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Crawford repents, just in time for Duncan

Column by Buck Harvey

I saw Joey Crawford off the court a few years ago, after the incident, and I told him he looked like he’d stayed in shape.

“I run,” he said with a smile, and then he scooted sideways across the room like a crab. That’s how NBA officials always seem to move.

Crawford’s sense of humor is one reason the media has always enjoyed him. Another is that he’s been a top-five ref who runs a fast game.

He added another layer to that last week. Crawford didn’t simply admit he was wrong in 2007. He went beyond that, calling it one of his biggest regrets, and that might come into play soon when Crawford shows up to work a Spurs game.

Tim Duncan, after all, might finally see Crawford as just another ref running like a crab.

Crawford isn’t just another ref, of course. He’s worked a record number of postseason games, and he’s done so with control that few of his peers have. The surprise Saturday is that he wasn’t assigned Game 7 between the Lakers and Nuggets.

But there’s been a sense the past few years that Crawford came with baggage when he worked a Spurs game. His actions in 2007 created that, and his suspension did little to ease suspicions.

Who knows? Maybe that made Crawford even angrier?

He’s been assigned five Spurs playoff games since 2007, and Duncan has done well in many of them. He finished with 29 points and 17 rebounds to eliminate Shaquille O’Neal and the Suns in 2008, for example.

Still, the Spurs also lost the other four with him, and his non-call in 2008 against the Lakers added to the mistrust. When Derek Fisher came down on Brent Barry in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals, wouldn’t that have been a foul with others?

Maybe, maybe not. But since Crawford was the closest, there were reasons to wonder.

But there are also reasons to wonder if this is mostly paranoia, because of what Crawford said in the New York Times last week. Asked if he had any regrets, the Times reported he didn’t hesitate.

Crawford offered two. One was the IRS investigation into league officials pocketing first-class fare money. The second was Duncan.

“The Duncan thing probably changed my life,” Crawford said. “It was just — you come to the realization that maybe the way you’ve been doing things is not the proper way and you have to regroup, not only on the court but off the court.”

That’s strong, and it’s this self-evaluation that likely saved his career. Jake O’Donnell, an official who Crawford called “a legend” in the same Times article, was previously pulled down by a similar spat with Clyde Drexler.

As for what had built up between Crawford and Duncan: There were signs of it in 2006, too, during the Spurs-Mavericks series.

The Spurs have winced since when they’ve seen Crawford show to work one of their games. And asked how long that took to go away, one staffer said Saturday with a touch of humor, “Who says it’s gone away?”

One truth about officials and teams, these things run deep. The Clippers, for example, aren’t going to forget a mediocre ref named Marc Davis; he called a technical foul Friday on Reggie Evans for something as harmless as Duncan once clapping on the bench.

Evans had dared to high-five Blake Griffin.

If Crawford had done the same to the Spurs, all wounds would be open today. But he hasn’t. Time has passed, and he didn’t work the Memphis series last season. He never saw the Jazz this spring, and last week he announced 2007 “changed my life.”

That doesn’t mean Crawford won’t miss a call. But everything he said suggests it will be professional, not personal.

And for the one that needed to hear that the most, Duncan should feel free now. He can complain to Crawford as he would to anyone.

bharvey@express-news.net
Twitter: @Buck_SA

SPURS VS. CLIPPERS OR GRIZZLIES

Game 1: @Spurs, Tuesday, 8:30 p.m., TNT

Game 2: @Spurs, Thursday, 8:30 p.m., ESPN

Game 3: @Clippers or Grizzlies, Saturday, 2:30 pm., ABC

Game 4: @Clippers or Grizzlies, Sunday, 9:30 p.m. or 7 p.m., TNT

*Game 5: @Spurs, May 22 (Tuesday), TNT

*Game 6: @Clippers or Grizzlies, May 24 (Thursday), ESPN

*Game 7: @Spurs, May 27 (Sunday), TNT

* if necessary

Spurs go streaking into L.A.

By Jeff McDonald

LOS ANGELES — The question was meant to be a brainteaser. The answer was not supposed to come so easily.

When Tony Parker was asked recently to name the last time his Spurs had lost a game, he could have at least paused a beat and pretended to wrack his brain.

“It was the Lakers,” Parker said, without hesitation.

Consider it proof Parker’s memory isn’t yet failing him, even at the ripe age of 30.

Los Angeles Lakers 98, Spurs 84. That was the last time the Spurs walked off the floor at the ATT Center, or anywhere else, in defeat.

That was April 11. That was 16 wins and 38 days ago.

As the top-seeded Spurs hit the Staples Center today — up a dominating 2-0 in the Western Conference semifinals against Southern California’s other team, marching toward what feels like an inevitable conference final against Oklahoma City — they do so trying to convince themselves of something that doesn’t seem readily apparent.

“We’re not unbeatable,” Parker said. “Anybody can beat anybody. We have to play our best basketball to go far.”

Not unbeatable?

Utah’s Al Jefferson wasn’t so sure during the Spurs’ first-round sweep.

Having dropped the first two games of the second round by a combined 33 points, the fifth-seeded Clippers must be having doubts now, too.

“Right now, everybody’s ?eating,” said Chris Paul, the Clippers’ hobbled and struggling point guard. “Now we go to L.A. and see if we can cut off the water a little.”

The series moves to Hollywood for Games 3 and 4 today and Sunday. It’s going to take more than a change of scenery to close down the Spurs’ buffet line.

During their 16-game run, the Spurs have won by an average of 17.1 points. The 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks, who won 16 in a row by 19.5 points, are the only team in NBA history to top that.

As for the part about the Spurs needing to play their best basketball? They aren’t sure they’ve done it yet.

