Tag: DeJuan Blair

Spurs demolish Kings; clinch top seed

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

Showered and dressed and dispensed with his media duties in the wake of the Spurs’ 124-92 victory over Sacramento on Wednesday, Manu Ginobili was in a hurry to get home.

The L.A. Lakers and Golden State were already in the first quarter of a nationally televised game that had immediate implications on the Spurs’ playoff seeding.

Ginobili, however, had other viewing plans. Like the insides of his eyelids.

“I’ll probably just go to sleep,” he said.

What Ginobili might have missed, while catching his Zs, was the Spurs’ dream scenario come to fruition. Thanks to the Lakers’ 95-87 loss in Oakland hours later, the Spurs clinched the Western Conference’s No. 1 seed for the first time since 2005-06.

All along, coach Gregg Popovich has been blasé about the importance the conference’s top spot, a half-hearted “nobody would turn it down” being his most enthusiastic endorsement.

Popovich’s laissez faire philosophy was evident in Ginobili’s postgame itinerary. It was not reflected in the hair-on-fire effort with which the Spurs approached their end of the bargain Wednesday night at the ATT Center against the Kings.

Behind 25 points from Ginobili, 19 off the bench from George Hill and a pinball-tilting third quarter that tested the limits of the club’s offensive record books, the Spurs pulled onto the doorstep of the No. 1 seed that never was their obsession to begin with.

“We’ve had it and won and had it and lost,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “The best team usually ends up winning.”

Under Popovich, the Spurs have owned the No. 1 seed four other times, parlaying it into championships in 1999 and 2003. In 2005, they won with a two seed. In 2007, they did it from the third slot.

“We knew it wasn’t the end of the world to finish second,” Ginobili said, even before the seeding was official. “At the same time, after the kind of season we had, we wanted it.”

It has been quite a turnabout from five days earlier, when the Spurs were on a six-game losing streak and in danger of fumbling the No. 1 seed within sight of the finish line.

With Wednesday’s win, the Spurs improved to 60-19, ensuring the fourth 60-win season in franchise history and the first since the 2005-06 team won a franchise-record 63 games.

“We knew we were not going to lose every single game for the remainder of the season,” Ginobili said, although at times it seemed that way.

Now, the Spurs have the option of downshifting over the final three games of the season, though they remain in a pitched battle with Chicago for the NBA’s top overall record.

Wednesday, with seeding still up for grabs, there was no let-up.

The Spurs scored a season-high 41 points in the third quarter, on 14 of 17 shooting, to transform a 51-49 lead at half into their most lopsided win of the season.

“Our thing was if we could get rebounds and push it, it would open the game up,” said Hill, who had 12 points in the third. “And that’s what happened.”

The victory the 796th of Popovich’s career, moving him past Hall of Famer Red Auerbach for the second-most with one team in NBA history.

Popovich’s favorite moment came late in the fourth quarter, with the game long since decided. DeJuan Blair jumped a pass from Tyreke Evans, knocking the ball toward the sideline.

With the ball rolling out of bounds, Blair hit the ground, beating Jason Thompson to it and slapping it ahead to Danny Green to ignite a fast-break layup.

As Blair came back down the court, Popovich leapt up and down and pumped his fist in approval.

“Coaches love that sort of thing,” Popovich said. “That kind of effort is above and beyond.”

Above and beyond, the Spurs have locked down the top seed they swear – perhaps a little too vehemently – never mattered all that much in the first place.

But, no, they’re not going to turn it down.

Blair continues to toggle with Tiago in a reserve role

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

ATLANTA — One game after not playing at all in the first half, DeJuan Blair was back as the Spurs’ second-unit center in Tuesday’s 97-90 victory over Atlanta.

Rookie Tiago Splitter was back to taking a DNP-CD.

Blair responded with a performance that was solid, but not spectacular, logging seven points and five rebounds in 13:06.

“My role is just to be ready at all times,” Blair said. “Because you never know.”

Blair admits not knowing hasn’t been easy over the past month, after he went from starting the first 53 games of the season to earning sporadic minutes off the bench.

“With the change in the lineup, I go back to thinking again — what do I do?” Blair said. “I’ve got to get that out of my head, somehow.”

Blair said Spurs coaches have offered him one standard piece of advice: Be a pro.

Asked what that means to him, Blair repeated himself: “Just be ready.”

For the season, Blair is averaging 8.7 points and 7.3 rebounds as a starter, and 6.3 points and 5.2 rebounds in 14 games as a sub.

“Bench minutes are something you have to get used to,” guard George Hill said, “but I think he’s handling it well.”

Asked after Tuesday’s game how he thought Blair was handling his new role, coach Gregg Popovich chose his words carefully.

“DeJuan’s working at it,” he said.

POP, MEET RED: Tuesday’s victory gave Popovich 795 for his career, matching Boston’s Red Auerbach for second on the NBA’s all-time wins list with one team.

Jerry Sloan, who retired in February after racking up 1,127 wins in Utah, is first.

