The defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs are currently on an NBA-sponsored preseason tour of Europe — a tour that started in Berlin (the site of a now-infamous selfie) on Wednesday with a game against Alba Berlin, the top basketball franchise in Germany. What transpired is probably not how Gregg Popovich envisioned his title defense campaign to begin. While Tony Parker poured in 28 points, he and the rest of the Spurs’ Big Three (Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili) managed to combine for a dozen of the Spurs 22 total turnovers. High-mileage vets Duncan and Parker also logged an uncharacteristic 33 and 35 minutes apiece (neither averaged more than 30 minutes per game last season). Still, after the fumbling and stumbling, all the Spurs had to do was inbound the ball in the front court to seal a victory. They couldn’t even do that right.
Alba’s Reggie Redding stole the inbound pass, and the ball eventually made its way to Jamel McLean, who hit a running bank shot to beat the buzzer and down the NBA champions.
Here are some game highlights (you know, for the junkies), but only one really mattered for Alba:
[YouTube]
