Spurs: "Oooh! Ow! My pride!"

A loss at Atlanta was bad, but it turns out the Hawks are surging and probably caught the Spurs off-guard. Last night, however, San Antonio found themselves flat-out dominated in the fourth quarter by the best college point guard in the game, Chris Paul. This should raise a few more red flags (or pink ones, at least).

Paul and Speedy Claxton aren't supposed to be as mean and scary as Tony Parker, who appeared to have made the leap, and Nick Van Exel, the much-celebrated veteran signing. But any time Parker drove to the hoop or dumped it down to Duncan, Claxton and/or Paul were there, swiping and slapping at the ball. Not coincidentally, Paul's 5 steals and Claxton's 4 match nicely with Parker's 5 turnovers and Duncan's 4.

And are the Spurs concerned about Duncan's erratic play? In his last five games, he's laid 3.5 eggs. He shot 5-14 for a pedestrian 12 pts and 10 boards against the Hawks before dominating the Lakers. Duncan then shoots 5-15 vs. Garnett and the Wolves, mustering only 13 and 7. He scored 24 against the Kings but needed an uncharacteristic 24 shots to do it, and he turned it over 5 times to boot. Last night, he shot 4-12, racked up 11 and 6, and was outplayed on both ends by David West. Yeah, David West.

The Spurs have managed to go 3-2 in this stretch, but the extremely close wins against Minnesota and Sacramento could have gone either way.

Someone needs to tell Timmy that these games count, or the Spurs could actually lose back-to-back games one of these days.

Imagine that.