Author: katadmin

Duncan in the post remains a reliable option for Spurs

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

MIAMI — When the Spurs needed a big basket late in Saturday’s victory at Houston, they pulled a page from the past.

They tossed the ball to Tim Duncan in the low post, stood back and watched him go to work.

Duncan rewarded his team with a post-up basket on Chuck Hayes to break a 117-117 tie with 1:09 to go and followed with a pair of free throws on the Spurs’ next possession.

For Duncan, in the midst of the lowest-scoring season of his Hall of Fame career, it’s not about scoring 20 points per game anymore. It’s about scoring two points when it most matters.

“He’s not the guy we just give the ball to over and over,” guard Manu Ginobili said. “In some parts of the game, we’re going to do it, but not as constant as we used to.”

In his 14th season at age 34, Duncan has become a role player in the Spurs’ offense, which is enjoying its most productive season of his tenure. He is averaging 13.3 points heading into tonight’s rematch with Miami, and his minutes (28:36) and touches (11.2 field-goal attempts) per game have dropped to career-low levels.

Duncan has joked to teammates that, sometimes, it feels like all he’s doing his running wind sprints throughout the course of a game.

“I still say if Tim was playing his normal 35 minutes, getting 20 touches a night, his numbers would be higher,” forward Richard Jefferson said. “But he’d get worn down quicker. We have the luxury of resting him.”

Or, put another way, the Spurs have the luxury of saving Duncan until they need him most.

A KING’S FOOTNOTE: Tonight at AmericanAirlines Arena, Spurs guard Chris Quinn will meet up with an old nemesis. In 2002, while a senior at Coffman High in Dublin, Ohio, Quinn finished runner-up for the state’s prestigious Mr. Basketball honors.

First place instead went to a junior at St. Mary’s-St. Vincent in Akron named LeBron James.

Quinn averaged 22.5 points per game that season at Coffman but doesn’t mind being the middle victim in James’ run of three-consecutive Mr. Basketball prizes. James, after all, went on to become a two-time NBA MVP, and counting.

“I guess if there’s someone to lose to in that kind of thing, he’s not a bad person to lose to,” said Quinn, who spent the first 2 1/2 seasons of his career with Miami. “I guess I’m an interesting footnote.”

CENTER OF ATTENTION: Though it’s come in a small sample size, coach Gregg Popovich likes what he’s seen so far from his latest starting lineup, with 6-foot-9 veteran Antonio McDyess replacing the shorter DeJuan Blair at center.

The move was made for defensive purposes, with an eye toward how the Spurs might defend some of the Western Conference’s better power forwards in the playoffs.

“It’s a good starting defensive group,” Popovich said. “(McDyess) matches up well with four-men on other teams. We want to take a look at that and get in a rhythm with that lineup.”

Blair hasn’t exactly been forgotten in the lineup switch. He is coming off back-to-back 14-point games as a reserve.

Spurs defense rises, better late than never

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

HOUSTON — There was a time that a game between the Spurs and Houston Rockets was likely to result in more bruises than points. The two teams would fight and claw and scratch and defend, and the first to 90 usually won.

“That was that damn Van Gundy guy,” said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, referring to former Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy. “If he and I got together, we were lucky if both teams got over 50.”

On nights like Saturday, when the Spurs won a 115-107 shootout at the Toyota Center the likes of which have become the norm for these teams, those days seem like peach-basket ancient history.

The Spurs did not play the 48 minutes of championship-level defense they would like to, but they did play about two minutes worth in the fourth quarter.

In the end, that was enough.

Putting the brakes on a seesaw final frame, the Spurs (54-12) held Houston without a field goal for the last two minutes, got a tie-breaking basket from Tim Duncan and put the game away at the foul line.

“They were hitting big shots. We were hitting big shots,” said Spurs forward Richard Jefferson, whose team clinched its 14th straight season series against Houston. “At the end, it was just about getting stops.”

The arrival of coach Rick Adelman to Houston in 2007, as well as Yao Ming’s near-constant state of injury, has infused some offense into the I-10 rivalry.

Once upon a time, the Spurs and Rockets played 28 consecutive games without either eclipsing 100 points. After Saturday, both teams have surpassed triple digits in four of the past five meetings.

