Early in Manu's career, he used to peg unsuspecting Spurs with fantastic passes they were not ready for. My guess is a decade+ of Manu gets you used to passes coming from nowhere.

Good points about Manu and Diaw. I was just surprised to see how quickly they both seemed to understand where the pass must go. It was completely second nature to both Diaw and Splitter there.

If you watch them a lot in the regular season against lax defenses and with hometown film crews, you start to notice that sometimes the Spurs throw to spots without ever checking whether someone is there. There always is. Even when they aren't really running a play, they have a sometimes eerie telepathy.

They get a little more careful in the playoffs, but obviously the ball movement is still pretty good.