Tag: Danny Green

What the Spurs and Warriors said after the game

Here, courtesy of the folks from Spurs media servies, are some post-game comments from the Spurs and Warriors after San Antonio’s victory Wednesday night at the ATT Center.

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich:

(You used both T.J. Ford and Tony Parker down the stretch…was there something that you saw?)

“We needed to chase those guys.  I wanted to get Tony back in the game, but T.J. was playing great; so we just matched them up that way.  T.J. was fantastic.  Danny Green was fantastic.  The two of them, they gave us the energy to get that ball game.  They played fantastic basketball.”

(It appeared at one point that you were trying to get Tony to be more aggressive, offensively in particular…is this accurate?)

“I want all the players to be aggressive.  Everybody needs to be aggressive and in attack mode all the time.  Tony’s no different.  He’s a great player and when he’s in attack mode, he’s an even better player.”

Spurs guard Danny Green

(On pulling out the victory tonight…)

“We did, it was fun. In the second half we did a great job of shutting down their guards, a little bit. They came out hot and we played better defense. Our shots weren’t falling like we wanted too. Eventually they would fall, but we had to play defense and we ended up doing it.”

(Does success on defense trigger you on offense…)

“I think so; I think it triggers all teams. With us, we play some good defense and we get some stops. We’re able to get out and run and get some open threes. We’re a perimeter team and we were able to get some open looks and some of them fell eventually.”

(On finishing the game after not playing in the first half …)

“I rather finish the game than start.”

 Spurs forward Richard Jefferson

(On hitting all five of his 3-point attempts…)

“Tony had some great passes. We were down quite a few for most of the night. Those two guards were on fire. We kind of caught a break with Stephen Curry going out. It allowed us to focus a little more on Monta, but even then, it was tough to stop him. Danny Green came in and played some amazing defense, but for the most part, I was getting open looks. I think every shot was assisted. They were just good passes from my teammates.”

 (Was it important to win this game without Manu?)

“We have a mentality that were going to be O.K., not because we’re the San Antonio Spurs. It’s because everyone has to step up, everyone has to work extremely hard and everyone has to be more mistake free, than we normally are. Danny Green came in and played some great defense. The defense he was playing, just giving Monta a different look. That’s somebody else stepping up and every night someone else needs to step up because Manu is irreplaceable.”

 Spurs guard Tony Parker

(On playing together with T.J Ford)

“They played small for almost four quarters. T.J was playing well and Pop decided to keep T.J in and I played with him for the last six minutes. It worked out pretty well.”

(How important was it to win this game without Manu…)

“It was good for our confidence. We’re going to play a long time without Manu. In a schedule like this, you have to win games at home. It was a big one for us and now we have a big one tomorrow.”

Golden State Warriors coach Mark Jackson:

(When asked how much the mood changed when Stephen Curry was lost with his injury)

“It’s natural to think here we go again, as a player.  It was a disappointing loss.  Things were still going our way.  The bottom line is giving up 31 points in the fourth quarter is not a way to close out a victory on the road.”

(When asked if the Spurs did anything differently in the fourth quarter)

“They made shots.  We had some breakdowns.  It was disappointing.”

(When asked about the play of Monta Ellis tonight)

“He was incredible and inspiring.  He made every play.  I asked him if he needed a breather, he said, ‘No.’ It didn’t look like he was out of gas.  Not only am I asking him to make the plays on the offensive end, but I’m asking him to defend Tony Parker on the other end.  He gave me everything he had.  I’m proud of his effort and his leadership.  I hope that his passion for the game truly becomes contagious in the locker room.”

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry

(On re-injuring his right ankle…)

“I got the steal. It was either a steal or a deflection but I got the ball. Put up a pump fake in transition and took off on my right foot. I pushed off on my toe and it flipped over. It was just a re-aggravation of the same thing that has been happening. It’s another frustrating incident that I have to deal with.”

(Measuring the severity of his ankle injury based on his other ankle injuries…)

“The way I do it is, I tell the athletic trainers the instant pain I feel and this is the worst it has been. I am sure it has to do with the fact that it’s the third time. It is hard to say exactly how to react. I tried to put weight on it. I did put weight on it. I tried to tape it back up and lace it back up to go back out there but it started to stiffen up. We will just have to see how it reacts tomorrow. It’s déjà vu all over again.”

Green, Jefferson lead Spurs past Denver

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

Denver point guard Ty Lawson, 5-foot-11 with a head of steam, was loose in the open floor, the one place no opposing team wants to see him loose, and T.J. Ford knew what was coming.

“I thought it was going to be a dunk,” the Spurs’ backup point guard said Saturday.

Ford did not count on Richard Jefferson strapping on a Superman cape, likely lifted from Manu Ginobili’s locker, and stepping back in time. Nor did he count on the power of positive frustration.

Jefferson beat Lawson, one of the NBA’s fastest guards, in a 90-foot dash to one end of the ATT Center for a run-down block, then followed with a 3-point dagger at the other. That five-point swing squelched a last-gasp charge from the feisty Nuggets, keying a 121-117 victory for the Spurs.

Instead of Denver cutting what had been a 20-point deficit to three with less than two minutes to play, Jefferson’s superhero routine provided the Spurs an eight-point advantage and just enough juice to pull out their third consecutive victory without Ginobili, the injured All-Star guard.

Jefferson said the play was borne of pure annoyance. He was tired of watching Denver put on a layup parade.

“They had been running it down our throats all game long,” said Jefferson, who finished with 19 points and, continuing his torrid shooting, made 5 of 8 on 3-pointers. “The coaches had been talking about it for two days. I’m glad I was able to catch him.”