Even though he grew up in Argentina, Manu Ginobili is aware of the magnitude of Popovich’s feat.

“Red Auerbach is a myth in the NBA, he’s huge,” Ginobili said. “I’m glad for Pop. He’s a great coach. He deserves big honors.”

POP PRAISES WORM: The man who traded Dennis Rodman from San Antonio gives his recent election to the Hall of Fame two thumbs up.

“I think it’s great,” said Popovich, who inherited the mercurial Rodman when he took over as Spurs general manager in 1994. “He’s one of the top rebounders we ever had, and the rest of his game was probably even better than we all thought. He’s been important to teams winning championships. In that sense, he deserves it.”

Rodman, who played two productive but tumultuous seasons with the Spurs in 1993-94 and 1994-95, was announced Monday as part of the Hall’s 2011 induction class. Rodman averaged 17.3 rebounds his first season in San Antonio and 16.8 his second, and was an integral part of a team that lost to Houston in the 1995 Western Conference finals.

But Rodman’s flamboyant personality clashed with coaches, management and players. After the 1995 season, Popovich dealt him to Chicago for Will Perdue.

Rodman still holds Spurs franchise rebounding records for a game (32) and a season (1,367 in 1993-94).

Splitter, Hill have been bright spots in skid

Tiago Splitter has long since ditched the GPS he needed to find the Spurs’ practice facility back in training camp. He has discovered a few places in San Antonio for good Mexican food, though he admits he sometimes prefers to stay in for his wife’s home-cooked paella.

In an even more significant development for the prized rookie center, Splitter is beginning to feel at home in an NBA arena. And he no longer needs a GPS to find playing time.

For the first time, Splitter has begun to feel like a card-carrying member of the San Antonio Spurs.

“I’m getting more confident and feeling like I’m part of the team,” the 25-year-old Brazilian said.

George Hill has been a key member of the Spurs for two-plus seasons already. Unlike Splitter, who had been searching for a feeling he hadn’t yet experienced, Hill’s recent transformation has been about locating a feeling he once had but lost.

“It’s been in my head that I need to get back to being aggressive,” Hill, a 6-foot-3 reserve guard, said after totaling 57 points the past two games.

The downside of the Spurs’ recent four-game slide is evident in the NBA standings. The Los Angeles Lakers have crept within 31/2 games of the top spot in the Western Conference. Chicago looms within 31/2 games in the race for the NBA’s top overall record.

If there is an upside to a losing streak, it is this:

Awarded playing time he might not have found with Tim Duncan healthy, Splitter suddenly looks like a credible NBA big man. Given the freedom and confidence to seek out his own points, Hill again looks like the kind of incendiary bench spark that helps win playoff series.

Splitter had appeared in just 47 of the first 68 games and seemed ticketed for a string of postseason Did-Not-Plays, before Duncan went down with a left ankle sprain March 21 against Golden State. In the past five games replacing the Spurs icon, four of them starts, the 6-foot-11 Splitter has averaged 9.2 points and 8.4 rebounds in 27:50.

“You forget he was the best player in Europe the last couple years,” center DeJuan Blair said. “Now he’s finding his way.”

In Monday’s 100-92 loss to Portland, with Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and Antonio McDyess also in street clothes, Splitter at last found his way onto the court in the fourth quarter of a tight game.

Spurs guard George Hill has scored 57 points over the past two games, with one or both star guards, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, on the bench. (Edward A. Ornelas/Express-News)

Splitter didn’t change the outcome — the Spurs, for the fourth game in a row, faltered late — but he almost did. With the Spurs down six in the final two minutes, Splitter unfurled a series of up-fakes on LaMarcus Aldridge that one overexcited courtside observer compared to a Kevin McHale move.

It resulted in a basket and a foul and would have brought the Spurs within three had Splitter not badly missed the free throw.

Splitter, coach Gregg Popovich said, “picks things up quickly.” That includes the tendencies of opposing players.

“Even though I watched a lot of NBA games before I got here, it’s not the same as when you can get on the court and see them work,” said Splitter, who had 14 points and nine rebounds against Portland.

Hill, the Spurs’ fourth-leading scorer and highest-scoring reserve at 11.5 points per game, had lately fallen into a pattern of deference and unselfishness. Those are good qualities for a Red Cross volunteer, but not so much for a sixth man Popovich envisions as sort of a Ginobili-lite.

With Ginobili out for the second half in Memphis, and he and Parker out for all four quarters Monday, Hill had no choice but to look for his own shots, creating them out of whole cloth when necessary.

The result: a 30-point game against the Grizzlies, equaling a career high, followed by 27 points against Portland.

It marks the most prolific two-game stretch of Hill’s career.

“We’d like to continue to see George continue to play with that kind of scoring mentality,” Popovich said. “He’s good at it, and we need it.”

If Hill and Splitter can keep it up, the Spurs might have just discovered two more players who can turn a playoff series.

No GPS required.