching advantage.

That right there is why Bowen is confident they still would have won. Even with Diaw and Amar'e, our defense and rebounding was just not good enough. Could we have won that series with them? Probably. Could they have? Just as likely. I'd bet my money on them considering how often they beat up on us in the playoffs. They destroyed us today, I was fugging embarrassed watching that game..

Theres a difference between being confident and being ridiculous. Bowen was being ridiculous. With Amare and Diaw playing, our two most important players, we would've had a HUGE advantage on our side, and our momentum would've probably carried us.

Sure, I'm just speculating but theres no way Bowen can justify being that confident.

How many times did we end up beating them in a series even WITH Amar'e and Diaw?
He has a REASON to be that confident, because the Spurs were our nemesis and they won just about every battle.
It's unfortunate, and I'd like to think we would have won were it not for the cheap shot too, but frankly, I agree with him. Not that they would have won, but there's no points in the if's and but's. We couldn't get it done against the Spurs for years, plain and simple. Injuries happen, plays happen (dirty ones, bad ones, flops, whatever) and in the end the team that wins probably wins because they outplayed the other team when necessary. Horry was an important piece in their run just about every time, and they were missing him, but they still pulled it out.

The real reason we had no chance was that not only our personnel were incompetent defensively, but so was our coach. Everything else is an excuse. I love those too, and I'd love to see that series played fairly with Amar'e and Diaw in the lineup and see what the outcome was, but we were too immature for that to happen and that's no fault of the Spurs. Rules are in place for a reason. Was it a dirty play? Sure. Was it a basketball play? Absolutely not. Did we need to react the way we did? Probably. Did the coaches do a poor job of keeping the players on the bench? Probably. In the end, it's the end result that matters. They won the ship, and we didn't, and it was because we couldn't keep our heads cool.

Micheal Jordan got 6 rings. He was the best player in the world, yes, but he had the advantage MENTALLY every night. Until that happened, his teams were getting knocked by the Celtic's year in and year out, because the Celtic's had that advantage in them. The game is just as much about a mental battle as it is about the basketball being played. Or it used to be, at least. Now, only a few teams play like that, including the Spurs.

You need that edge on your opponent, and they ALWAYS had it over us. It's a shame that things happened the way they did, and I feel sorry for some of our players (including Nash), but at the end of the day, instead of blaming someone else (because that's too easy) you have to look at yourself. When you point a finger... blah blah blah. You get the point, I assume?

Cheap shots happen all the time... blame Amare, Diaw and the coaching staff for not restraining them.

I've gotten over that incident... Haven't gotten over the Ron Artest/Metta World Peace putback tho.

**thats pretty cool he responded to you.

snowthedirtbub wrote:Didn't Tim Duncan come off the bench in the same game? He shouldn't he be held accountable.

Matter of fact I know it was that game because later Amare called out Tim Duncan and when Stern was asked about it all he said was that the Phoenix Players knew the rules and couldn't restrain themselves and broke them, nothing about Tim Duncan.

That would have been my response to him after he said the accountability crap. For it was he who also walked out on the floor to retrieve Duncan, after Duncan walked six feet onto the floor when he thought Jones did a cheap shot on Elson.

I would have also asked about all the cheap shot fouls he had done over his career, and asked if he felt bad that he wasn't really held accountable for those. I would have also asked if he felt bad when he tried to kick the back of Amare's leg earlier in that same series, and if he felt good that the refs didn't hold him accountable for his actions.

And of course he feels confident that his team still would have won, because his owner and Stern are buddies, and they were called a dynasty by Stern even before they even entered the WCFs that season.

They won, we lost - as stated, we gave away #5. They were simply a better team and have been - excellent FO, brilliant coachng, players who buy in completely.
I hate Horry and Bowen got away with murder but it's like hating the old celtics. you can hate them, but you can't argue they aren't great

Funny I was actually at that game in SA. I think that was easily our best team of that era, and I think we should have won that series. Not only did we have the suspensions, but we had the Donaghy game AND the Nash bloody nose in another close game and our staff couldn't stop the bleeding and he couldn't get BACK into the game.

And then they rolled over the Jazz in 5 and the Cavs in 4 to win it all.

It's tough. I think our best all time teams probably lost in the 2nd round in 95 and 07. Both to teams who ended up winning it all. In 05 we blew a 3-1 lead (and game 5 went to ot) to the Rockets and lost game 7 on a Mario Elie 3 to lose by 1. And the Rockets ended up sweeping the Magic in the finals.

Of course, in 07, really bad luck, fixed game, suspensions hurt us, when in 95 is is more likely because Barkley was out partying before game 5 and wasn't taking it quite as seriously as he should have...but both are the years that bother me the most.

JohnVancouver wrote:They won, we lost - as stated, we gave away #5. They were simply a better team and have been - excellent FO, brilliant coachng, players who buy in completely.
I hate Horry and Bowen got away with murder but it's like hating the old celtics. you can hate them, but you can't argue they aren't great

Absolutely.

Phoenix still had two more games to win and couldn't do it. Same with LA in 2010. You could say that if Artest didn't get that airball, the Suns would have won. But there was still an OT to play in LA and two more games. Same thing. You never know. They won. It hurts but it's the way it is.

Gotta love the Spurs franchise!

Some jealousy and ignorance here (not as much as I thought there'd be tho) - oh well... things stand in time one way or another!

2010 was Phoenix's best team and run of the playoffs... most balance and specifically depth, Boston would of been the favorite still, but you don't know what could of happened.

bill simmons linked these in his article today and i felt it was relevant to this thread (old articles):

One of the running debates of these playoffs: Is Bruce Bowen a cheap player? I love the fact that anyone's actually debating this -- if your answer is "no" or your answer is "I'm not sure," then you've obviously never played basketball in your life. Bruce Bowen is a cheap player. There's no debate. He's not some clumsy power forward who can't stay out of his own way (like Mark Madsen), or even some uncoordinated center who can't remember to keep his elbows near his body (like Shawn Bradley). He's a world-class athlete who has complete control over every inch of his body at all times.

As anyone who's ever played basketball knows, with the exception of clumsy people who probably shouldn't be playing in the first place, there are no accidents on a basketball court. Your feet just don't coincidentally land under someone else's feet as he's shooting a jump shot, and you don't just coincidentally kick someone in the calf as he's going up for a layup or dunk. These things don't just happen. They don't. The only room for error happens when someone's trying to block a fast-break layup or dunk, takes a roundhouse swipe and inadvertently ends up hitting his opponent's head instead of the ball (like we saw with Matt Barnes when he clocked Matt Harpring Tuesday night). When Jason Richardson nails Memo Okur at the end of Game 4 because he's pissed that Okur was driving at the tail end of a guaranteed win, or Baron Davis elbows Derek Fisher in the same game because he's ticked that the Warriors blew a winnable game ... those aren't accidents.

plus a lot more, obviously, as it ends up getting into flopping etc.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... ons/070516

also there's this, but it's really unrelated to bowen specifically.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... ons/070117