Coach Gregg Popovich went into Thursday grumbling about 18 turnovers and at-times unfocused transition defense in Game 1.

In Game 2, the Spurs gave up 9 of 13 from the 3-point line, a 69.2-percent clip for the Clippers. They still won by 17 points, but who, besides Popovich, is counting?

“That’s what coaches do,” Popovich said. “We have the film, so you can see all kinds of mistakes. We can play better, but they can too.”

Forgive center Boris Diaw for wondering how much better the Spurs can play. They are 26-2 since his arrival from Charlotte on March 23.

“It’s pretty easy to adjust to this team, because of the way they’re playing,” said Diaw, who followed 12 rebounds in Game 1 with 16 points in Game 2. “They’re playing smart basketball.”

No Spurs team has won more than 17 in a row, a streak they can equal today.

Quick prediction: The Spurs will lose again sometime in franchise history. It might even happen during this rare playoff back-to-back, a byproduct of the cramped lockout schedule.

The last time the Spurs played two postseason games in two nights, they closed down the Great Western Forum with a pair of victories over the Lakers in the 1999 conference semis.

Superstitious Spurs fans should enjoy the symmetry. That team went on to win the franchise’s first title in a lockout-shortened season.

“We’re out here for one goal,” said Tim Duncan, who averaged 22 points in the first two games against the Clippers. “We’ve got a team we believe can challenge for that.”

That’s why the Spurs seem so unimpressed with their winning streak, why Popovich doesn’t want to answer questions about it and why players don’t want to think about it.

Sixteen wins mean little when there are still 10 more to go.

“For us, it’s good to not look at that and concentrate on the task,” Parker said. “We should focus on Game 3 and not on the winning streak.”

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

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

Game 1:

Game 2:

Game 3: Saturday, @Clippers, 2:30 p.m., ABC

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

Candles, Clippers blown out by Spurs

By Jeff McDonald

Behind the scenes, the birthday boy fastened his tie just so, cinching into a knot just so before ambling up to the interview podium to meet his public.

It was there, in front of a national television audience, that the newly turned 30-year-old Tony Parker was forced to confront the obvious.

Yes, he was old now too.

“I’ve fought it the whole season,” Parker said. “Now I have to let it go.”

The team everyone still thinks is older than dirt inducted a new member to the 30-and-over club Thursday, the same day they raced past the Los Angeles Clippers 105-88 in Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinals.

In leading the Spurs to a 2-0 lead that feels insurmountable, Parker didn’t look a day over 29. He celebrated the Big Three-Oh with 22 points, and he defended a hobbling Chris Paul, and he took command of the Spurs’ offense when it needed taking command of.

The rest of the Spurs’ Old Man crew didn’t look so decrepit, either.

With 36-year-old Tim Duncan again steadying the ship– and perhaps sending the Clippers scurrying for his Virgin Islands birth certificate — and the 30-year-old Boris Diaw enjoying his highest-scoring night since moving from Charlotte, the Spurs won their 16th game in a row.

Only twice before have the Spurs won 17 straight: In 1995-96 and 2003-04, the latter streak ending at the hands of the Los Angeles Lakers in the conference semifinals.

These Clippers aren’t those Lakers. And these old Spurs aren’t those old Spurs.

Two nights after notching a playoff-high 26 points in Game 1, Duncan poured in 14 of his 18 in the first half of Game 2, when the score was still in doubt and every basket mattered. He used every tool in the tool kit to get it, going glass one moment, schooling young DeAndre Jordan in the post the next, going 9 of 14 from the field.

“Vintage Timmy,” Parker called it.

Instead of, you know, old Tim.

“I feel unbelievable,” Duncan said. “Better than I have in the last four or five years. For whatever reason, I feel healthy, and I feel great.”

Diaw, who went from late-March import to starting center in a French flash, scored 16 points and was a perfect 7-of-7 from the floor. Parker’s countryman, one month his senior, also added some surprisingly rugged defense on Blake Griffin, who again had to work for his 20 points, which came on 16 shots.

“He’s fit in pretty seamlessly,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of Diaw.

While the Spurs’ over-30 club was running amok — and getting four timely 3-pointers from 24-year-old guard Danny Green — Paul again looked like an AARP member shuffling to the earlybird dinner.

The 27-year-old All-Star muddled through a second-straight disaster, balancing his 10 points and five assists with a career-worst eight turnovers. In two games to start the series, the Clippers’ All-Star point guard is 7 of 21 from the field with 16 points and 14 turnovers.

Blame a strained hip flexor and bum groin, which have clearly limited Paul’s effectiveness. But also credit Parker.

“Tony did the lion’s share of work tonight on Chris,” Popovich said. “He really set a tone tonight. He was just driven.”

And now, Parker and the other Spurs’ 30-somethings head to Los Angeles with a chance to close the series out by sweeping a back-to-back Saturday and Sunday.

There was a time the Spurs might have struggled in such a situation, but those were the old Spurs. Not these old Spurs, who by the way still boast an average age under 30.

“They’ve been saying the Spurs are old for 10 years now,” Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said. “They’re not old.”

Yet the Spurs did get a day older Thursday, when Parker blew out 30 candles.

The day before, Popovich had marveled at the thought, how the wet-behind-the-ears teenager who arrived in San Antonio in 2001 was now a grown, 30-year-old man.

“Whoever said time flies wasn’t an idiot,” Popovich said. “It seems like he got here just last year.”

In a season that has felt like one prolonged flashback, with the Spurs chasing a fifth championship five years after their last, time has seemed to stand still. Now, the Spurs are halfway to their first Western Conference finals since 2008, inching closer to the finish line.

A day that began with a celebration Thursday ended with one, too. The only question now is how many more there are to come.