Bryn “Brynk of Insanity” Forbes has been scapegoated rather vigorously by Spurs fans in the past few weeks, some even going so far as to allege that he is not an NBA-caliber player. I can understand where they’re coming from, even if I don’t agree with questioning the fact that Forbes is made out of “NBA Stuff”; when Forbes isn’t hitting his shots, he’s not contributing enough in other areas of the game for his presence on the court to be worth it. That’s what you get with pure shooters; if their shooting isn’t pure, then they’re just pure nothing.
I don’t expect Spurs fans to start issuing apologies right away, as this is just one good game in an up-and-down season for Forbes, but they should at least be able to acknowledge Forbes’ sizable contributions to this victory. His scorching run of three-pointers in the waning minutes of the first half (six of them in five minutes) allowed the Spurs to build up a fifteen-point lead going into the halftime break. Then Forbes started running cold, and the Spurs vanquished the lead, but the Brynk of Insanity had one final spurt of creamy three-point goodness left in him, and splashed a triple with less than three minutes left in the game to give the Spurs the lead for good.
Forbes also had a chokerific turnover with five seconds left and the Spurs up two (an intentional foul by the Suns was imminent if the turnover hadn’t happened), but I watched the play and am content to blame Marco Belinelli for not being able to get to the pass. Besides, Ricky Rubio then had his own chokerific moment by missing a free throw, and the Spurs escaped with the win, so in that sense, Forbes didn’t choke at all. That means that Spurs fans are not allowed to scapegoat him for approximately the next two weeks.