ElNono
02-14-2012, 02:13 PM
I have to find my place and regain confidence
Everything hurts except the injured hand. I don't have sensibility in that area, so what's next for me is just to get back in shape. I took these 40 days without playing with much more tranquility than previous injuries, even though it's logical to be upset after losing so much time. After the lockout I didn't manage to get in perfect physical shape and this set me back again, so I have to be patient and start again.
The only thing I noticed and I realized at the time, on the court, was that I had some doubts when going for a steal. I'm still thinking a bit when going for a reach. The two times I did, I went with both hands, to protect myself. It's something natural and that I need to correct. When you have an injury on the ankle, it's the same thing. You don't jump to go for a rebound with the same intensity to protect it. It's a matter of letting go and getting used to do the things you did before the injury.
Physically, I'm far from the rest of the guys. I have to go step by step, there's no other way to do this. I just can't come back playing full minutes right now. I have to find my place, regain confidence, increase the minutes slowly and don't change a thing from the team. Because even though there was some irregularity at the beginning, now they've come together into a solid unit and responded well in the last few games. We've won some games that we could've very easily lost.
Tony Parker is playing superb. There's some games where he can rest, but there's other ones where we really need him a lot. Pop told him he had to be more aggressive looking for his shot, because we didn't have a lot of variety. Pop insisted on that, and Tony is doing a great job. That causes him to accumulate a lot of minutes, but I guess over time we're going to be tweaking the rotations and going back to the usual system. We've always been a team that's characterized by distributing the minutes across the entire roster and we'll continue doing that.
Among the guys that we've been adding to the team, the guy that stood out for me has been Danny Green. Last season he didn't get a lot of opportunities. He got his contract renewed and since I went down with the injury, he has been defending really well and two or three games with 20 points. And he does that in a mature way, like he's been with the team for years. He doesn't try to be an energy guy that comes in and changes everything. He comes in and adjusts to the moment. Other notables playing well are Gary Neal and Tiago, who is very reliable, helps in a lot of areas and allows Tim to get good rest.
It's clear that in this weird and rigorous season there's three teams that are just handling it better than most. One that surprised me is Chicago, because they played quite a few games without their leader and MVP, Derrick Rose, and you couldn't tell. They keep winning, improving and they're solid. The other two are Miami and Oklahoma.
You see Westbrook and Durant play, and you can tell that the compacted season doesn't bother them. Same thing with Wade and Lebron, they make the difference with athleticism. They're physically superior and that gives them more than enough to handle a season like this one with so many games in a row.
We play against Detroit today, the fourth out of nine games during the Rodeo Road Trip. We'll be 11 days on the road, we come back for a day, and we'll head back out for another week. Among the strange things this season has there's some positive things to talk about. For example, I was four days in a row in New York and that allowed me to do some social things I was not used to, that I couldn't in ten years I've been here playing in the US. With Tiago we went to the Rockefeller Center and went up to the observation deck. There was enough time to go out on a walk, visit museums and I could even go watch a play. It's not common in the NBA that you could get that much time to tour around. On top of that, I came back to play and we won. I enjoyed it a lot. Let's hope it continues.
MANU
Everything hurts except the injured hand. I don't have sensibility in that area, so what's next for me is just to get back in shape. I took these 40 days without playing with much more tranquility than previous injuries, even though it's logical to be upset after losing so much time. After the lockout I didn't manage to get in perfect physical shape and this set me back again, so I have to be patient and start again.
The only thing I noticed and I realized at the time, on the court, was that I had some doubts when going for a steal. I'm still thinking a bit when going for a reach. The two times I did, I went with both hands, to protect myself. It's something natural and that I need to correct. When you have an injury on the ankle, it's the same thing. You don't jump to go for a rebound with the same intensity to protect it. It's a matter of letting go and getting used to do the things you did before the injury.
Physically, I'm far from the rest of the guys. I have to go step by step, there's no other way to do this. I just can't come back playing full minutes right now. I have to find my place, regain confidence, increase the minutes slowly and don't change a thing from the team. Because even though there was some irregularity at the beginning, now they've come together into a solid unit and responded well in the last few games. We've won some games that we could've very easily lost.
Tony Parker is playing superb. There's some games where he can rest, but there's other ones where we really need him a lot. Pop told him he had to be more aggressive looking for his shot, because we didn't have a lot of variety. Pop insisted on that, and Tony is doing a great job. That causes him to accumulate a lot of minutes, but I guess over time we're going to be tweaking the rotations and going back to the usual system. We've always been a team that's characterized by distributing the minutes across the entire roster and we'll continue doing that.
Among the guys that we've been adding to the team, the guy that stood out for me has been Danny Green. Last season he didn't get a lot of opportunities. He got his contract renewed and since I went down with the injury, he has been defending really well and two or three games with 20 points. And he does that in a mature way, like he's been with the team for years. He doesn't try to be an energy guy that comes in and changes everything. He comes in and adjusts to the moment. Other notables playing well are Gary Neal and Tiago, who is very reliable, helps in a lot of areas and allows Tim to get good rest.
It's clear that in this weird and rigorous season there's three teams that are just handling it better than most. One that surprised me is Chicago, because they played quite a few games without their leader and MVP, Derrick Rose, and you couldn't tell. They keep winning, improving and they're solid. The other two are Miami and Oklahoma.
You see Westbrook and Durant play, and you can tell that the compacted season doesn't bother them. Same thing with Wade and Lebron, they make the difference with athleticism. They're physically superior and that gives them more than enough to handle a season like this one with so many games in a row.
We play against Detroit today, the fourth out of nine games during the Rodeo Road Trip. We'll be 11 days on the road, we come back for a day, and we'll head back out for another week. Among the strange things this season has there's some positive things to talk about. For example, I was four days in a row in New York and that allowed me to do some social things I was not used to, that I couldn't in ten years I've been here playing in the US. With Tiago we went to the Rockefeller Center and went up to the observation deck. There was enough time to go out on a walk, visit museums and I could even go watch a play. It's not common in the NBA that you could get that much time to tour around. On top of that, I came back to play and we won. I enjoyed it a lot. Let's hope it continues.
MANU