In The News | SAN ANTONIO SPURS TICKETS

Spurs rising in nearly every power ranking with playoffs approaching

The Spurs’ recent four-game winning streak has caught the attention of the basketball pundits across the blogosphere.

San Antonio moved up in the weekly power rankings of every poll we surveyed except one.

But in all cases, the Spurs are ranked behind the Chicago Bulls, who are the unanimous choice in every poll this week as the league’s No. 1 team.

Here’s a sampling of what our pollsters had to say about the Silver and Black this week:

, NBA.com

3. San Antonio (last week No. 4): How ridiculous was the San Antonio offense last week? Over their three games, only one Spur didn’t make at least half his shots. That was Matt Bonner, who shot 5-for-18. Richard Jefferson’s resurgance (21-for-36 from 3-point range over the last nine games) has made up for Bonner’s slump.

Teams ahead (in order): Chicago, Miami

, Fox Sports.com

4. San Antonio (last week No. 7): The Spurs have the league’s best record, seem to be healthy and have created a bit of momentum for themselves. But when you start looking at the next couple of months and start asking about LeBron, Kobe, D-Rose, Durant and such, do you actually think the Spurs can survive? They can, but only if they get some bounces and get excellent play from Richard Jefferson and George Hill.

Teams ahead: Chicago, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles

, ESPN.com

4. San Antonio (last week No. 6): Should the Spurs, holders of the league’s best record since mid-November, lay down Tuesday night in L.A. to make sure the Lakers don’t fall all the way to the No. 4 seed and right into their bracket? You tell me.

Teams ahead: Chicago, L.A. Lakers, Miami

, ESPN.com

5. San Antonio (last week No.7): Also pegged at an 18.0 percent chance of making the NBA Finals and an 8.7 percent chance of winning the championship (behind Chicago at 27.8 percent, Miami at 14.8 percent, Denver at 11.4 percent and the Lakers at 11.2 percent.)

Teams ahead: Chicago, Denver, Miami, L.A. Lakers.

, Hoops World.com

4. San Antonio (last week No. 5): The Spurs have gotten through their injury woes and at 61 wins, and are tied with Chicago for best-overall record.

Teams ahead: Chicago, Oklahoma City, Miami.

, CBS Sports.com

3. San Antonio (last week No. 5): Season’s biggest surprise: George Hill. If the Spurs win the title, he’ll be the reason. His 30 minutes a night have helped keep Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili fresh.

Teams ahead: Chicago, Miami.

, SI.com

No numeric rankings this week (last week No. 7) Grade for season: A (trailing only Chicago’s A+. Memphis and Oklahoma City also received A marks): Whatever concerns exist about their lack of frontcourt size and depth or the advanced age of their stars, the Spurs have earned the No. 1 seed in the West while winning at least 60 games for the first time since 2005-06. Gregg Popovich deserves Coach of the Year votes for tinkering with the offense to emphasize the transition skills of a healthy Manu Ginobili (who has set a career high for minutes) and perpetually underrated Tony Parker (the NBA’s best finisher at point guard over the last five seasons), along with spreading the floor for spot-up three-pointers by Ginobili, Matt Bonner, Richard Jefferson and Gary Neal before defenses could get set. The result is the NBA’s second-most-efficient offense (behind Denver’s). Like Boston, San Antonio knows its championship window is closing and that it will need more minutes and vintage defensive excellence from Tim Duncan in the weeks ahead. But give this team its due for an outstanding regular season.

Teams ahead: Chicago.

, Pro Basketball Talk

4. San Antonio (last week No. 7): The Spurs offense is back in its groove, but Tuesday night in Los Angeles look for Gregg Popovich to sit his stars. He does not want the Lakers falling to the four seed, which could still happen.

Teams ahead: Chicago, Miami, Oklahoma City.

, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

2. San Antonio (last week No. 2): Can veterans last in playoffs?

Teams ahead: Chicago.

Allen questions Ginobili’s elbow injury

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Never one to shy away from controversy, Memphis guard Tony Allen on Sunday accused Manu Ginobili of faking his well-documented elbow injury.

“It’s for the birds,” Allen said. “Everybody is banged up. You don’t see me running to my PR guy telling him about an injury.”

Ginobili sprained his right elbow in the season finale at Phoenix and missed Game 1. Forced to wear an uncomfortable brace during Games 2 and 3 against the Grizzlies, he seemed bemused by Allen’s allegation.

“That’s his opinion,” Ginobili said. “I really don’t care. I would love to not play with that brace. In previous years, we’ve had some pretty good runs without an elbow brace.”

Allen gave Ginobili a hard foul in the third quarter of Saturday’s Game 3, landing on top of him following a drive to the basket by the Spurs guard.

“There was a little incident there where I felt it,” Ginobili said. “But I’ve been through it. It was frustrating for a couple minutes, but then I got better for the last quarter, so no big deal.”

The brace, Ginobili said, has affected his free-throw stroke. An 87-percent foul shooter during the regular season, he has made only 19 of 27 in the series.

“Basically (it affects) my free throws more than during the game, when I have more time to think, and I feel it,” he said. “During the course of the game, I don’t feel it.”

McDyess ready to go: Power forward Antonio McDyess had an uncomfortable night after Game 3, trying to sleep sitting upright to minimize pain from a neck strain he suffered in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s game.

When he woke up Sunday, he was stunned by how good he felt.

“I feel a whole lot better,” he said. “If you had asked me that last night, I couldn’t have told you that.”

McDyess’ left arm had gone completely numb after Tim Duncan inadvertently elbowed him during a scrum for a rebound. Medication and rest worked wonders, and McDyess declared himself a definite participant for Game 4.

“No question,” he said. “If we would have had the game (Sunday), I’d be able to play.”

Playing percentages: Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins is unimpressed by the supposed edge his team has with a 2-1 lead in the best-of-7 series, warning against the presumption that a Game 4 win would make his team favorites to close it out.

Informed that 76 percent of NBA teams that had a 3-1 lead in best-of-7 series had gone on to win, Hollins did some quick math.

“You’ve still got 24 percent that don’t,” he said.

What a feeling: As the only player from the Grizzlies teams that had gone 0-12 in the club’s previous playoff games, forward Shane Battier said the feeling in FedEx Forum was utterly different than it had been before.

“Last night, it was ‘maybe, maybe’” he said. “That hope is pretty inspiring.”

Express-News staff writer Jeff McDonald contributed to this report.

Spurs’ Game 1 history only goes so far

Gregg Popovich can be a stubborn man, the type to talk the sky out of being blue, but even he can’t argue with fact.

Yes, Popovich has been forced to acknowledge, ever since upstart Memphis swiped Game 1 of this first-round playoff series Sunday, his Spurs team has a habit of turning postseason-opening 0-1 deficits into NBA championships.

It happened in 2003. And in 2005. And again in 2007.

Turns out, there’s a good explanation for that.

“Because we were better than the team we were playing,” Popovich said.

In what was either a thinly veiled challenge to his team, or simply a matter of good public relations, Popovich then wondered aloud Monday if that were still true in 2011, against an eighth-seeded Memphis team targeting a monumental upset.

“We’ll see if we’re a better team than the team we’re playing,” Popovich said. “If we’re not, they’ll win the series.”

The Grizzlies drew first blood in Game 1, riding Shane Battier’s 3-pointer with 23.9 seconds left to a 101-98 victory at the ATT Center that was the first in the club’s playoff history.

Whether Battier’s bomb represents the opening salvo in just the second first-round takedown of a No. 1 seed in the best-of-7 era — or was simply another bothersome first-round blip in a tradition of them for the Spurs — will be settled in the coming days.

What is for certain, thanks to Battier’s clutch shooting, is that Game 2 on Wednesday has taken on the whiff of a must-win for the Western Conference’s No. 1 seed.

Only three teams in NBA history have lost the first two games of a series at home and recovered to win the series. The most recent to do it were the 2005 Dallas Mavericks, who pulled that Lazarus routine on Houston in the first round that year.

“We’re a confident team,” Spurs forward Richard Jefferson said. “We understand it’s a seven-game series for a reason.”

Though not a guarantor of future success, history can offer the Spurs some comfort, though they’d probably just prefer to have Manu Ginobili back from injury.

Beginning with the 2003 playoffs, the Spurs are 6-3 in series that started with an 0-1 deficit, including one first-round series against Phoenix and two against Denver in championship years.

A No. 7 seed last season, the Spurs dropped Game 1 in Dallas, then recovered to win their first-round series in a breezy six games.

Through one reading of Sunday’s outcome, Battier’s game-winner is simply a reboot of Stephon Marbury’s buzzer-beater for the Suns in 2003 or Andre Miller’s 35-point game for the Nuggets in 2005. Sound and fury, signifying little.

“Each year is different,” guard Tony Parker said. “It’s not the first time we lost Game 1. Hopefully, we can use that to our advantage.”

Easing the pain of — or perhaps enhancing the frustration of — their latest Game 1 defeat, the Spurs accomplished much of what they wanted Sunday.

Had it not been for Battier’s 3-ball, the storyline would have been Matt Bonner’s two clutch fourth-quarter threes, or Jefferson’s solid 13-point, six-rebound contribution, or the way the Spurs kept the gritty Grizzlies off the glass.

For the first time this season, the Spurs outrebounded Memphis (40-38), owned the offensive boards (11-5) and scored more second-chance points (15-5).

“If you had told me before the game we’d do all those things, I would say it was a win,” Popovich said.

Battier’s 3-pointer, part of a 55.2-percent shooting performance for Memphis, negated that good work. With it, the Grizzlies announced their presence in the series, as surely as guard Tony Allen later announced their intentions.

“We didn’t come here to win one game,” Allen said. “We came here to win the series.”

The Grizzlies could do just that, if they prove to be the better team. Before the series is over, the Spurs expect to have their say.

One and not done

Until 2003, the Spurs were 0-17 in NBA playoff series in which they lost the opener. The team is 6-3 since in such scenarios, including at least one series win in each of its past three championship seasons. The following shows how the Spurs have fared after losing the first game of a series since 2003:

2003: Beat Phoenix 4-2 in first round; beat Dallas 4-2 in Western finals; won NBA championship

2005: Beat Denver 4-1 in first round; won NBA championship

2007: Beat Denver 4-1 in first round; won NBA championship

2008: Beat New Orleans 4-3 in Western semifinals; lost to L.A. Lakers 4-1 in Western finals

2009: Lost to Dallas 4-1 in first round

2010: Beat Dallas 4-2 in first round; lost to Phoenix 4-0 in Western semifinals

2011: Trailing Memphis 1-0 in first round