Posts Tagged ‘Gregg Popovich’

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Spurs, Warriors Have Game 1 For The Ages

May 7, 2013  ·  6:38AM

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Warriors-Spurs: Series Hub | Game 1: Box score | Notebook

SAN ANTONIO – On the court of our dreams, they would still be out there playing. Shot for shot, pass for pass, the astonishing marvel of a relentless attack against a miracle comeback born of experience and stubbornness.

There were spin drives that swirled faster than the winds inside a funnel cloud and a clinching 3-pointer that came down wearing a touch of blue from scraping against the sky.

Bop till you drop. Last team standing advances to next round. If that were the case, they might keep on fighting this battle into July. Or even August.

Steph.

Manu.

Warriors.

Spurs.

This was billed as a Western Conference semifinal series that would bear watching, and for three hours and 12 minutes of Game 1 we were like cavemen mesmerized by their first glimpse of fire.

Wonderful.

Marvelous.

Amazing.

Terrific.

OK, so why not get carried away about the Spurs’ 129-127 double-overtime masterpiece over the Warriors? About the only things missing were a gold frame and a spot behind a velvet rope on the wall in the Louvre.

If Dr. Naismith’s game has been played better, it certainly wasn’t on this planet. The extraterrestrial Stephen Curry rang up another out of this world third quarter, hitting 9 of his 12 shots for 22 of his 44 points. The remarkably down-to-earth Danny Green matched Curry’s half-dozen from long range. And a zaftig Frenchman who hadn’t played in exactly one month — Boris Diaw – provided a certain je ne sais quoi.

The Spurs trailed by 16 with 4:31 left in the fourth quarter and forced overtime. The Warriors trailed by five with 1:06 left in the second OT and nearly stole off into the night with the win.

“It was a crazy game,” said the Spurs’ Tony Parker.

Never crazier and never swinging further from the ridiculous to the sublime than when Kawhi Leonard’s inbounds pass found a wide open Manu Ginobili, who launched a high-arching 26-footer that settled into the bottom of the net with 1.2 seconds left to end it all.

All of that on the night when Ginobili made just 5 of 20 shots from the field and just 44 seconds earlier had missed badly on a brain-lock 3 try from straight out.

“I went from trading him on the spot to wanting to cook him breakfast tomorrow,” said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. “That’s the truth.

“When I talk to him and Manu, he goes ‘This is what I do.’ That’s what he’s going to tell me. I stopped coaching him a long time ago.”

It was beautiful and bombastic, frantic and fragile, wild, woolly and wondrous … and certainly the best game of the season and maybe as good a playoff game as has been played in any season. It was Nureyev and Baryshnikov on the same stage, Picasso and Pollock on the same wall, Miles Davis and Leonard Bernstein making music together.

The sixth-seeded Warriors wear their underdog image as a suit of armor, fearless and invulnerable and even after losing their 30th consecutive game in San Antonio since 1997, have served notice that they no longer intend to be polite houseguests.

The second-seeded and ageless Spurs simply look at every game and every situation as something that can be handled, even if it’s like picking up a hot coal in their bare hands.

On one hand, the Spurs will have to devise a plan to stifle or at least slow down Curry, who has joined the Rolling Stones as the hottest act touring America this spring. They will also have to fret that if Klay Thompson hadn’t fouled out and Richard Jefferson hadn’t missed two free throws with 1:57 left, they might never have survived regulation time.

On the other, the Warriors probably have to figure that the Spurs won’t continue shooting 43.8 percent in the series and that Tim Duncan will be more of a force at both ends of the floor when he shakes off the effects of the flu that eventually forced him to the sidelines.

Jarrett Jack attacks, the Spurs answer. Curry thrusts and Parker parries.

“We’re excited about this series,” said Warriors coach Mark Jackson. “I saw a lot of good things during the course of the game tonight.”

The good news is there could be six more left. The bad news is there can only be six.

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Posted in 2013 Conference Semis: Spurs-Warriors, 2013 NBA Playoffs, HT News / Comments (94) /

Ageless Duncan Has Spurs Primed For Deep Run

April 29, 2013  ·  4:54PM

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LOS ANGELES – Gregg Popovich still maintains that as soon as Tim Duncan decides to walk away he’ll be right behind him and happily disappear into the San Antonio sunset.

The good news for Spurs fans who have grown up or grown old with the most successful coach-player duo in NBA history, now in their 16th season together, is they aren’t going anywhere soon.

“He plays like he’s six or seven or eight years younger than he is,” Popovich said. “He’s really just a miracle in my mind.”

That’s what some thought it would take just a few seasons ago for the Spurs with an aging Big Three of Duncan, 37, Tony Parker, 30, and Manu Ginobili, 35, to again be title contenders. They were swept out of the second round by Phoenix in 2010 and then unceremoniously ushered out the next season as the top seed in a first-round upset against Memphis.

Parker openly pondered the direction of the franchise at that point just as rumors persisted that he could be traded. He questioned if the team’s age and makeup could still allow it to compete in a Western Conference transitioning to younger, faster and more athletic, headed by two rising stars in Oklahoma City.

