Gregg Popovich | SAN ANTONIO SPURS TICKETS

Leonard recalls short time with Pacers

By Jeff McDonald

It doesn’t take Kawhi Leonard long to recount the entirety of his career as an Indiana Pacer.

NBA commissioner David Stern announced him as the 15th pick in the June draft. Someone handed Leonard a Pacers ball cap as he walked up on stage at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. He shook the commissioner’s hand. He walked off stage.

“And then a media person in the back told me I had been traded,” Leonard said.

Leonard was the property of the Pacers for all of five minutes before being informed he’d been swapped to the Spurs in a pre-arranged deal for guard George Hill.

The Spurs rookie small forward faces his, ahem, former team for the first time tonight when the Pacers visit the ATT Center.

It’s not as if Leonard will be out for revenge against the team that traded him. He’s enjoying life as a starting member of a Spurs team boasting the Western Conference’s second-best record.

He recalls being neither stunned nor daunted by the trade.

“It still felt good,” Leonard said. “I got drafted that day. I was happy with whatever team wanted me.”

Acquired for his skills as a defender and rebounder, Leonard is averaging 8.3 points, an offensive output that has surprised coach Gregg Popovich. In March, the 6-foot-7 Leonard is contributing 11.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game.

“He’s been great all year long,” Tim Duncan said. “Even with Pop getting on him at times, he responds the right way. That’s big for a rook.

“The steals, the one-man fast breaks, all those things — they’re great for us. He adds a new dimension to our team.”

Nash missing Diaw: After obtaining a buyout from Charlotte a little more than a week ago, recently acquired forward Boris Diaw admits he talked to his old friend, Steve Nash, about the possibility of reuniting in Phoenix.

But Diaw wouldn’t go so far as to call it a recruiting pitch.

“He’s a friend, so I talk to him every now and then,” said Diaw, who played for Phoenix from 2005 to 2008. “We were talking about it, when people knew I was on the verge of being bought out by Charlotte. I got some interest from a few teams.”

According to a report in the New York Post, citing an unidentified source, Nash is upset Suns management didn’t do more to lure Diaw back to Phoenix.

Diaw, 29, instead signed with the Spurs, where has averaged 2.4 points, 3.6 rebounds, two assists and 1.4 steals in five games.

False Aussie advertising: Patrick Mills, the Australian point guard who joined the Spurs over the weekend, is sheepish to admit it.

He has indeed been to Outback Steakhouse. What’s more, he kind of liked it.

“I go there for the cheesy fries,” Mills said.

Yes, it’s a little like Yao Ming frequenting Panda Express. Or Eduardo Najera noshing at Taco Bell.

Mills is quick to point out to American diners that Outback probably isn’t the best representative of his home country’s cuisine.

“I might be the most Australian thing in there,” Mills said

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

Popovich altering Spurs’ traditional successful formula

By Jeff McDonald

Defense wins championships.

It’s a bromide as old as James Naismith’s first peach basket game, handed down through the ages to junior high players the world over in the form of a T-shirt slogan.

For almost as long, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has believed in the power of defense as well, riding it to four NBA titles between 1999 and 2007.

Last offseason, in part to preserve his own sanity, Popovich vowed to get the Spurs back to playing the brand of defense that stocked the ATT Center trophy case with Larry O’Brien hardware.

So at first blush, what Popovich said after Wednesday’s scoreboard-spinning 117-112 victory at Sacramento might sound like sacrilege, if not surrender.

“We spend more time working on offense these days, because our defense won’t be as good as it used to be in the past,” Popovich said. “It just won’t.”

If the Spurs aim to capture their fifth NBA championship this June, they will do so fighting uphill against tried-and-true conventional wisdom.

In the years since the Spurs won the first of their titles in 1999, only two teams — the 2001 L.A. Lakers and 2006 Miami Heat — have won a title without finishing top 10 in both field-goal percentage defense and scoring defense.

The Spurs (35-14) rank 20th in the former category, surrendering 45.4 percent shooting. They are 17th in the latter, allowing 96.4 points per game.

Spurs forward Tim Duncan, a key component of four teams that suffocated their way to titles, hasn’t abandoned the dream of fielding an elite defensive team again.

“We’d like to be that team,” Duncan said, and the recent additions of Stephen Jackson and Boris Diaw should help.

Still, Duncan acknowledges the NBA has changed since 1999. Defense alone might not be enough to win it all.

“You have to score a lot more points now,” Duncan said. “I don’t think it’s the league of old, where you can score in the 80s and defend your butt off and still win championships.”

That’s the reality Popovich has come to accept as he pushes his team to push the pace on offense. A season after posting a Popovich-era record 103.7 points per game, the Spurs are averaging 101.2 this season, third-most in the league, and that offensive firepower has earned the Spurs greater margin for error on the defensive end.

“Nobody’s capable of doing it one way,” Popovich said. “You can’t think you’re going to win every game by scoring 100, or by holding somebody to 80. You have to be able to do things differently.”

The Spurs have pieced together a six-game winning streak using both methods.

In three games, the Spurs reminded of defensive-minded championship teams of yore, limiting opponents to less than 90 points and simply choking them out. In three others, the Spurs gave up triple digits and just outscored the other team.

