Tag: Gregg Popovich

Five quick takes: Why RJ now works better than Howard

Here are five quick thoughts in the wake of the Spurs’ 104-89 victory over Utah Saturday night.

1. Josh Howard was a ballyhooed potential free-agent who thought about coming to San Antonio for a few days before accepting a more lucrative offer from the Jazz. Howard went for 18 points and seven rebounds against the Spurs Saturday night, but at least for this season, Richard Jefferson might be a better fit in the Spurs’ rotation. Jefferson’s institutional knowledge after two seasons makes him more adaptable in the present for Gregg Popovich’s whims. Howard might be more creative, but Jefferson provides what the Spurs need him to do. And he even got into the scoring act with the second unit again Saturday night when he was inserted with them in the second quarter.

2. Maybe it came after exchanging dollars for rubles for a few weeks during the lockout. Or it could have been the frank exit interview he had with Popovich on his way out of San Antonio after last season. But DeJuan Blair appears to be a changed player. His 17 points Saturday against the Jazz finished off his strongest three-game scoring effort of his career. Take away his foul trouble in the opener and he’s been the Spurs’ most consistent player this season. He had a similarly strong start last season before the Whataburgers caught up with him. Now, we’ll see if he can steer clear of those temptations to continue his personal growth this season.

3. Gary Neal is still a week away from getting back into the lineup. It will be interesting to see whose minutes he will impacts when he returns. T.J. Ford has provided a lift with the second unit, but I’m thinking that Neal will see more playing time at point guard  than he did last season. And that could affect Ford’s role on the team and perhaps even determine whether Cory Joseph sticks with the squad over the long haul.

4.  Popovich steered away from much emotion about his 800th victory. But veteran players like Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili were eloquent in their praise for the only NBA head coach they have played for. It’s hard to imagine the three of them not being together.

5. The Jazz looked like a classic NBA team on the back end of a back-to-back with their early struggles Saturday night. They clanked 13 of their first 17 shots and never appeared to be in a groove offensively before the Spurs took control. We’ll see a lot of tired teams that will look like that over the course of the season. Take the Spurs Thursday night in Houston.

Spurs seek more ugly wins during grueling schedule

After the Spurs laid waste to the defending NBA champion Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night, Tim Duncan took the extraordinary step of conducting his post-game media session seated in front of his locker, instead of his customary spot standing in another corner of the room.

In this lockout-compressed season, in which most every night is game night, it seems any amount of wear and tear saved on Duncan’s 35-year-old knees is a worthwhile investment.

“Hopefully, we can get a lot of games like this, so we can rest guys and not wear ourselves out,” Duncan said after the Spurs’ convincing 93-71 victory.

What the Spurs will take in this 66-game sprint of a season are wins — any which way they come.

With star guard Manu Ginobili out for the next six weeks with a fractured shooting hand, and with the schedule starting to stack up on them, the Spurs see no reason to quibble with the scoreboard.

Playing on the second night of a back-to-back Thursday, the Spurs missed 52 of 86 shots against Dallas, becoming only the 16th team since 1985 to win a game by at least 22 points while shooting worse than 40 percent.

They did so, in part, because the Mavericks — the oldest team in the NBA — were also playing for the second time in as many nights, and went 27 for 77 from the field, including 1 for 19 from the 3-point arc.

“It doesn’t matter how you win, ugly or pretty, so long as you win,” said guard Gary Neal, providing the mantra for the season.

Not-so-fresh off that not-so-pretty win over Dallas, the Spurs tonight open another back-to-back — at home against Denver, then on to Oklahoma City — sure to test both their physical conditioning and mental toughness.

It will mark the third of 17 back-to-back sets this season. The Spurs will also face a pair of back-to-back-to-backs.

Youthful and nimble and deep, neither the Nuggets nor the Thunder represent the preferred fare for a gassed Spurs team amid a four-games-in-five-nights stretch.

“You’ve just got to dig deep,” said backup point guard T.J. Ford. “This season is going to be about mental toughness, and it’s only going to get tougher.”