Duncan didn’t need to hear concern from Parker to know that the times were changing, and he needed to change with them.

After averaging just 12.7 points in that 2011 first-round loss, Duncan immersed himself in self-evaluation, analyzing everything from where he’s most effective on the floor, to his conditioning, to his weight and nutrition.

He said the lockout, while it hindered many players’ workout routines and stunted their seasons, actually worked in his favor: “Just having that extra time to really focus on getting my game back and getting my body in the right shape that I wanted it to be.

“I changed a lot,” Duncan said following Sunday’s completion of a first-round sweep of a frustrated Dwight Howard and the depleted Los Angeles Lakers. “I understand that my game was changing, trying to extend my game on the floor, understanding where I’m going to be getting my shots, understand that I needed to get some weight off my body so that I could take some of the pressure off my knee. And it worked well for me.”

This season Duncan produced his highest scoring average (17.8), field-goal percentage (50.2), rebounding average (9.9) and minutes (30.1) in three seasons. His 2.7 blocks per game were a career-best, as was his 81.7 percent free throw shoooting, a remarkable leap for a career 69.3-percent foul shooter.

Against L.A. he delivered an array of post moves, spins, jumpers and one mighty alley-oop jam that caught his teammates by surprise.

“I thought he was going to be done after that play,” Parker said, smiling. “His back or something like that would give out on him.”

And so here are the Spurs once again, following up on last season’s run to the West finals, a six-game loss in what always seems to be Duncan’s last, best shot at a fifth title. They’ll be well-rested and favored in the second round against either a young and energetic Golden State squad or a Denver team that will have gone the distance to dig out of a 3-1 hole.

With the top-seeded Thunder wounded, the second-seeded Spurs must now be considered the favorite to emerge from the West.

“We’re getting there,” Duncan said after averaging 17.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and shooting 51.7 percent from the floor against the Lakers. “Obviously this series went well for us. We didn’t end the year well, but the bottom line is it really doesn’t matter how you end the year. This is a good start for us. We like the pace we’re at now, we like the rhythm we’re at now, we like how healthy we are right now and hopefully we can stay that way.”

Only a few weeks ago Duncan and Popovich expressed concern about its own health after a loss at OKC. Old questions of age and durability were cropping up again as Ginobili sat out hurt. Parker was dealing with multiple ailments and had to be removed from that game and faced an uncertain return. Boris Diaw needed back surgery. The team surprisingly released Stephen Jackson.

Yet, there was Duncan, spry and free of physical distress, averaging more minutes this season when Popovich’s desire over the last several has been to limit him more, an All-Star again for the 14th time.

“He’s a really gifted individual as far as his mental capacity is concerned,” Popovich said. “He really has a mature outlook in the sense that he knows what it takes to play at that age. He enjoys the responsibility and takes it seriously 12 months a year and that’s why he’s able to do what he does at this point in his career. His maturity level and commitment are both very unique.”

As Duncan altered his approach the last two seasons, becoming leaner and quicker, especially evident in his defense and 9.9 rebounds a game, his best mark in three seasons, Popovich and general manager R.C. Buford went about reconstructing the team.

The stodgy defensive model complemented by a methodical offense that ran through Duncan was ditched. Young sharpshooters and scrappy, unheralded role players were acquired to form a precision-based, team-oriented and highly efficient offensive attack that surged to became one of the highest-scoring in the league.

Additions like second-year forward Kawhi Leonard helped improve a faltering defense, making San Antonio an all-around threat to run through the West and arguably the best equipped to challenge the Miami Heat in a seven-game series.

Still, the key remains the ever-present Duncan, even as the Spurs’ strategy altered emphasis on him.

In the opening minutes of Game 3, Duncan set the tone for the two games in L.A. that the Spurs would win by 52 points. A 3.2 earthquake was registered just as Duncan snared an alley-oop pass from Danny Green with his fully outstretched right arm rising well above the rim and then he emphatically dunked it.

“That makes sense now,” the self-deprecating Duncan said when told of the simultaneous earthquake. “It lowered the rim.”

Green instinctively launched the pass to the open man, but then quickly grew concerned as he realized the recipient was an old man with bad knees.

“I threw it and when I saw that it was Tim, I was like hopefully he can catch it and come down with it and make a play,” Green said. “But he caught it and threw that thing down.”

For the Big Fundamental, it was no big thing.

“I used to do it a lot, back in the day,” Duncan said. “Fifteen, 20 years ago.”

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Posted in 2013 NBA Playoffs / Comments (51) /

Spurs: Where Everyone Knows His Role

April 28, 2013  ·  1:44PM

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LOS ANGELES – Two examples of what makes the Spurs — unselfish, deep, humble, precise, unwavering — the Spurs: Matt Bonner and DeJuan Blair.

Both players have been shoved out of the rotation at different times. Tiago Splitter reduced Blair to mostly spot duty this season. Boris Diaw severely cut into Bonner’s minutes. Yet, whenever the two reserves are needed most, there they are ready to serve. And produce. Both are now needed even more now with Diaw recovering from back surgery and Splitter sidelined for at least Sunday’s Game 4 against the Lakers (7 p.m. ET, TNT) with a sprained left ankle.