“It’s good we can do it both ways,” guard Manu Ginobili said. “I think we’re trying to be more the other (defensive) kind of team, the way we won championships. The last few years, we’ve scored more but we haven’t won it.”

Last season’s high-powered Spurs team smoked scoreboards en route to the best record in the Western Conference, then flamed out in the first round against Memphis.

For a blueprint of how the Spurs would like to play, Ginobili points to Tuesday’s 107-100 win at Phoenix.

With Suns guard Shannon Brown blistering en route to a career-high 32 points, the Spurs traded shots with the Suns in the first half. When it came time to win the game, however, the Spurs’ defense tightened, holding Phoenix to just 17 points in the fourth quarter.

“That’s who I envision we can be in the playoffs,” Ginobili said.

The old T-shirt slogan professes that defense wins championships. The Spurs are hoping offense can help get them there, too. Over the next few months, we’ll learn if they are right.

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: JMcDonald_SAEN

Spurs’ prodigious depth denies Kings

By Jeff McDonald

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – An hour before tipoff at Power Balance Pavilion on Wednesday, Spurs center Tiago Splitter went through a series of exercises with team strength coach Matt Herring.

The object was to test Splitter’s balky back, which had kept him out of four consecutive games. After a workout that was heavy on sweat but not on tears, Splitter pronounced himself good to go.

“Everything’s in place,” Splitter said. “I feel good now.”

The same might be said of the team that signs his paychecks.

Playing with a full deck for the first time in 11 days, the Spurs used their prodigious depth to outlast Sacramento, 117-112, extending the NBA’s longest active winning streak to six.

Having endured their most grueling stretch of the lockout-sardined season, adding five wins to the ledger in six nights, the Spurs now have a chance to catch their breath.

Wednesday, the Spurs’ youngest set of legs helped get them over the top.

Kawhi Leonard, a 20-year-old rookie small forward apparently too young to tire, had 19 points and nine rebounds, and supplied enough energy to power the whole of northern California.

“I just try to do what I can to contribute and bring energy,” Leonard said.

It was also another big night for the Spurs’ venerable Big Three, with Manu Ginobili scoring 20 points, Tim Duncan adding 18 points and eight rebounds and Tony Parker providing a 10-point, 10-assist double-double.

Heading into the five-game gauntlet, the Spurs (35-14) couldn’t have envisioned a sweep. Overall, the Spurs have won nine of their last 10, and 13 of their last 15 on the road.

“This is as deep as I’ve ever had a team here,” said Duncan, in his 15^th season, “and we’re using everybody possible.

Wednesday, the Spurs got key first-half contributions from players who, either by age or inactivity, were less affected by the compressed schedule.

Leonard was a sparkplug, offering active minutes on both ends. Splitter had seven points and six rebounds in the first half. Even backup point guard Patrick Mills, playing his second game since joining the team, got to the act with seven points in six minutes.

In the first quarter, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich deployed 11 players. Nine of them scored.

“I don’t think we’d be hanging in like are now last year, with this kind of schedule,” Popovich said. “We didn’t have this kind of depth.”

Behind 28 points from Isaiah Thomas and 25 from DeMarcus Cousins, the Kings (17-33) hung around, though never led. Each time Sacramento would sneak within striking distance, however, the Spurs had an answer.

After a Thomas 3-pointer brought Sacramento within one again midway through the fourth, Gary Neal found Parker for a layup. That sparked a 15-6 run that put the Spurs ahead by 10 with 2:18 to go.

“Down the stretch in the fourth quarter, our experience probably showed,” Popovich said.

For Popovich, the quest over the season’s jam-packed final month is to somehow balance the need to whip his team into playoff shape with the need to keep older players fresh.

“There’s no formula for it,” Popovich said. “You just do the best you can.”

But first for the Spurs, some downtime. And perhaps a nap.

They play just once in the next four nights, Saturday at home against Indiana. Even so, Popovich anticipates several short-handed nights between now and the postseason.

“You just roll with whoever is available,” Popovich said. “There’s no other choice.”

Wednesday night in Sacramento, for the first time in a while, that meant everyone.

jmcdonald@express-news.net

Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

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Spurs 117, Kings 112: March 28, 2012

San Antonio Spurs’ Tony Parker, left, and Kawhi Leonard center, question official Mike Callahan about a foul call during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game against the Sacramento Kings in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, March 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (AP)

Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins, center, tries to pull down a rebound against San Antonio Spurs forward Tim Duncan during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, March 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (AP)

San Antonio Spurs forward Manu Ginobili, of Argentina, left, and Sacramento Kings guard Tyreke Evans scramble for the ball during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, March 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (AP)

San Antonio Spurs’ DeJuan Blair, left, goes to the basket against Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, March 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (AP)

San Antonio Spurs forward Manu Ginobili, of Argentina, left, leans in for the layup past Sacramento Kings’ Donte Greene, center, and Chuck Hayes during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, March 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (AP)

Sacramento Kings guard Marcus Thornton, left, is fouled by San Antonio Spurs guard Danny Green during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, March 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (AP)

San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker, left, goes to the basket against Sacramento Kings forward Jason Thompson during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, March 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (AP)

San Antonio Spurs forward Tim Duncan, right, leans around Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins to make a pass during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, March 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (AP)