Tag: NBA championships

Spurs In the Head of their Opponents

Tye Corbin, the young Head Coach for the Utah Jazz, has plenty of NBA experience and even has in depth experience with the San Antonio Spurs since they were the team that drafted him into the NBA as the 35th overall selection in the 2nd round of the 1985 draft.  Corbin spent his first two seasons with the Silver and Black before signing on with the Cleveland Cavaliers (and nine teams after the Cavs) before ending his 11 year career.

Still, Corbin experienced a panic attack before game 1 against his former team.

“I felt fine right up to the beginning of the game, and then the jitters started,” he said.  “I started thinking: ‘Are we ready? Did we cover everything? Are the combinations right? Is the lineup right? Do the players understand everything?’ It just started spinning like that.”

The Spurs are hoping that the Jazz pick up on that for, if the top man is in doubt…

“I’ll have to get better,” he said. “Make sure I’m relaxed.”

The Spurs, meanwhile, have no such problems with their head man.  Popovich is one of the most savvy coaches in the NBA and such things just don’t happen to him once he takes the court.  For Popovich, this is just another chapter in a long history of Spurs playoff basketball.

Still, don’t expect the Jazz to just lay down and die.

“It’s just one game,” Jazz Point Guard Devin Harris said after their 106-91 loss in Game 1.

While that may be true, what is even more true  is that the Spurs have proven playoff experience having been in the Western Conference playoffs 22 of the last 23 seasons with four NBA Championships to show for it.

What is even more unfortunate for the Jazz is that SG Manu Ginobili is 100% healthy and the possibility of another first round meltdown such as the one against Memphis last season is highly unlikely to repeat itself and, you can guarantee the Spurs have yet to forget about it.

“Everybody knows what happened last year,” PG Tony Parker said. “Everybody is motivated.”

Still, the young coach for this young Jazz squad should  look at this loss as a learning experience and learn from it as the Spurs did trying to get over the hump with the Lakers throughout the 80’s.

“They just know what it takes to put you away,” said Ty Corbin. “They don’t just play guys. The guys they put on the floor are very effective at what they do.”

Effective, yes. Happened overnight, no.

 

 

 

 

Manu makes new Bugs Bunny cartoon

Manu Ginobili has earned a passel of awards during his illustrious basketball career.

He’s won three NBA championships, a gold medal for Argentina at the 2004 Olympics and been named a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF.

He’s been featured in commercials for H-E-B — who can forget Mt. Manu? — and pitched for cable television and hospitals. There was even the celebrated bat-catching incident at the ATT Center against Sacramento on Halloween Night 2009.

But Ginobili has received one of the unique honors of his career with his inclusion in a recent Looney Tunes commercial. During the episode, Lola Bunny speaks of her love for Ginobili at the 4:04 mark of this You Tube video (Hat tip: ).

Can Manu get any bigger than this?

Here’s a look at the You Tube video of Manu’s mention.

Spurs’ Parker expects an NBA season

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

Fresh off a star turn for France at last month’s EuroBasket tournament, Spurs point guard Tony Parker spent Saturday afternoon in a rented gym in Alamo Heights, conducting what he hopes will be the first of many eponymous basketball clinics to come.

Some 1,800 miles away at roughly the same time, inside a luxury hotel in midtown Manhattan, NBA owners and players were locked in a collective bargaining meeting that will in large part determine Parker’s next move.

Training camp in South Texas? Or the south of France?

Should the news coming out of New York be bad, and the lockout prolonged, Parker says he’s prepared to open the season playing for ASVEL, the French professional team he co-owns.

“If the sense is we’re going to start in two weeks, I’m not going to go over there,” Parker said. “If they tell me we’re not going to start until January then, yeah, I might go play.”

Parker plans to make a decision next week after the NBA labor situation becomes clearer. Spurs teammate Manu Ginobili, who is weighing an offer in Italy, is believed to be on a similar timetable.

Had the NBA labor dispute not postponed the start of camps indefinitely, the Spurs would have held media day this afternoon, with practices set to begin Monday.

Like other players, the 29-year-old Parker has his eyes on the Big Apple for what has been cast as a make-or-break weekend of bargaining sessions. Ignoring the gloom and doom that has hallmarked negotiations so far, Parker said he expects to be on an NBA court at some point in 2011-12.

“Everybody’s hopeful,” Parker said. “I think we’ll have a season.”

Asked if he thought the impasse would be solved in time to stage a full 82-game season, which would likely mean having the framework of a deal in place by the middle of next week, Parker sounded less sure.

“I hope so,” Parker said. “I don’t think we’ll cancel the season.”

It was a long and strange summer for the Spurs’ three-time All-Star in a lot of ways, and not all of them bad.

Last month, he led the French national team to a runner-up finish at Eurobasket in Lithuania, securing a berth in the 2012 London Olympics for Les Bleus — the country’s first since 2000.

It was a heady moment not lost on Parker, whose basketball résumé includes three NBA championships, one Finals MVP, three All-Star appearances and an All-NBA Third Team selection but, until now, no Olympic berth.

“I’ve been chasing that for like 10 years,” Parker said. “It was my last thing.”

His success in Lithuania has Parker itching to get back on the court with the Spurs, especially with the sour taste of the team’s first-round playoff ouster to Memphis still lingering.

How soon that can happen remains up to David Stern and Billy Hunter.

If doomsday occurs, and the entire season is scuttled, it would be quite a blow to a Spurs team that still relies heavily on aging stars Tim Duncan (35) and Ginobili (34).

Duncan is entering the final season of his contract, and there has been speculation a fully erased 2011-12 campaign might also mean the end of the 13-time All-Star’s career.

Parker, who says he’s talked to Duncan recently and plans to work out with him Monday, isn’t buying that.

“I see myself playing at least two or three more seasons with Timmy,” Parker said.

Whether Parker opens his next season here or abroad remains to be seen.

Should Parker opt to play in France, it might actually cost him money. As ASVEL’s co-owner, he would have to pay to insure his own NBA contract.

“I would do it,” Parker said. “I think it will be good for French basketball, especially after what we did this summer. Everybody’s so excited about basketball right now.”