Tony Parker scored 21 points to lead a season-high eight Spurs players in double figures, Manu Ginobili chipped in 19, and Antonio McDyess, in his third start at center, logged 12 points and 12 rebounds.

But the Rockets, on the wrong end of the playoff bubble at 33-34, made sure the Spurs would not make it to Monday’s nationally televised rematch at Miami without a fight.

“We were right there with the best team in the league,” said Houston’s Chuck Hayes, whose team led 82-81 heading into the fourth. “One bounce, one loose ball, one basket in their advantage, and they were able to win.”

When the Spurs needed their biggest basket late in the game, they found it in a place both familiar and surprising: Duncan in the low post.

At times an afterthought in the Spurs’ offense this season, Duncan had just two field goals late into the fourth quarter, when Hayes tied the score at 107 on a pair of free throws. Duncan responded by posting the 6-foot-6 Hayes on the block, whirling and throwing in a jump hook straight out of 2005. On the Spurs’ next trip, Duncan made two free throws to extend the lead to 111-107.

“We know at any given time, T.D. is a threat on the low post,” guard George Hill said. “We just have to feed him sometimes.”

Of course, Duncan’s late points — which pushed him into double figures — wouldn’t have mattered if the Spurs hadn’t found a way to get, in Ginobili’s words, “the stops we weren’t getting in the third quarter and earlier in the fourth.”

Particularly, they had to find a way to slow Rockets guard Kevin Martin, who finished with 28 points on 9-of-23 shooting.

Before Duncan’s basket on Hayes, there had been three lead changes and six ties in the fourth quarter. The Spurs’ defense tightened just enough to ensure there would be no more of either.

Houston went 0 for 4 in the final 2:02, with Martin and Courtney Lee — another thorn in the Spurs’ side with 16 points — each missing twice.

“Everybody would like to keep teams in the 90s, but it doesn’t always happen,” Popovich said. “I thought we made a lot of good stops when we needed them against a team that really penetrates well.”

It was enough to make Popovich almost miss that Van Gundy guy. Almost.

Rookie Anderson pleased with first NBA start

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

When Spurs coach Gregg Popovich discovered that Richard Jefferson would not be available for Friday’s game against the Sacramento Kings, he gave James Anderson the first starting assignment of his NBA career.

Though it was a bit of a surprise to the rookie from Oklahoma State, Anderson felt he put in a solid effort against the Kings at the ATT Center. In 18 minutes, 12 seconds, he had three points, two rebounds and two assists in the Spurs’ 108-103 victory.

Jefferson had started the first 64 games this season, but was scratched from the lineup Friday to attend to personal business. He is expected to rejoin the team for tonight’s game in Houston against the Rockets.

“(Popovich) told us RJ had a family emergency and I was starting in his spot,” Anderson said. “I just had to do what I can do.

“I could have been more aggressive on offense, but it was just the flow of the game. I had some good passes that got us some buckets and I thought I was solid on both ends.”

Cleanliness counts: The Spurs fan who subdued the Mexican freetail bat that swooped down on the court during the second quarter of Friday’s game said the only reward he seeks for restoring order to the game is a chance to meet Manu Ginobili.

Ginobili swatted a bat out of the air during a game on Halloween night last season. He subsequently had to get a series of painful rabies shots because that bat was not properly secured after the incident so it could be tested for rabies.

Tim Ralston, seated in the second row near midcourt, said the bat collided with his hip and fell to the floor, where he was able to secure it in a towel that was thrown into the stands by a ball boy.

Happy that someone else played the hero this time around, Ginobili said he will be happy to meet Ralston, on one condition.

“First, make sure he washes his hands and is out of trouble,” he said. “Then I’ll go shake his hand willingly.”

Familiar role: Veteran Antonio McDyess started for the Spurs for a second consecutive game, with second-year power forward DeJuan Blair again coming off the bench.

For Blair, it is a familiar role, since he came off the bench in 59 of the 82 games he played in his rookie season.

“I just bring energy off the bench now,” he said after scoring 14 points and grabbing six rebounds in 22:23. “That’s the only thing. Just come in here and be the same person. I’m just not starting no more.”

Blair didn’t need any words of encouragement from his veteran teammates to accept the change.

“I did it enough last year to know what it is,” he said. “Hopefully, I can be that spark that they need off the bench.”