Tag: Bruce Bowen

Bruuuuuuuce: Bowen highlights five-person S.A. Sports Hall of Fame class

Spurs defensive stopper Bruce Bowen was announced Monday among a group of five notable athletes and coaches set for induction into the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame early next year.

Bowen was a member of three Spurs NBA title teams, where he was known for his defensive prowess and his 3-point shooting ability. Before his retirement in 2009, Bowen was a five-time selection for the NBA All-Defensive first team.

Most notably, his career is a testament to perseverance after he went undrafted after his college career at Cal State Fullerton and bounced around France. His career turned around when he joined the Spurs in 2001 and became one of the top defenders in modern NBA history.

Bowen will be joined by former East Central High School basketball coach Stan Bonewitz Sr., NFL Pro Bowler David Hill, St. Mary’s pitcher Leticia Morales-Bissaro and notable U.S. equestrian leader John Russell.

All of them will be honored during ceremonies Feb. 10 at the Alamodome.

Among those Spurs figures who have already been inducted into the Hall of Fame include Bob Coleman (former member of Spurs ownership group), George Gervin, Angelo Drossos, James Silas, Red McCombs, Johnny Moore, David Robinson, Bob Bass, Sean Elliott and Avery Johnson.

Interestingly, the selection committee did not choose to induct the Spurs 1999 championship team, which had been nominated earlier in the selection process this year.

And even with all of the worthy Spurs who have already been inducted, several other strong candidates with a Spurs lineage also merit serious consideration.

Original “Voice of the Spurs” Terry Stembridge is an absolute no-brainer, as are Mike Mitchell, Larry Kenon and Doug Moe.  And anybody who grew up watching games at HemisFair Arena likely would include Pat Tallman, the first in-arena announcer for the team.

And after their retirements, Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Gregg Popovich also are locks to be recognized.

Buck Harvey: LeBron turns into LeBruce with some help

DALLAS — Four years ago in the Finals, Bruce Bowen guarded LeBron James.

Now, James is Bowen.

Now, James stands in the corner on offense.

America loves this, since there’s nothing like some LeBron failure to lift everyone’s spirits. But others were at fault Tuesday, too, because James wasn’t being guarded in the fourth quarter by a shutdown defender such as Bowen.

Instead, the worst defensive player on the Mavericks took James.

Coaching should have addressed that.

There was a time, early in the season when Miami struggled, James’ camp leaked some criticism of Erik Spoelstra. That fit with the LeBron of Cleveland who never accepted blame.

Wednesday was something else entirely. Then, James’ basketball version of a panic attack was so clear to everyone that he confessed to everything. He sounded like another Spur then, Tim Duncan, taking full responsibility at a podium.

“Eight points is definitely inexcusable,” James said. “I hold myself up to a higher standard than that.”

Tuesday, his standard was D-League. Sometimes he jumped before he knew where he was going with the ball, and sometimes he watched Dwyane Wade.

DeShawn Stevenson’s description was accurate. It looked as if James had “checked out.”

“That’s kind of how I got in the Chicago series,” Wade said. “You kind of get passive, and that’s what we’ve been dealing with all year — trying to play with three guys who can get it going and that can take over games.”

It’s been the theory of the Heat, and it’s a theory Magic Johnson has trashed. He said it’s possible for great players to excel on the floor at the same time because, after all, he did so with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy.

“All you have to do is play,” Magic said, and Spoelstra said something similar Wednesday about James.

“He doesn’t need to over-think it,” Spoelstra said.

But maybe Spoelstra has been under-thinking. For one, he continues to play James the entire second halves of playoff games.

James is only 26, and he is a physical freak. But ask any player. Rest helps.

It’s what happened when Rick Carlisle rested Shawn Marion, however, that mattered more. Marion, usually assigned to James, played only 16 seconds in the fourth quarter.

In his place came Jason Terry, whose defense is so laughable that the Dallas coaches kid him about it. He’s shorter, older and thinner than James. Yet there he was Tuesday, often left alone with James.

Blame James for not demanding the ball. Once, he briefly tried to post Terry before giving up and vacating the area when he didn’t get a pass. The Chosen One should have chosen to go back to the spot, over and over again, no matter what kind of game Wade was having.

And credit Carlisle. He not only juggled his rotation, he also mixed in some zones to confuse the Heat.

But point, too, at Spoelstra. He’s gotten his stars to play defense, which is often the toughest job an NBA coach has. Still, this awkward dance the Heat continue to do on offense is as much about coaching as it is about Wade slumping against Chicago or James shutting down against Dallas.

