duncan228
01-21-2009, 01:37 AM
Ginobili making every step matter on road to recovery (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/Ginobili_making_every_step_matter_on_road_to_recov ery.html)
Mike Finger
There was contact, just like there always is with El Contusión, then a whistle. But Manu Ginobili kept barreling toward the rim, and after he’d seemingly covered the length of an inauguration processional, the ball landed softly in the net.
The basket came so long after the foul, hardly anyone in the AT&T Center even cheered. But then an official motioned to the scorer’s table to count the two points, giving Ginobili one of the most generous “and-it-counts” benefits of the doubt in the history of the NBA’s continuation rule.
Not that he would admit it later.
“I think,” Ginobili said, “I was on my first step.”
Turns out, he was doing a lot of that Tuesday night.
The Spurs reached the halfway point of their schedule with their 99-81 romp over Indiana, but this still is not midseason for Ginobili. Missing most of October and November while recovering from ankle surgery put him behind his usual pace, and as recently as last week, he admitted to “not feeling like (him)self.”
So while his teammates galloped down the backstretch, Ginobili still was taking first steps, and in his typical way, those steps were long and aggressive and overflowing with purpose. He scored 26 points in just 20 minutes, making all four of his 3-point shots and all but two of his field-goal attempts. But more than that, he proved to himself he was well on his way to rediscovering the groove that allows him to dominate opponents other than the South Central Texas expatriate squad of Jeff Foster, T.J. Ford and Rasho Nesterovic.
“I need games like this,” Ginobili said afterward, and he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Gregg Popovich, too, has been waiting for the old Ginobili to resurface consistently. It’s not that Popovich is worried — even after a start in which Ginobili missed 12 games and Tony Parker missed nine, Popovich said Tuesday the halfway point of this season seems no different than any of the other past 11 years — but somewhere in the back of his mind, there had to be a hint of a concern.
Would this be the year all those contusions finally became too much? Would the ankle that crumpled under Ginobili in China ever be the same?
Would Manu still be waiting to feel like himself in April and May?
Tuesday didn’t answer any of those questions definitively. But it was a nice step.
“He’s starting to look like the Manu of old,” Popovich said.
It’s not as though that old Manu has been absent all this time.
He’s shown up in spurts — enabling Roger Mason Jr. to author his big finish against the Lakers, keeping a short-handed team alive in overtime against the Mavericks — so it’s not as though Tuesday was a true breakthrough.
Filling the stat sheet against the Pacers is hardly the same thing as going shot-for-shot with Kobe Bryant.
But the way Ginobili sees it, nights like Tuesday actually may be even more important. Two of his favorite basketball terms are “juice” and “focus,” and sometimes the best way to find out how much of both he has is to attack the Mike Dunleavys and Stephen Grahams of the world on the final night of a four-games-in-five-days gauntlet.
So against the Pacers, he attacked the basket and flew after rebounds and rediscovered a 3-point stroke that had been giving him problems lately, and at the end of the night, he called it one of the most important performances of his still-young season.
“It really helps my confidence,” Ginobili said, and as ridiculous as that sounded coming from a guy with so little to prove, especially against a team with a 15-27 record, you could tell he meant it.
In what would turn out to be one of his last moments on the floor before the coaches cleared the benches for garbage time, Ginobili took a pass from Fabricio Oberto at the top of the 3-point arc. He was wide open, and if he made the shot, he would’ve set a season high for points.
He eyed the rim and cocked his wrists, but just as he rose to his tiptoes to let the ball fly, he hesitated — holding the classic Ginobili up-fake pose for more than a second — and the crowd gasped, wondering when he would shoot.
He passed the ball instead. After all, there’s plenty of time for more steps.
Mike Finger
There was contact, just like there always is with El Contusión, then a whistle. But Manu Ginobili kept barreling toward the rim, and after he’d seemingly covered the length of an inauguration processional, the ball landed softly in the net.
The basket came so long after the foul, hardly anyone in the AT&T Center even cheered. But then an official motioned to the scorer’s table to count the two points, giving Ginobili one of the most generous “and-it-counts” benefits of the doubt in the history of the NBA’s continuation rule.
Not that he would admit it later.
“I think,” Ginobili said, “I was on my first step.”
Turns out, he was doing a lot of that Tuesday night.
The Spurs reached the halfway point of their schedule with their 99-81 romp over Indiana, but this still is not midseason for Ginobili. Missing most of October and November while recovering from ankle surgery put him behind his usual pace, and as recently as last week, he admitted to “not feeling like (him)self.”
So while his teammates galloped down the backstretch, Ginobili still was taking first steps, and in his typical way, those steps were long and aggressive and overflowing with purpose. He scored 26 points in just 20 minutes, making all four of his 3-point shots and all but two of his field-goal attempts. But more than that, he proved to himself he was well on his way to rediscovering the groove that allows him to dominate opponents other than the South Central Texas expatriate squad of Jeff Foster, T.J. Ford and Rasho Nesterovic.
“I need games like this,” Ginobili said afterward, and he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Gregg Popovich, too, has been waiting for the old Ginobili to resurface consistently. It’s not that Popovich is worried — even after a start in which Ginobili missed 12 games and Tony Parker missed nine, Popovich said Tuesday the halfway point of this season seems no different than any of the other past 11 years — but somewhere in the back of his mind, there had to be a hint of a concern.
Would this be the year all those contusions finally became too much? Would the ankle that crumpled under Ginobili in China ever be the same?
Would Manu still be waiting to feel like himself in April and May?
Tuesday didn’t answer any of those questions definitively. But it was a nice step.
“He’s starting to look like the Manu of old,” Popovich said.
It’s not as though that old Manu has been absent all this time.
He’s shown up in spurts — enabling Roger Mason Jr. to author his big finish against the Lakers, keeping a short-handed team alive in overtime against the Mavericks — so it’s not as though Tuesday was a true breakthrough.
Filling the stat sheet against the Pacers is hardly the same thing as going shot-for-shot with Kobe Bryant.
But the way Ginobili sees it, nights like Tuesday actually may be even more important. Two of his favorite basketball terms are “juice” and “focus,” and sometimes the best way to find out how much of both he has is to attack the Mike Dunleavys and Stephen Grahams of the world on the final night of a four-games-in-five-days gauntlet.
So against the Pacers, he attacked the basket and flew after rebounds and rediscovered a 3-point stroke that had been giving him problems lately, and at the end of the night, he called it one of the most important performances of his still-young season.
“It really helps my confidence,” Ginobili said, and as ridiculous as that sounded coming from a guy with so little to prove, especially against a team with a 15-27 record, you could tell he meant it.
In what would turn out to be one of his last moments on the floor before the coaches cleared the benches for garbage time, Ginobili took a pass from Fabricio Oberto at the top of the 3-point arc. He was wide open, and if he made the shot, he would’ve set a season high for points.
He eyed the rim and cocked his wrists, but just as he rose to his tiptoes to let the ball fly, he hesitated — holding the classic Ginobili up-fake pose for more than a second — and the crowd gasped, wondering when he would shoot.
He passed the ball instead. After all, there’s plenty of time for more steps.