Tag: Portland

Bonner’s 3-point binge ranks as No. 9 best Spurs memory

In our look at the best Spurs memories of the past season, Matt Bonner’s early-season 3-point binge ranks as one of the best.

Here’s a look back at a night when Bonner couldn’t miss and how it helped fuel one of the Spurs’ most stunning comebacks to that point of the season.

No. 9: The Red Rocket’s 3-point blitz scorches Thunder

When: Nov. 14, 2010

Where: Oklahoma City Arena, Oklahoma City, Okla.

What happened: The Spurs struggled early, missing nine of their first 10 shots and falling into an early 12-point hole late in the first quarter. But Matt Bonner hit a deep three in the final 5 seconds of the first quarter and added three more to keep the Spurs close in the second quarter as they trailed for the entire first half.  He then sank three more during a 21-8 run to open the fourth quarter enabling the Spurs to cruise to their seventh straight victory with a 117-104 triumph. Bonner was a perfect 7-for-7 from 3-point range for a season-best 21 points.

What was said, Part I: “It was just one of those nights when I was feeling it,” Bonner, describing his career night to reporters after the game.  

What was said, Part II: “All it takes for him is just half a second. He’s a knockdown 3-point shooter. We didn’t do a good job on him. No excuses,” Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks, who described his team’s defensive struggles against Bonner to the Associated Press.

What was said, Part III: “Matty was huge, of course. When he shoots 7 for 3 on 3s, it gives you a lot of air on offense. He had great looks, great confidence, and he sank them all,” Manu Ginobili, analyzing Bonner’s huge game to the Express-News.  

What was said, Part IV: “I always think every one of them is going in, but this was just one of those nights when all of them did fall. You hit the first one, the second one, the third one, and then the hoop just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” Bonner, on his shooting binge to the Express-News.  

The upshot: Bonner’s big night came within one of the team’s record for consecutive 3-pointers in a game. Steve Smith hit all eight threes against Portland on Nov. 3, 2001. The victory extended San Antonio’s winning streak to seven games as they pushed their record to 8-1. At that point, it was the fastest start in team history.  It was Bonner’s third game since missing six games early in the season with an ankle sprain. And his perimeter binge enabled the Spurs to win despite hitting only 40.9 percent from the field in the game. Ginobili and Bonner led San Antonio with 21 points. The San Antonio defense tightened down the stretch, limiting Oklahoma City to only 38 points in the second half after permitting the Thunder to score 35 in the first quarter. Kevin Durant led the Thunder with 23 points — a season low for him at that point of the season.

Previous bad memories:

No. 10: .

No. 9: Black Friday fourth-quarter collapse leads to .  

Previous good memories:

No. 10: .

Buck Harvey: Of Dirk’s two paths, one is to be David

DALLAS — He’s a one-time MVP, and he’s been called a longtime softie.

He’s a 7-footer with unusual gifts, and he’s been the superstar of a Texas franchise with a history of unusual losses.

Now he has a 3-0 second-round lead on Kobe Bryant and the Lakers, and what comes next will change Dirk Nowitzki.

Lose as no one has in NBA history, and his image will be indelible.

Win, and he’s David Robinson in 1999.

Nowitzki won’t exactly be Robinson, of course. Nowitzki remains the Mavericks’ scoring leader, and he was Friday with 32 points. What was more impressive that night — his four 3-pointers, or his late, left-handed runner for the lead?

“Just about everything that happened down the stretch,” Rick Carlisle said afterward, “was a direct result of him either scoring the ball or making a play to get somebody a shot.”

Robinson wasn’t that after Tim Duncan showed up. When the Spurs swept the Lakers in 1999, also in the second round, a Sports Illustrated headline announced, “Substance over Style.” Duncan’s outstretched arms were on the cover.

Still, Robinson was integral for a dominating group that went 15-2 on the way to a title. In another sweep, in the next round against Portland, Robinson was the best Spur.

Along the way, he shed the baggage that Nowitzki carries now, including his own disappointment at the hands of Don Nelson and a small Golden State team. The change began a dozen years ago, when the Lakers looked the way they do now.

Then, the season before Phil Jackson arrived, a young Kobe couldn’t correct the confusion any more than an old one has in the first three games. But there are differences, since the current Lakers are the two-time defending champions with a few things to lean on.

Two of them: They blew leads in Game 1 and Game 3.

Bryant isn’t “sick in the head,” as he put it, for thinking a comeback is possible. Nowitzki seems to understand all of this, too. Nowitzki takes nothing for granted.

Part of that is the humble Nowitzki profile. Anyone who has known him has liked him, and he’s handled failure without blaming others or lashing out at his critics. Maybe nothing makes him seem more like Robinson than this.

But Nowitzki is also wary for a reason. From the 2006 Finals collapse to the following season, when he was presented the MVP trophy shortly after losing in the first round with a 67-win team, he’s become the figurehead of a franchise that continues to win 50 games every season and nothing else.

