Blackjack
02-02-2010, 02:56 AM
Duncan: Most important rodeo road trip (http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/Duncan_Most_important_rodeo_road_trip_yet.html)
By Mike Monroe - Express-News
http://media.mysanantonio.com/images/duncan300.jpg
Tim Duncan has been a part of seven previous rodeo road trips, the extended journey that makes tourists of the Spurs while the AT&T Center is filled with the twang of country music and the tang of equine excrement.
Not once has the Spurs captain felt a more compelling need for the team to use the trip to turn around its season. And with good reason: Never have the Spurs arrived at embarkation day with a worse record.
Aware that no rodeo road trip has produced a losing record and each has been an attendant jump-start to the season-ending push, Duncan agreed that this year's seven-game trip — which begins Wednesday in Sacramento after a six-game homestand produced only two victories — is the most important yet.
“Yeah,” he said, “and we hope the results of the past are what we get now. We need it. We need to turn that corner.”
Game 1 of this season's trip will begin with the Spurs at 27-19 (58.7 percent). No previous rodeo trip began with such a poor winning percentage. The previous low came in 2004, when they headed to Salt Lake City for Game 1 of a seven-game, 20-day trip at 31-18 (63.2 percent).
They returned from that trip at 37-19 and went on to win 57 games, and Duncan is hoping history repeats.
“For whatever reason, we've always been able to use this trip to kind of get on a roll,” he said. “Hopefully, we can do that and come back a better team than when we leave.”
Five of this season's Spurs haven't been part of previous trips. They have heard plenty about the bonding that takes place along the way and are anxious for the experience.
“It's a great opportunity for that, because you're together for so long,” said forward Richard Jefferson, the team's most important offseason acquisition. “It's an opportunity that doesn't present itself too many times during the schedule. You have an opportunity to go out and be together for a good month.”
Veterans like Duncan will let the newcomers experience for themselves what typically happens on the rodeo trip, including the victories that set the stage for a surge in the second half of the season.
“We don't talk about it,” he said. “We never have. It's just something that kind of happens, and it's best done that way. Expectations are obviously there, because we've done it in the past, but it's just happened in the past, and, hopefully, we're going to let it happen that way.”
The changes that have made this season different also serve to make this rodeo trip more vital.
“In our opinion, it's a great thing for us to have the rodeo trip,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “We usually try to coalesce during that time, and with all the new players, it's probably the best thing that can happen to us, to just be on our own, without any distractions, and see if we can shore up our defense and take care of the ball better. Those have been our two bugaboos in the fourth quarters: defensive lapses and turnovers. That's what we're trying to cure.”
Popovich insisted the Spurs' defense had been more than adequate to produce a victory in Sunday's get-away game against the Nuggets at the AT&T Center. Horrid shooting, especially from 3-point range (3 for 17), doomed the Spurs to a loss both Popovich and Duncan believed should not have happened.
“Typical of the season so far,” Duncan said. “We've let a lot of these games slip through our fingers; ones you wish you could get a quarter back, or a half back, whatever it may be.
“It's just not happening, and we have to learn from those mistakes and learn from those games and be better because of it.”
By Mike Monroe - Express-News
http://media.mysanantonio.com/images/duncan300.jpg
Tim Duncan has been a part of seven previous rodeo road trips, the extended journey that makes tourists of the Spurs while the AT&T Center is filled with the twang of country music and the tang of equine excrement.
Not once has the Spurs captain felt a more compelling need for the team to use the trip to turn around its season. And with good reason: Never have the Spurs arrived at embarkation day with a worse record.
Aware that no rodeo road trip has produced a losing record and each has been an attendant jump-start to the season-ending push, Duncan agreed that this year's seven-game trip — which begins Wednesday in Sacramento after a six-game homestand produced only two victories — is the most important yet.
“Yeah,” he said, “and we hope the results of the past are what we get now. We need it. We need to turn that corner.”
Game 1 of this season's trip will begin with the Spurs at 27-19 (58.7 percent). No previous rodeo trip began with such a poor winning percentage. The previous low came in 2004, when they headed to Salt Lake City for Game 1 of a seven-game, 20-day trip at 31-18 (63.2 percent).
They returned from that trip at 37-19 and went on to win 57 games, and Duncan is hoping history repeats.
“For whatever reason, we've always been able to use this trip to kind of get on a roll,” he said. “Hopefully, we can do that and come back a better team than when we leave.”
Five of this season's Spurs haven't been part of previous trips. They have heard plenty about the bonding that takes place along the way and are anxious for the experience.
“It's a great opportunity for that, because you're together for so long,” said forward Richard Jefferson, the team's most important offseason acquisition. “It's an opportunity that doesn't present itself too many times during the schedule. You have an opportunity to go out and be together for a good month.”
Veterans like Duncan will let the newcomers experience for themselves what typically happens on the rodeo trip, including the victories that set the stage for a surge in the second half of the season.
“We don't talk about it,” he said. “We never have. It's just something that kind of happens, and it's best done that way. Expectations are obviously there, because we've done it in the past, but it's just happened in the past, and, hopefully, we're going to let it happen that way.”
The changes that have made this season different also serve to make this rodeo trip more vital.
“In our opinion, it's a great thing for us to have the rodeo trip,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “We usually try to coalesce during that time, and with all the new players, it's probably the best thing that can happen to us, to just be on our own, without any distractions, and see if we can shore up our defense and take care of the ball better. Those have been our two bugaboos in the fourth quarters: defensive lapses and turnovers. That's what we're trying to cure.”
Popovich insisted the Spurs' defense had been more than adequate to produce a victory in Sunday's get-away game against the Nuggets at the AT&T Center. Horrid shooting, especially from 3-point range (3 for 17), doomed the Spurs to a loss both Popovich and Duncan believed should not have happened.
“Typical of the season so far,” Duncan said. “We've let a lot of these games slip through our fingers; ones you wish you could get a quarter back, or a half back, whatever it may be.
“It's just not happening, and we have to learn from those mistakes and learn from those games and be better because of it.”