Tag: Indianapolis

Spurs’ Hill, Memphis’ Conley rekindle old times

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

Shortly before the start of the playoffs, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich pulled guard George Hill aside and issued marching orders only he could understand.

Once the postseason began, Popovich said, he wanted the mild-mannered Hill to transform into an alter ego named Indiana George.

“Pop means Indiana George from back in Indianapolis,” Hill said. “Just being a freak of nature on offense.”

In the other huddle in this first-round series, running point guard for Memphis, is a player who knows Indiana George well.

“That guy,” Mike Conley said, “was lethal.”

Growing up within a few miles of each other in Indianapolis, as friends and adversaries, Hill and Conley never dreamed they would one day leave a mark on the same NBA playoff series.

Memphis won Game 1 in part because Conley, a 23-year-old playoff tenderfoot, went toe-to-toe with Tony Parker, the Spurs’ three-time All-Star. The Spurs evened the series in Game 2 in part because Indiana George finally showed up in the second half, scoring 14 of his 16 points.

The two hoopsters from the Hoosier state go way back, central figures in an Indianapolis basketball tradition that now fills half an NBA roster.

Now 24, Hill was once a ?scoring star at Broad Ripple High, a city school without much of a basketball reputation, where he averaged a state-leading 36.2 points as a senior in 2005 before playing college ball at hometown IUPUI.

Indiana George was fearless, with a you-can’t-stop-me-or-even-hope-to-contain-me swagger. Indiana George didn’t care who was on the floor with him, or who was assigned to guard him.

Indiana George once scored 49 points in a high school game, without stepping foot on the court in the fourth quarter.

“He could score in so many different ways,” said Conley, who watched Hill tie his NBA career-high of 30 points in his last trip to Memphis on March 27. “Nobody could stop him.”

Conley played at Lawrence North, a prestigious suburban hoops factory where he wasn’t even the most famous player in the Class of 2006. Before he became a limping cautionary tale, Greg Oden would go on to be Indiana’s Mr. Basketball, a consensus collegiate player of the year alongside Conley at Ohio State and the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NBA Draft.

Though a year older, Hill knew Conley from their schoolboy battles, elite AAU tournaments and summer pick-up games.

“Mike is a true point guard,” Hill said. “He sees the floor well and gets everyone involved.”

Even after Memphis made Conley the fourth pick in the 2007 draft, three selections after Oden went to Portland, he couldn’t shake his second-fiddle label. He split time his first two seasons with Kyle Lowry at the point, a situation Conley now calls “the lowest point I’ve had my entire basketball career.”

When Lionel Hollins took over as head coach in January 2009, one of his first moves was to install Conley at point guard and leave him there.

“If I didn’t have to go through what I’ve gone through, I wouldn’t be where I’m at,” Conley said.

In the first two games of his first postseason, Conley averaged 14 points, seven assists and 5.5 rebounds.

Hill has averaged 15.5 points, six rebounds and three steals. After a two-point first half in Game 2, Indiana George exploded in the second half to get the Spurs over the hump.

Though he has made just 5 of 16 field goals, Hill has gone to the foul line a team-high 22 times, converting 19 — testament to the forcefulness Popovich has asked of him. Hill remains key for the Spurs even after Manu Ginobili’s return from an injury moved him back to the bench in Game 2.

“Manu’s injury has nothing to do with George,” Popovich said. “Even with Manu, he’s got to play well for us.”

In a way, Hill and Conley have been preparing for this moment since they were teenagers. Playing high school ball in Indianapolis in the mid-2000s was like attending NBA prep school.

In addition to Hill, Conley and Oden, Indy was also home to future NBAers Eric Gordon, Courtney Lee and Jeff Teague. Another, Jared Jeffries, played in nearby Bloomington.

“Any given night, you were going against someone who is in the NBA now,” Hill said.

On Saturday, in a Game 3 in Memphis that could again swing momentum in the series, it will just be the two of them.

Indiana George and Indiana Mike. Just like old times.

Randolph’s shot sends Spurs to 2-1 deficit

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Memphis’ Zach Randolph toed the 3-point stripe late in Game 3 on Saturday, out of his range, his element and maybe his mind. Only two people in a pulsing FedEx Forum had an idea of what was about to go down.

One of them was Randolph. The other was George Hill.

“He practices that shot all summer long,” said Hill, the Spurs guard and a frequent offseason workout partner of Randolph’s in Indianapolis. “He can shoot it well.”

Randolph’s rare 3-pointer, the defining basket in a 91-88 Grizzlies victory that perhaps has swung this first-round series, gave Memphis a five-point lead with 41.9 seconds to go.

It set the stage for an ending nobody in the arena could have seen coming.

A game that began with in-house fireworks ended with a whimper, with Manu Ginobili pinned in the corner, unable to squeeze off a shot as time expired.

The Spurs down by three, Tim Duncan was trying to call ?time out during the scramble, which began when Hill snatched a Randolph miss ? with 5.9 seconds remaining.

