Category: In the News

Spurs fear a lack of fear itself

By Jeff McDonald

SALT LAKE CITY — For two games in their Western Conference first-round series against Utah, the Spurs have successfully guarded against Al Jefferson’s repertoire of herky-jerky post moves.

They have guarded against Devin Harris’ quickness and Paul Millsap’s blue-collar ruggedness.

Tonight, as the series shifts to rowdy EnergySolutions Arena with the top-seeded Spurs up 2-0 and solidly in command, they are poised to come face-to-face with their most formidable foe yet in these playoffs.

Overconfidence.

“From game to game, there’s always a danger of letdowns,” said Tim Duncan, the Spurs’ 36-year-old captain. “We’re going to fight against that, but there’s no promises in any way.”

In their quest to put a lock on the series, it seems the only thing the Spurs have to fear now is the lack of fear itself.

The Spurs won the first two games by a staggering total of 46 points. Their 106-91 victory in Game 1 looked like a nail-biter compared to the 114-83 ransacking the Spurs delivered in Game 2.

The 31-point margin in Game 2 marked the Spurs’ third-largest win in team playoff history. For Utah, it was the franchise’s second-worst postseason defeat, surpassed in humiliation ?only by a 96-54 loss to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in Game 3 of the 1998 NBA Finals.

How each team responds now will determine how much life is left in this series.

“It’s easy to fold your tent,” Utah coach Tyrone Corbin said. “But fight is fight, and competitors compete. Guys who want to quit will quit.”

So far, the Spurs have treated the eighth-seeded Jazz like a D-League team, with All-Star point guard Tony Parker obliterating Utah’s backcourt en route to a combined 46 points and 17 assists. Their Duncan-led frontcourt has outplayed Jefferson and Millsap in helping post a 120-80 edge in paint points.

In Game 2, the Spurs were ahead 20-8 before star sixth man Manu Ginobili had even stripped off his warmups.

It speaks to the Spurs’ sense of professionalism and self-restraint that they haven’t yet begun planning dinner reservations in Memphis or Los Angeles.

“What I see is ultimate focus,” forward Stephen Jackson said. “Nobody is talking about the next series. Everyone is focused about what’s in front of us.”

The Spurs’ battle against overconfidence began before coach Gregg Popovich left the interview podium after Wednesday’s Game 2 romp, when he reminded that the runaway victory was “nothing to be satisfied about.”

In Utah, the Spurs are expecting to find a different Jazz team than the one that presented so little resistance in San Antonio.

“I know Pop’s really antsy about us coming out and getting jumped on,” Duncan said.

If nothing else, the Spurs are anticipating an amped-up performance from the Utah crowd, generally considered one of the NBA’s most rambunctious.

Those who were around in 2007 haven’t forgotten the Spurs’ last trip to Salt Lake for a playoff game, when players and coaches exited the court to a hail of debris after a Game 4 victory in that year’s Western Conference finals.

“They’re going to play even harder, with a great atmosphere,” said Ginobili, one of the few Spurs yet to find his footing. “They’re going to be fired up. Hopefully, we don’t relax and keep fighting.”

Down 2-0 in a series against a Spurs team that hasn’t lost a game since April 11, the Jazz would love to have such worries.

Their mission now, as impossible as anything Tom Cruise ever tried: Win four out of five against a Spurs team that has only lost three times since March 9.

“We’re fighting for our lives,” Utah forward Gordon Hayward said.

To stay alive, the Jazz will make adjustments. They will feed Jefferson in the post. They will rely on Harris’ quickness, and Millsap’s ruggedness.

In the end, however, Utah’s best hope for survival might be out of its hands. Ultimately, Game 3 could come down to how well the Spurs handle their own prosperity.

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

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

Parker v. Harris: A playoff rivalry renewed

By Jeff McDonald

It would probably be overstatement to say Tony Parker still has nightmares about Devin Harris.

But Parker does recall the playoff series Harris had with Dallas in 2006, and the way it ruined one of the  most promising of Spurs seasons.

Harris returns to the ATT Center as Utah’s starting point guard on Sunday, when the Spurs and Jazz open a first-round series. The last time Harris was here in the playoffs, he was carving the Spurs up in the 2006 Western Conference semifinals.

“With Dallas, he was like a young buck,” Parker recalled Saturday. “He was playing with a lot of energy. He, like, had no conscience. Now he’s like running the team. It’s a little different, but he’s doing a good job.”

Harris, then in his second season out of Wisconsin, averaged 12.7 in the Mavs’ seven-game series victory. He averaged nearly 21 points in Games 2, 3, 4, all of which Dallas won to take an insurmountable series lead.

Josh Howard, another key member of the 2006 Mavericks, is now on the Utah roster as well.

The Mavericks went on to the NBA Finals, where the lost to Miami. The Spurs went home in the second round after winning 63 games in the regular season.

That series was fresh in the Spurs’ mind in February of 2008, when Dallas traded Harris to New Jersey as part of the Jason Kidd deal. Then, Parker suggested he was happy to have Harris out of the Western Conference.

“To be honest with you, I’m really happy for that trade,” Parker said at the time.

Harris hasn’t quite lived up to that promise since, though he did earn an All-Star nod in 2008-09 with the Nets before coming to Utah in the Deron Williams trade.

Parker, meanwhile, has earned three more All-Star berths plus an NBA Finals MVP in 2007, and is playing perhaps the best basketball of his life this season.

Harris, 29, averaged 11.3 points and five assists in the regular season. As his 2006 run against the Spurs reminds, he still has the potential to cause problems for a playoff opponent.

“You have to slow him down, try to contain him and find him in transition,” Parker said. “We know if he gets going, he can cause us a lot of trouble.”

Spurs can’t help but smile at play of stoic Leonard

By Jeff McDonald

The 66th game of his NBA career had ended. The TV lights had faded and most of the microphones that had semi-circled his locker just moments earlier had disappeared in search of someone more quotable.

It was then and there, in the aftermath of the Spurs’ resounding Game 2 victory over Utah on Wednesday, that Kawhi Leonard chose to reveal his best-kept secret.

“I do smile,” Leonard said.

And then he did. Sort of. The left corner of Leonard’s mouth inched north ever so slightly, briefly transforming the Spurs’ enigmatic rookie small forward into a Mona Lisa in braids.

Just like that, it was gone. The instant passed without anyone bothering to capture photographic evidence of the Loch Ness monster of NBA facial expressions.

For Leonard’s teammates, who have come to regard the soft-spoken 20-year-old as the type of player who could make it stone-faced through a tickle fight, the moment was one that had to be seen to be believed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before,” Manu Ginobili said of Leonard’s grin. “Not for more than a second. Or a fourth of a second.”

In the crucible of his first NBA playoff series, which the Spurs lead 2-0 heading into Game 3 on Saturday in Utah, Leonard’s seeming inability to feel neither pleasure nor pressure has been a blessing.

Quietly — because how else would he do it? — the 6-foot-7 rookie from San Diego State is having quite an impact on the top-seeded Spurs’ manhandling of the No. 8 seed Jazz.

During the Spurs’ 114-83 picnic in Game 2, Leonard hit 6 of 7 shots, including 3 of 4 3-pointers, on his way to 17 points. It was the highest-scoring playoff game for a Spurs rookie since Ginobili went for 21 against Dallas in Game 4 of the 2003 Western Conference finals.

Leonard did it without beating his chest. Or, save for a momentary lapse in the postgame locker room, without cracking a smile.

“He’s got a way about him,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “He’s not so anxious to show us that he’s got every move in the world. He’s level-headed and takes things as they come. Which is great, because he blends in with everybody else.”

Leonard, for his part, doesn’t quite understand why everyone keeps asking him to smile more, as if every day were team picture day.

“That’s just my character on the court,” Leonard said. “Act like I’ve been here before.”

Yet his lack of outward emotion often belies a potpourri of feelings inside. He is not made of stone, even if he sometimes appears to be doing a spot-on impression of Mount Rushmore.

“I am excited,” Leonard insisted. “I’m out there playing hard. If I was down, I wouldn’t be playing hard basketball.”

Other Spurs admit they at first didn’t quite know what to make of the draft-day trade that brought Leonard to town last June. General manager R.C. Buford had to send George Hill — a versatile and popular backup guard — to Indiana to make it happen.

The deal was a gamble, and even Leonard’s soon-to-be teammates knew it.

“I was definitely shocked, even upset,” Ginobili said. “I loved playing with George.”

It didn’t take long for the quiet kid with the braids to win fans in his new locker room.

With giraffe-neck arms and hands that could palm Jupiter, Leonard is a born rebounder — he averaged 5.1 in 24 minutes per game during the regular season — and a steals machine. His ability to run the floor and finish fast breaks has given the Spurs’ transition game an extra gear.

Those are the things that make him stand out. As impressive to his veteran teammates are the ways in which he fits in.

The never-smiling thing is part of it.

“He doesn’t get too upset, and he doesn’t get too pumped up,” Ginobili said. “He just plays. That’s basically who we are.”

And basically who Leonard has always been.

There is but one scenario Leonard could envision that might cause him unveil his full-on, ear-to-ear, 5-year-old-at-Disneyland grin.

And if the Spurs’ luck breaks just right between now and late June, they just might get to see it.

“You might see it,” Leonard said. “If we win the championship.”

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

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