Tag: Gregg Popovich

Leonard says ‘My motor’s still going’

After playing 64 regular-season games and all four games of the Spurs’ first-round playoff sweep of the Utah Jazz, forward Kawhi Leonard feels he is ready for whatever comes next.

“I feel real good physically,” the 20-year-old rookie from San Diego State said after Wednesday’s practice. “I’m just excited by that playoff intensity. It’s got my body motor still going. I’m ready to play right now.”

Leonard moved into the starting lineup after the March 16 trade that sent veteran Richard Jefferson to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for Stephen Jackson and has remained there since, including the four first-round games against the Jazz. He logged an average of 20 minutes per game and produced averages of 7.0 points and 3.3 rebounds in his first taste of postseason play.

“I thought he did well,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “He was steady. He didn’t make very many mistakes. He executed the defensive rotations, team-wise.

“On offense he seemed calm. He took his shots. I thought he did very well.”

Forewarned by veteran teammates about the increased physicality and intensity of the postseason, Leonard came through his first playoff experience unfazed.

“The first round was just what I expected: high-intensity basketball, everybody just continuing to try to win and get to the next round,” he said. “Nothing really surprised me in the games at all.”

Leonard’s preparation for the Western Conference semifinals has included watching each of the Clippers-Grizzlies games, but his focus during the hiatus between rounds has remained with the Spurs.

“I’ve been watching them play to see what those teams are doing during the playoffs and just to see what’s working for them,” he said, “but I’m staying with us trying to get better as a team right now and not worrying about who I’m guarding next.

“Once we find out who we’re playing, I’ll start getting some scouting on them and go from there.”

Twin peeks: The late starts of Clippers-Grizzlies games have allowed Spurs guard Manu Ginobili to focus on watching those games and take a few notes on how the potential second-round opponents are playing.

Ginobili said he gets his twin 2-year-old sons, Nicola and Dante, in their pajamas and off to bed just about tipoff time.

“The later the better,” he said of his TV viewing of playoff games. “They usually go to bed at 8:30 or 9, so before that, it’s very hard to watch anything. But once they are in bed, the games in the West are easy for me to watch.”

Money matters: By getting to the conference semifinals, the Spurs added $230,853 to their pool of playoff money that will be distributed to players once the playoff run ends.

Added to the $328,078 they earned for finishing with the best record in the West and the $194,016 that went to every team that participated in the first round, the Spurs’ share of the NBA’s $13 million playoff pool is up to $752,947.

mikemonroe@express-news.net

Twitter: @Monroe_SA

Jackson gave Spurs boost while with Bucks

By Mike Monroe

Long before he returned to the Spurs in mid-March, forward Stephen Jackson already had contributed in a major way to the steady defensive improvement that helped his future old team secure the top seed in the Western Conference.

By torching the Spurs for 34 points in the Bucks’ 106-103 victory in Milwaukee on Jan. 10, Jackson provided Gregg Popovich a teachable moment the Spurs coach deemed worthy of hyperbole.

At the time, Popovich declared this was “the worst defensive team we’ve ever had,” a criticism calculated to grab the attention of players he feared had become overly reliant with an uptempo offense that was producing more points than nearly every other team in the NBA.

Since receiving that none-too-subtle reminder of their defensive deficiencies, the Spurs have continued to shore things up in that area. They proceeded to hold the Jazz to 38.2 percent shooting in a first-round playoff sweep.

No team in the other seven first-round series has held an opponent to a lower percentage, a fact even Popovich finds moderately encouraging.

“I think Utah helped us a little bit,” Popovich said after running his team through a vigorous, 90-minute practice Wednesday aimed at keeping the team sharp for the upcoming conference semifinals. “They didn’t shoot the ball very well, and I thought we were pretty focused defensively on what we wanted ? to do, especially in the paint. So I thought we did a good job defensively.

“We want to continue to get better because we haven’t been great all year long. We’ve been basically average, so we worked on defense for a decent amount of time today again in hopes we’ll continue to get better.”

Jackson laughed at the notion that the most productive game of his short stay in Milwaukee had instigated the sort of postgame Popovich rant he was familiar with from his first stint with the Spurs (2001-03).

“Everything Pop says is to motivate guys and to get guys to see the big picture,” Jackson said. “I wasn’t here at the time so I don’t know what the conversation was about, but being back, I feel confident with our defense.

“I think we’re starting to get more and more on the same page, and we’re starting to trust each other a little more. That’s a good thing.”

It hasn’t hurt that the Spurs added two solid defenders since then. Jackson, dealt for March 17, and Boris Diaw, signed as a free agent March 26, have played outstanding individual defense while getting comfortable with the Spurs’ complicated system of rotations.

Always known mostly for his complete offensive game, Diaw surprised Popovich with his ability to limit some of the league’s better post players.