“I should have been all over the referee to get the time, and I didn’t notice,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “That was my fault.”

Randolph had 25 points, and Marc Gasol chipped in 17 as the Grizzlies seized a 2-1 series lead.

And now, a Memphis team that earlier claimed the first postseason win in club history and followed with its first home playoff win Saturday, stands halfway to becoming the second eighth seed in the best-of-7 era to topple a No. 1.

Duncan summed Game 3 up this way: “Things just didn’t go right.”

Almost from the start.

The night began with a sellout crowd of 18,119, just the fifth of the season at FedEx Forum, whipped into a towel-waving froth. Professional wrestler Jerry Lawler and pregame pyrotechnics only added to the hysteria.

The Spurs did not handle the moment well at first. Duncan opened the game by airballing a free throw, and it would be the second half before things got better. Manhandled again by the bruising Memphis frontline, the Spurs trailed by as many as 15 in the first half.

“In the first 24 minutes, we went through the paces while they were out there playing their ass off,” Popovich said.

The Spurs came back, despite seven third-quarter turnovers, including four from the struggling Tony Parker. After trailing for all of the second and third quarters, the Spurs twice tied the game in the fourth. Then, everything went sideways on them.

Memphis coach Lionel Hollins declined to reveal exactly what he was looking for out of a timeout, up two with 56.7 seconds left, but it is certain he didn’t mean for the play to end with Randolph nearly dribbling out the shot clock 26 feet from the basket.

During the regular season, Randolph had tried 43 3-pointers, making just eight — a paltry 18.6 percent. Floating near Randolph on the perimeter, Duncan had a sense of the math.

“I didn’t assume that was in his arsenal,” Duncan said.

By then, Randolph didn’t have a choice but to let the ball fly.

“It felt good when it left my hands,” he said.

That made it 91-86 Memphis, but Ginobili — who had 23 points — followed with a pair of free throws, and after Randolph missed another jumper, Hill grabbed the rebound.

In lieu of calling time out and setting up a play with about five seconds left, Hill pushed the ball ahead to Ginobili, who got stuck between Gasol and Mike Conley as the horn sounded.

“I thought I had a little more time, but it seems that I didn’t,” Ginobili said.

In terms of the series, the Spurs do still have time, but it is rapidly running out.

“Bottom line is somebody’s got to win four games,” Duncan said. “Whoever gets there first is the winner.”

If, stunningly, that turns out to be the Grizzlies, Randolph’s rainbow — the one only two people saw coming — could be the lasting image.

Popovich: Hill to start if Manu can’t

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

Manu Ginobili continues to be listed as doubtful for Sunday’s game with a sprained right elbow, but he was hard at work at the team’s practice facility on Friday.

While his teammates prepared for Game 1 of the Spurs-Grizzlies first-round playoff series, injured guard Ginobili worked on cardiovascular conditioning and strength training.

Some of his strength training included lifts with his injured right arm.

While reiterating that there is no change in Ginobili’s status for Sunday’s game, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich expressed confidence he would return to action during the series.

“He will be back at some point for sure,” he said.

If Ginobili does not return on Sunday, George Hill will start in his shooting guard spot.

“George Hill will probably take his place as a starter, if, in fact, Manu doesn’t play, and right now, it looks that way,” Popovich said. “We’ve got a day and a half to see if (Ginobili) heals any more, see what’s going on, but at this point George Hill would be the guy who starts.”

It will be important, Popovich said, for Hill to play the aggressive, purposeful game that makes him, in Popovich’s words, “Indiana George.”

“Pop means Indiana George from back in Indianapolis, from college and high school,” Hill said, “being a freak of nature on offense with defense coming first or second. But just having fun out there. Being aggressive at all times.”

Popovich said Hill will be important even if Ginobili suits up.

“With or without Manu, George Hill is important to us,” he said. “He’s a fine, young player and does a good job at both ends of the court. Manu’s injury has nothing to do with George, in that sense. Even with Manu, he’s got to play well for us.”

BRING IT: Convinced the Grizzlies rested key players in their final two games to ensure they would land in the No. 8 seed and face the Spurs, rather than the No. 2 seed Lakers, the Spurs have mustered up a sense of mild outrage.

“Let’s play basketball,” Hill said. “I can see them going through those steps. Who cares what they did, if they sat, or if the coach coached or didn’t coach. The playoffs are different though. I don’t know why they want us so bad. We’re 2-2 against them. Fifty percent. But if that’s what they want, to take their chances against us, then bring it, I guess.”

ZZ TIM: Spurs captain Tim Duncan hasn’t shaved in a while, a scraggly beard getting a tad shaggy in recent days.

Is it a traditional playoff beard, the sort favored by some pro athletes who vow not to shave as long as the playoffs continue?

“It’s more of a laziness beard,” he said, “but we’ll call it a playoff beard. I’ll take that. It won’t last for long, though. My wife’s already disowned me.”