spursparker9
09-12-2014, 08:46 AM
MADRID -- Boris Diaw ran into the locker room just after midnight, his elation unrestrained. France, without Tony Parker, without Joakim Noah, had sent the FIBA Basketball World Cup into a tailspin by knocking off Spain with a quarterfinal performance that defied the law of probabilities.
"We savored it for one minute after the game," the captain of Les Bleus said. “Then it was over, and completely switched off. You have a competition to continue, there’s a World Cup semifinal. That’s something else historic. We’ve always said what our objective is: that’s to go in search of a medal.”
It was Diaw speaking. The words, though, came straight from the mantra of Gregg Popovich. You could almost hear the echoes of the voice of the San Antonio Spurs head coach around the room. No hype. No needless self-congratulation. Not, at least, until the mission has been accomplished.
Next up for the reigning European champions is Serbia in Friday’s second semifinal in Madrid with the chance to fight for gold on Sunday at stake. That would be game No. 102 -- not including exhibitions -- for the 31-year-old in a 12-month spell which has already delivered one title and in which the dream of a second has not yet been extinguished.
If Parker’s absence has been felt, then it is his childhood friend Diaw who has filled the emotional void, soaking up the knowledge acquired with the Spurs over the past two seasons and bringing it back home.
Against Spain, when their old rivals threatened a recovery in the third quarter, he was quick to invoke the San Antonio state of mind.
“Experience makes you grow up and more mature, having that experience from the NBA, winning a European championship last year, makes you know how to win games,” Diaw said.
“I didn’t do anything special during the game. I just told everyone to focus on defense and I said it over and over, so there was no letdown. Because experience has taught me that even a letdown for a few minutes, when you can lose your concentration, when you don’t defend as hard as you can, it can be fatal.
“You can lose a game with taking off three plays in a row. And so the main thing was to keep the intensity of the defense up the whole game.”
Trademark Popovich. But also copyright Diaw, whose commitment to his national team has seen him pull on the blue and white jersey every single offseason since 2000 when he was a teammate of Parker’s at INSEP, the country’s national sporting academy near Paris.
Imagine what Coach K could do with that kind of continuity. Having a player whose commitment is unquestioned and whose voice demands to be heard. That is, France coach Vincent Collet declared, an invaluable presence -- best illustrated by the way his instructions were backed up amid the conquest of Spain.
“Before the game, I explained the way we had to play to have a chance to go win,” Collet said. “He was repeating it several times in the briefing the day before and during the game.
“Every timeout, I was talking and the last 10 seconds, he was taking the players around him and going over the same thing, saying ‘focus’ or ‘we have to do that.' For me that’s so important. We have built a chemistry.”
The players from France, like Spain or Serbia or Lithuania, are simply invested in international play in a way those from the United States have never appeared to be. Some, like Parker, opt out on occasion. But he will -- barring injury -- be back in blue for next year’s European championships and the 2016 Olympics.
“I was talking about it with LaMarcus [Aldridge] and Damian [Lillard] because we were sure they would be representing the USA,” said Portland Trail Blazers forward Nicolas Batum. “But it is now 10 years for me this summer. I started playing on the national team when I was 15 years old.
“Every summer since then, I’ve been on the team. Those memories, it’s a great thing to represent your country. And when you win, it’s a great feeling. You feel proud. To make my country proud is a great feeling.”
They would be elated further if they defeat Serbia. It will not be simple.
Bogdan Bogdanovic and Nemanja Bjelica, whose NBA rights are held respectively by the Phoenix Suns and Minnesota Timberwolves, have been stellar since France knocked off the Serbs 74-73 in preliminary-round play in Granada, courtesy of a last-second free throw from young center Joffrey Lauvergne, whose maturation here will likely enthuse the Denver Nuggets, who hold his NBA rights.
Collet will challenge his players to defend for their lives and to rise up again. “It’s my main concern, to make everybody understand, especially the young guys, that to do it one time doesn’t mean you’ll do it every time," he said. "We did it because we took the good pass. The main thing for us is to remain consistent, to remain serious and not dream.”
It is, you can be sure, a message that will be drilled home repeatedly by the first among France’s equals.
“It’s never done, until it’s done,” Diaw said with a smile. “You can have confidence in your team, the confidence that you can go as far as possible.
“We’ve got two chances to win a medal but we want to try to win one through the next game.”
