Category: In the News

Popovich makes it a long day for the Spurs

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

A long film session segued into a long practice session Wednesday, which turned out to be the longest practice day for the Spurs since training camp, by unofficial media timing.

The practice began at 11 a.m. By the time reporters were ushered onto the court at the team’s practice facility, it was 1:32 p.m., with players finishing free-throw drills.

Asked if the lengthy session had been productive, coach Gregg Popovich gave a not-so-lengthy answer: “Yes, it was.”

A 30-point loss in Miami to be followed by a Friday road game against Southwest Division rival Dallas required such a long and painful film session, according to starting center Antonio McDyess, the team’s most veteran player.

He called replaying the many mistakes of Sunday’s blowout loss anything but fun.

“Nor was it a fun practice,” he said. “We were disappointed in the way we played down there, and Pop wanted us to look at some of the things we didn’t do down there.

“We could have looked at the whole film, but we didn’t do that. A lot of the mistakes we made, he wanted us to clean up going into the Dallas game. We feel this is a big game, so we wanted to clean up a lot of stuff.”

GREEN INITIATIVE: Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, the Spurs brought back to their roster Danny Green, a 6-foot-6 guard-forward who played two games with the club in a brief stint in November.

Green had been playing for the NBA D-League’s Reno Bighorns. In 16 games with Reno, he averaged 20.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.38 steals in 37.4 minutes per game. He made 45.1 percent of his shots, including 43.4 percent (36 of 83) from 3-point range.

The former North Carolina Tar Heel played last season for the Cleveland Cavaliers. He scored six points in his two games with the Spurs in November.

“He’s a talented young man who has impressed us with his combination of pretty good defensive skills and awareness and a pretty good shot,” Popovich said. “He’s a young guy who, in time, is going to be a good player. Sometimes it takes somebody two, three, four years before they find the right situation.

“He’s obviously well schooled by Coach (Roy) Williams at North Carolina, and we like his skills.”

GOING TO GAGA: Several Spurs, including Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, took in Tuesday’s concert at the ATT Center by pop star Lady Gaga.

Parker and Ginobili tweeted about the show.

“It was great,” Parker said. “She’s a great performer. Yeah, I like her stuff.”

Parker could not verify if Ginobili, who was suffering some laryngitis on Wednesday, was suffering because he had cheered too loudly at the concert.

“I don’t know if he was screaming,” Parker said, “but he was moving his head. Half of the team (was there). It was good.”

One Spur who did not take in the show: McDyess, at 36 the team’s oldest player.

“No, not me,” he said. “I don’t even know one of her songs.”

Spurs suffer symmetric smackdown in Miami

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

MIAMI — The first time LeBron James ever dunked a basketball, he was in middle school. He was playing in a student-faculty game and got the ball on a fast break.

“I just said, ‘I’m going for it,’” James said.

For the record, the Miami Heat’s 110-80 victory over the Spurs on Monday night wasn’t quite that easy. At times in the fourth quarter, however, it certainly looked that way.

James, Dwyane Wade and Jamaal Magloire all provided exclamation-point dunks for the Heat, who responded to a 30-point loss 10 days earlier in San Antonio by handing the NBA-leading Spurs one of their own.

Chris Bosh had 30 points and 12 rebounds, Wade scored 29, and James had a quiet 21 — save for his thunderous fourth-quarter slam — as the Heat continued their weeklong resurrection and reminded a national TV audience of something obscured by their recent five-game losing skid.

“We’re not talking about a second-division team in Asia,” Spurs guard Manu Ginobili said. “We’re talking about the Heat.”

For Miami, the victory was their third in a row in a streak that began with Thursday’s sigh-of-relief win over the Lakers. For the Spurs, it was a continuation of a trend that could become disturbing if it persists.

It’s a fool’s errand to make too much out of one game in 82, especially when the Spurs are 54-13, but Monday’s outcome was their third loss this month to a team currently in the playoff picture. Those three defeats, which include losses to the Lakers and Memphis, have come by an average of 20 points.

Monday’s loss was the Spurs’ most lopsided in the regular-season since April 7, 2005, when they dropped a 104-68 decision at Dallas.

“What goes around comes around,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “We made a lot of shots in San Antonio. They made a lot of shots here.”

In their 125-95 victory over Miami on March 4, the Spurs set a franchise record with 17 3-pointers. In the rematch, they were 6 of 22.

Credit goes to Miami’s perimeter defenders, who were much more aggressive than in the first meeting.

Tony Parker scored 18 points to lead the Spurs, but no other player managed more than Tim Duncan’s 14.

“We attacked,” James said. “And we never stopped attacking.”

Proof of the aggressiveness gap came at the foul line, where the Spurs didn’t get their first free throw until 2:17 left in the first half. The Spurs hung within 10 points at intermission but were outscored 14-7 to start the third quarter.

“I thought in the first half, we did a good job of hanging in,” Popovich said. “I was optimistic. Then, at the start of the third quarter, they came with the same aggressiveness and energy, and we didn’t match that.”

Even after the loss, the Spurs own a 6 1/2-game lead over Dallas for the top seed in the Western Conference. The Spurs and Mavericks play Friday in Dallas.

With the victory, meanwhile, the Heat (46-21) climbed within two games of Boston and Chicago for the top mark in the East.

“They needed the game more than us,” said Ginobili, who had 12 points and missed all three of his 3-point tries. “They were more upset than us.”

In the end, the Heat doled out a dish best served cold. Miami players admitted the idea of revenge was in the back of their minds when they entered the gym Monday.

By the end of the night, they had taken out their frustration not just on the Spurs, but on the rims at the AmericanAirlines Arena.

Led by James’ re-enactment of a middle-school play, the Heat transformed the fourth quarter into a dunk contest that the Spurs were in no mood to judge.

“It’s huge for us to get even with this team,” Bosh said. “They beat us pretty good up there, and I’m happy we were able to respond.”

With a 60-point turnaround, the Heat got even with the Spurs, in more ways than one.

Duncan in the post remains a reliable option for Spurs

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

MIAMI — When the Spurs needed a big basket late in Saturday’s victory at Houston, they pulled a page from the past.

They tossed the ball to Tim Duncan in the low post, stood back and watched him go to work.

Duncan rewarded his team with a post-up basket on Chuck Hayes to break a 117-117 tie with 1:09 to go and followed with a pair of free throws on the Spurs’ next possession.

For Duncan, in the midst of the lowest-scoring season of his Hall of Fame career, it’s not about scoring 20 points per game anymore. It’s about scoring two points when it most matters.

“He’s not the guy we just give the ball to over and over,” guard Manu Ginobili said. “In some parts of the game, we’re going to do it, but not as constant as we used to.”

In his 14th season at age 34, Duncan has become a role player in the Spurs’ offense, which is enjoying its most productive season of his tenure. He is averaging 13.3 points heading into tonight’s rematch with Miami, and his minutes (28:36) and touches (11.2 field-goal attempts) per game have dropped to career-low levels.

Duncan has joked to teammates that, sometimes, it feels like all he’s doing his running wind sprints throughout the course of a game.

“I still say if Tim was playing his normal 35 minutes, getting 20 touches a night, his numbers would be higher,” forward Richard Jefferson said. “But he’d get worn down quicker. We have the luxury of resting him.”

Or, put another way, the Spurs have the luxury of saving Duncan until they need him most.

A KING’S FOOTNOTE: Tonight at AmericanAirlines Arena, Spurs guard Chris Quinn will meet up with an old nemesis. In 2002, while a senior at Coffman High in Dublin, Ohio, Quinn finished runner-up for the state’s prestigious Mr. Basketball honors.

First place instead went to a junior at St. Mary’s-St. Vincent in Akron named LeBron James.

Quinn averaged 22.5 points per game that season at Coffman but doesn’t mind being the middle victim in James’ run of three-consecutive Mr. Basketball prizes. James, after all, went on to become a two-time NBA MVP, and counting.

“I guess if there’s someone to lose to in that kind of thing, he’s not a bad person to lose to,” said Quinn, who spent the first 2 1/2 seasons of his career with Miami. “I guess I’m an interesting footnote.”

CENTER OF ATTENTION: Though it’s come in a small sample size, coach Gregg Popovich likes what he’s seen so far from his latest starting lineup, with 6-foot-9 veteran Antonio McDyess replacing the shorter DeJuan Blair at center.

The move was made for defensive purposes, with an eye toward how the Spurs might defend some of the Western Conference’s better power forwards in the playoffs.

“It’s a good starting defensive group,” Popovich said. “(McDyess) matches up well with four-men on other teams. We want to take a look at that and get in a rhythm with that lineup.”

Blair hasn’t exactly been forgotten in the lineup switch. He is coming off back-to-back 14-point games as a reserve.