Oddly enough, Spurs a work in progress

Mystery man: In 32 minutes off the Spurs' bench, this player shot 3-14 and scored 8 points. He almost single-handedly cost the Spurs last night's game against the Bulls. Can you name him?

If I have to answer, you haven't been paying attention to texasnba.com (yes, we own that URL now and it forwards to this site).

The Spurs are very, very good, but they're not perfect yet. Some lessons learned from last night's game:

*The Bulls basically played Manu sideways, humping his inside shoulder while giving him the outside edge. Every time I saw this, Manu took that outside lane to the hoop and bad things happened. He either traveled, missed a short J, or, as he did on the final possession in regulation, drove too deep and pinned himself on the baseline. Scott Skiles knows defense, and I suspect he's found a weakness in Manu's game. Ginobli better work on it or other coaches will soon follow suit.

*Nazr Mohammed needs more minutes. He impacts both ends of the floor significantly, but I'm wasting cyberspace with that statement because you already know that. Why doesn't Popovich? There's nothing to suggest he's only effective in short bursts, either. Very bizarre.

*Pop also doesn't know how to use Finley and Van Exel yet. At the end of regulation, Robert Horry had fouled out. For the final possession, he put Duncan, Ginobli, Parker, and Bowen on the floor. The "big shooter" slot normally filled by Horry was filled by... yep, you guessed it, mystery man Michael Finley. [Scooby] Bowwwrr? [/Scooby] Isn't this exactly what SA brought Nick in to do? At this point, Finley was 2-14. Sure, Nick was 1-4, but which guy thrives on stealing the opponent's kidney and leaving him in a tub of ice? I mean, Finley did not have it. Why not run out the conscience-less Van Exel as a more legitimate final option? At the very least, don't you think the Bulls would have taken his presence more seriously?

This was a big win, though. The Bulls are a legit threat in the East, and the Spurs withstood a lot of hacking and slapping to gut out the road OT win. Parker hit 6/6 huge free throws down the stretch and in overtime; that's major progress for a career 70% FT shooter.

As for the Bulls, is there anyone more mercurial than Ben Gordon? We all remember his heroics from last year, but in the first couple possessions of OT, he bricked a contested 20-footer with like 18 on the shot clock, fouled Parker, and turned the ball over. Pretty hard to win a 5 minute period with that kind of start.