Time to give credit where credit is due. As of 9 a.m. ET, there have been no reports of civic unrest in the home of the NBA champs. This is their fourth time around, and San Antonio has NEVER rioted. You'd think that's not something to heap praise on; it's kind of like that Chris Rock routine with the guy bragging about how he's never been to jail. But we remember Detroit, and I was in Chicago a couple of times and was stuck in Staples Center with the rest of the media in 2000 while a police car burned on the street. Never take these things for granted. Two years ago when the Spurs beat the Pistons in seven, San Antonio staged the most civilized celebration I'd ever seen; I didn't see as much as a newspaper rack overturned. Just people yelling, dancing and honking horns.

Also, I will make my annual plea for Robert Horry to go to the Hall of Fame. All he's done is alter the course of NBA history. With all the big shots he's made over the years, maybe someone should start calling him Jordanesque.

And a little love for Gregg Popovich. Did anyone really see him as a Hall of Fame coach back in 1996, when he pushed Bob Hill overboard and took over the Spurs the year David Robinson got hurt and the team was headed for the Tim Duncan lottery? Hey, he's won a title with Stephen Jackson as one of his key performers.

Having said all of that ... let's cool it on the dynasty talk. Sometimes this business rakes my nerves, because it's evolved to the point where everything is discussed in extremes. Either you're the greatest thing since cable, or you're complete garbage. (Ask LeBron James about that; apparently, he's now a total scrub, and his team is no better than the bottom-feeding Celtics because they got swept IN THE FINALS.) And whatever point you take, you have to take it at the top of your lungs, and you have to belittle the other point so mercilessly that the opposition is either left in tears or purple with rage.

Are we allowed to call the Spurs a great organization and a worthy champion without linking them to the old Celtics? Even Popovich a few days ago said the word "dynasty'' doesn't fit the Spurs, that it should be reserved for "UCLA and Bill Russell.''

Thank you. Four titles in nine years is amazing in an era when holding a team, its stars and its coach together for more than four or five years is a miracle.

But ... can you talk about a team being a dynasty if, in the early stages of it, another team won three championships in a row? What, the Lakers three-peat and it's no dynasty, but the Spurs wrap titles around that run and they qualify? And the Lakers regularly spanked the Spurs in the playoffs during that run, and did it again in '04, when the Spurs were defending champs and the Lakers were on their way to a Finals in which they lost to the Pistons.

And I do believe you should win in consecutive years before the topic even is discussed. Dynasties don't get knocked out in the second round the year after they win. It goes against the very meaning of the word, yet that's exactly what has happened after titles No. 2 and 3.

It is possible to praise this franchise for always being in the mix, even after other contenders fall by the wayside, without resorting to exaggeration. Dallas hasn't been able to hang, nor Phoenix, nor the Lakers. What  the Spurs have done is a unique achievement, which probably deserves another word to describe it. But "dynasty'' isn't it. We need to expand our sports vocabulary.

It doesn't take away from what they've done to bring this up, although I know it'll take just a few seconds for someone to get highly and profanely offended. It absolutely shouldn't take away from their accomplishments that they rampaged through a bizarre maze of a postseason, one of the weirdest ever. They won 10 of their last 11 playoff games and went 16-4 overall.

Just because the last two opponents were as overmatched as championship contenders could be, that is no reflection on how good the Spurs were. They could only beat the teams they played, and the Cavs could only do the same. Let's bury the topic of where the Cavs would finish if they played in the West, unless you know of a way to lift the entire city and move it across the Mississippi.  You might as well argue who would win between the Spurs and Patriots, or the Spurs and Duke. When we run out of things to talk about that easily and resort to dumb arguments like that, then it might be better to just not talk at all.

More later ...