Tag: NBA

Spurs can’t help but smile at play of stoic Leonard

By Jeff McDonald

The 66th game of his NBA career had ended. The TV lights had faded and most of the microphones that had semi-circled his locker just moments earlier had disappeared in search of someone more quotable.

It was then and there, in the aftermath of the Spurs’ resounding Game 2 victory over Utah on Wednesday, that Kawhi Leonard chose to reveal his best-kept secret.

“I do smile,” Leonard said.

And then he did. Sort of. The left corner of Leonard’s mouth inched north ever so slightly, briefly transforming the Spurs’ enigmatic rookie small forward into a Mona Lisa in braids.

Just like that, it was gone. The instant passed without anyone bothering to capture photographic evidence of the Loch Ness monster of NBA facial expressions.

For Leonard’s teammates, who have come to regard the soft-spoken 20-year-old as the type of player who could make it stone-faced through a tickle fight, the moment was one that had to be seen to be believed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before,” Manu Ginobili said of Leonard’s grin. “Not for more than a second. Or a fourth of a second.”

In the crucible of his first NBA playoff series, which the Spurs lead 2-0 heading into Game 3 on Saturday in Utah, Leonard’s seeming inability to feel neither pleasure nor pressure has been a blessing.

Quietly — because how else would he do it? — the 6-foot-7 rookie from San Diego State is having quite an impact on the top-seeded Spurs’ manhandling of the No. 8 seed Jazz.

During the Spurs’ 114-83 picnic in Game 2, Leonard hit 6 of 7 shots, including 3 of 4 3-pointers, on his way to 17 points. It was the highest-scoring playoff game for a Spurs rookie since Ginobili went for 21 against Dallas in Game 4 of the 2003 Western Conference finals.

Leonard did it without beating his chest. Or, save for a momentary lapse in the postgame locker room, without cracking a smile.

“He’s got a way about him,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “He’s not so anxious to show us that he’s got every move in the world. He’s level-headed and takes things as they come. Which is great, because he blends in with everybody else.”

Leonard, for his part, doesn’t quite understand why everyone keeps asking him to smile more, as if every day were team picture day.

“That’s just my character on the court,” Leonard said. “Act like I’ve been here before.”

Yet his lack of outward emotion often belies a potpourri of feelings inside. He is not made of stone, even if he sometimes appears to be doing a spot-on impression of Mount Rushmore.

“I am excited,” Leonard insisted. “I’m out there playing hard. If I was down, I wouldn’t be playing hard basketball.”

Other Spurs admit they at first didn’t quite know what to make of the draft-day trade that brought Leonard to town last June. General manager R.C. Buford had to send George Hill — a versatile and popular backup guard — to Indiana to make it happen.

The deal was a gamble, and even Leonard’s soon-to-be teammates knew it.

“I was definitely shocked, even upset,” Ginobili said. “I loved playing with George.”

It didn’t take long for the quiet kid with the braids to win fans in his new locker room.

With giraffe-neck arms and hands that could palm Jupiter, Leonard is a born rebounder — he averaged 5.1 in 24 minutes per game during the regular season — and a steals machine. His ability to run the floor and finish fast breaks has given the Spurs’ transition game an extra gear.

Those are the things that make him stand out. As impressive to his veteran teammates are the ways in which he fits in.

The never-smiling thing is part of it.

“He doesn’t get too upset, and he doesn’t get too pumped up,” Ginobili said. “He just plays. That’s basically who we are.”

And basically who Leonard has always been.

There is but one scenario Leonard could envision that might cause him unveil his full-on, ear-to-ear, 5-year-old-at-Disneyland grin.

And if the Spurs’ luck breaks just right between now and late June, they just might get to see it.

“You might see it,” Leonard said. “If we win the championship.”

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

SPURS LEAD BEST-OF-7 SERIES 2-0

Game 1:

Game 2:

Game 3 Saturday: Spurs @Jazz, 9 p.m.
TV: FSNSW, TNT Radio: WOAI-AM 1200; KCOR-AM 1350?

Game 4 Monday: Spurs @Jazz, TBD
TV: FSNSW, TBD Radio: WOAI-AM 1200; KCOR-AM 1350?

* Game 5 Wednesday: Jazz @Spurs, TBD
TV: FSNSW, TBD Radio: WOAI-AM 1200; KCOR-AM 1350?

* Game 6 May 11: Spurs @Jazz, TBD
TV: FSNSW, TBD Radio: WOAI-AM 1200; KCOR-AM 1350?

* Game 7 May 13: Jazz @Spurs, TBD
TV: TBD Radio: WOAI-AM 1200; KCOR-AM 1350?

* — As needed in best-of-7 series

Griffin’s in-your-face dunk has nation buzzing

Blake Griffin has thrown down an assortment of memorable dunks during his short NBA career. 

Griffin might have outdone himself Monday night in the Clippers’ 112-100 victory over  Oklahoma City.

On the play early in the third quarter, he slammed the ball in the face of burly Oklahoma City center Kendrick Perkins in one of the more memorable dunks in recent NBA history.

Griffin threw the ball down with his right hand with such force, his left hand on Perkins’ shoulder. Even worse, he was fouled  by Perkins on the play and he then converted the free throw to complete  the three-point play.

The play left the Staples Center crowd buzzing as it was shown seven times on the video screen in the minute after the play.

“Like I said, it’s the timing of the play. It’s the timing of when I got the pass, the late rotation, all that,” Griffinof his dunk. “If all that comes together at the right time, it happens. It’s not like I caught the ball and said, ‘OK, let’s go make something happen.’ It just kind of came together like that.”

Clippers guard Chris Paul, who set up the dunk from the left wing with a nice entry pass, was charged by Griffin’s athleticism on the play.

“That’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen, just like the dunk (Griffin had) against the (last season),” Paul . “ You’re watching the game, and I’m playing the game. So I can get excited for a split second, but I have to keep everyone locked in and let that one go.”

But Oklahoma City forward Kevin Durant wasn’t nearly as impressed.

“Man, I don’t care about that dunk,” Durant said.

Sorry, Kevin. But the rest of the nation doesn’t agree.

Here’s a look at Griffin’s slam, thanks to You Tube.com

 

Marion believes that Mavs are being dissed

Sometimes, winning a championship can make NBA players do some strange things. 

Remember back in the day when Rasheed Wallace used to bring a championship belt to games to remind others that the Detroit Pistons were  reigning champions back in 2005. The Spurs snuffed all that out with a seven-game series victory.

And it’s now caused Dallas forward Shawn Marion to tell the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that all Mavericks should be .

“I want y’all to address me like that from now on — world champion,” Marion told the Star-Telegram.

Marion is peeved that the national media has overlooked the Mavericks’ accomplishment of winning an NBA championship. It’s  only been aggravated by the doubts of most observers of Dallas’ chances of being able to repeat as titleists.

“We’ve gotten to the point where everybody started overlooking us and talking about everybody else and I kind of got [upset] about it,” Marion said. “Y’all trying to take something away from us that we’ve worked hard for and we took.

“Everybody on this team has earned the right to be addressed as world champions, so everybody address us like that.”

Whatever.

It reminds me more of when wrestler Paul Orndorff demanded to be called “Mr.  Wonderful” or else he wouldn’t participate in “Mean Gene” Okerlund’s interviews in the World Wrestling Federation back in the day.