Tag: Gregg Popovich

‘Spoon’ fed: Undrafted rookie leads Spurs past Houston


































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By Jeff McDonald

HOUSTON – When Spurs coach Gregg Popovich first informed Wesley Witherspoon he’d be in the starting lineup for Sunday afternoon’s preseason matinee at Houston, the rookie from Memphis tried to stay stone-faced.

All the while, his stomach was performing a gymnastics routine straight out of the Summer Olympics.

“Somersaults, cartwheels and everything else,” Witherspoon said. “The emotions were definitely flying.”

One day, Witherspoon will be able to tell his grandchildren he not only started next to Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, but he also outscored them.

With Popovich opting to give his top two small forwards — Kawhi Leonard and Stephen Jackson — the day off, Witherspoon pumped in a team-high 17 points in the Spurs’ 116-107 victory at the Toyota Center.

Gifted with his first extended playing time of the preseason, the 22-year-old undrafted free agent buried 6 of 9 shots — including a pair of 3-pointers — and hauled in four rebounds.

“The veteran guys tell us young guys to stay ready,” Witherspoon said. “You never know when your number’s going to be called. This was one of those cases.”

Aside from Witherspoon, Popovich used his regular starting lineup Sunday.

Duncan and Parker lasted a quarter, staking the Spurs to a 27-16 lead, before their coach gave them the rest of the afternoon off, too.

Returning from a two-game respite while dealing with a sore right heel, Manu Ginobili — the third leg of the Spurs’ Big Three — contributed 11 points and three assists off the bench. More importantly, he logged nearly 18 minutes of playing time and came out no worse for wear.

The Spurs — who also got 16 points out of DeJuan Blair and 15 from formerly slumping shooting guard Danny Green — led nearly wire to wire in handing the Rockets their first preseason loss.

“The good thing is, we really moved the ball well and got a lot of people involved,” Ginobili said. “Defensively, we’ve got a lot to do to get where we want to.”

The new-look Rockets, whose offseason makeover included the acquisition of point guard Jeremy Lin, big man Omer Asik and reserve guard Carlos Delfino, spent much of the first half in disarray.

Lin, last season’s Cinderella storyline, finished 1 of 10 with one assist in little more than 25 minutes. The Spurs held Houston to 43.2 percent shooting, and squeezed 21 points from 15 Rockets turnovers.

As an example of how he hopes the rebuilt Rockets will one day learn to play, Houston coach Kevin McHale pointed to the visitors in silver and black.

“The Spurs are a smart, disciplined team,” McHale said. “They know what they want to give you, and they know what they want to take away. We didn’t take what they gave us, and we attacked what they wanted to take away. That’s the worst-case scenario.”

Even as the Spurs improved to 3-1 in the preseason, Ginobili said the team remains a work in progress.

“We’ve just been working together for 10 days,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”

If Sunday was the end for Witherspoon, he at least went out in style.

The Spurs have only one roster spot available, and are well-stocked at Witherspoon’s position. Most likely, cut day is coming soon for Witherspoon. Deep down, he probably knows it.

But for one stunning Sunday afternoon in Houston, he was a rookie starting among NBA All-Stars. And if you squinted just right, it was difficult to tell which was which.

“I grew up watching those guys, watched them win championships,” Witherspoon said. “To be on the same team as them is a blessing.”

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

Brown appreciates chance to earn Spurs roster spot

By Jeff McDonald

HOUSTON — Derrick Brown says he received make-good offers from a handful of other teams before the start of this year’s training camp.

He chose to go camping with the Spurs, despite the fact the team has only one roster spot open.

Two weeks in, and no matter what happens, the versatile forward is confident he made the right decision.

“You don’t appreciate things sometimes until you’ve seen something else,” said Brown, a former Charlotte Bobcat. “I love it here. From top to bottom, this organization is run the right way. I’d love to be a part of it. Love to.”

Three games into the preseason, Brown is doing his best to make that wish come true.

While fans have focused on more familiar names such as Eddy Curry and Josh Powell in the race for the Spurs’ final available slot, Brown has helped himself with a solid camp and exhibition season.

In three games, Brown, 25, has averaged seven points in 15.7 minutes per game.

The 6-foot-9 combo forward has played mostly power forward during his run with the Spurs. His athleticism and ability to guard small forwards has inflated his stock among Spurs decision-makers.