With Ginobili out, the Spurs (6-2) have been in nightly search of a hero to help them hold the fort. Jefferson had the game’s signature moment, but he was Robin to the Batman played by Danny Green, a 24-year-old journeyman guard.

Green, a 5.3-point-per-game scorer whose previous career best was 13, pumped in 24 points, lifting the Spurs at moments when it appeared nobody else could. He made 9 of his 13 tries, none bigger than back-to-back drives midway in the third quarter with Denver closing.

Green attributed his outburst to “luck, opportunity, a lot of things.”

Surely, the Nuggets (6-3) would agree. The book on Green in Denver’s pregame scouting report was like something out of Reader’s Digest.

“We didn’t know about Danny Green at all,” forward Corey Brewer said.

Green’s stealth was understandable. He didn’t log meaningful minutes until two games earlier, when Spurs coach Gregg Popovich stumbled upon him as a defensive answer to high-scoring Golden State guard Monta Ellis.

Nobody — on either bench — really expected Green to produce a stat line like Saturday’s, which also included seven rebounds and a key fourth-quarter charge drawn against Arron Afflalo.

“He did a little more than I thought he would do,” Nuggets coach George Karl said.

This is how Popovich knew his team would have to win after Ginobili broke his hand in Minnesota on Jan. 2 — everybody stepping up, with unexpected production from unexpected sources.

How’s this for stepping up? The Spurs have not trailed for a single second in any of the past eight quarters, beating Dallas and Denver wire-to-wire.

Green’s explosion helped offset another career-night — 31 points from Denver forward Danilo Gallinari, including 16 in a torrid third quarter that kept the Nuggets from capsizing.

Tony Parker scored nine of his 19 points in the fourth quarter to help steer the Spurs toward a 6-0 start at home.

Still the Nuggets had hope when Lawson broke free in the final two minutes, nothing between himself and a dunk but a few dozen feet of hardwood.

Lawson and his coach would dispute what happened next, when Jefferson tracked down the track-star point guard and slapped his shot away.

“He got away with murder,” Lawson said.

Crime or not, whistle or no, a dunk at one end became a 3-pointer at the other and for the Spurs, frustration gave way to victory.

Spurs drill Mavs in 3-point no-contest

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

The first sign something had gone awry came when Matt Bonner — not typically a point guard nor a ball-handler — dribbled away about 12 seconds of the shot clock before finding himself trapped between a pair of 7-footers in Dallas blue.

Bailed out by a timeout with 4.8 seconds left on the shot clock, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich drew up a play that almost certainly didn’t include Richard Jefferson milking about 4.4 of those seconds before hot-potatoing the ball to backup point guard T.J. Ford about 5 feet behind the 3-point stripe.

After his Hail Mary found the bottom of the net, one of 11 3-pointers the Spurs would make in the first half of Thursday’s 93-71 rout of the defending NBA champion Mavericks, Ford offered the only reaction that seemed appropriate.

He shrugged.

“I didn’t give a you-know-what,” Ford said. “I just threw it up there, and it went in.”

That was the first half in a nutshell for the Spurs, who used a red-hot opening to their first 5-0 start at the ATT Center since 2007-08.

Gary Neal earned his second career start in place of injured All-Star guard Manu Ginobili and set the tone early, burying a pair of 3-pointers in the game’s first 89 seconds.

By halftime, the Spurs had hit 11 of 18 from beyond the arc, equaling both the number of total field goals Dallas had made and turnovers the Mavs had committed.

At that point, the Spurs had outscored the Mavs from 3-point range by a startling margin of 33-0. Bonner had outscored Dallas’ starting five 11-8. Not surprisingly, the Spurs led convincingly at half, 55-29.

“It’s always like that,” said Bonner, who made five 3-pointers en route to 17 points, out? scoring Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki combined. “Misses are contagious, and makes are contagious.”

In the second half, an epidemic case of clank-itis broke out at the ATT Center.

With Dallas (3-5) playing its fourth game in five nights, and the Spurs (5-2) playing their third in four, the final two quarters were played on fumes. The third quarter, in which the teams combined to miss 33 of 41 shots, was lockout ball at its not-so-finest.

The Spurs scored just 11 points in the frame, yet saw their halftime lead of 26 shaved by just two points heading into the fourth.

“Neither team was very sharp,” said Popovich, whose team finished 16 of 33 from 3-point range. “We’re thrilled to have the win. We’re not going to give it away.”

Nowitzki, who came in averaging better than 22 points, struggled through a 3-for-11 night on his way to six points. For the reigning Finals MVP, it was the worst scoring night since Dec. 18, 2009 when he notched six points in 10 minutes in a loss to Houston, a game Nowitzki left early after a collision with the Rockets’ Carl Landry.

“You didn’t see the real Dirk tonight, that’s for sure,” Popovich said.

The list of Spurs who outscored Nowitzki included Jefferson (16 points, seven rebounds), Neal (12 points), Tony Parker (11 points, eight assists), Danny Green (eight) and Ford (seven).

Dallas coach Rick Carlisle refused to let the rugged schedule take all the blame for the dinosaur egg the Mavs laid.

“San Antonio’s energy was better to start the game,” said Carlisle, whose team made just 1 of 19 3-pointers. “We struggled, but their competitive level was higher and that was the difference in the game.”

And sometimes, as Ford proved with a prayer and a shrug early in the second quarter, the difference is in catching a team on the right night.

Ford’s clock-beating bomb, which inflated a 14-point lead to 17, was his only field goal until the fourth quarter.

“That was nothing that you can practice,” Ford said. “Just great timing.”

In a lockout-compressed season like this one, sometimes timing is everything.