“What I always try to do, on every team, is try to give what the team needs,” Diaw said. “I’m not really coming with one set of skills — ‘This is what I do, and that’s it.’ I’m trying to fit in with the team. The Spurs, when they were thinking about me, they were thinking about the days of (when I was with) Phoenix. Teams back then were really offensive-oriented. I knew coming back here, we needed good, solid defense.”

Diaw’s familiarization process continued in the rugged first-round series against Utah.

“With the new guys, it takes a little bit of time to get comfortable with whatever rotations we’re going to be in or whatever calls we might be in,” Popovich said. “In the heat of battle sometimes you can’t remember things the same way. It takes repetition, and there hasn’t been a whole lot of that.

“They do a pretty good job on an individual basis, but they still have to learn the systems of team defense.”

mikemonroe@express-news.net
Twitter: @Monroe_SA

Banner this — Spurs earned the series

Column by Buck Harvey

Someone put in a work order, and someone pulled down the banner. Then, someone added this to the bottom of the list:

“2011-12.”

Someone pulled the banner back to where it had been, high on one end of the ATT Center. And, with that, the Spurs had announced they had won another division title.

Someone might have noticed.

But, this time, the Spurs need to do more to show what they accomplished in the regular season.

The playoffs suggest as much.

There was a time the Spurs hung individual banners every time they came in first in their division. There was also a time when the Spurs had never won an NBA title.

But as the years passed, and their standards changed, so did their sense of success. Now they stencil in the next divisional title with the casualness of a prisoner marking off another day on the calendar. This season they won their 18th.

It doesn’t mean much. Furthermore, winning the division had little to do with what they actually accomplished, which was securing the No. 1 seed.

But this is the only way the Spurs publicly note a successful regular season, and this one was that and more. The Spurs rose at the end, drawing Utah, and the contrast to that is clear.

Anyone else watching Oklahoma City play Dallas?

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Gary Neal said, nodding his head. “There’s a difference.”

Neal went out of his way not to disrespect the Jazz. He knows, as his teammates do, there will be challenges in Utah.

But isn’t it clear to everyone? The defending champs took the Thunder to the last shot in both games in Oklahoma City.

Gregg Popovich was asked the other day if there was a difference between being the No. 1 or No. 2 seed, and he said this: It depends.

A year ago, for example, it didn’t help. Memphis was a No. 8 seed in name only.

But Utah is the real thing. The Jazz have none of the swagger of the Grizzlies, and they also don’t have the same talent. Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson are solid big men, but neither is what Zach Randolph was a year ago.

The Jazz aren’t as awful as they were Wednesday. Neal had more points in 15 minutes (11) Wednesday than any Utah player had for the game.

They want to believe they are better than this, too. The Jazz said the right things afterward, that the Spurs merely did what the home team is supposed to do.

But there was nothing in their play that indicates they believe, and there are reasons. The Jazz, for example, were less concerned about the seeding. The franchise had been splintered a year ago, and they felt good getting into the playoffs. They were hoping for more, but now it’s reality for them.

“We got to learn our lessons from it and scrap it,” coach Tyrone Corbin said Wednesday, “and then start it over.”

Going by their body language: Starting over begins in training camp next fall.

The Spurs haven’t been in a series like this, curiously, since the 2007 Finals against Cleveland. They won the first two against Phoenix in the first round the next year, but that series started nothing like this one. Then, the Spurs needed double overtime and a Tim Duncan 3-pointer.

The Spurs might lose a game in Salt Lake City. And if they don’t, a sweep won’t guarantee a thing. The Spurs swept Memphis in 2004, after all, and didn’t make the conference finals.

Still, the postseason is a grind. Being able to lessen that means something.

Avoiding a dangerous opponent means more. So while the Thunder play the Mavericks tonight in Dallas, the Spurs are flying in the other direction.

Someone needs to edit the banner to say that.

bharvey@express-news.net
Twitter: @Buck_SA

SPURS LEAD BEST-OF-7 SERIES 2-0

Game 1:

Game 2:

Game 3 Saturday: Spurs @Jazz, 9 p.m.
TV: FSNSW, TNT Radio: WOAI-AM 1200; KCOR-AM 1350?

Game 4 Monday: Spurs @Jazz, TBD
TV: FSNSW, TBD Radio: WOAI-AM 1200; KCOR-AM 1350?

* Game 5 Wednesday: Jazz @Spurs, TBD
TV: FSNSW, TBD Radio: WOAI-AM 1200; KCOR-AM 1350?

* Game 6 May 11: Spurs @Jazz, TBD
TV: FSNSW, TBD Radio: WOAI-AM 1200; KCOR-AM 1350?

* Game 7 May 13: Jazz @Spurs, TBD
TV: TBD Radio: WOAI-AM 1200; KCOR-AM 1350?

* — As needed in best-of-7 series