Tag: James Naismith

Shooting touch abandons Spurs

By Jeff McDonald

MINNEAPOLIS — When Dr. James Naismith invented the game of basketball more than a century ago, he took pains to hang his peach baskets at both ends of the court.

This “two ends to a basketball game” thing is a phenomenon the Spurs would be wise to remember the next time they venture outside the ATT Center.

With rare exception on the road, when the Spurs’ offense has been on, the defense has been off. When the defense is on, the offense gives Naismith’s inaugural game an aesthetic run for its money.

It didn’t take coach Gregg Popovich long to determine which end was the culprit in the Spurs’ 87-79 loss at Minnesota on Friday.

“If we’re on the road, and we hold somebody to 87 points, I think you’ve got a good chance to win,” Popovich said.

Later in the Target Center locker room, Spurs point guard Tony Parker zeroed in on another number in the box score.

“We only scored 79 points,” he said. “That’s not enough.”

For the Spurs, it was, in fact, a season low.

Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love each scored 18 points for Minnesota, with Rubio adding 10 assists and Love contributing 16 rebounds for his NBA-leading 18th double-double.

The victory gave the Timberwolves (9-10) a two-game winning streak over the Spurs, a team that had beaten them 16 straight before this season began.

“We had to do it before the Mayan calendar runs out,” Love said.

In his first home game since signing a four-year contract extension, Love pushed Minnesota over the top with a pair of drives in the final two minutes. The second put the Wolves ahead 85-79 with 37.3 seconds left.

It was part of a fourth quarter that saw Minnesota score 23 points, usually a manageable total, yet still outpace the Spurs in the frame by eight.

“Like many NBA games, the last four or five minutes, whoever scores wins,” Popovich said. “And we scored 15 in the (fourth) quarter. Fifteen isn’t going to get it done in the fourth quarter of an NBA game.”

The Spurs’ offense having abandoned them, the game took on a familiar, down-to-the-wire tenor. Their previous three road games — an 85-83 win in Orlando, a 105-102 loss in Houston and a 104-102 win in New Orleans — were all fourth-quarter games.

In the final seven minutes Friday, the Spurs (12-8) produced five points and one field goal, a Gary Neal 3-pointer for a 79-77 edge with 3:33 remaining. Those were the final points the Spurs would score.

“We couldn’t make the shots we needed to win the game,” said Parker, who scored 20 points, more than a quarter of his team’s total.

The list of misfiring Spurs began with Tim Duncan, who finished 2 of 12 for nine points. Duncan had a season-high four of the Spurs’ eight blocked shots, but was clearly bothered at the offensive end by Minnesota’s Nikola Pekovic.

A 6-foot-11, 290-pound center who drew the start in place of the ill Darko Milicic, Pekovic finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds. He drove the Spurs batty all night with what they thought were illegal screens to free Rubio.

Popovich argued for the call throughout the game. When officials finally did blow their whistle for a moving screen, the call went against Duncan, negating Parker’s would-be go-ahead jumper with 4:36 to go.

Minutes later, Pekovic again swallowed up Parker on a screen, allowing Rubio to sink a tie-breaking 20-footer with 2:56 left.

Asked about Pekovic’s screen-setting ability, Spurs swingman Danny Green was diplomatic.

“It was unique,” Green said.

Parker, the player most often victimized by Pekovic’s picks, had less to say.

“I have no comment,” he said, chuckling.

The Spurs know Pekovic isn’t the reason they lost Friday. Neither were Minnesota’s point-guard prodigy or newly minted $60 million man.

On a night they actually played passable defense, it was the Spurs’ own inability to put the ball in the basket that doomed them.

jmcdonald@express-news.net

Spurs plan to put Parker’s youth to the test

Tony Parker was just 19 years old in 2001 when, six games into his rookie season, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich installed him as the team’s starting point guard.

Parker has held the job ever since, creating the illusion he arrived not long after James Naismith hung the first peach baskets.

Though a fixture in the Spurs’ lineup since before he could buy a drink, Parker is not old. Playing next to 35-year-old Tim Duncan and 34-year-old Manu Ginobili, however, he is at times considered ancient by association.

“I’m just 29,” Parker insists. “I’m still young.”

With Ginobili out with a broken hand, T.J. Ford out with a torn hamstring and no other plausible point guard on the roster, the Spurs seem poised to put Parker’s youth to the test.

In the past three games, Parker has totaled more than 114 minutes, including 81 in a back-to-back against Milwaukee and Houston. He tallied at least 20 points and eight assists in each of those three contests, a nearly mandatory line given the Ginobili-sized hole in the nightly box score.

For his effort, Parker has been promised no rest on the horizon, and no hazard pay. He can expect another exhausting day at the office tonight at the ATT Center against Phoenix and Steve Nash, an opponent who traditionally brings out his best.

“Pop told me it’s going to be a lot more minutes,” Parker said. “I just have to be ready.”

Given Ginobili’s state of perpetual injury over the past four seasons, Parker has become the Spurs’ minuteman, ready at a moment’s notice.

It is no coincidence that Parker’s finest NBA season — a 2008-09 campaign in which he averaged 22 points and earned third-team All-NBA honors — came in concert with Ginobili being sidelined for all but 44 games.

“When Manu is out, I have to do double the job,” said Parker, who has averaged 17.1 points in 34 regular-season games against the Suns. “I’ve got to stay aggressive and be in attack mode the whole time.”

This season, Parker is averaging 15.9 points, his lowest clip since 2003-04. In seven games sans Ginobili, however, that average has leapt to 17.9.

Tony Parker, celebrating with Richard Jefferson, has logged more than 114 minutes in the Spurs’ past three games. (Eric Gay / Associated Press)

In further testament to Parker’s aggressiveness gone into overdrive, he has committed 13 of his 26 turnovers in the past three games.

“Tony’s a scoring guard,” Popovich said. “He’s always looking to be aggressive. I guess you see him being aggressive for more minutes now, since he’s playing more minutes.”

And Ford’s injury, suffered three games ago in Milwaukee, only amplifies the Spurs’ reliance on Parker.

Rookie Cory Joseph is the only other true point guard on the roster, and he is far from ready to be an NBA rotation player. For the past three games, shooting guard Gary Neal filled in gamely, if miscast, as Parker’s primary backup.

In Friday’s 99-83 victory over Portland, the Spurs’ reserves had them ahead by 14 points in the fourth quarter. Needing a ball-handler to deal with the Trail Blazers’ full-court pressure, Popovich had to re-insert Parker to close the game.

He immediately scored 10 consecutive points in a two-minute span to keep Portland at arm’s length.

“He’s doing just about everything for us,” Duncan said. “He’s continued to attack every time down the floor. He found a way to get things done.”

The trick now is to keep Parker from running into the ground for the next four to six weeks while his injured backcourt mates heal.

Especially in a condensed season like this one, Popovich is hyper-aware of the minutes logged by his older veterans, and the toll it takes on them. He is not concerned about Parker, because he doesn’t consider Parker old.

“He’ll play more minutes than Tim during this period when Manu’s gone,” Popovich said. “He’ll have the burden.”

It is a burden Parker is happy to shoulder, while he’s still young.