Bonner, the lone Spur outside the Big Three on the last title team in 2007, has been a nuisance to Los Angeles Lakers center Dwight Howard, doing whatever’s necessary to corral him, including implementation of the “Bonner Bear Hug,” a maneuver surely passed along by former Spurs defensive genius Bruce Bowen. The move has been particularly effective against Howard, who gets frustrated that he can’t get a shot up and must march to the free throw line where he’s 24-for-40 in the series.

In 80 minutes of action in the first three games in which the Spurs have taken a 3-0 lead, Bonner has 26 points, 12 rebounds, three steals, three blocks and 10 fouls. His plus-minus is a whopping plus-56, including plus-29 in Game 2.

He was so effective that Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni actually said that the Lakers’ goal was to get Bonner out of the game. Imagine that?

“I don’t even know what to say to that,” Bonner said prior to Game 3.

Bonner, also known as the “Red Rocket” for obvious reasons, averaged just 13.4 mpg in the regular season and played in just 68 games. But with Diaw out, Bonner’s minutes have been ramped up to 26.7. He’s 9-for-14 from the floor and 5-for-7 beyond the arc. At one point in Game 3′s 120-89 beatdown of the Lakers, Bonner received a pass at the top of the arc and the L.A. crowd actually let out a collective groan, anticipating the inevitable swish.

“Matty’s a character guy, he’s a team person, he’ll do whatever’s asked of him,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “If he starts, if he doesn’t play, his work ethic will stay the same. He’s just a high-character individual who will give everything he has no matter the situation. So we’re fortunate to have him.”

Similarly on the outs was Blair, who averaged 14.0 mpg in 61 games. He didn’t score in 12 total minutes in Games 1 and 2, then came through with 13 points on 6-for-6 shooting to go with seven rebounds and three assists in 14 minutes in Game 3. Howard even brought up Blair’s shooting in his postgame comments, somewhat suggesting that Blair’s Tony Parker-like teardrop shot was a bit lucky.

Blair refuted such a notion on Saturday.

“I practice that shot before every game,” Blair said. “I call it the T.P. Tear Drop.”

Blair is the most logical candidate to get the Game 4 start in place of Splitter. He’s looking forward to the increased minutes because, obviously, every player wants to play in big games. But also the 6-foot-7, 270-pound center out of Pittsburgh admitted that he sees the opportunity to open the eyes of teams across the league. A free agent this summer, Blair said he loves San Antonio, but would welcome a chance to play more somewhere else.

“It’s just about knowing where you’re at and what your situation is,” Blair said. “In front of me is Tim Duncan and I would never mind in my life sitting behind Tim Duncan, or anyone else on the team. We’ve got great players and everybody accepts their role perfect. So all of that [about] I’m not getting minutes and stuff like that, that really doesn’t bother me. My duty is to do all the dirty work and be the junkyard of this team, so I’m going to do that. I have no problem with that. If I get in a better situation I think a lot of people will see more of my game.”

Blair has long been a name on the trade block, but through four seasons in which Blair has averaged as many as 21.4 mpg and started 62 and 65 games in consecutive seasons, the Spurs never pulled the trigger.

Right now they’re happy they didn’t.

“We haven’t played him as much as he’s wanted to play,” Popovich said. “To his credit, DeJuan has been a true pro.”

– Series hub

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Posted in 2013 NBA Playoffs / Comments (24) /

Steve Nash Is Done — For Now

April 27, 2013  ·  7:34PM

LOS ANGELES – Steve Nash is focused on 2013-14.

“Put it this way,” Nash said, “I am optimistic and I feel like I’ll be great next year.”

This year, however, is over. The 39-year-old point guard will end his first season with the Los Angeles Lakers essentially the way it began — in pain.

Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni officially ruled out Nash for Sunday’s Game 4 (7 p.m. ET, TNT), a must-win for L.A. to force an improbable, seemingly impossible, Game 5 in San Antonio. For the first time during this lopsided series that the Spurs lead 3-0, Nash was not in practice gear and was not available following a Lakers workout.

“It’s the worst,” said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, whose San Antonio teams have long and colorful playoff history against Nash and his old Phoenix Suns. “It’s not just that he’s a good player, a great player, he’s a competitor. He’s one of the all-time competitors. To see him sitting on the sideline, you got to know that it’s killing him, it’s just killing him. I feel bad in the regard.”

Nash is dealing with back, hip and hamstring problems that are all related. He tweaked the injuries on the final play of Game 2, tried a cortisone shot to his hip and two epidural shots to his back in hopes of taking the court in Game 3, but he couldn’t do it.

“The irony, I guess, is that the back doesn’t affect me functionally, but the back is probably the root of all the problems,” said Nash, who has dealt with back issues for years. “It’s the hamstring and the hip that really prevented me, and I tweaked the whole system there on the last play of the half and it all went downhill from there.”

The Lakers’ ridiculously long injury list grew by one — and why not? — with Metta World Peace removing himself from Game 4 after sitting out the second half of Game 3. He irritated the right knee that he had surgically repaired just a month ago. Also out for what will will be Steve Blake, Jodie Meeks and, obviously, Kobe Bryant.

