Tag: San Antonio Spurs

Time for Spurs’ other guys to shine

By Jeff McDonald

Sixteen months ago, Danny Green was back home in North Babylon, N.Y., in the midst of every 20-something’s worst nightmare.

He was living at his parent’s house, looking for work.

The Spurs had just become the second team to waive him in one season. Green was starting to wonder if this NBA thing would ever work out for him.

“I was at a point where I didn’t know if I was going to get back in the league,” Green said. “Sometimes, I think about where I was just a year ago, and how different it is for me now.”

Flash forward to tonight at the ATT Center, where Green will be starting at shooting guard for the Spurs in the Western Conference finals against Oklahoma City.

It is a series sure to be top-heavy with star power: the Spurs’ championship-tested threesome of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili on one side, the Thunder’s young and hungry trio of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden on the other.

Yet if history holds, a role player like Green could be the one to turn the series one way or the other.

“We expect a lot of different players to change a playoff series,” Duncan said. “It’s going to come down not only to how the main guys play, but also how the role players play.”

At the end of a series doubled up on Big Threes, a trip to the NBA Finals could come down to contributions from players best described as “The Other Guys.”

Oklahoma City’s Big Three was the highest-scoring triumvirate in the NBA during the regular season, accounting for 68.4 of the Thunder’s 103.1 points per game. Durant led the NBA for the third consecutive season by averaging 28.

The Thunder’s fourth-leading scorer was forward Serge Ibaka, who averaged 9.1 points. No other Oklahoma City player averaged more than 5.5.

“We’re as good an offensive team as they are, no question,” Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. “We have good players. We wouldn’t be in this position if we weren’t a good team also.”

The Spurs’ Big Three combined for less than half the team’s offense in the regular season, accounting for 46.8 of the Spurs’ 103.7 points per game. That leaves ample scoring space for The Other Guys.

Among players who made at least 20 appearances for the Spurs, Gary Neal is King of the Other Guys at 9.9 points per game. Seven others averaged at least 6.6.

The Spurs can probably live with Durant, Westbrook and Harden all hitting their season averages in the series. They probably can’t survive if Derek Fisher (playoff average: six points), Thabo Sefolosha (3.9), or Daequan Cook (2.7) gets hot, too.

Meanwhile, the Spurs remain confident they can continue to spin scoreboards if one of their Big Three is contained. The Spurs’ bench produced an NBA-best 41.9 points per game during the regular season, and that number has dipped only slightly during the playoffs.

“We have guys that can come off the bench that can score, play good defense and do a lot of little things we need them to do,” Green said. “Hopefully, our bench can outmatch their bench and give us a lift.”

Eight games into his playoff run, Green has been doing much of the non-Big Three heavy lifting for the Spurs.

He is averaging 10.4 points, most of any player outside the Spurs’ highly touted trio, and is connecting at 45.7 percent from 3-point range.

It has been quite a playoff party for a player who, as recently as January 2011 was out of the league and looking into jobs in Italy.

“Just playing on the floor gets you more comfortable,” Green said. “I compare it to driving. The more minutes on the road, the more comfortable you are behind the wheel.”

Make no mistake. If the Spurs are to reach their fifth NBA Finals, it will be stars Duncan, Parker and Ginobili who drive them there.

But Green, and other guys like him, will be more than just along for the ride.

“We’re going to ask a lot of different people to play a lot of different roles,” Duncan said. “Those people who step up are going to make the difference whether we win or lose.”

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

X-FACTOR CANDIDATES

A look at key playoff statistics for the top non-Big Three players for the Spurs and Thunder:

Spurs
Danny Green, G: 10.4 points, 45.7 percent on 3-pointers
Kawhi Leonard, F: 8.5 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.5 steals
Gary Neal, G: 8.3 points, 50 percent on 3-pointers
Tiago Splitter, C: 7.6 points, 3.6? rebounds

Thunder
Serge Ibaka, F: 9.8 points, 6.1 rebounds, 3.6 blocks
Derek Fisher, G: 6.0 points, 53.3 percent on 3-pointers
Thabo Sefolosha, G: 3.9 points, 38.9 percent on 3-pointers

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 – Spurs @ Thunder, 8:00 p.m. TNT

Game 4: Saturday – 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 embarrassed the right amount

Column by Buck Harvey

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Thunder plugged into energy, desperation, and a man named Thabo.

James Harden stared at Tiago Splitter, and the Spurs stared at the floor. About the time Patty Mills checked in, the winning streak looked so wobbly, it needed one of Tim Duncan’s knee braces for support.

The flow of energy is sometimes mysterious in the NBA, but sometimes it is predictable, too. And while Thursday it was the Thunder’s turn, the Spurs got what they wanted from their first loss in 50 days.

Getting embarrassed can be a good thing.

All of it is new to the Spurs, who forgot how these things feel. But this wasn’t the streak of Wooden’s UCLA that was broken Thursday. It was an NBA streak, and they never last too long.

They never last long, either, when the energy divide is as severe as it was. And something Scott Brooks said afterward told of that.

“That was as well,” he said, “as you can play against the best team in basketball.”

The best team in basketball? The Thunder wanted to prove that wasn’t true.

“We never thought these guys had an advantage over us,” Kevin Durant said Thursday, “even though we lost a few.”

It’s an attitude based on more than bravado. The Thunder played well in the opener, taking a nine-point lead in the fourth quarter, then made Game 2 interesting with a late surge.

The Thunder are exactly what the Spurs coaches thought they were before the series began — scary good. And scarier for the Spurs is to let this series become tied heading back to San Antonio for a Game 5.

