Tag: Tony Parker

Parker v. Harris: A playoff rivalry renewed

By Jeff McDonald

It would probably be overstatement to say Tony Parker still has nightmares about Devin Harris.

But Parker does recall the playoff series Harris had with Dallas in 2006, and the way it ruined one of the  most promising of Spurs seasons.

Harris returns to the ATT Center as Utah’s starting point guard on Sunday, when the Spurs and Jazz open a first-round series. The last time Harris was here in the playoffs, he was carving the Spurs up in the 2006 Western Conference semifinals.

“With Dallas, he was like a young buck,” Parker recalled Saturday. “He was playing with a lot of energy. He, like, had no conscience. Now he’s like running the team. It’s a little different, but he’s doing a good job.”

Harris, then in his second season out of Wisconsin, averaged 12.7 in the Mavs’ seven-game series victory. He averaged nearly 21 points in Games 2, 3, 4, all of which Dallas won to take an insurmountable series lead.

Josh Howard, another key member of the 2006 Mavericks, is now on the Utah roster as well.

The Mavericks went on to the NBA Finals, where the lost to Miami. The Spurs went home in the second round after winning 63 games in the regular season.

That series was fresh in the Spurs’ mind in February of 2008, when Dallas traded Harris to New Jersey as part of the Jason Kidd deal. Then, Parker suggested he was happy to have Harris out of the Western Conference.

“To be honest with you, I’m really happy for that trade,” Parker said at the time.

Harris hasn’t quite lived up to that promise since, though he did earn an All-Star nod in 2008-09 with the Nets before coming to Utah in the Deron Williams trade.

Parker, meanwhile, has earned three more All-Star berths plus an NBA Finals MVP in 2007, and is playing perhaps the best basketball of his life this season.

Harris, 29, averaged 11.3 points and five assists in the regular season. As his 2006 run against the Spurs reminds, he still has the potential to cause problems for a playoff opponent.

“You have to slow him down, try to contain him and find him in transition,” Parker said. “We know if he gets going, he can cause us a lot of trouble.”

Parker redux

Tony Parker said a 2001 pre-draft workout with a then Spurs staffer, Lance Blanks, had a lasting effect. Parker told the Express-News’ Jeff McDonald in Sunday’s editions that, when he arrived for his first training camp months later, he’d been humbled.

“I thought if I could play like 15, 20 minutes and be a good player in the NBA, I’d be happy,” Parker said.

Blanks, now the general manager of the Phoenix Suns, remembers it differently.

Maybe neither, in 2001, could have ever imagined Parker would play in four NBA All-Star Games. Players drafted low in the first round are lucky to last four seasons; players who worked out as Parker did were lucky to last four games.

Blanks had starred at Texas, and he’d been a first-round draft pick himself in 1990. But he hadn’t competed seriously in almost three years and was out of shape. Given that, he played Parker the only way he could, and the way the Spurs wanted him to, by holding and banging.

“I was accused of trying to get another contract as a player,” Blanks joked a few years ago, and the Spurs said there is a reason they accused him of that. Blanks looked like he was trying to get another contract.

Parker must have been in shock. He had just arrived from France the day before, as McDonald wrote, and he had no idea what a private workout might involve. Then Blanks, nearly twice his age, mauled Parker with his agent and father looking on.

“It went from bad to worse,” said Blanks, “with every push.”

But when it was over — with Gregg Popovich convinced Parker would be a mistake — Blanks said Parker was unaware how awful he had looked.

What Parker told Blanks that day: “I’m going to start in this league.”

Spurs notebook: Popovich appreciates Lin’s stupendous play

NEW YORK — This afternoon, and much to coach Gregg Popovich’s chagrin, the Spurs will board a team charter flight from New York to Detroit, ending a five-night, stress-free stay in Manhattan that included the hassle of only one game to play.

During his extended time in the city, Popovich has come to share at least one thing in common with other denizens of the Big Apple.

Turns out, he’s just as Lin-sane as the rest of them.

Popovich has never seen New York Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin play a full game, but he’s seen the highlight clips.

“He looks damn good, that’s for sure,” Popovich said.

When the Spurs arrived in New York in the wee hours Thursday morning, Lin was still barely a blip on the NBA radar. By the time they leave today, a victory over New Jersey tacked to their record, Lin is a bona fide international celebrity.

Undrafted out of Harvard, a graduate of the Development League and nearly cut by his third team this season before his recent outburst, Lin has led the Knicks to a 5-0 record in five starts at point guard.

The 109 points Lin scored in those games marks the best scoring start of any player since the NBA/ABA merger in 1976, surpassing the mark of 101 held by Philadelphia’s Allen Iverson.

Lin mania hit a fevered pitch in New York after he outdueled Kobe Bryant with 38 points to lead the Knicks past the Lakers on Friday at Madison Square Garden, less than 2 miles from the Spurs’ hotel.

“It seems out of the blue,” Popovich said. “All of a sudden, this guy is kicking everybody’s butt, and nobody can stop him. It seems improbable, and that’s why the story’s so great.”

Road killing it: Don’t look now, but the Spurs are becoming road warriors.

After starting the season 0-5 away from the ATT Center, the Spurs have won six of their past nine road games, including four in a row.

In the first three games of the rodeo road trip, the Spurs have trailed for just 13:31 of clock time. Most of that (10:15) came in a grinding 89-84 victory at Memphis that kicked off the trek.

“We’re improving on the road,” All-Star point guard Tony Parker said. “We’re going in the right direction. Just have to keep building on it.”

Worth the trip: If there was ever a season for skipping the All-Star Game in favor of a nice, relaxing vacation, this lockout-compressed campaign would be it.

Parker wouldn’t dream of it.

“I never take breaks,” said Parker, who will make his fourth All-Star appearance Feb. 26 in Orlando, Fla. “I play with the (French) national team. I played during the lockout. I love basketball.

“For me, it’s a great opportunity. I don’t get to play in the All-Star Game every year.”

Parker’s selection comes with the blessing of his coach.

“When somebody plays as good as he’s played, and worked as hard as he has, and kept us above water like he has, it’s just a thrill that he made it,” Popovich said.

jmcdonald@express-news.net