“It’s just been a crazy year. You can point back to the very start,” Nash said on Friday. “The bottom line is there’s no one reason, it’s just bad luck and a bunch of circumstances and, you know, it’s a shame.”

But Nash, as physically fit and nutritionally conscious as any player in the league, is planning for big things next season when the Lakers could well put essentially the same roster back on the floor if they re-sign Dwight Howard this summer. Pau Gasol could be gone, and Antawn Jamison and Earl Clark are free agents along with Howard.

Nash has two more seasons on his contract at $19 million. When training camp opens next October, speculation will be if Nash’s body can hold up. This season started with a freak incident, a broken leg and nerve damage in the second game of the season at Portland. Nash will turn 40 before the next All-Star Game.

Nash said he doesn’t discount the destructive forces of time on the body, but he said it’s unfair to blame this season’s series of ailments strictly on his age. His durability over 17 seasons is nothing short of remarkable. He missed 32 games this season, four times as many as in any recent season. He sat out eight in 2008-09, and you have to go back to 1999-2000 to find a season when he missed more.

“It’d be foolish not to say that it [age] could play some part, but I also think it’s really myopic to say that because I finally had an injury bug it’s age,” Nash said. “I think the biggest scenario is that everybody gets hurt at some point. The fact that I’m getting hurt now and haven’t been hurt before, it’s easy for everyone to say he’s getting old. I mean look around the room, what about the other guys? Is it because they’re getting old?”

Look beyond the Lakers. Look at the unfortunate injury list across the league: Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook (meniscus tear) is 24. Denver’s Danilo Gallinari (ACL) is 24. Golden State’s David Lee is 29. Boston’s Rajon Rondo is 27. Chicago’s Derrick Rose is 24.

Barring a miraculous comeback by the Lakers starting with Sunday’s Game 4, we have seen the last of Nash for this season.

But he’ll be back, and D’Antoni, whose greatest success came with Nash in Phoenix, believes he’ll have plenty left.

“I mean he’s dying inside,” D’Antoni said of Nash missing playoff games. “Then again, I think he’s excited about trying to get his body straight and coming back and having a great year. They’re on a mission, he, Kobe, Steve Blake, all of them are getting ready for another year.

“That’s them. We’re trying to lengthen this [series] and trying to win a game on Sunday.”

–Series Hub: Spurs vs. Lakers

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Lakers Near The End As Spurs Get Started

April 27, 2013  ·  2:26AM

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LOS ANGELES – It’s still difficult to process the devastation, that these are the Los Angeles Lakers. The 16-time champs. The team that coulda-woulda won 70 this season, yet suffered a third consecutive playoff loss and their worst one ever at home Friday, 120-89, to the San Antonio Spurs.

The classic gold uniforms emblazoned with purple down the sides and LAKERS racing across the front looked the same as playoffs past. But who were those guys wearing them? Even Jack had to raise his shades.

Guys named Andrew Goudelock and Darius Morris and Chris Duhon and Earl Clark were forced to play minutes better suited for a Vegas Summer League game. Meanwhile, $34.2 million of Laker payroll — or the club’s top four guards, including a cat named Kobe Bryant — watched from the bench, injured and dejected.

Actually, Black Mamba never even made it courtside. He probably knew what was ahead and knew he couldn’t stomach it, knew he couldn’t contain himself out in the open in front of restless fans, his fans, and grinding his teeth into talcum powder right there on the floor he’s so accustomed to dominating this time of year. Hidden from view, Bryant probably sent himself a thousand tweets.

After the game, being whirred away in a golf cart and wearing a gold Lakers t-shirt and a protective boot rising halfway up his left leg, Kobe was asked if it was hard to watch. “Of course,” he said, turning his palms up as if to say #WTH.

The game was uglier than even expected and the final result fit the description Mike D’Antoni used before the game for his state of mind considering the injuries and the crew he had left for a must-win Game 3: “As a coach you sleep like a baby and every 15 minutes you wake up crying.”

Then asked if his newly-christened backcourt of newbies Goudelock and Morris might actually improve the team’s perimeter defense from that of Steve Nash and Steve Blake, D’Antoni first laughed out loud, then said, “Uh, no.” He kept laughing.

Earlier in the day, the coach and his players tried to paint a scenario of success, talking of Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol taking care of the paint and the NBA D-League MVP Goudelock, thrilled for his first NBA start, he said, so his parents back home in Atlanta could watch him on TV, would go off as if Friday night was just another D-League Showcase. At least the kid came strong, and at least the Lakers didn’t allow their first 18-point deficit in the second quarter to wipe them out without a fight. The second one in the third quarter did, and then came the cheap “We Want Phil” chants, first short-lived and then more robust during the Spurs’ runaway fourth.

And with that, this stink-o, injury-ravaged Lakers season is finally in the spin cycle and ready to drain.

The San Antonio Spurs, with five players scoring in double figures and 13 in all scoring, seek to wrap up this fraudulent first-round series Sunday back at Staples. If accomplished it would be the second broom taken to the proud Lakers in three seasons. The unceremonious end will officially begin the unceremonious “Where’s Dwight Going?” reality show. Get your popcorn.

Of course, there’s still basketball to be played in L.A. as soon as Tuesday night when the toast-of-the-town Clippers and the once-upon-a-time-Lakers-bound Chris Paul return home for Game 5 against the Grizzlies. The Spurs, assuming they do close this sack of a series on Sunday, will go home to begin an extended rest awaiting the high-speed winner between Denver and Golden State, two clubs themselves that aren’t whole.

The Warriors’ David Lee (torn hip flexor) and Denver’s Danilo Gallinari (torn ACL), two high-scoring, highly productive forwards instrumental to their teams’ success, are each out for the duration. Oklahoma City now feels their pain. Point guard Russell Westbrook will have surgery, the team announced Friday, to repair a lateral meniscus tear in his right knee.

The Thunder and the Spurs, last season’s Western Conference foes, figured to be so again. OKC’s side of the bracket with the Clippers and Grizzlies has sprung wide open. And suddenly it’s the Spurs who look primed to make a real run at a fifth championship in the Gregg Popovich-Tim Duncan era, a number that would tie the 37-year-old wonder in rings with Kobe.

“We’re good. Health is good,” Popovich said prior to Game 3. “The last few weeks haven’t been great health-wise, but we’ve slowly gotten better and better. Considering how many people have problems around the league, and the Lakers having theirs, we’re feeling pretty fortunate in that regard.”

Only a few weeks ago, the Spurs were the walking wounded and now have their Big Three healthy and with Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker returning to All-Star form.

Of course health this time of year is fleeting and that fact came crashing home as starting center Tiago Splitter, having his best season in the NBA, hopped off the floor with his left foot dangling in mid-air and left the arena on crutches.

X-rays were negative, but chances are slim that he can play Sunday. It will leave the Spurs a little light in the middle for one last stand from Dwight and Pau, one, if not both of whom might be playing their final game in Laker purple-and-gold.

–Series Hub: Spurs vs. Lakers

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Westbrook Tough Break, Not A Dirty One

April 26, 2013  ·  5:30PM

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HOUSTON — Patrick Beverley plays hard and he plays fast and he plays much, much bigger than his listed height of 6-foot-1.

Beverley does not play dirty. At least he did not on the play that might have ended Russell Westbrook’s season.

The injury to Westbrook’s right knee was untimely, unfortunate and could ultimately prove to be the undoing of the Thunder’s chance to win the NBA championship this season. But it was not unsportsmanlike conduct.

It was hustle. It was aggressive. It was the way virtually every coach who ever carried a clipboard wants his to players to play — until he hears the whistle.

Was Westbrook trying to call a timeout? Probably. But he hadn’t and no referee had signaled for play to stop.

Were the chances of Beverley making the steal slim? Probably. But the best players don’t always need the odds in their favor. They force the action.

It is understandable that fans in Oklahoma City have been devastated by the news that one of their two All-Star players could be lost for the rest of the season following surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee.

It is not understandable, reasonable or even civilized for fans to direct threats toward Beverley on Twitter.

For those over-reactors in the 24-hour media maw, have you watched the video replays? Westbrook dribbled across mid-court and was perhaps a bit too cavalier in thinking he was going to get a timeout and Beverley did what he always does — he played.

The two players bumped knees and when that happens, often someone gets hurt. In this case, it was Westbrook who turned and slammed down his fist onto the scorer’s table.

Take note: Not only was there no foul called on the play, but Kevin Durant, who was standing right there, did not even give Beverley the slightest derisive look. And not a single player or coach on the Thunder bench reacted as if a breach of etiquette had occurred. By the way, Westbrook played all 24 minutes of the second half, scoring 16 of his 29 points.

Injuries happen and they have derailed more than a few teams and careers. This season alone injuries have kept the likes of Kobe Bryant, Derrick Rose and Danny Granger, among others, on the sidelines in the postseason. Dikembe Mutombo’s long and glorious career came to an end when he collided with Portland’s Greg Oden in a playoff game in 2009. The 1989 Lakers were a flawless 11-0 in the playoffs and maybe motoring toward a “three-peat” when hamstring injuries claimed Magic Johnson and Byron Scott on the eve of The Finals and they were swept out by the Pistons.

These are the playoffs and these are the big leagues. Through the years I have seen Spurs coach Gregg Popovich stand up as if he were going to call a timeout. Then the defenders relax and Tony Parker scoots all the way in to the basket for an uncontested layup. It occurred most famously at the Staples Center in a playoff game against Shaq, Kobe and the Lakers.

Two years ago, while playing for the Blazers, Andre Miller dribbled across the half-court line, head-faked toward the referee and when the Hornets defense stopped in its tracks, turned the corner and scored a cheap bucket.

It’s a bad time for Westbrook, who had played 439 in a row and never missed a game in his career. It’s bad luck for the Thunder, who will now have to lean on Durant more than ever and have others step up to fill the void. It’s a bad break for everybody who wants to see the best go head-to-head at this time of the year. It was not bad basketball.

Those who suggest that the Rockets be fined, suspended or somehow punished should perhaps turn to croquet, tea parties or other gentler pastimes.

