Tag: Stephen Jackson

Behind the face: Leonard’s comeback

Column by Buck Harvey

LOS ANGELES — They didn’t like Kawhi Leonard Saturday. They were in awe of him.

A few members of the Spurs’ brass stood in a Staples Center hallway trying to find the proper superlative. And, fitting of Leonard, the best compliment was a non-verbal one.

A Spurs official put his hand in front of his face, then lowered it slowly, to show the universal sign for expressionless cool.

That was Leonard, the rookie, on the road, with the Spurs being crushed in the first half.

“He might have been,” the official said, “the steadiest on the floor.”

He might have been the best Spur, too, and that brings up something that should have been understood long ago by people who insist on comparing him to Bruce Bowen. Leonard isn’t Bowen.

Leonard has twice the talent. He can rebound, muscle, dribble and pass. Bowen struggled with all four.

And while Bowen needed time to find a place in the league at age 30, Leonard is there at 20.

Add to that what Bowen did so well, such as shoot the corner three and play defense, and the package is rare. It was all on display Saturday, when Leonard alternated between chasing Chris Paul and bumping with Blake Griffin.

“He’s the one guy nobody ever talks about,” Manu Ginobili said afterward. And maybe he’s also the reason many don’t understand where this 17-in-a-row success has come from. The Spurs have found a young, long, efficient athlete who fills a position that has been lacking since, well, Bowen left.

His composure might be his most impressive trait. Leonard grew up in the area, so he had family and friends here, and yet he reacted to the early rout by not reacting.

“I don’t think he ever gets excited,” Tim Duncan said Saturday. “He’s absolutely even keel the entire time. I think he’s even more mellow than me, if that’s possible.”

Duncan consciously works to keep a poker face. Leonard is a natural.

And it’s not that Leonard has an absence of expression; it’s what is there in place of one. Leonard has permanent sorrow, the look of a sad clown, and it rarely changes.

He was the same after the game Saturday, when the media surrounded him and asked how he thought he did against Griffin.

“I think I did pretty well,” he said, while his faced suggested he had failed miserably.

He never talks to refs, which is smart for a rookie, and he doesn’t say much to his teammates, either. But, according to Stephen Jackson, Leonard has a favorite expression.

“Grind hard.”

The Spurs needed exactly that Saturday. Leonard sat down late in the first quarter after the Clippers jumped out to a 23-9 lead. By the time he came back, the Spurs were losing by 21.

Gregg Popovich later repeated what he often says, that these early leads always scare coaches, because the games are “so doggone long.” But how doggone long would Popovich have stuck with his starters had the Clippers kept their lead?

With another game tonight, Popovich might have been one quarter away from conceding.

So what happened at the end of the first half mattered, and Leonard started it. He hit a runner. Then, after Tony Parker missed, Leonard kept the rebound alive. The basketball fell into Duncan’s arms, and he got the score.

Grind hard, all right.

By the end of the half, the sense was that the Spurs were in control. ?Leonard took that further to start the third quarter, with a three and later a steal that set up a Parker layup.

How the Spurs pulled even: A three-point play inside by Leonard.

“Kawhi sure does not look like a rookie,” Popovich said at a news conference.

And outside the room, standing in the hallway, a Spurs official put his hand in front of his face, then lowered it slowly.

bharvey@express-news.net
Twitter: @Buck_SA

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

Jackson gave Spurs boost while with Bucks

By Mike Monroe

Long before he returned to the Spurs in mid-March, forward Stephen Jackson already had contributed in a major way to the steady defensive improvement that helped his future old team secure the top seed in the Western Conference.

By torching the Spurs for 34 points in the Bucks’ 106-103 victory in Milwaukee on Jan. 10, Jackson provided Gregg Popovich a teachable moment the Spurs coach deemed worthy of hyperbole.

At the time, Popovich declared this was “the worst defensive team we’ve ever had,” a criticism calculated to grab the attention of players he feared had become overly reliant with an uptempo offense that was producing more points than nearly every other team in the NBA.

Since receiving that none-too-subtle reminder of their defensive deficiencies, the Spurs have continued to shore things up in that area. They proceeded to hold the Jazz to 38.2 percent shooting in a first-round playoff sweep.

No team in the other seven first-round series has held an opponent to a lower percentage, a fact even Popovich finds moderately encouraging.

