With defense and guile, the San Antonio Spurs held on for a 91-82 Game 7 victory Monday over the New Orleans Hornets to advance to the NBA's Western Conference finals....

Last Saturday, actor Will Ferrell made a quick stop in Austin during a press tour for his new film Semi-Pro. He also attended a sneak preview of the film and did a Q&A session at the Alamo Drafthouse, where attendees were required to dress in 70's basketball attire for admission - you can see the Drafthouse "team photo" here. Austinist's Tom Thornton and Gordon And The Whale's Chase Whale spoke briefly to Ferrell during the media day....

Image from City of Austin Watershed Protection Dept. 108,000 gallons of wastewater drain into tributary to Harris Branch Creek, killing fish and possibly harming nearby residents who use well-water. Manhunt on for man who shot and killed someone during a card game in Bastrop this morning. Truck overturns in South Austin, takes power lines with it. Georgetown cop indicted for sexually assaulting a female in custody. Dawnna Dukes may have an opponent in her race......

That dish to the right looks pretty damn amazing, but you're not gonna find this particular establishment anywhere near Town Lake: Bubba's Texas-Style Bar-B-Que & Saloon just opened last month in Shanghai, China, and our intrepid brethren at Shanghaiist went over to have a looksee. The verdict? Possibly the best BBQ joint in China ("... there is really no competition"), if you're able to throw down anywhre from 75 kuai for a pulled pork sandwich......

The NBA Draft takes place tonight in New York City, and besides the annual fun of watching young athletes in their Sunday finest (we’re looking at you, Chuck Person) as they walk up to the podium to shake hands with the commish and awkwardly don their new teams caps, Texas basketball fans will be watching intently to see what happens with their teams, as well as the fates of former Longhorns LaMarcus Aldridge, P.J. Tucker......

Austinist knows many of you prefer football or baseball. Some of you like basketball, but think college ball is better than pro. We implore you to start watching the Spurs/Mavericks series, because if you can't get excited about this, you don't like sports at all. With former Spur Avery Johnson coaching the Mavericks, former Mavericks Michael Finley and Nick Van Exel playing for the Spurs, and the in-state rivalry factor all in full effect,......

Holy smokes. Anyone watching Sunday's breathtaking Game 1 simply can't wait for the next battle in the Spurs/Mavericks showdown: everyone, that is, except for fans of either team, who all had heart attacks and keeled over from the intensity. To recap: Tim Duncan dropped 31 points, Bruce Bowen played great defense on Dirk, and the Spurs pulled off an (extremely) narrow 87-85 victory when Jerry Stackhouse airballed on the final possession. The Mavs led......

Haven't been following the first round of the NBA playoffs? That's okay, you haven't missed much. Last night the Spurs put the overachieving Kings in their place, pulling out game 5 in S.A to go up 3-2 in their best-of-seven series. This despite another ridiculous performance from Bonzi Wells (contract year!). Kings' sixth man Joey Crawford also put in a spirited performance, but the Spurs' three amigos, Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili, combined for 72.......

Life is bad for the Sacramento Kings. On Saturday, the Spurs absolutely decimated them in a 122-88 rout that was essentially over by halftime. No Spurs starter played more than 25 minutes, and San Antonio scored an amazing 73 points by halftime. As for the suspension: after the game, The Spurs sent game tape to the NBA arguing that Ron Artest of the Kings applied illegal contact (meaning a cheap-shot elbow) to Manu Ginobili's......

Can the Spurs finally repeat as NBA Champions? ESPN doesn't think so. CNN/SI, not so much. Charles Barkley? No. And the Spurs' first opponent, Ron Artest and the Sacramento Kings? Absolutely not. So despite the emergence of Tony Parker as an All-Star, the addition of Michael Finley to their bench, and a record-setting 63-win season, the Spurs go into the playoffs...as decided underdogs. Wild, eh? Most of the naysayers believe that the Spurs will......

Ray Allen is a sissy. We knew it back when Denzel kicked his ass in streetball in He Got Game, but it keeps going downhill from there. In 2001, Allen complained of an "NBA conspiracy" when his Bucks lost to the 76ers in the Eastern Coference Finals. This year, he has been involved in snippy altercations with LA's Kobe Bryant, Orlando's Keeyon Dooling (which merited a 3-game suspension), and of course San Antonio's Bruce......

President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox continue talks today over the immigration issue. Bush is urging a program that allows more immigrants to take on jobs in the US. The heated debate over immigration is causing many to publicly protest, including local area students. Former San Antonio Spurs player Alvin Robertson is getting in to trouble with the law again. Ryan Seacrest and Teri Hatcher apparently 'idolize' eachother. (I know. I know...boo, hiss.)......

If the San Antonio Spurs want to stay healthy for the playoffs, Austinist suggests they avoid playing the Denver Nuggets ever again. The Nugs are gaining some notoriety around the league for replicating the bruising style of the Knicks and Heat of the early 90's, and last night proved to be no exception. Tim Duncan got poked in the eye twice, Tony Parker was literally tackled on a lay-up, and Ginobili was thrown into......

The Star of Texas Rodeo starts its two week run today at the Exposition Center. A propane truck overturned in Lockhart yesterday. The weather is to blame for the faulty SAT scores scanned here in town. Now we have a 10,000 Maniacs song stuck in our head. Did we need another reason not to visit Oklahoma? Their House has approved the Academic Freedom Act, which leaves it up to the teacher to decide which......