Beverley was playing frantic, frenzied, feverish, furious. Sassy and smart too.

But he wasn’t dirty.
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Howard Feels The Red Mamba Tweaks

April 25, 2013  ·  2:23AM


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SAN ANTONIO — The Black Mamba didn’t tweet. Something about not wanting to be a distraction.

So Kobe Bryant sat at home again on the sofa in Orange County, this time resting his surgically repaired Achilles’ tendon and both his thumbs.

The Red Mamba did tweak. And jostle. And shove. And pull. And prod. It was all about being as bothersome as a mosquito at a nudist colony.

Matt Bonner never rested for even a single one of the 29 minutes that he had to contest, confront and confound Dwight Howard.

The Lakers All-Star center scored 16 points, pulled down nine rebounds and blocked four shots, but also picked up five fouls and a technical in another one of those nights when he did so much head-shaking that you wondered if it might fall right off his broad and muscular shoulders.

This is life without Kobe for the Lakers, nobody to bail them out at the end of difficult possessions or do some of the improbable things that might make the Spurs defense loosen up and have to guard the perimeter.

There were times in the first half of Game 2 when Howard was a monster at both ends of the floor, muscling inside for rugged buckets and trying to swat down any shot that the Spurs tried. He snarled after rejecting a Tim Duncan shot and he roared after making back-to-back rejections on Tony Parker.

But Howard also went up for an offensive rebound and swung a hard right elbow that caught Bonner square on his face and sent him to the floor like a bag of rocks.

The red-haired Bonner wore a sheepish smile and a red welt as he stood in front of his locker.

“You knock me down, I’ll keep getting up,” said Bonner.

Call it the Chumbawamba defense. Maybe that’s why none other than Kobe himself bestowed the nickname Red Mamba.

Or maybe it was the 10 points on 4-for-5 shooting — including another running one-hander — dubbed the “Shyhook” by the wags of the Internet.

“Matty’s a tough-minded individual,” said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. “He’s a heck of a competitor and a great team guy. He’ll do whatever we ask him to do. I think his family worries about him and the things we ask him to do out there.” (more…)

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Blogtable: Best Sideline Tacticians

April 24, 2013  ·  12:25PM
Point guard Tony Parker, left, with San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich (by D. Clarke Evans/NBAE)

Point guard Tony Parker, left, with San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich (by D. Clarke Evans/NBAE)

Each week, we’ll ask our stable of scribes to weigh in on the three most important NBA topics of the day — and then give you a chance to step on the scale, too, in the comments below.

Week 26: Coaching vacancies | Best sideline strategists | First-round impressions

Who are the best sideline tacticians in the playoffs?

Steve Aschburner: Let’s do this countdown style, for some semblance of suspense. My No. 3 is Chicago’s Tom Thibodeau because he’s the league’s consensus defensive genius and defense looms larger at playoff time. The adjustments against Brooklyn’s Big 3 Monday produced 2013′s first road playoff victory. At No. 2, I’ve got Miami’s Erik Spoelstra because, even with a star-studded lineup, no one works harder. The refinements in the Heat’s offense around LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are impressive. And my No. 1, based on which coach I’d want working my sideline for one game or one series, remains San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich. You’d think he had Manute Bol arms for the number of tricks he always has up his sleeves. Game plans, late in games, out of timeouts, there’s no one consistently better.

Fran Blinebury: Gregg Popovich.  Watch the Spurs coming out any timeout.  Pop excels at drawing up plays in the huddle that just plain work.  And he’s transformed the core of a plodding, pound-it-inside power team into an up-tempo, highly efficient offense. Doc Rivers. He kept the Celtics thriving over the last two months of the season without a point guard, using all of his positions to start and run the offense at times.  Lionel Hollins.  The bite in that Grizzlies defense comes from the boss.  And he knows what he wants in games.  Down 91-89 with 21.6 seconds left in Game 2, he drew up play that got Marc Gasol wide open at the rim for a dunk.

Erik Spoelstra (by Issac Baldizon/NBAE)

Erik Spoelstra (by Issac Baldizon/NBAE)

Jeff Caplan: Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau just keeps coming up with more reasons to tab him No. 1. Just look at Game 2. He wanted to play Joakim Noah between 20-25 minutes and Thibodeau got absolutely everything he could out of Noah in 25:29. And adjustments with Kirk Hinrich and Jimmy Butler limited Deron Williams to 1-for-9 shooting and eight points in 38 minutes. The Godfather of the group remains Gregg Popovich. Look, this guy only changed the entire identity of the Spurs to keep up with the rest of the league as his Big Three got older. And finally, give me Erik Spoelstra. He’s  managed to find the proper role for every player on the roster, and that includes the great LeBron James, whose position-less game has greatly expanded and flourished under Spo. Plus, look at all the games Miami won down the stretch when one, two or all three of the Big Three didn’t play. That’s coaching.

Scott Howard-Cooper: Gregg Popovich, George Karl, Tom Thibodeau. As if there was any doubt about the greatness of Pop, the move to the up-tempo game the last couple seasons shows he can make different systems work with the same roster core. It is impossible to overstate the difficulty of crossing that bridge.