A three-year veteran, Brown played all but eight of his 171 NBA games with Charlotte, where Spurs forward Stephen Jackson was a teammate for two seasons.

“He actually gave (one-time All-Star) Gerald Wallace a run for his money every day in practice,” Jackson said. “I think that’s what opened a lot of people’s eyes that he belongs in this league.”

Brown, who averaged 8.1 points and 3.6 rebounds for a dismal Charlotte team last season, says his experience with the Bobcats has prepared him for this shot with the Spurs.

“I learned a long time ago, you can’t control the situation that you’re in, but you can control what you do in that situation,” Brown said. “If you learn from it, it makes you who you are.

“I can’t control that I have to make a team this year. I can only play.”

Decisions can wait: Throughout the preseason, coach Gregg Popovich has deflected questions aimed at handicapping what the team plans to do with its final roster spot — assuming the team plans to fill it at all.

The Spurs must make at least three more cuts before the start of the season.

With Curry, Powell and Brown all contributing positive things in spurts, Popovich believes the final roster decision will go down to the wire.

“I think it will take a while,” Popovich said. “A couple of those guys will make it to the very end, I would imagine, if they keep playing the way they are now.”

All aboard for Houston: The Spurs took a full plane to Houston, meaning — in theory at least — today’s game against the Rockets could feature many roster regulars.

Only reserve point guard Patty Mills, nursing a right ankle sprain, has been ruled out. Manu Ginobili is expected to return after missing the past two games with a sore foot.

Pop wants Spurs to remember ‘nasty’ feeling

By Jeff McDonald

Four months later, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is still asking for some nasty.

His players say they are ready and willing to oblige.

“A lot of people still see us as the nice Spurs,” point guard Tony Parker said. “This year, I think we need to play like we’re hungry and we want it.”

It is a question of attitude and a question of identity, which Popovich believes the Spurs surrendered in the final four games of last year’s playoff ejection against Oklahoma City.

That “nasty” Popovich asked for and received during a memorable timeout in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals is what the Spurs aim to channel into a full 82-game slate this season.

“Everybody needs to eat some gunpowder before every game,” said forward Stephen Jackson, who often plays as if he’s ingested an entire arsenal. “We need to be more fired up, a tougher team.”

It would be overkill to suggest tonight’s preseason opener against Italian team Montepaschi Siena at the ATT Center represents the opening salvo of the Spurs’ own personal hunger games.

But it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Siena to practice a duck-and-cover drill beforehand, just to be safe.

Popovich’s intent from the start of training camp — which began with a film-session flashback of last summer’s collapse against the Thunder — has been to nurture a growing chip on the shoulder of his players.

“We have to stop saying, ‘Oh, we won a lot of championships and we’ll come back,’?” Parker said. “We have to play with more attitude — like Pop said, more nasty — all season long.”

Nasty lasted for about two games of last year’s series with OKC, as the Spurs watched their 2-0 lead dissolve into a six-game ouster that propelled the Thunder to the NBA Finals for the first time.

“There was an identity theft that took place in that playoff,” Popovich said. “We played like the Spurs the first couple of games. Oklahoma City, I believe, learned from that and they played like we did offensively, sharing the ball and trusting their teammates, and we lost our identity.

“I want to make sure we understand that and get that back.”

Popovich hopes that nasty attitude will manifest itself most often on the defensive end this season. For the 16th consecutive fall, he opened training camp vowing to improve the Spurs’ mercurial ability to guard people.

As the Spurs have transformed into a more offensive-oriented team in recent years, their defensive standing has declined.

In 2011-12, they ranked second in the NBA by scoring 103.7 points per game. Defensively, they were below the league average in both points allowed (96.5 per game) and field-goal percentage defense (44.8 percent).

“We’ve got to do our best to become a better defensive team,” Popovich said. “That’s easy to say, but it’s more about a consistency that we didn’t have.”

A fair question: How can a team that made limited personnel changes, bringing back 13 players from last year’s squad, expect to make those strides?

“It’s just an all-around team focus on being a defensive ballclub,” power forward Tim Duncan said. “I think the last couple years, our focus has kind of been on offense, trying to up our tempo and be more of a scoring team. We want to keep that, obviously. But defensively, we’re going to have to be better.”

As the Spurs proved for a brief shining moment last June, there’s no problem an attitude adjustment can’t fix.

Their season of nasty begins tonight.

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN