Tag: James Anderson

Spurs notebook: Splitter’s free-throw work paying off

For Spurs center Tiago Splitter, shooting free throws was once an adventure.

As a rookie last season, he made just 54.3 percent of them, converting at just better than the rate of “heads” in a coin flip.

“I didn’t have a great mechanic,” Splitter said. “We tried to change it, and it wasn’t easy. You’re changing the way you shot your whole life.”

After a season working with shooting coach Chip Engelland, and a lockout-prolonged offseason spent honing his touch on his own, Splitter appears to be developing into a rarity among Spurs big men — a competent foul shooter.

Splitter is hitting 69 percent of his freebies heading into tonight’s game against Phoenix, having converted 20 of 29. Those numbers will never confuse him for Mark Price, but they do make him a more valuable weapon in the post.

With so much juking and junk in his post game, Splitter can count on drawing fouls and going to the line often.

“If he’s going to make his free throws, we can definitely pass him the ball inside,” point guard Tony Parker said. “He’s going to be a force down there.”

Splitter had made nine consecutive free throws before snapping that streak with a 4-of-7 showing in Friday’s 99-83 win over Portland. He hopes it is a sign that his new shooting mechanic is becoming second nature.

“Sometimes, you make them in practice, then you go to the game, and it’s different,” Splitter said. “You start thinking too much. Now, I just go there and shoot it.”

Talking ’bout practice: For the first time since the start of the regular season, coach Gregg Popovich was able to conduct a full-scale practice Saturday.

The light, 45-minute session was focused mostly on teaching and geared to younger players such as rookies Kawhi Leonard, Cory Joseph and Malcolm Thomas, as well as second-year guys such as Splitter and James Anderson.

“The young guys are still a little confused in the system,” Popovich said. “They need time in it. So the weight room and the film room and the court are all important places for education, and we were able to do all three today.”

Getting defensive: After the Spurs gave up 51.8 percent shooting in a 106-103 defeat at Milwaukee — a performance so porous they lost despite hitting 60 percent — Popovich challenged his players to become more defensive minded.

In the two games since, wins over Houston and Portland, neither opponent has shot better than 42.7 percent. The Blazers made just 40.7 percent of their shots Friday and were held to just 36 points in the second half.

“I like to think it’s increased focus and understanding of who we have to be and what we have to do if we want to win basketball games,” Popovich said. “We’re not an offensive juggernaut by any stretch, so we’ve got to guard people.”

That said, the Spurs do rank fourth in the league in scoring (100.8 points per game). Typically prolific Phoenix ranks 16th at 94.1.

Ginobili nowhere close to done

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

It’s hard to remember the first time Gregg Popovich declared one of his Spurs teams older than dirt.

An archive search brings up references as far back as 2006, when Tim Duncan was near his prime and Manu Ginobili was still in his 20s.

The assertion was more accurate when he made it before the start of the 2008-09 season, but the context was more instructive than the declaration.

Then, a visiting columnist asked Popovich why his team was being dismissed as a legitimate title contender by so many experts.

After all, the previous spring the team had returned for a second straight season to the Western Conference finals. But misfortune had struck the Spurs in Game 3 of their conference semifinals series against the Hornets when Manu Ginobili twisted his right ankle. Ginobili gutted out the final four games of that series, but by the time the Spurs got to Los Angeles to begin the conference finals, he was far from full effectiveness.

At the conclusion of a 4-1 ouster by the Lakers, Brent Barry famously avowed: “We had ‘Ma,’ but we didn’t have ‘Nu.’?”

It didn’t matter to the team’s critics. L.A.’s domination became reason to declare the Spurs’ long run as championship contenders had ended.

So the following fall, when a Houston columnist asked about this pervasive belief, Popovich explained the lack of faith: “That’s because we’re older than dirt. When we won it all in ’07, we were called a really experienced, savvy team. If you lose, you’re too old.”

Ginobili is 34 now, and by season’s end Tony Parker will be just three weeks shy of his 30th birthday, the last of the Big Three to hit the Big 3-0.

Tim Duncan, the three-time NBA Finals MVP, is 35.

But even as the Spurs stars reach ages that prompt comparisons to well-turned loam, they remain vital to the team’s chances of making another title run.

Ginobili is fresh off a performance at the FIBA Americas Olympic qualifying tournament that proved his game remains among the best in the world as long as both arms are fully functional.

He is happy to see players such as DeJuan Blair, 22, James Anderson, 22, Kawhi Leonard, 20, and Tiago Splitter, 27 on Jan. 1, available for significant court time that will help the team’s veterans make it through a 66-game schedule compressed into 121 days.

Yet he is hardly ready to concede that the team has begun the transition to a team with a youthful core.

“It is probably early to talk about that,” he said. “Probably next year, when T.D.’s contract is up and, the following year, mine is up we’re probably going to see a change. I don’t think until then it’s going to be something noticeable. I think the go-to guys are still going to be the same ones.

“Of course, when you start adding guys — Kawhi and James, who has been playing really well, and DeJuan and Tiago — well, it’s not something that happens overnight. You have to wait a little.”

Indeed, Duncan is in the final year of his contract, shrugging off any suggestion it may be his last season in silver and black. He has vowed to play as long as the game remains enjoyable or “until the wheels fall off.”

A contract extension before season’s end would be no shock.

Ginobili is under contract through 2012-13. He hasn’t allowed himself to think seriously about a career beyond that season, but admits there are days when he can’t imagine not continuing for another season or two.

“No, I haven’t thought yet about what I will do after next season,” he said, “and I don’t think I will until the moment comes. There are some days I’m tired and everything hurts, and I say to myself, ‘These two years, and that’s probably it.’