John Schuhmann: No. 1: Gregg Popovich. You have to love the way that he’s opened up the Spurs’ offense over the last few years, how they’ve evolved from a post-up team to a pick-and-roll team, how he was one of the first coaches to embrace the corner three, and how he always seems to have something up his sleeve in late-game timeouts. Oh yeah, San Antonio ranked in the top three defensively in his first 11 full seasons on the bench and, after some adjustments to its approach, got back there this season. No. 2: Tom Thibodeau. He’s the architect of a couple of the best defensive teams of all-time, has basically changed the way most of the league defends now, and has managed to make this team with limited talent a group that no one wants to face in the postseason. No. 3: Erik Spoelstra. He’s made the most of the talent he’s been given by formulating an offense that spaces the floor and makes you pay for whatever defensive decision you happen to make and by formulating a defensive system that attacks the ball and utilizes his rosters’ length and athleticism.

Sekou Smith: From a purely tactical standpoint, it’s hard to go against the coaching holy trinity of Gregg Popovich, Doc Rivers and Tom Thibodeau, three of the best coaches in the game in every facet of the job. But picking just three squeezes out the guy who has become what I would consider the ultimate tactician, and that’s Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. Being a great tactician is not just about in-game moves. It’s about preparation for all things that could be encountered against a particular opponent. Pop showed in Game 1 against the Lakers that he’s going to search throughout his roster for the right mismatch (Matt Bonner) and exploit it every time. Doc has his work cut out for him heading into Game 3 of that series and is sure to come up with the right moves. Thibs showed us in Game 2 that he can always get his team to rebound from adversity, as the Brooklyn Nets found out. Spoelstra’s use of Chris “Birdman” Andersen as his team’s instant energy booster remains one of the most surprising tactical moves any coach has made this season. So I’m going with all four of these guys instead of just three.

Lang Whitaker: I think it starts with Pop. His system is so versatile and applicable to so many different situations, and he’s able to swap in and out different pieces with remarkably similar results. I also always enjoy watching Tom Thibdoeau do work. He’s got a roster of guys that had trouble finding work elsewhere (Nate Robinson, anyone?), but he has them defending and covering for each other’s weaknesses. And I have been continually impressed with Mike Woodson this season, especially on the offensive end. Having watched him in Atlanta forever, it seems like a completely different person in NYC, as the Knicks use a motion offense and share the ball. That triple screen they run Kidd off of is the stuff of a kid doodling in class.

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Posted in 2013 NBA Playoffs, Blogtable / Comments (35) /

Big Brother Kobe Has Eye On Lakers

April 21, 2013  ·  9:20PM

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SAN ANTONIO – It’s a brave new world, where all of us are connected.

Well, almost all of us.

There were those nine troglodytes in Lakers uniforms who ran cluelessly up and down the court at the AT&T Center as if they didn’t know fire had been discovered or the wheel invented.

While the rest of the planet was entertained, motivated and fully informed by Kobe Bryant at the center of the Twitterverse on how to slow down and shut off the Spurs, his teammates were like those old Japanese soldiers who finally wandered out of the mountains not realizing that World War II had ended.

Poor Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Steve Nash and Metta World Peace.

– “What I would say if I was there right now? Pau get (your) ass on the block and don’t move (until you) get it,” Bryant tweeted.

– “Post. Post. Post.”

– “Gotta milk Pau in the post right now and D12. Will get good looks from it.”

– “Gotta get to the block. See (what) Spurs (are) gonna do with Pau and D12.”

Poor Mike D’Antoni. Perhaps by Wednesday, he can modernize to use carrier pigeons instead of cave paintings during timeouts to get his messages across. Maybe the Lakers’ equipment manager can find a way to duct tape an iPhone somewhere onto the body of each member of the team, so they can get constant updates and suggestions from “Coach Vino,” which is what Bryant called himself on Friday. After all, this is the 21st century .Why should the minor detail of torn Achilles tendon stop Bryant from finding a way to get into the series?

One can picture the restless Black Mamba squirming all over the sofa in his Orange County mansion, with his bad leg propped up on a pillow and his thumbs flying across the keyboard.

– “Matador defense on Parker.”

– “This game has a ‘steal one’ written all over it for us.”

Of course, it would have helped if the Lakers had been able to connect on more than 3-for-15 behind the 3-point line or knock down any of the other many open shots at the basket they had. And it might have been a “stealable” game if the Lakers hadn’t turned the ball over 18 times.

“I was happy with the looks we got,” D’Antoni said. “I wasn’t happy with the turnovers we had.”

For all the postgame talk in the Spurs’ locker room of finding their missing defensive intensity and execution, the outcome was as much about all of the things the Lakers simply could not get done. Nash was the one who received a pregame epidural to treat the pain from his lingering hip injury, but Gasol was too often the one that struggled as if trying to give birth to any kind of offensive rhythm.

This was a game that the Spurs won handily despite no one among Tim Duncan (6-for-15), Tony Parker (8-for-21) and Manu Ginobili (6-for-13) being able to make half their shots. Even when the crowd tried to summon up a “Beat L.A.!” chant in the third quarter, it was listless. Without Kobe, playing the Lakers is like a trip to Oz without running into the Wicked Witch of the West.

