Tag: National Basketball Association

Shooters can’t find range

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

Nothing about the Spurs’ six-game losing streak is as puzzling as the sudden struggles from beyond the 3-point line.

Friday’s 5-for-19 3-point shooting (26.3 percent) was the third straight game in which the Spurs shot below 30 percent from long range.

Outscored by 12 from beyond the arc by the Rockets, the Spurs suffered a 119-114 overtime loss.

Matt Bonner still leads the NBA in 3-point accuracy despite a 2-for-13 slump over the past three games, but he missed all five of his long-range attempts Friday.

Manu Ginobili, who has taken more 3-pointers than any teammate, missed four of his six against the Rockets.

It was the continuation of a trend that has coach Gregg Popovich at a loss for an explanation.

“We had a lot of great shots that guys aren’t knocking down,” he said, “guys who have been good 3-point shooters all year long, and they’re just not falling down.”

Had it been a one-game aberration, the errant shooting would not be such a worry. That it has become a trend puts a furrow on Popovich’s forehead.

“During these games, our 3-point percentage has gone in the toilet,” he said. “Our 3-point percentage has gone down, and it’s really been the difference.

“We’ve hung in every game, but you’ve got to shoot it well. There’s really no drill for that. You just have to hope that worm turns and we can shoot better.

“So we’ve got to concentrate on penetrating more, trying to move the ball a little better, and get more open, uncontested shots, and see if the percentage goes up at all.”

SHUFFLING LINEUPS: After the Spurs allowed the Rockets 64 first-half points on 52 percent shooting, Popovich opened the second half with the starting lineup he had used through the first 53 games of the season, replacing Antonio McDyess with DeJuan Blair.

Whether the change was the reason, the Spurs tightened their defense appreciably in the second half, holding Houston to 35 percent shooting in the third and fourth quarters and limiting the Rockets to just four shots in overtime.

CONFUSION REIGNS: The Spurs’ failure to take a foul to stop the clock after Houston rebounded Tony Parker’s missed 3-point attempt with 27 seconds left baffled Popovich and some of his players.

Trailing 117-114, the Spurs didn’t move to take a foul until Tim Duncan grabbed Kevin Martin with 7.5 seconds remaining in the overtime period.

Popovich waved his arms frantically and screamed for his players to foul, but Parker said crowd noise prevented him from hearing Popovich, whom he could not see from his position on the court.

“For me, we were down three with three seconds (difference between the shot clock and game clock), and I thought it was better not to foul because if we make a stop we have a chance to tie the game,” Parker said. “That’s what went through my head, and I didn’t hear Pop calling for the foul.”

GREEN TO AUSTIN: The Spurs on Saturday assigned swingman Danny Green to their Austin Toros team in the NBA D-League. Signed for the remainder of the season March 16, Green had appeared in three games. He scored seven points with three rebounds and two assists.

Oft-injured Oden expected to receive one-year extension with Portland

The Portland Trail Blazers apparently aren’t ready to write off injury-prone center Greg Oden yet.

The professional career of Oden, the first pick of the 2007 NBA draft, has been a massive bust with his frequent injuries. He’s played in only 82 games in his first four seasons, a time during which he’s made $21,795,444 to play in 82 combined NBA games.

That’s a whopping average of $265,798 for each game he’s played in a Blazers uniform.

But the Oregonian reports that the fear of Oden finding success with another team for a one-year qualifying offer to a contract extension.  

The team will have the period between the end of the NBA Finals to June 30 to make him an offer. If he wasn’t renewed, Oden would become the first NBA No. 1 draft pick since Kwame Brown not to re-up with his original team.

Oden’s pro career has been dogged with unfortunate injuries. Before he played his first game, he underwent microfracture surgery on his right knee and  missed the entire 2007-08 season. He left his first NBA game with a foot injury and played in only 61 games in his rookie season.

And on Dec. 5, 2009, less than four days after setting a career-high with 20 rebounds, he injured his left knee in the first quarter of a game and taken off the court on a stretcher. Later, he underwent surgery for a fractured left patella and missed the rest of the season.

The Trail Blazers announced on Nov. 17, 2010, that Oden would have microfracture surgery on his left knee, ending his 2010–2011 season. He has slowly started his rehab work in the Portland area from that procedure.

While his career has been frustrating for  the Trail Blazers and been compared to that of 1980s-era Portland draft bust Sam Bowie, the team can’t let him go now. It simply has too much invested in him.

The Oregonian reports that Oden told the newspaper he would like to resume his career playing at close to 270 pounds. He played his college career at Ohio State at 250 and his short NBA career at nearly 300 pounds.

Marcus Camby tells the Oregonian that Oden retains his “freakish” body. Think of the current-day NBA and the only other centers that compares when Oden is healthy is Dwight Howard.

“Only Dwight Howard is like that,” Camby told the newspaper. “Andrew Bynum is big, but he’s not strong and bulked up like Greg.”

Portland has to bet on keeping Oden around. They couldn’t handle the chance that Oden would regain his health and then come back with a franchise like the Spurs, Chicago or Boston and haunt his old team by fulfilling his promise somewhere else.

Oden turned 23 in January. He’s more than three full years younger than Spurs rookie Tiago Splitter and even more younger than Gary Neal.

That youth remains his salvation for the Trail Blazers if he ever can regain his health.

It’s also a sobering realization to the Spurs franchise, which hit the jackpot on its only two times with top picks in the NBA lottery when it picked David Robinson and Tim Duncan – arguably two of the top 30 players in the history of the league.

And it leads to this question for Spurs Nation: If Oden doesn’t sign with Portland, would the Spurs be advised to take a shot at him if he lands on the open market?

Would it be worth the gamble of investing in Oden for the post-Duncan era to surround him with the current young nucleus the Spurs could pair him with in the future?

How would Oden look wearing Silver and Black?

Magic won’t shave until their playoff run ends

Taking a cue from their counterparts in the NHL, members of the Orlando Magic are opting to stop shaving until the end of the NBA playoffs as a show of team unity.

It was Orlando forward Quentin Richardson’s idea to put away the razors for the next few weeks.

“It’s one of those team things,” Richardson told the Orlando Sentinel. “Togetherness. It’s something fun at the same time. It’s going to definitely look funny, I know.”

The team considered different options before deciding on the facial adornments, All-Star center Dwight Howard told the Sentinel.

“We thought about the bald heads, but some of us — myself — don’t look right with a bald head,” Howard said. “Then we thought about letting our hair grow out; then [we realized] we’ve got a lot of guys who are going bald, so [it would] look funny with just patches in their head.

“So the beard is the only way to go. It’ll be tough for me and the young guys to really get it going, but we’re all in this together.”

Hedo Turkoglu already has a head start on the rest of the team. How much more unkempt can he really become?

I’ll be curious about how Howard looks and handles the facial growth. Considering his well-known self-interest – or vanity — in himself, it will be interesting to see if he really will join his teammates  in this endeavor.

And I’ll wonder if Coach Stan Van Gundy joins them in this as well. Van Gundy with a beard could look like one of those beatnik poets back from th early 1960s.