Now more than ever, style points are irrelevant. Across the NBA, the art of winning ugly is en vogue.

Of course, the Spurs knew that from the moment the shrinky-dinked schedule was announced in early December, none of them more keenly than Duncan and coach Gregg Popovich.

Both were around in 1999, when the NBA’s last lockout shriveled the season to 50 games. Of course, Duncan was then only 23 years old.

“I was running up and down like a deer,” Duncan said. “I wanted to play every day.”

The Spurs lost just 13 games that season en route to claiming the franchise’s first NBA title, but five of those defeats came after playing the night before. Overall in 1999, the Spurs were 10-5 either on the second night of a back-to-back, or the third night of a back-to-back-to-back.

Popovich came into this season with a plan to play more players and minimize minutes for older veterans. So far, he’s seen no reason to deviate from that prescription.

“You play to win, but you don’t want to drive anybody into the ground,” Popovich said.

For Duncan — the only player older than 31 on the Spurs’ suddenly fresh-faced active roster, now that Ginobili is out — that’s meant playing past the 30-minute mark only once in seven games. In all, 12 Spurs players are averaging double digits in minutes.

“I think everybody is feeling good about that part of it,” Duncan said. “It’s a long season. Pop understands that.”

If it keeps Duncan off his feet, and the ugly wins piling up, the Spurs will take it.

“Every team has to go through those stretches,” Duncan said. “We just have to find a way to fight through them.”

Spurs’ defense a major work in progress

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

If it’s January, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich must be complaining about his defense.

Earlier this week, Popovich raised eyebrows after a 106-103 loss in Milwaukee by labeling his current Spurs crop “the worst defensive team we’ve ever had.”

It is a theme he continued to hammer when the Spurs returned home to face Houston on Wednesday, noting the Spurs’ defensive ranks — 26th in field-goal percentage defense, 23rd in opponents’ points per game.

“That just won’t get anything done,” Popovich said. “That will portend a very mediocre basketball season for the San Antonio Spurs.”

Whether the Spurs finally heeded Popovich’s message — or perhaps the second night of a back-to-back got to their opponents — Wednesday’s 101-95 overtime win over the Rockets seemed to represent a modest step forward on the defensive front.

After allowing Houston to shoot 65 percent (13 of 20) in the first quarter — “It looked like the same defense from Milwaukee,” Popovich said — the Spurs held the Rockets to 28-of-76 shooting the rest of the way, including 2 for 10 in OT.

Houston finished the game at 42.7 percent, breaking a string of three straight opponents to top 50 percent against the Spurs. The Rockets made just 3 of 21 3-pointers.

Though obviously pleased with the performance, Popovich and team captain Tim Duncan both said they’d like to see more of the same before declaring the Spurs’ defensive woes cured.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Duncan said. “We’ve got a long ways to go to get to where we believe the Spurs’ defense should be.”

All-Star crickets: No Spurs ranked among the top six of their respective positions in the first release of All-Star balloting returns Thursday, a sign that perhaps the league is prepared to stage its first midseason classic in 16 years without a San Antonio representative.

Tim Duncan was the Spurs’ leading vote-getter, placing seventh among Western Conference forwards. Out with a broken left hand, Manu Ginobili is running eighth among West guards, while Tony Parker is not in the top 10.

The last time the NBA played an All-Star Game without a member of the Spurs was 1997, a year in which David Robinson was injured and Duncan was a senior at Wake Forest.

Duncan has played in 13 consecutive All-Star games, starting the past 12.

Ready to help: Spurs rookie point guard Cory Joseph spent four games in the Development League before T.J. Ford went down with a torn hamstring. Recalled before Wednesday’s game, Joseph believes his short time in Austin has him better prepared to contribute to the NBA club.

“(The Toros) run the same stuff, and getting that game experience helped me a lot, really helped my confidence,” Joseph said.

The 20-year-old Joseph averaged 11.3 points in his stint with the Toros, shooting less than 28 percent (10 for 36). Gary Neal will serve as Parker’s primary backup for as long as Ford is out, with Joseph on hand for use in emergency situations.