Last year was the same. Just as his playoff numbers have always increased over his regular-season ones, they did against the Spurs when he averaged 27 points. But when the Mavericks lost as the favorites, the details of failure didn’t matter. As it was with Robinson, it’s his franchise, and he’s the star, and he owns what happens.

He will own success, too. If sweeping the Lakers is just a start, since the Mavericks would still face both the conference and NBA Finals, Robinson began the same way.

And if Nowitzki eventually draws the Heat, as he did in 2006? The nation will be rooting for him, even with Mark Cuban and Jason Terry on his side, against LeBron James.

That’s getting ahead of everything, including today. Nowitzki understood that just minutes after Friday’s win. Then, with Dallas fans celebrating, Nowitzki saw the danger in a 3-0 advantage that no NBA team has ever lost.

“I’ve seen a lot in this league already,” Nowitzki said, “and I don’t want to be the first one.”

Yes. The other path would be better.

bharvey@express-news.net

Spurs’ Hill, Memphis’ Conley rekindle old times

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

Shortly before the start of the playoffs, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich pulled guard George Hill aside and issued marching orders only he could understand.

Once the postseason began, Popovich said, he wanted the mild-mannered Hill to transform into an alter ego named Indiana George.

“Pop means Indiana George from back in Indianapolis,” Hill said. “Just being a freak of nature on offense.”

In the other huddle in this first-round series, running point guard for Memphis, is a player who knows Indiana George well.

“That guy,” Mike Conley said, “was lethal.”

Growing up within a few miles of each other in Indianapolis, as friends and adversaries, Hill and Conley never dreamed they would one day leave a mark on the same NBA playoff series.

Memphis won Game 1 in part because Conley, a 23-year-old playoff tenderfoot, went toe-to-toe with Tony Parker, the Spurs’ three-time All-Star. The Spurs evened the series in Game 2 in part because Indiana George finally showed up in the second half, scoring 14 of his 16 points.

The two hoopsters from the Hoosier state go way back, central figures in an Indianapolis basketball tradition that now fills half an NBA roster.

Now 24, Hill was once a ?scoring star at Broad Ripple High, a city school without much of a basketball reputation, where he averaged a state-leading 36.2 points as a senior in 2005 before playing college ball at hometown IUPUI.

Indiana George was fearless, with a you-can’t-stop-me-or-even-hope-to-contain-me swagger. Indiana George didn’t care who was on the floor with him, or who was assigned to guard him.

Indiana George once scored 49 points in a high school game, without stepping foot on the court in the fourth quarter.

“He could score in so many different ways,” said Conley, who watched Hill tie his NBA career-high of 30 points in his last trip to Memphis on March 27. “Nobody could stop him.”

Conley played at Lawrence North, a prestigious suburban hoops factory where he wasn’t even the most famous player in the Class of 2006. Before he became a limping cautionary tale, Greg Oden would go on to be Indiana’s Mr. Basketball, a consensus collegiate player of the year alongside Conley at Ohio State and the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NBA Draft.

Though a year older, Hill knew Conley from their schoolboy battles, elite AAU tournaments and summer pick-up games.

“Mike is a true point guard,” Hill said. “He sees the floor well and gets everyone involved.”

Even after Memphis made Conley the fourth pick in the 2007 draft, three selections after Oden went to Portland, he couldn’t shake his second-fiddle label. He split time his first two seasons with Kyle Lowry at the point, a situation Conley now calls “the lowest point I’ve had my entire basketball career.”

When Lionel Hollins took over as head coach in January 2009, one of his first moves was to install Conley at point guard and leave him there.

“If I didn’t have to go through what I’ve gone through, I wouldn’t be where I’m at,” Conley said.

In the first two games of his first postseason, Conley averaged 14 points, seven assists and 5.5 rebounds.

Hill has averaged 15.5 points, six rebounds and three steals. After a two-point first half in Game 2, Indiana George exploded in the second half to get the Spurs over the hump.

Though he has made just 5 of 16 field goals, Hill has gone to the foul line a team-high 22 times, converting 19 — testament to the forcefulness Popovich has asked of him. Hill remains key for the Spurs even after Manu Ginobili’s return from an injury moved him back to the bench in Game 2.

“Manu’s injury has nothing to do with George,” Popovich said. “Even with Manu, he’s got to play well for us.”

In a way, Hill and Conley have been preparing for this moment since they were teenagers. Playing high school ball in Indianapolis in the mid-2000s was like attending NBA prep school.

In addition to Hill, Conley and Oden, Indy was also home to future NBAers Eric Gordon, Courtney Lee and Jeff Teague. Another, Jared Jeffries, played in nearby Bloomington.

“Any given night, you were going against someone who is in the NBA now,” Hill said.

On Saturday, in a Game 3 in Memphis that could again swing momentum in the series, it will just be the two of them.

Indiana George and Indiana Mike. Just like old times.