The truth is the Lakers were in arm’s length to grab the kind of early win that can turn a series on its head until Ginobili went up like a bottle-rocket to close out the third quarter. With his newest teammate Tracy McGrady watching in street clothes from the bench, Ginobili did a “mini-TMac,” zipping in eight points in 85 seconds.

“I knew it was my time, usually,” said Ginobili, who had missed nine of the last 10 regular season games with a strained right hamstring.

The second of Ginobili’s treys was a walk-up heat check with 2.4 seconds left that probably had coach Gregg Popovich close to swallowing his tongue.

“If I would have missed it, probably he would have said something,” Ginobili shrugged.

If Manu had been a Laker and missed it, there’s no telling what kind of fireballing, nasty tweet Kobe might have sent his way.

When D’Antoni was asked later if he approved of Bryant’s running commentary and criticism, he smiled and rolled his eyes.

“It’s great to have that commentary,” D’Antoni said. “He’s a fan. He’s a fan right now.”

Just a fan the way King Kong was just a monkey.

Bryant replied almost immediately.

– “A fan?? lol.”

– “Nervous response. I’m sure he didn’t meant it that way. No big deal.”

The Lakers did pound the ball into the post throughout the day. They did use their size to body up and turn it into the kind of brute strength, ugly affair that is their path to an upset in the series. After looking uncomfortable early, Howard did get 20 points and 15 rebounds.

“We can’t get discouraged because we lost the first game,” Howard.

Dwight had better wait until hears from his BFF on Twitter.

Kobe still has thumbs that work.

– “On to game 2. I will be watching from the crib again in a Pau jersey and Laker face paint ha!” (Joking) aside, we will be fine on (Wednesday).”

But eventually, even the Mambatweeter thought better of his input.

– “I see my tweeting during the game is being talked about as much as the game itself. Not my intention , just bored as I guess.” #notagain

It’s a brave new world, where the Lakers who actually played found out you’re not paranoid if Big Brother really is looking over your shoulder.

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Coach Of The Year: George Karl

April 18, 2013  ·  1:42PM

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Had someone floated the idea of this 2012-13 NBA season to George Karl three years ago – the Denver Nuggets’ high-octane overachievement, the fun he would have orchestrating it, this talk of him as a leading candidate as NBA Coach of the Year – he’s not sure how he would have reacted to it.

There was so much uncertainty then. Peering three years into the future? Yeah right. Man plans, cancer wags a long, Dikembe Mutombo-like finger.

“That summer when I had to make a decision whether I was going to coach again, it was a hard summer,” said Karl, who already had deal with prostate cancer in 2005 when neck cancer grabbed him by the throat in February 2010. “I remember, at the end of July, I just wasn’t mentally ready to do it. I had to push myself to … whatever. Get over the depression. Get over feeling sorry for myself.

“I just knew, you have two families: You have your inner-core family that’s blood and people who have always been with you. And then you have your basketball family. I wasn’t ready to leave my basketball family. I wasn’t ready to leave the gym.”

So Karl, 61, returned. Through treatment, through occasional absences, through the Carmelo Anthony drama. He celebrated his 1,000th victory in 2010-11 and kept going, and he labored hard to build and heed new habits for himself, a working style that was sustainable. And survivable.

“I went back with different rules,” Karl said before Denver’s game in Milwaukee. “The rules were balance and ‘I’m not going to kill myself.’ And ‘If I’m stressed, I’m going to delegate. If I’m worried and to the point where I’m out of control, I’m going to walk away, I’m going to take a day off.’ I never would have thought of that when I was in Milwaukee.”

In Karl’s five seasons with the Bucks (1998-2003), same as in his seven seasons in Seattle (1991-1998), there was no minor problem, no niggling little annoyance too small for Karl to plunge headlong into a quest for a solution. He was wilder then both on and off the court, and he wasn’t healthy even before he got sick.

Then he had wisdom and perspective forced on him, the way so many of us do. Beyond his own illness, his son, Coby, faced and survived lymph node cancer. Change became the constant for Karl.

“I love basketball, I love the gym, I love the passion, I love the competition,” he said. “But I wasn’t going to deteriorate my health again.”

So he rants and rails and stays late less, yet enjoys it all more. Especially this year, the most successful regular-season in Denver’s NBA franchise history. The Nuggets’ previous best in victories was 54 and its top home record was 36-5, which was bested by this season’s 57-25 and 38-3 finishes, respectively.

“You’ve got to understand, he’s deal with a lot of stuff in his personal life,” guard Andre Miller said. “To be able to come back and be totally committed to this organization says a lot. … It’s only right for him to be considered for Coach of the Year. It’s a lot of hard work dealing with NBA players and he’s been doing it well for along time.”

The Nuggets play fast, they push into the paint to shoot a high percentage and dominate on the offensive boards, and they do it all without a legit all-NBA third-team prospect. The lack of a marquee star, a ready excuse for many franchises, has been embraced in the Mile High City. (more…)

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