Time to put your NBA caps on

Hold your horses, the San Antonio Spurs are lurking.

After knocking off the No. 2 seed in the NBA playoffs, expect choke artists extraordinaire Dallas, the San Antonio Spurs move on to play the No. 3 Phoenix Suns in the second round. Now with the Lakers struggling to mop up Oklahoma and the Denver/Utah series putting everyone to sleep, shouldn't we start looking at the Spurs?

Arguably the best team of this last decade, you can never count out a team with a championship pedigree like the Spurs regardless of their regular season performance. They struggled with injuries and finding a consistent lineup all year but those problems seem to have been worked out. Also consider that Tim Duncan is notorious for being unspectacular but steady for much of the season and then finding his moment to explode for monster games. Sure he's older, but nobody saves himself for better moments than Duncan. Parker looks like he's back into the swing of things and Ginobili's nose could probably guard Steve Nash by itself at this moment.

So as much as it pains me to say (and I really think the Spurs are way to dull for my liking), you can't ignore these guys at this point. They're like the wily vet at a poker table - never just assume they're over the hill.