The end of Game 2 showed that, when the Heat couldn’t run a play. The fourth quarter on Tuesday was just as glaring; most other NBA coaches would have made sure Dallas paid for leaving Terry on James.

San Antonio knows how this works. When Matt Bonner enters a game, isn’t his man usually the one who gets the basketball?

Spoelstra says he has to do “a better job” of putting James in scoring positions. But, as it was in Game 4, he often lets his stars determine who should shoot.

And who should be Bowen.

bharvey@express-news.net

Notes on a scorecard: Whatever happened to San Antonio’s vaunted defense?

Remember back in the glory days of the San Antonio Spurs?

You recall that era don’t you? Back when “The Twin Towers” of David Robinson and Tim Duncan made shooting a nightmare for Spurs opponents.

Even after Robinson retired, the Spurs found serviceable replacements like Rasho Nesterovic, Nazr Mohammed, Francisco Elson  and Fabricio Oberto to make it tough inside.

And Bruce Bowen, of course, flashed the kind of legendary skills that enabled him to harrass the leading scorers of his era as one of the best on-ball defenders in NBA history.

Those days have never appeared farther away than over the last 20 games or so as the Spurs have evolved into their new order.

They are winning as much as any team in the NBA this season. But the defense had taken a big step back along the way.

In Monday’s 100-92 loss to Portland, Portland shot 52.3 percent from the field. It marked the third time in the Spurs’ four-game losing streak that opponents have topped 50 percent. Opponents have topped 50 percent in four of  six games and six of eight contests.

The strong recent shooting has been bad enough. But a more telling statistic can be found in the minimums that opponents have shot during the recent games. Since limiting Cleveland to 39.6 percent on March 2, the Spurs have allowed every opponent to shot at least 45.2 percent from the field — a span of 13 games.  

For the month of March, Spurs opponents are hitting 48.3 percent from the field. It’s a trend that a distinct retreat from most Gregg Popovich teams that traditionally improve defensively after the All-Star break.

It’s a vexing problem as the playoffs near, particularly as no jump-shooting team has been able to win an NBA title in recent history.

The Spurs will have to pick up their defense if they want to make a long playoff run this season. 

Here are a few other notes and tidbits from the first game where either Duncan, Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili wasn’t in the starting lineup since the final regular season game last season.

  • George Hill led the team in scoring for the second straight game, scoring 27 points. His two-game, 57-point scoring binge over the last two games is the largest two-game production in his career. He’s hitting 62.5 percent from the field and 76.2 percent from the line during that span.
  • Tiago Splitter had a strong game again, notching 14 points and nine rebounds in 28:21 — his longest playing stint of his career. It was his third-highest scoring game and tied for his second-highest rebounding game. During his last six games, he’s averaging 9.0 points and 8.0 rebounds while shooting 60 percent from the field.
  • Some nights shooters have the kind of game that Gary Neal struggled through Monday night. His 3-for-14 shooting effort — including 2-for-10 in the fourth quarter — represented one of his 10 worst shooting nights of the season.
  • The team could have used more of Neal after  he hit two of his first three shots to start the fourth quarter. From there, he missed his final seven shots. Neal matched his career high with two steals. And his shooting effort ended a recent spree where he’s hit 58.6 percent from the field, shot 62.5 percent from beyond the 3-point line and averaged 15 points in his last three games.
  • Danny Green showed some of the talent that made him one of the top players on North Carolina’s 2009 national championship team as he produced two dunks and a 3-pointer in his 3-for-3 shooting effort. His seven points and 20:15 in playing time both were career highs.
  • DeJuan Blair was limited to three points and five rebounds. His three points were his smallest scoring effort since scoring two points on March 18.  Blair has failed to score in double figures for the last seven games. It’s his longest streak of non-double figure scoring games since starting the season with seven games without double figures. But most significantly, his minutes played are up over last season, but his scoring, rebounding and shooting all have dipped from his rookie season.
  • The Spurs did  show  some defensive improvement during stages of the Portland game. After allowing 58 points in the paint against Memphis Sunday night, they permitted only 34 against Portland. And they limited the Trail Blazers to nine points in the third quarter — lowest production in any quarter by an opponent this season. But they then allowed the Trail Blazers to score 33 points — tied for second-most by an opponent this season — in the pivotal fourth quarter.
  • San Antonio had only three players with positive plus-minus scores with James Anderson at plus-7, Chris Quinn at plus-3 and Steve Novak at plus-2. Neal had the worst score at minus-16, Matt Bonner was at minus-10, Splitter was at minus-8 and Richard Jefferson was at minus-8.