Pop, somewhere, will be nodding in approval.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/70467/diaw-passes-on-lessons-learned-from-spurs
By Mark Woods
Special to ESPN.com
"We savored it for one minute after the game," the captain of Les Bleus said. “Then it was over, and completely switched off. You have a competition to continue, there’s a World Cup semifinal. That’s something else historic. We’ve always said what our objective is: that’s to go in search of a medal.”
It was Diaw speaking. The words, though, came straight from the mantra of Gregg Popovich. You could almost hear the echoes of the voice of the San Antonio Spurs head coach around the room. No hype. No needless self-congratulation. Not, at least, until the mission has been accomplished.
Next up for the reigning European champions is Serbia in Friday’s second semifinal in Madrid with the chance to fight for gold on Sunday at stake. That would be game No. 102 -- not including exhibitions -- for the 31-year-old in a 12-month spell which has already delivered one title and in which the dream of a second has not yet been extinguished.
If Parker’s absence has been felt, then it is his childhood friend Diaw who has filled the emotional void, soaking up the knowledge acquired with the Spurs over the past two seasons and bringing it back home.
Against Spain, when their old rivals threatened a recovery in the third quarter, he was quick to invoke the San Antonio state of mind.
“Experience makes you grow up and more mature, having that experience from the NBA, winning a European championship last year, makes you know how to win games,” Diaw said.
“I didn’t do anything special during the game. I just told everyone to focus on defense and I said it over and over, so there was no letdown. Because experience has taught me that even a letdown for a few minutes, when you can lose your concentration, when you don’t defend as hard as you can, it can be fatal.
“You can lose a game with taking off three plays in a row. And so the main thing was to keep the intensity of the defense up the whole game.”
Trademark Popovich. But also copyright Diaw, whose commitment to his national team has seen him pull on the blue and white jersey every single offseason since 2000 when he was a teammate of Parker’s at INSEP, the country’s national sporting academy near Paris.
Imagine what Coach K could do with that kind of continuity. Having a player whose commitment is unquestioned and whose voice demands to be heard. That is, France coach Vincent Collet declared, an invaluable presence -- best illustrated by the way his instructions were backed up amid the conquest of Spain.
“Before the game, I explained the way we had to play to have a chance to go win,” Collet said. “He was repeating it several times in the briefing the day before and during the game.
“Every timeout, I was talking and the last 10 seconds, he was taking the players around him and going over the same thing, saying ‘focus’ or ‘we have to do that.' For me that’s so important. We have built a chemistry.”
The players from France, like Spain or Serbia or Lithuania, are simply invested in international play in a way those from the United States have never appeared to be. Some, like Parker, opt out on occasion. But he will -- barring injury -- be back in blue for next year’s European championships and the 2016 Olympics.
“I was talking about it with LaMarcus [Aldridge] and Damian [Lillard] because we were sure they would be representing the USA,” said Portland Trail Blazers forward Nicolas Batum. “But it is now 10 years for me this summer. I started playing on the national team when I was 15 years old.
“Every summer since then, I’ve been on the team. Those memories, it’s a great thing to represent your country. And when you win, it’s a great feeling. You feel proud. To make my country proud is a great feeling.”
They would be elated further if they defeat Serbia. It will not be simple.
Bogdan Bogdanovic and Nemanja Bjelica, whose NBA rights are held respectively by the Phoenix Suns and Minnesota Timberwolves, have been stellar since France knocked off the Serbs 74-73 in preliminary-round play in Granada, courtesy of a last-second free throw from young center Joffrey Lauvergne, whose maturation here will likely enthuse the Denver Nuggets, who hold his NBA rights.
Collet will challenge his players to defend for their lives and to rise up again. “It’s my main concern, to make everybody understand, especially the young guys, that to do it one time doesn’t mean you’ll do it every time," he said. "We did it because we took the good pass. The main thing for us is to remain consistent, to remain serious and not dream.”
It is, you can be sure, a message that will be drilled home repeatedly by the first among France’s equals.
“It’s never done, until it’s done,” Diaw said with a smile. “You can have confidence in your team, the confidence that you can go as far as possible.
“We’ve got two chances to win a medal but we want to try to win one through the next game.”
Pop, somewhere, will be nodding in approval.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/70467/diaw-passes-on-lessons-learned-from-spurs
By Mark Woods
Special to ESPN.com