“I think Utah helped us a little bit,” Popovich said after running his team through a vigorous, 90-minute practice Wednesday aimed at keeping the team sharp for the upcoming conference semifinals. “They didn’t shoot the ball very well, and I thought we were pretty focused defensively on what we wanted ? to do, especially in the paint. So I thought we did a good job defensively.

“We want to continue to get better because we haven’t been great all year long. We’ve been basically average, so we worked on defense for a decent amount of time today again in hopes we’ll continue to get better.”

Jackson laughed at the notion that the most productive game of his short stay in Milwaukee had instigated the sort of postgame Popovich rant he was familiar with from his first stint with the Spurs (2001-03).

“Everything Pop says is to motivate guys and to get guys to see the big picture,” Jackson said. “I wasn’t here at the time so I don’t know what the conversation was about, but being back, I feel confident with our defense.

“I think we’re starting to get more and more on the same page, and we’re starting to trust each other a little more. That’s a good thing.”

It hasn’t hurt that the Spurs added two solid defenders since then. Jackson, dealt for March 17, and Boris Diaw, signed as a free agent March 26, have played outstanding individual defense while getting comfortable with the Spurs’ complicated system of rotations.

Always known mostly for his complete offensive game, Diaw surprised Popovich with his ability to limit some of the league’s better post players.

“What I always try to do, on every team, is try to give what the team needs,” Diaw said. “I’m not really coming with one set of skills — ‘This is what I do, and that’s it.’ I’m trying to fit in with the team. The Spurs, when they were thinking about me, they were thinking about the days of (when I was with) Phoenix. Teams back then were really offensive-oriented. I knew coming back here, we needed good, solid defense.”

Diaw’s familiarization process continued in the rugged first-round series against Utah.

“With the new guys, it takes a little bit of time to get comfortable with whatever rotations we’re going to be in or whatever calls we might be in,” Popovich said. “In the heat of battle sometimes you can’t remember things the same way. It takes repetition, and there hasn’t been a whole lot of that.

“They do a pretty good job on an individual basis, but they still have to learn the systems of team defense.”

mikemonroe@express-news.net
Twitter: @Monroe_SA

Popovich unapologetic for resting aging stars

OAKLAND, Calif. — The Spurs open their second and final back-to-back-to-back of the season tonight at Golden State.

That means at some point over the next three nights, coach Gregg Popovich will likely draw the ire of basketball purists, talking heads and fantasy geeks everywhere.

Though Popovich has announced no definitive plan to rest players on the whirlwind trip to visit Golden State, the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento, 30-somethings Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Stephen Jackson — as well as soon-to-be 30-something Tony Parker — would be wise to pack a sport coat just in case.

Popovich’s penchant for sidelining perfectly healthy players in the name of rest and relaxation has taken fire from two fronts.

One is from those who argue along “integrity of the game” lines. When Popovich chose not to take any of his Big Three on the road to Utah last week, for instance, it helped the Jazz get a win vital to their pursuit of the Western Conference’s final playoff seed, artificially affecting the race.

Popovich’s counter-argument? If a team is unhappy with its playoff lot, it should have won more games.

“I think people should mostly take care of their own business and end up where they end up based on how well they play, not based on other people,” Popovich said.

Popovich harbors more sympathy for fans who plunk down their hard-earned cash to watch an NBA game, only to have a D-League contest break out.

After Popovich sat four players in Portland in February, he received a disgruntled letter from such a fan.

“I understand completely,” Popovich said. “I would feel exactly the same. If I went to watch Miami, and LeBron (James) and Dwyane (Wade) weren’t playing, I’d feel shorted.

“It’s natural human reaction and totally understandable, but I have a different priority. I have a different responsibility, and that rules for me.”

Jedi mind trick: The last time the Spurs faced a back-to-back-to-back, from March 23-25, Popovich sat Duncan, Ginobili and Parker one game apiece.

The Spurs swept the set from Dallas, New Orleans and Philadelphia anyway, becoming the fifth team to win three games in three nights this season.

Might Popovich approach this trip the same way?

“You never know what Obi-Wan’s going to do,” Jackson said. “At the end of the day, everybody’s going to have to be ready.”

Green clocks out: Starting shooting guard Danny Green did not play in the second half Saturday against Phoenix, as Popovich opted to replace him with Ginobili to start the third quarter.

Though Green has been playing much of the year with a sore left shoulder, the move had nothing to do with an injury, Popovich said.

“He’s been playing a lot,” Popovich said. “It was a good opportunity to give him a bit of a rest.”

jmcdonald@express-news.net

Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN