Tag: Tony Parker

Parker on brink of assists milestone

By Mike Monroe

Enjoying a career season distributing the basketball, Spurs point guard Tony Parker has moved within striking range of passing Avery Johnson as the Spurs’ leader in career assists.

With seven assists in the Spurs’ 93-81 victory over the Hornets on Thursday, Parker has 4,468 for a Spurs career that began in 2001. That is six shy of Johnson’s mark of 4,474, established in 10 seasons in silver and black that stretched from the 1990-91 season through 2000-01.

Parker is averaging 7.9 assists per game, a career high.

The timing of Parker’s arrival after the Spurs made him the 28th pick in the 2001 draft made it impossible for him not to immediately understand Johnson’s legacy.

“When I first arrived that’s all anybody talked about: Avery,” Parker said. “He meant a lot to this city, so it’s nice to be in the same category with him.

“I know Avery Johnson and know he was very big in this community and one of the best point guards ever in San Antonio. It will definitely be a great honor.”

Rest for the weary: After playing four games in five days, the Spurs didn’t practice Friday and will skip the typical morning shootaround before tonight’s game against the Thunder.

Even in a compressed season in which days available for practice are few and far between, the coaching staff’s decision to maximize recovery time between games was appreciated by the players.

“You know what?” team captain Tim Duncan said after Thursday’s victory. “I think we had some tired legs tonight. You could tell our shooters were worn out a little bit. It will be good for us.

“This is a crazy season and it’s taking a lot out of a lot of people. Any rest is good rest. I don’t think we’re going to lose much in just a day, so it’s good to get some rest under our belt because there’s a lot of games coming up and (we know) the kind of season that’s ahead of us.”

Learning for Leonard: After starting 13 consecutive games, rookie swingman Kawhi Leonard was replaced by Gary Neal in the starting lineup for Thursday’s game against the Hornets.

Popovich said the change was based on situational tactics rather than Leonard’s recent level of play.

“There’s some games another player doesn’t play a lot of minutes,” he said. “It’s just part of the game. In Dallas, Tony (Parker) and Tim (Duncan) didn’t play a minute in the fourth quarter. That’s just the way games go sometimes.

“Certain groups are doing well, people out there doing what you want them to do. You don’t just change it to be changing it, to give somebody minutes. It’s what you’ve got to do that night to try to win.”

Leonard, who had played a little more than eight minutes in Wednesday’s game against Houston, logged nearly 12 minutes in his reserve role on Thursday.

Neal came off the bench and played more than 34 minutes against Houston. He got 29 minutes as a starter on Thursday.

mikemonroe@express-news.net

Spurs have important homework assignment

Unlike many of his NBA counterparts, Spurs point guard Tony Parker admits to looking at the standings almost every day.

What he’s seen so far in this topsy-turvy, lockout-truncated season has shocked him.

Lose in overtime in Dallas, drop from third in the Western Conference to ninth. Win the next night in Memphis, jump from ninth to sixth and one game out of fourth.

What the turbulence has taught him is, this season more than most, the standings watching that has become part of his daily routine is an exercise in futility.

“It doesn’t matter, the standings,” Parker said. “You just want to make the playoffs. Once you make it, you know anything can happen.”

For the Spurs, the road to the playoffs runs through their home arena.

In the midst of a stretch of 16 of 21 games on the road that ranks as one of the most travel-weary in team history, the Spurs return to the ATT Center tonight to kick off a three-game homestand against Houston.

With the annual rodeo road trip looming next week, which includes nine straight games out of town, it will mark the Spurs’ last chance for home cooking until after the All-Star break.

With the Spurs struggling to gain traction on the road — they are 3-8 away from home, even after Monday’s resounding win in Memphis — every game at the ATT Center takes on added premium.

“Every year before the rodeo trip, those last home games, it’s important we finish well,” said Parker, whose team will also face New Orleans and Oklahoma City before turning the ATT Center over to the bulls and broncs.

“These three games are huge, because then we go on the road forever.”

The Spurs aren’t yet overly concerned with their good-but-not-great record of 13-9, a game behind Dallas in the Southwest Division.

For the Spurs and other teams, this season — with its every-night-is-game-night feel — has become about survival.

Finish in the top eight of the conference, make the postseason field, and let the playoffs sort it out.

“It is a bit of a circus,” said Spurs captain Tim Duncan, the only player on the team around for the league’s last lockout in 1999. “A lot of guys are worn down and beat up. In the West, you’ve just got to try to get in the playoffs as best you can.”

To Duncan’s point: In the last lockout-shortened season, the New York Knicks became the only team in league history to make a run from the eighth seed to the NBA Finals.

The top-seeded Spurs beat them in five games to claim their first NBA championship. Still, coach Gregg Popovich believes that title had more to do with a 23-year-old Duncan and a David Robinson still in the same zip code as his prime, and not necessarily seeding.

“You just try to be the best team you can be, and be healthy going into the playoffs,” said Popovich, whose team is a league-best 10-1 at home. “Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case last year, but I’m not sure we can control the health part.”

Indeed, if any season demonstrated to the Spurs the overrated value of seeding, it was 2010-11. They won a conference-best 61 games, lost All-Star guard Manu Ginobili to a sprained right elbow in the season finale in Phoenix and got bounced in the first round of the playoffs by the No. 8 Grizzlies.

As Duncan put it, “Seeding is irrelevant, but health means a lot.”

Still, day in and day out, Parker will cue up the NBA standings and take a peek.

It is a habit he just can’t seem to break, even if he knows, at this point, it’s pointless.

“This year, it really doesn’t matter where you finish, so long as you just make the playoffs,” Parker said. “I really believe that.”

jmcdonald@express-news.net

Popovich: Life on road tougher than in the past

NEWARK, N.J. — Over the past nine seasons, the mythology of the Spurs’ rodeo road trip has taken on a life of its own.

It was a time when the Spurs jelled for the season’s stretch run, the place where championships were forged.

Is it still? Gregg Popovich isn’t so sure.

“As guys get older, the trip gets tougher,” the Spurs coach said. “When they were all young, it wasn’t that tough. I threw that pablum out there, ‘We all get together, it’s a bunker mentality.’

“Now, it’s ‘When is this sucker over?’”

This year’s incarnation of the rodeo trip has in fact barely begun. The Spurs are 2-0 on the nine-game jaunt heading into tonight’s game against New Jersey, still three weeks away from their next home date.

Five days in, Popovich has found value to life on the road. With so many new parts on his roster and in his rotation this season, the extended time away from home has given players a chance to bond in ways they might not have otherwise in this condensed lockout season.

A fan of team field trips on the road — he once took players on an outing to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., for example — Popovich laments the lack of time for such excursions this season.

“There’s no time for any of that stuff,” Popovich said. “This kind of trip, we’re together for so long, so we’ll do something.”

With five nights in New York City before and after tonight’s game against the Nets, the Big Apple would seem to be as good a place as any for such an outing.

Not so fast, Popovich said.

“All my field trips in New York are personal,” he said. “Total selfishness, and hedonistic.”

Duncan not heartbroken: ??After 13 straight trips to the All-Star Game, Tim Duncan was neither surprised nor dismayed to learn Western Conference coaches declined to put him on this year’s team.

“I’m not broken up about it,” Duncan said.

Popovich refused after practice Friday to enter a discussion about whether Duncan — who is averaging 13.9 points and 8.3 rebounds — deserved to be on the team. Later, Popovich joked he could have done more to promote his venerable captain’s All-Star chances.

“I thought about sending teddy bears to the coaches that said, ‘Vote for Tim,’” Popovich said.

To which Duncan shot back, with mock incredulity, “You didn’t do that?”

Lonely All-Star: Point guard Tony Parker got news of his fourth All-Star nod the way the rest of America did — by watching the TNT selection broadcast Thursday.

His inclusion gives the Spurs an All-Star representative for the 14th consecutive game.

“I was happy to keep the streak going for the Spurs,” Parker said. “I’ve always said it’s a reward for the team. We’ve been playing well.”

Parker’s only regret is that Duncan won’t be going with him. He considers Duncan in the same category as Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki — an aging but still worthy candidate, despite a drop in numbers.

“When you see Dirk making it, I thought maybe T.D. had a chance,” Parker said. “I was sad. I have to go solo.”

jmcdonald@express-news.net