Tag: New York

Ginobili hopeful to get touch back

By Jeff McDonald

The Western Conference finals are sure to bring about comparisons between a pair of super subs: Oklahoma City’s James Harden and the Spurs’ Manu Ginobili.

Both are left-handed. Both have NBA Sixth Man of the Year awards on their mantles. Both play with a herky-jerky style that can be murder to defend.

Harden, however, is the one with The Beard.

“Mine doesn’t get that good,” Ginobili said. “I’ve tried.”

One other key difference between the two: only Harden will enter Game 1 on Sunday with soaring confidence.

Ginobili is coming off his second straight poor-shooting series, going 17 for 42 in the second-round sweep of the Los Angeles Clippers.

That included a 6-for-21 showing from 3-point range that dropped his playoff percentage to 25.7 percent (9 of 35).

Asked after practice Wednesday to gauge his confidence level in his jump shot, Ginobili said: “Not the best it’s been.”

“I wasn’t worried against Utah (in the first round), because I didn’t take many (shots),” Ginobili said. “Against the Clippers, I took a few open, and they didn’t go in.”

Despite his shooting woes, Ginobili is averaging 12.8 points, 4.5 assists and 3.3 rebounds in the playoffs. Harden, 22, is averaging 19.1 points, five boards and 3.1 assists off the bench for the Thunder.

For the second time in this postseason, Ginobili is hopeful the start of a new series will change his luck.

“This is a whole new story, a new series, and we don’t care about what happened against Utah or the Clippers,” Ginobili said. “Hopefully, I start off on the right foot.”

Can’t block the truth: Thunder players were thrilled to learn Wednesday that forward Serge Ibaka had been voted to the NBA’s All-Defensive first team by the league’s 30 head coaches.

The notion Ibaka might not have made the first team after leading the league in blocked shots seemed impossible for some players to contemplate.

“Serge was first team?” said teammate Nazr Mohammed, a former Spurs center. “Well, duh. If he wasn’t, then it would have been a travesty.”

Ibaka averaged 3.65 blocks during the regular season, netting double figures three times. Though it wasn’t a factor in All-Defensive team balloting, the 6-foot-10 Ibaka has also logged 33 blocks in nine playoff games so far.

Ibaka’s case for first team was simple, Mohammed said.

“He affects the game without scoring a bucket, and guys like that are first-team All-Defense,” Mohammed said.

Russell Westbrook went even further in his praise of Ibaka’s defensive work.

“I feel he should have been Defensive Player of the Year,” the Thunder’s All-Star point guard said of the award, voted on by media, that went to New York center Tyson Chandler.

Honorable mention: The Spurs did not place a player on the first or second All-Defensive team for the third consecutive season.

Tim Duncan landed in the “also receiving votes” category, garnering five points, including one first-team vote.

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Staff writer Mike Monroe contributed to this report.

SPURS VS. THUNDER
Western Conference finals (best-of-7)

Game 1: Sunday – Spurs vs. Thunder, 7:30 p.m. TNT

Game 2: Tuesday – Spurs vs. Thunder, 8:00 p.m. TNT

Game 3: Thursday May 31 – Spurs @ Thunder, 8:00 p.m. TNT

Game 4: Saturday June 2 – Spurs @ Thunder, 7:30 p.m. TNT

*Game 5: Monday June 4 – Spurs vs. Thunder, 8:00 p.m. TNT

*Game 6: Wednesday June 6 – Spurs @ Thunder, 8:00 p.m. TNT

*Game 7: Friday June 8 – Spurs vs. Thunder, 8:00 p.m. TNT

– All times Central
*If necessary

Spurs’ Ford back from D-League

By Jeff McDonald

T.J. Ford thoroughly enjoyed being a D-Leaguer for a day.

Of course, the seven-year NBA veteran didn’t have to endure a long, cramped bus ride, sleep in a less-than-five-star hotel or endure any of the other spartan accoutrements that accompany life in pro basketball’s minor leagues.

“It was just a practice,” Ford, the Spurs’ backup point guard, said of his one-day rehab stint with the Austin Toros. “I haven’t played a lot. I’m coming back from an injury. I think I had enough days off.”

Ford missed 22 games after suffering a torn left hamstring Jan. 10 in Milwaukee. He has totaled less than 30 minutes in three games since his return.

Under an NBA rule new for this season, teams are permitted to send veterans to the Development League, with the player’s consent. In years past, players with more than two seasons of NBA service time were ineligible for the D-League.

The Spurs assigned Ford to the Toros on Monday, in order to get him extra practice time on a day coach Gregg Popovich gave his team the day off.

Ford didn’t even have to leave San Antonio to join the Toros. They held their practice at the Spurs practice facility.

“It felt good to just come in a play, get up and a down and condition my legs, because it’s still a work in progress,” Ford said.

As expected, the Spurs recalled Ford on Tuesday, allowing him to practice with the team. He will be available with the Spurs tonight when the Spurs face New York.

Full strength at last: For the first time since Jan. 2, the Spurs will list no players on the injury report for tonight’s game against the Knicks. The entire roster – sans rookie point guard Cory Joseph, who is playing in the D-League – participated in Monday’s practice.

That includes power forward Tim Duncan, who has recovered from the stomach bug that limited him in Sunday’s loss to Denver.

Starting center DeJuan Blair played just four minutes against the Nuggets after suffering a knee contusion less than a minute into the game, but his sparing use was due to performance issues, not injury.

Discount double think: When Knicks forward Steve Novak knocks down a few 3-pointers in a row, he’ll often punctuate his scoring with a “title belt” celebration maneuver lifted from Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

The move has become known as the “discount double check,” after Rodgers’ series of commercials for State Farm.

In San Antonio, where Novak finished last season and was briefly in training camp with the Spurs in December, his former teammates don’t have to wonder how such showmanship might have gone over with Popovich.

“Not very well,” Matt Bonner said with a laugh. “I’d expect to hear a (substitution) horn at the next dead ball, for sure.”

Bonner, who ranks just behind Novak as the NBA’s fourth-most accurate 3-point shooter, says he has no plans to develop his own signature celebration move.

“I thought about doing like a tai chi move, but that didn’t pan out,” Bonner said. “My first thought after I make a shot is to get back on defense.”


jmcdonald@express-news.net

Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

TP’s new girlfriend turning heads during Spurs’ NYC stay

Life is pretty good for Spurs point guard Tony Parker these days.

His team is in the middle of an eight-game winning streak as he’s earned the fourth selection of his career to the NBA All-Star Game Feb. 26 in Orlando.

And his personal life appears to have picked up as well.

The New York City tabloids were buzzing during the Spurs’ recent trip there about Parker and his mystery girlfriend, a French model known only as Axelle.

The New York Post reported that Parker and the stunning French-speaking brunette were recently seen shopping at the SoHo custom jeans store 3 x 1.

A witness told the Post that Parker and Axelle “.” Another source close to Parker told the Post that “they are an item,” and have been dating for many months.

Axelle was first seen over the summer when she attended a Paris tennis tournament with Parker during the NBA lockout. The gossip website Radar Online quoted a Parker insider this week as saying this could be a special friend for Parker.

“They were so cute!” an insider . “They were holding hands and kissing. They looked really happy and in love. Tony has been playing phenomenally recently! Axelle must be responsible.”

It’s Parker’s first serious girlfriend since his divorce from actress Eva Longoria last January.

Five days in New York during the Rodeo Road Trip was almost guaranteed to get Parker in the gossip columns.

And like his performance on the basketball court in recent games, Parker assuredly didn’t disappoint.