Tag: San Antonio Spurs

Blair continues to toggle with Tiago in a reserve role

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

ATLANTA — One game after not playing at all in the first half, DeJuan Blair was back as the Spurs’ second-unit center in Tuesday’s 97-90 victory over Atlanta.

Rookie Tiago Splitter was back to taking a DNP-CD.

Blair responded with a performance that was solid, but not spectacular, logging seven points and five rebounds in 13:06.

“My role is just to be ready at all times,” Blair said. “Because you never know.”

Blair admits not knowing hasn’t been easy over the past month, after he went from starting the first 53 games of the season to earning sporadic minutes off the bench.

“With the change in the lineup, I go back to thinking again — what do I do?” Blair said. “I’ve got to get that out of my head, somehow.”

Blair said Spurs coaches have offered him one standard piece of advice: Be a pro.

Asked what that means to him, Blair repeated himself: “Just be ready.”

For the season, Blair is averaging 8.7 points and 7.3 rebounds as a starter, and 6.3 points and 5.2 rebounds in 14 games as a sub.

“Bench minutes are something you have to get used to,” guard George Hill said, “but I think he’s handling it well.”

Asked after Tuesday’s game how he thought Blair was handling his new role, coach Gregg Popovich chose his words carefully.

“DeJuan’s working at it,” he said.

POP, MEET RED: Tuesday’s victory gave Popovich 795 for his career, matching Boston’s Red Auerbach for second on the NBA’s all-time wins list with one team.

Jerry Sloan, who retired in February after racking up 1,127 wins in Utah, is first.

Even though he grew up in Argentina, Manu Ginobili is aware of the magnitude of Popovich’s feat.

“Red Auerbach is a myth in the NBA, he’s huge,” Ginobili said. “I’m glad for Pop. He’s a great coach. He deserves big honors.”

POP PRAISES WORM: The man who traded Dennis Rodman from San Antonio gives his recent election to the Hall of Fame two thumbs up.

“I think it’s great,” said Popovich, who inherited the mercurial Rodman when he took over as Spurs general manager in 1994. “He’s one of the top rebounders we ever had, and the rest of his game was probably even better than we all thought. He’s been important to teams winning championships. In that sense, he deserves it.”

Rodman, who played two productive but tumultuous seasons with the Spurs in 1993-94 and 1994-95, was announced Monday as part of the Hall’s 2011 induction class. Rodman averaged 17.3 rebounds his first season in San Antonio and 16.8 his second, and was an integral part of a team that lost to Houston in the 1995 Western Conference finals.

But Rodman’s flamboyant personality clashed with coaches, management and players. After the 1995 season, Popovich dealt him to Chicago for Will Perdue.

Rodman still holds Spurs franchise rebounding records for a game (32) and a season (1,367 in 1993-94).

Aldridge pledges $1,000 a point vs. Spurs for Japanese relief efforts

Spurs Nation will have at least one reason to hope that LaMarcus Aldridge has a big game against the their team Friday night in Portland, while still  rooting for a Spurs victory.

Aldridge has joined NBA standouts Pau Gasol of the Los Angeles Lakers, Derrick Rose of Chicago and Al Horford of Atlantafrom their Friday games to Japanese relief efforts from the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Direct Relief International announced the initiative, which will provide medical care for those affected by the disaster. Direct Relief created the Japan Relief and Recovery Fund in partnership with the Japanese American Citizens League.

“When disaster strikes we are all on the same team,” Rose said in a statement. “Right now we’re all pulling for the people of Japan.  Through the good work of Direct Relief International and other organizations in this country, we need to step up and help however we can.”

Its a noble cause that we should all endorse.

And considering that Aldridge ripped  the Spurs for 40 points in his last game against them on Feb. 1  — with Tim Duncan in the lineup — the relief efforts might get a big contribution from the former University of Texas standout after Friday’s game.

Splitter, Hill have been bright spots in skid

Tiago Splitter has long since ditched the GPS he needed to find the Spurs’ practice facility back in training camp. He has discovered a few places in San Antonio for good Mexican food, though he admits he sometimes prefers to stay in for his wife’s home-cooked paella.

In an even more significant development for the prized rookie center, Splitter is beginning to feel at home in an NBA arena. And he no longer needs a GPS to find playing time.

For the first time, Splitter has begun to feel like a card-carrying member of the San Antonio Spurs.

“I’m getting more confident and feeling like I’m part of the team,” the 25-year-old Brazilian said.

George Hill has been a key member of the Spurs for two-plus seasons already. Unlike Splitter, who had been searching for a feeling he hadn’t yet experienced, Hill’s recent transformation has been about locating a feeling he once had but lost.

“It’s been in my head that I need to get back to being aggressive,” Hill, a 6-foot-3 reserve guard, said after totaling 57 points the past two games.

The downside of the Spurs’ recent four-game slide is evident in the NBA standings. The Los Angeles Lakers have crept within 31/2 games of the top spot in the Western Conference. Chicago looms within 31/2 games in the race for the NBA’s top overall record.

If there is an upside to a losing streak, it is this:

Awarded playing time he might not have found with Tim Duncan healthy, Splitter suddenly looks like a credible NBA big man. Given the freedom and confidence to seek out his own points, Hill again looks like the kind of incendiary bench spark that helps win playoff series.

Splitter had appeared in just 47 of the first 68 games and seemed ticketed for a string of postseason Did-Not-Plays, before Duncan went down with a left ankle sprain March 21 against Golden State. In the past five games replacing the Spurs icon, four of them starts, the 6-foot-11 Splitter has averaged 9.2 points and 8.4 rebounds in 27:50.

“You forget he was the best player in Europe the last couple years,” center DeJuan Blair said. “Now he’s finding his way.”

In Monday’s 100-92 loss to Portland, with Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and Antonio McDyess also in street clothes, Splitter at last found his way onto the court in the fourth quarter of a tight game.

Spurs guard George Hill has scored 57 points over the past two games, with one or both star guards, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, on the bench. (Edward A. Ornelas/Express-News)

Splitter didn’t change the outcome — the Spurs, for the fourth game in a row, faltered late — but he almost did. With the Spurs down six in the final two minutes, Splitter unfurled a series of up-fakes on LaMarcus Aldridge that one overexcited courtside observer compared to a Kevin McHale move.

It resulted in a basket and a foul and would have brought the Spurs within three had Splitter not badly missed the free throw.

Splitter, coach Gregg Popovich said, “picks things up quickly.” That includes the tendencies of opposing players.

“Even though I watched a lot of NBA games before I got here, it’s not the same as when you can get on the court and see them work,” said Splitter, who had 14 points and nine rebounds against Portland.

Hill, the Spurs’ fourth-leading scorer and highest-scoring reserve at 11.5 points per game, had lately fallen into a pattern of deference and unselfishness. Those are good qualities for a Red Cross volunteer, but not so much for a sixth man Popovich envisions as sort of a Ginobili-lite.

With Ginobili out for the second half in Memphis, and he and Parker out for all four quarters Monday, Hill had no choice but to look for his own shots, creating them out of whole cloth when necessary.

The result: a 30-point game against the Grizzlies, equaling a career high, followed by 27 points against Portland.

It marks the most prolific two-game stretch of Hill’s career.

“We’d like to continue to see George continue to play with that kind of scoring mentality,” Popovich said. “He’s good at it, and we need it.”

If Hill and Splitter can keep it up, the Spurs might have just discovered two more players who can turn a playoff series.

No GPS required.