“Some other days, I’m scrimmaging, and I’m going crazy because I love it, and I want to win and I want to challenge my opponent, and I know, once I make the decision (to retire) I am going to miss it, because at that age, that high the pregame gives you is different.

“I don’t know how, or who, is going to win next year, so I will wait.”

Whether Splitter, Leonard and Anderson have shown the potential to be a new Big Three by the end of the 2012-13 season won’t factor into Ginobili’s thinking about where he will play if, in fact, he opts to keep playing.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I am almost 100 percent sure that if I keep playing, it is going to be here.

“If I had to start all over again in a different place I would call it a day. But here I went through so many things and appreciate everybody so much, if I decide I want to keep playing and want to keep feeling what I feel on the court, it doesn’t matter if we are the best team, but not the worst. And if I keep playing here, probably we are not going to be the worst team.”

Of that, Popovich has no doubt. In a moment of candor while discussing that disappointing Western Conference finals with the Lakers, the Spurs coach made clear Ginboili’s continuing role in the Spurs’ championship dreams.

“If Manu wasn’t out there playing hurt against the Lakers; if we have him able to play the way he has played in the past, then that’s probably a whole different series,” he said three years ago. “You have to have your horses. If Manu’s not whole, we’re not going to win. That’s all there is to it.”

It is a truth that applied in 2008, and it applied in April in Memphis, just as it will this season.

As long as Ginobili is healthy, at any age, he will remain one of the Spurs’ lead horses, pulling his weight and a whole lot more.

AS MANU GOES . . .

… so go the Spurs. It’s a familiar tune, although Manu Ginobili, who played on three Spurs NBA championship teams in his first five seasons, would be the first to say he’s but a part of that success. However, the games he has missed shows the value that once had Spurs coach Gregg Popovich saying, “If Manu’s not whole, we’re not going to win.”

In games where Ginobili sat because of injury or to protect his health in nine seasons, that statement bears some truth.

2010-11: 0-3
2009-10: 4-3
2008-09: 23-20
2007-08: 5-3
2006-07: 2-5
2005-06: 12-5
2004-05: 6-2
2003-04: 4-1
2002-03: 10-3
Overall: 66-45 (.594 winning percentage, translates to a 49-win team in an 82-game schedule)

Since last title: 32-29 (.525, translates to a 43-win team in an 82-game schedule)

With Manu: In 755 career games, including playoffs, the Spurs are 529-266 for a .701 percentage, which translates to a 58-win team over 82 games.

– Source: Douglas Pils, Express-News research

Ginobili breaks hand in defeat

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

MINNEAPOLIS — Fighting from behind through a first half in which the Minnesota Timberwolves made 67.5 percent of their shots and 7 of 8 from 3-point range, the Spurs somehow found themselves within eight points after a Richard Jefferson 3-point basket with 3:04 left in the half.

What they needed before halftime of what would eventually be a 106-96 loss was a defensive stop to help them further turn the game’s momentum. So, on Minnesota’s next possession, Spurs guard Manu Ginobili slapped down hard with his left hand in an attempt to strip the ball from Anthony Tolliver’s grasp as the Timberwolves forward turned to launch a shot from just inside the 3-point line.

Ginobili’s teammates have seen him succeed with the same defensive ploy so many times, they always expect something good to come of it.

A serious injury was the last thing on anyone’s mind, but what the Spurs got was the worst outcome possible: a fractured fifth metacarpal on Ginobili’s shooting hand that likely will keep their top scorer this season on the sidelines for a number of weeks.

“In this kind of situation, you can’t predict it,” said Tony Parker, Ginobili’s backcourt running mate. “It happened to me in Memphis in 2010. You go for a steal, and it happens, but Manu goes for a steal so many times, I almost want to say it can’t ever happen to him.

“Why now? That’s an answer for the basketball gods.”

Spurs athletic trainer Will Sevening examined Ginobili’s hand and led him to the Wolves’ medical room, where Ginobili’s hand was X-rayed, revealing the fracture.

The two-time All-Star is to be re-examined by the Spurs’ medical staff today, after which a timeline for his return will be determined.

By the time the Timberwolves claimed their second victory of the season, the Spurs already were counting the ways they will have to cope without one of their most important players and their emotional touchstone.

“It’s going to be tough for us, because he was playing at an All-Star level,” said Parker, painfully aware Ginobili entered Monday’s game leading the team in scoring (19.8 points per game), shooting (60.5 percent) and 3-point shooting (54.2 percent). “Now everybody is going to have to pick it up and play better.”

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said James Anderson would move into the starting spot at shooting guard until Ginobili returns.

Anderson said he will be in the gym at the Spurs’ practice facility today, even if Popovich doesn’t call an official practice session.

“With him gone, I’m just going to have to get in the gym for some extra work and try to fulfill that role the best I can. He’s one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle on this team. Without him, we lose a lot of stuff, and that’s on both ends.”

It is arguable whether or not Ginobili’s presence in the second half would have made a difference in Monday’s game. Minnesota made 11 of its first 13 3-point attempts — Kevin Love, at 4 of 6, was the only Timberwolves player with more than one long-range miss — and scored 94 points through three quarters.

“They were shooting threes falling backwards and making them,” Parker said. “It’s kind of tough when they do that.”

What could have been a blowout of epic proportions remained competitive because the Spurs also shot well, if not uncannily.

“We just couldn’t get it over the hump,” Popovich said.

Now they will have to get over the loss of Ginobili, likely for an extended period.

That’s not a hump.

That’s a mountain.