There are still six weeks left in the NBA season, but a lot is on the line tonight in San Antonio. The Spurs (44-12 on the season) play the Mavericks (45-11) this evening, and the winner walks away with the Western Conference lead and a likely season series tiebreaker. Both teams are playing incredibly well right now: Dallas has won 19 of their last 20 games, some in dramatic fashion; The Spurs are 17-3......

While Austin doesn't yet have a pro sports franchise, the last couple of years have brought us a deluge of minor league teams for our live sports fix. The newest of these is the Austin Toros of the NBDL, which is the NBA's (relatively) new minor league system. Each NBDL team serves as a source of potential talent for four NBA teams, and the Toros are currently affiliated with the Spurs, Nuggets, Rockets, and......

On Saturday, Austinist rolled down 71 and I-10 to Houston for NBA All-Star Weekend. Our seats could only be described as nosebleed-arific, but hey, we got to go. The event started swimmingly when a Tony Parker-led Spurs team won the jump-shooting contest over a Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson tandem. The next event, the skills contest, featured the brightest stars of Saturday evening (with LeBron, Dwayne Wade, and Steve Nash all participating), but we......

We went to Carnaval. And loved it. SXSW full list of bands and movies updated. Cat Power backs out of SXSW and cancels tour. Ausitn art goes green. Tired of run-of-the-mill valentine's day activities? We got you covered. We reviewed the new documentary The Outdoorsmen: Blood, Sweat and Beers. And laughed our asses off. For about $600 in fees, your band can play a showcase at Waterloo Records during SXSW. The week in interviews:......

If you thought your week went well, check out five days in the life of Spurs guard Tony Parker. On Monday, he and girlfriend Eva Longoria appeared on The Oprah Winfrey show to donate $50,000 to Oprah's Hurricane Katrina fund and to talk about their relationship. On Wednesday, Parker scored 32 points and added 13 assists in a road win against Toronto. Yesterday, he was named to the 2006 NBA All-Star Team for next......

Tuesday night marked the halfway point of the NBA season, and our (nearly) local team marked the occasion by absolutely obliterating the Charlotte Bobcats 104-76. It doesn't look so bad on paper, but the Spurs were winning so handily that they played their bench for nearly the entire second half. Even Spurs 12th man (and Napoleon Dynamite lookalike) Sean Marks had 9 points. It looked like a bad high school game. With this and......

According to the San Antonio-Express News, Robert Horry has agreed, in principle, to re-sign with the World Champion San Antonio Spurs for three more years, with the third year being an option year for the team. Players can not officially sign contracts until the July 22 free agent signing period begins, but Horry’s agent, Robert Barr, is confident his client will be returning to the river city to chase his seventh championship. The Dallas......

Robert Horry has done the truly amazing once again. No, we are not talking about his unbelievable second half/overtime performance of last night. It is much greater than that. The Fresh Prince of the NBA has somehow made us feel that the last 12 years are all happening simultaneously. Every June we turn on the NBA Playoffs and see Big Shot Bob doing the unthinkable, yet somehow expected, extricating his teams from the jaws......

The Detroit Pistons beat the San Antonio Spurs last night, 96-79, in Game 3 of the 2005 NBA Finals, and no one could be happier than the sportswriters and broadcasters of America, who finally get to talk about the Pistons with a straight face. Did you know that if you sneak up on Rip Hamilton when he’s not wearing that mask and give him a firm tap on the nose, his face will disintegrate......

About six minutes into the first game of the 2005 NBA Finals, the Detroit Pistons had the Spurs looking like a bunch of clowns--unfunny clowns, at that. How the Pistons managed to go from trouncing (at that point, they led 17-4) to being trounced (the Spurs won, 84-69) is an unsolved mystery, although it might have something to do with Manu Ginobili, who went from a dismal opening (four points by halftime) to a......

It is often said that defending a championship is one of the hardest things to do in professional sports. Therefore, we give proper kudos to the Detroit Pistons for returning to the NBA Finals, after a gutsy run through the Eastern Conference Playoffs. The Pistons had to slug thru several difficult series under constant media speculation about the fate of their wanderlust-suffering coach. They are professionals (except when Rasheed Wallace loses his mind, God......

Not many people know this, but one of Friedrich Nietzsche's favorite reads was "The Laws of Manu," an ancient Indian text which foretold the rise of an Argentine guard who would be instrumental to the success of the San Antonio Spurs in the 2005 Western Conference Finals, not to mention very handsome. Some Brahmin scholars believe these prophesies have been realized in the person of Manu Ginobili (above left), who led the Spurs' offense......

In 1990 or 1991, Austinist’s older brother won a Pizza Hut-sponsored sweepstakes. He got to be the ballboy at an upcoming Spurs home game, and came back with a whole raft of Spurs autographs. There was, however, one missing. David Robinson, Danny said, had declined to sign the basketball because he had to “rest his thumb.” And that’s the only bad thing Austinist has ever heard about the Admiral. During his 14-year career with......

Contrary to popular belief, we here at the Austinist are not solely interested in going to exclusive parties, seeing the best live music Austin has to offer, and getting free drinks whenever possible. We also have been known to enjoy the basketball. All of you Austinites who have been living vicariously through the Mavericks, Spurs, and Rockets, your time has come. Austin is getting it's own National Basketball Developmental League Team for the 2005-06 season.......