But the Spurs, no matter how hard they tried, couldn’t create this same kind of fear in their locker room, not after 20 straight wins. Maybe, too, they began to believe this best-team-in-basketball stuff.

So they were overwhelmed, and Gregg Popovich summed up how it happened. “I think they played smarter than we did,” he said of the Thunder, “and I think they played harder than we did.”

Smarter and harder usually wins, and sloppy never does. The Thunder ended with just seven turnovers, and one of those came at the end when Derek Fisher dribbled out the clock to be sportsmanlike.

The Spurs? They are supposed to be the smart, veteran team, and they looked closer to a team that had lost 20 in a row, with 21 turnovers.

A signpost of how much this series had reversed itself came in the third quarter. Then, Manu Ginobili made a slick behind-the-back pass to Tony Parker, who hit a three. The same sequence happened in Game 2, also in the third quarter, also with a behind-the-back pass for a Parker three.

The difference: The three put the Spurs up by 20 on Tuesday, and after this one, the Spurs trailed by 19.

Brooks moving Thabo Sefolosha to Parker helped OKC, and Sefolosha thought his length bothered Parker. But Parker has been defended by taller players before, and Brooks didn’t see that as the difference.

“I thought Thabo did a good job,” Brooks said, “but I thought the biggest adjustment — we played better.”

It’s that simple? Sometimes, in the NBA, it is. At home, where they hadn’t lost this postseason, facing a 0-3 deficit if they had lost, shouldn’t the Thunder have been breathing fire?

The Spurs couldn’t recreate that, no matter how many I-want-some-nasty speeches Popovich gave. And so now comes a telling moment in the series.

The Spurs lost only one game, but it felt like more than that. The Thunder so swarmed them, so took them out of what they do, that the Spurs were emotionally slapped.

This is what Popovich is leaning on: After Harden was staring and Patty playing, the energy for Game 4 should be equal.

bharvey@express-news.net
Twitter: @Buck_SA

SPURS VS. THUNDER
Western Conference finals
(Spurs lead best-of-7 series 2-1)

Game 1:

Game 2:

Game 3:

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

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

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

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

– All times Central
*If necessary

Spurs made believers out of … themselves

By Mike Monroe

LOS ANGELES – No team in NBA playoff history ever had recovered from a deficit as large as the Spurs faced at the end of the first quarter of Saturday’s Game 3 at Staples Center: Clippers 33, Spurs 11.

As if this weren’t discouraging enough, L.A.’s lead grew to 24 points in the first three minutes of the second quarter, the red-clad crowd howling approval.

It was a situation so daunting even the most competitive of Spurs believed the third victory of the Western Conference semifinals series would have to wait for another day?

“At one point,” Manu Ginobili said, “I thought there was no chance. (The Clippers) were playing so well and making every shot and we couldn’t even shoot. We were turning the ball over and they were playing great. We were not ready. We looked like we were still in bed.”

If Ginobili feared all was lost he never let it show, and what ultimately got the Spurs out of such a deep hole was the calm, calculated approach to chipping away at the Clippers’ big lead, one possession at a time. It helped that Ginobili, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker had seen nearly every playoff situation imaginable, though none quite so daunting so early in a game.

“Their experience lets them know you’ve just got to stay in the system and work it, and it will either work out, or it won’t,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “And that’s that.”

After the Clippers lead reached 24 the goal was to cut it to 10 by halftime. When they headed to the halftime break trailing, 53-43, optimism reigned.

“Once we made a little run and were down 16, 18, we were really talking about cutting the lead to 10 at halftime,” Ginobili said. “It happened, and then the starters in the third quarter were great. They just moved the ball well. They played easy and played great defense and when we went up eight (in the third) we knew it was going to be very hard for them to overcome that change of game.

“Being up 24, and then being down six, eight is very hard to overcome.”

Confidence is Popovich: When the Clippers sliced a 12-point Spurs lead to seven with 9:13 left in the game Popovich called a time out and drew up a play intended to get Gary Neal open for a 3-point attempt.

Coming from the baseline to the 3-point line off two screens, Neal took a pass from Tony Parker and nailed the long-distance shot to push the lead back to double digits.

“Coach Pop drew that play up out of a timeout,” Neal said. “It was great execution. I got two great screens from the bigs and I came up. Mo (Williams) shot the gap and I was wide open. I’m glad it went in.”

Duncan said Popovich’s skill in drawing up plays during timeouts helps the Spurs execute his plays.

“Obviously, we’ve all kind of been through this with him and he’s one of the best in the league at drawing plays up in timeouts and having them work,” he said. “He did it again.

“I don’t know how to explain it but he understands that if we’re able to execute and move the ball and find shooters good things are going to happen.”

Defying history: The Clippers are well aware no team in NBA history has overcome a 3-0 deficit to win a seven-game series.

“We have to keep fighting,” point guard Chris Paul said. “It’s never been done before in history.”

Guard Nick Young, who looked ready for a fashion runway as he exited the Clippers locker room, said the team knows precisely how to approach tonight’s game.

“We have to look at this like we did in Game 7 (vs. Memphis). Nobody wants to be in this situation. We made it hard on ourselves. We’re desperate now. It’s win or go home.”

mikemonroe@express-news.net

SPURS VS. CLIPPERS
(Spurs lead best-of-seven series 2-0)

Game 1:

Game 2:

Game 3:

Game 4: Sunday, @Clippers, 9:30 p.m., TNT

* Game 5: Tuesday, @Spurs, TBA, TNT

* Game 6: Friday, @Clippers, TBA, ESPN

* Game 7: May 27, @Spurs, TBA, TNT

* If necessary