FanHouse ManuGinobili

It feels strange to even type it, but it's true: the Spurs have been eliminated in the first round, losing to the Mavericks on Tuesday night 106-93 and ending a streak of eight consecutive seasons in which the Spurs won at least one playoff series.

At least there's no confusion about what the Spurs need to do this summer: get deeper. This team never bounced back from the loss of Manu Ginobili, as even huge games from Tim Duncan (30 points, eight boards) and Tony Parker (26 points, 12 assists) weren't enough to keep this game competitive.

---

---

One question for the San Antonio Spurs: Now what?

Sure, it's possible the Spurs can put together a nice effort on their homecourt in Game 5 on Tuesday night and push their series against the Mavericks to a sixth game in Dallas.

And maybe the Spurs could even follow that up with an unlikely Game 6 win on the road and make their first-round series a seven-gamer.

---

---

A two-month fastbreak is what the NBA playoffs are.

Lots of games, lots of teams and lots of players. A lot to keep track of, too.

Here are some things I look forward to finding out about this postseason:

The time has come. Playoffs. And you know what that means. No, not obnoxious commercials that dig into your skull. FanHouse Live Blog Fun Partytime! We'll be here all night, with two live blogs to keep you entertained on a Saturday night!

It all starts with Mavs at Spurs at 8PM EST. Can the Mavericks continue their hothand into the playoffs against a wounded Spurs team? Can the Spurs pull one more run out of their hat, even with Manu Ginobili on the floor? Join us at 8PM EST and we'll find out.

---

---

It's trophy time in the NBA, and the FanHouse crew has submitted its ballots. Find out which players deserve to take home the hardware and which ones don't, in our NBA Awards series. First up: Sixth Man of the Year.

The Sixth Man award, as you probably have guessed from its name, is given to the player believed to have the biggest impact for his team coming off the bench. Over the past couple of seasons, the discussion is one that's been dominated by two names -- Manu Ginobili and Leandro Barbosa. This year, however, we have a new group of players in the conversation, and, while the voting was close, we were able to come up with a clear cut choice.

The Spurs are destined to finish the regular season and playoffs the same way they opened the year: without Manu Ginobili. It's a somewhat surprising development considering Ginobili played in both San Antonio games over the weekend, but he felt stiffness in his perpetually-ailing ankle on Sunday. An MRI and CT scan today revealed "an increased marrow edema and a stress fracture in his right distal fibula."

Ginobili missed the first 12 games of the season after aggravating the ankle during the Olympics, and he missed another 19 games in January and February with what was originally termed a stress reaction, which, as Gregg Popovich made clear at the time, wasn't as serious as a stress reaction.

The NBA features an 82 game season. As such, some weird stuff is going to happen. The Clippers will beat the Celtics. The Kings will beat the Suns. And often times, they're simply the result of back-to-backs, injuries, or that most crucial of variables: a bad shooting night.

But tonight was kind of different. As Robin Williams once said (yeah, I'm quoting Robin Williams, you got a problem with that?), "It's not the end of civilization, but you can see it from there."

The Charlotte Bobcats defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 94-84.

Less than an hour later, the Oklahoma Thunder defeated the San Antonio Spurs 96-95.

Okay, two lottery (most likely) teams beat two perennial contenders. Your average bizarro night. But there were things in these wins that forecast the future.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- When Manu Ginobili didn't travel with his teammates to New York earlier this week due to soreness in his right ankle, speculation arose that he might be nursing a serious injury, especially when the team was slow to update his status. After all, with the league's trade deadline looming Thursday afternoon, why would San Antonio give up any leverage?

Once the deadline came and passed, Gregg Popovich spoke candidly about Ginobili's condition before Thursday's game in Detroit. "I just got official reports from the doctors, they say he's got a stress reaction in his distal fibula of his ankle," Popovich said. "Not a stress fracture, [but] a stress reaction, which is very different. A stress fracture goes all the way through the bone, and a stress reaction, I'm told, is just topical."

Part of FanHouse's coverage of the NBA's All-Star weekend, coming to you live from Phoenix.

PHOENIX -- The All-Star festivities will be a little different this weekend, with the addition of the GEICO/HORSE Game on Saturday. If you've ever touched a basketball for longer than about six seconds, you have played a version of HORSE, so getting to see the big boys toss up crazy shots will be interesting.

During the media time on Friday, some of the bigger names talked about the game and who they thought might be the toughest to face in the NBA. The answers might surprise you.

On Tuesday, Gregg Popovich inexplicably sat down his three best players (Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker) in an eventual road loss to Denver. FanHouse's Brett Pollakoff discussed the matter, and others have piled on Pop for (basically) throwing the game.

But come on, this is hilarious and brilliant. Popovich knew exactly what he was doing, and everyone's falling into the trap.