Tag: Miami

Spurs’ preseason schedule released

The Spurs will open their seven-game preseason schedule with a home game against Montepaschi Sienna of the Italian league on Oct. 6. The slate includes three other home games and a visit to the defending champion Miami Heat on Oct. 20.

The complete schedule:

Oct. 6, 7:30 p.m., Montepaschi Siena, ATT Center

Oct. 10, 7:30 p.m., Atlanta, ATT Center

Oct. 12, 7:30 p.m., Denver, ATT Center

Oct. 14, 1 p.m., Houston, Toyota Center

Oct. 20, 6:30 p.m., Miami, American Airlines Arena

Oct. 21, 5 p.m., Orlando, Amway Center

Oct. 26, 7:30 p.m., Washington, ATT Center

NOTE — All times Central

The Spurs will open the regular season on Oct. 31 with a road game at New Orleans.

Mike Monroe: It’s business as usual with Howard to Lakers

Friday couldn’t have been any worse for Spurs fans unless Manu Ginobili had blown out both knees in Argentina’s Olympic semifinal loss to Team USA.

The team they most love to hate landed the NBA’s most dominant big man.

By adding Dwight Howard to a starting lineup that already includes Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash and Pau Gasol, the Lakers zoomed past the Spurs and Thunder to become the best team in the Western Conference.

Andrew Bynum may well have been the best center in the West last season, but he is both injury-prone and churlish. He missed only six out of 66 games last season, but in the previous four seasons he played in only 204 out of a possible 328 games.

In contrast, Howard is a veritable iron man. He missed only seven games in his first seven seasons before missing 12 last season.

Indeed, he had back surgery in April to repair a herniated disk and may not be at full strength when training camp begins in October, but hoping for a slow recovery is a measure of how impactful the deal was.

“Who knows how injured he is,” said one NBA general manager. “He has a back injury. There’s always risk even if you are perceived to win the trade.”

Can Howard really be a major upgrade over a player who scored 16 points and grabbed 30 rebounds when the Lakers handed the Spurs one of their two losses in 17 games in April?

“Bynum is a very good player,” said a Western Conference GM. “He just doesn’t have the explosive qualities Howard has.

“Clearly, the Lakers have been able to get the most physically dominant big man in the league. They had that in Shaq and now it seems as though they have the next legacy and transfer of power.”

The scariest part of the deal for the rest of the West?

Howard will have to prove himself worthy of his new team and teammates. That means a more serious approach — less clowning.

He may call himself Superman, but Howard won’t be the alpha dog on the Lakers. Bryant runs that team, and he’s already made it clear Howard must wait his turn before calling himself “the man” in L.A.

Remember what happened to the last Lakers All-NBA center who called himself Superman and clashed with Bryant?

Shaquille O’Neal had been an MVP and helped the Lakers win three championships, but Bryant saw to it he was traded away.

Howard’s Magic teammates wouldn’t stand up to him when he was being a diva in Orlando. Bryant won’t go along with that, and neither will Nash. Between them, they own three MVP trophies. Howard will have no choice but to fall in line, and a more focused Howard should frighten the entire league.

“Let’s be honest,” said another West GM. “Dwight hasn’t done anything in Orlando. Of course, (Pau) Gasol hadn’t done anything in Memphis when he was traded to L.A. You think wearing that purple and gold uniform made him feel more like a winner?”

Denver also became a tougher stop for every team in the West with Friday’s trade, but that hardly matters to franchises like the Spurs and Thunder that measure success by whether or not they are playing in June.

The Western Conference power structure starts at the top again with the Lakers and threatens what many of us believed had the makings of a new NBA dynasty in Miami.

Don’t doubt for a nanosecond that commissioner David Stern hasn’t already begun to consider the ratings bonanza a Lakers-Heat NBA Finals could produce next June. For all his talk about structuring a collective bargaining agreement that makes it possible for small-market teams to compete with mega markets like New York and L.A., Stern knows the benefits of having his best teams in his glamour markets.

Didn’t he famously declare some years ago that his ideal Finals would be Lakers against Lakers?

mikemonroe@express-news.net

Twitter: @Monroe_SA

James’ incandescent efforts a bright contrast from 2011

MIAMI — LeBron James arrived for practice Monday wearing lime-green sneakers, a highly fluorescent shade.

It was the fashion statement du jour for the league’s three-time MVP, much like the eyeglass frames he’s been sporting after games throughout this postseason. But those sneakers probably would have remained tucked away in the drawer beneath his locker during last year’s NBA Finals, since very little about James’ game would be considered glowing or luminous during those two weeks.

Different year, different story.

For the second straight season, the Miami Heat hold a 2-1 lead in the NBA Finals. There’s a glaring difference this time around — that being James is playing at the top of his game. And he’ll try to help the Heat move within one win of a championship tonight when Miami plays host to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 4 of this title series.

“We’re a totally different team than we was last year when we was up 2-1,” James said Monday. “… We understand what it takes to win, we’ve used that motivation, and we will continue to use that motivation. But last year is last year, and we’re not going into a Game 4 on someone else’s floor. We’re going into a Game 4 on our floor with a lot of experience in this type of situation. We’ll be ready. We love the challenge.”

Miami lost Game 4 in Dallas last year, the start of a three-game slide that ended with the Mavericks winning the title.

So the Thunder know a 2-1 deficit in a series is hardly insurmountable, even though the home-court roles are reversed this time around. And if Oklahoma City needed more proof, all the Thunder need to do is remember the Western Conference finals when they lost the first two games to San Antonio, becoming the 19th and 20th entries on the Spurs’ incredible winning streak. The Spurs didn’t win another game the rest of the way.

“We were down 2-0 against San Antonio, and everybody thought the series was over,” Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. “But I know our guys, they’re very competitive, they’re very resilient. They’ve always showed that type of effort every game, and we’ve always been a great bounce-back team. I thought last night was a great bounce-back. It’s unfortunate we didn’t make a couple plays, and uncharacteristic, also.”

Uncharacteristic. That would also be a fine word to describe how James played in the Finals last season.

He freely acknowledges that he “didn’t make enough plays” against the Mavericks a year ago, and the numbers — 17.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game — back that up, as do his well-chronicled fourth quarter struggles in that series. So far in this year’s Finals, James is averaging 30.3 points, 10.3 rebounds and 4.0 assists, and in the final minutes of Miami’s two wins in the series, he’s done his part to slam the door on the Thunder.

“He’s been aggressive. He’s an aggressive player,” Thunder guard James Harden said. “He’s been aggressive all year, all postseason. He’s tall, strong, and physical. He’s a tough matchup. It takes five guys to really lock down on their offense because they’re a very offensive team especially with LeBron and (Dwyane) Wade.”

James is shooting 46 percent in the series, not even close to the 57 percent clip Kevin Durant is putting up for Oklahoma City. But here’s maybe one piece of proof to support that aggression notion Harden was speaking of — James is 25 for 29 from the foul line in the three games, while Durant is just 14 for 19.

James has done much of his work near the rim in these Finals. But while it wasn’t his most memorable shot, perhaps the biggest one he hit all night in Miami’s Game 3 victory was a 3-pointer late in the third quarter, one of just five shots the Heat made from outside the paint in that game. That shot put Miami up entering the fourth and seemed to extend the Thunder defense just enough to allow James, Wade and Chris Bosh to create more in the lane late.

“The biggest evolution of great players is they always stay in constant state of being uncomfortable,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “They don’t stay satisfied. And LeBron every summer has added something to his game. … I think that’s a sign of greatness.”