Spurs Take Game One of the NBA Finals

The San Antonio Spurs, armed with nine days of rest, came into Miami confident and ready to play Spurs basketball.  The Spurs not only walked out of American Airlines Arena with a 92-88 victory as well as home court advantage.

The final minutes of the fourth quarter proved even more exhilarating then the first three plus quarters, which were pretty exciting.  Tony Parker scored 10 of his 21 points in the fourth and found himself shooting a miraculous jumper with 5.2 seconds left.

“It was a crazy play,” Parker said. “I thought I lost the ball three or four times. And it didn’t work out like I wanted it to. At the end I was just trying to get a shot up. It felt good when it left my hand. I was happy it went in.

For the Miami Heat, losing game one is not the end all for the series.  While it is true that teams that have won Game 1 of The Finals are 47-19 in those series. Miami did beat the in last seasons finals, dropping Game 1 in Oklahoma City, but winning out the series in five games.

“We had some mental mistakes,” James said. “We played some really good basketball but in the fourth quarter we made some mistakes and this is one of the only teams you can’t have mistakes against.”

Game two is scheduled for Sunday night at American Airlines Arena, 8 p.m. Eastern.

 

Notebook: Green gets off shooting schneid

By Jeff McDonald

HOUSTON – Danny Green’s first jumper of the game was good, a 20-footer just inside the left arc.

He followed that with a 3-pointer, and then another.

By the time Green left the Toyota Center on Sunday afternoon, having canned 6 of 9 field goals good for 15 points in the Spurs’ 116-107 preseason win over Houston, he was ready to declare his shooting slump dead.

“It’s easy to get in a rhythm once you get the first one out of your holster,” Green said. “You shoot with a little more confidence. You don’t have to think about it so much.”

For much of the preseason, Green’s goal has been to keep his many misfires from getting into his head.

Heading into Sunday’s game, the Spurs’ starting shooting guard had clanged 11 of his 15 attempts in three exhibition contests.

That came on the heels of a Western Conference finals series against Oklahoma City last postseason in which Green went 8 of 31 and was eventually benched in favor of Manu Ginobili.

With Sunday’s sizzling performance, Green lifted his preseason shooting percentage a full 15 points, from 26.7 percent to 41.7 percent.

“I’ve been putting up extra shots, and they’ve been feeling good,” Green said. “Hopefully, I got over that mental slump and can get it rolling again.”

Manu’s back: Ginobili returned to action after missing two games with a minor foot injury.

He played a shade less than 18 minutes, scoring 11 points with three assists, including a nifty no-look pass to set up Tony Parker’s only basket of the game.

Just getting on the floor was important for Ginobili, who said his conditioning might not have survived a more extended layoff.

“In six days or seven days (off), I didn’t lose much conditioning,” the 35-year-old guard said. “It’s good that I didn’t have to miss more practice time or playing time, because then it would start to go downhill.”

Ginobili said he felt a pinching sensation in the heel of his right foot after logging 12 minutes in the Spurs’ preseason opener against Montespachi Siena on Oct. 6. An MRI came back clean, and rest seemed to do the trick.

“It bothered me for three or four days,” Ginobili said. “I didn’t practice much. On the fifth or sixth day, I started to feel better and got back to work.”

Mills’ return imminent: Backup point guard Patrick Mills, out for two games with a sprained right ankle, says he hopes he can return to practice Monday morning.

“It was a little one, just a scratch,” Mills said. “I’m fine.”

Barring a setback in practice over the next five days, it’s likely Mills will be activated for the Spurs’ next preseason game, Saturday in Miami.

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

Spurs’ trip to Miami a Heat check

By Jeff McDonald

MIAMI — The Spurs take the floor this afternoon at American Airlines Arena, at long last prepared to square off with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the Miami Heat.

Only about four months too late.

Last June, the Spurs appeared all but ticketed for a trip to South Beach before Oklahoma City ambushed them in the final four games of the Western Conference finals.

Today’s preseason game in Miami isn’t filled with as much meaning as an NBA Finals matchup would have been. For a Spurs’ team that still considers itself very much a title contender, that doesn’t mean it is meaningless.

“It’s a championship team, a championship program,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “It’s a great way to see a lot of players play against such a good basketball team. You play a team like that, you get some questions answered.”

Spurs’ players freely admit today’s game won’t serve as a measuring stick in the manner a regular-season game against the defending league champions might.

By the time the benches clear in the second half, the festivities are likely to devolve into the Wesley Witherspoon or Garrett Temple show.

But at the outset, assuming both teams play their regulars, the game should provide a much better gauge than, say, a rematch with Montepaschi Siena.

“It’s better to play the best team than the worst,” guard Manu Ginobili said. “At least you get to play a few minutes against Wade, LeBron and guys like that, that you’ve really got to guard.”

As the preseason hits the home stretch, Popovich says he plans to ramp up the starters’ minutes leading up to the Oct. 31 regular-season opener at New Orleans.

That should be welcome news to any fan paying full price to attend this afternoon’s exhibition.

“It’s only a preseason game and you’re just getting ready,” center Boris Diaw said. “But they are the defending champions, so we’re going to be able to measure ourselves a little bit.”

If nothing else, the opening quarters of today’s game should provide a stress test for the Spurs’ defense-in-progress.

The Heat boast a trio of All-Stars — led by James, a three-time league MVP — who combined to average better than 67 points per game last season. But they’ve added to the mix a pair of dangerous long-range gunners in Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis.

The 36-year-old Allen, who won a championship ring of his own with Boston in 2008, is only the most prolific 3-point shooter in NBA history with 2,718 made.

“Having players like LeBron and Wade plus Bosh, you need to put people in the paint and make everything crowded,” Ginobili said. “The addition of Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis adds two wonderful shooters. It makes them tougher.”

Improving the Spurs from the middling defensive unit they were a season ago — and have been since the 2007 championship season — was the item atop Popovich’s agenda entering training camp.

Through four preseason games, the Spurs are allowing opponents to shoot 33.8 percent and are giving up 95 points per game.

In their only loss of the preseason, the Spurs at least held Denver — the only team to average more points than them in the regular season last year — to less than triple digits.

It’s so far, so good. But then again, the Spurs haven’t faced the defending champs yet.

The Spurs believe they will know more about themselves after the smoke clears today. How much more remains to be seen.

“It’s not going to be a measuring stick to see who wins, because the preseason is not about winning,” Ginobili said. “It’s about getting better, and playing against the best players makes you better.”

Even in the preseason.

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN