some_user86
11-17-2007, 07:49 AM
Mike Finger: Bad shots make Finley feel terrible
Web Posted: 11/17/2007 01:07 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News
There are two major muscles in the human forehead, but when Michael Finley gets frustrated, you'd think he has thousands. They crumple the skin below his hairline and tighten his eyebrows like tiny bulging biceps, and they give Gregg Popovich a furrowed snapshot of just how hard his jump-shooting perfectionist is being on himself.
"You can read a lot in that brow," Popovich said.
Popovich has other concerns these days — the latest being the nagging feeling the Spurs hand-delivered a difference-making Argentine power forward to one of their biggest rivals — but he admitted Friday he occasionally worries Finley's self-flagellation is going too far.
Once, sensing Finley was taking his early-season shooting slump especially hard, Popovich told him the police were, in fact, not going to put him in jail and take away his family if he missed another shot.
Finley smiled at the joke, but it didn't relax him for long. He's not a selfish player, but he's not at peace with himself unless he's contributing to victories and living up to his own lofty standards. So games like Friday's — when he made 7 of 8 shots, scored 17 points and swished a clutch baseline jumper in the final minutes to lift the Spurs over Houston — give him a reason to feel relief, not excitement.
Teammates have told him he should be enjoying himself more. But he realizes if his personality hasn't changed by now, it probably never will.
"Sometimes I overdo it," Finley said. "I'm my own worst critic. That can be a good and bad quality."
There certainly is no criticism coming toward him from any other corner of the Spurs locker room. Like Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Robert Horry and others, Finley has the kind of track record that makes everyone confident he'll be where he needs to be when the games really start to matter.
But Finley, who should be familiar with the build-toward-the-finish idea by now, doesn't act like he takes much comfort in it. He was shooting just 32 percent from the field this season entering Friday's game, which wasn't good but was hardly bad enough to consider his career finished.
Still, Finley beat himself up like a rookie trying to impress the old guys, not like a guy who'd been on All-Star teams and won a championship ring of his own. Bruce Bowen said he thinks Finley assumes so much responsibility because his years as Dallas' franchise player still make him feel "like he has to be the foundation of something."
After a loss, like Thursday's at Dallas, Bowen sees Finley take too much blame and makes a point of trying to make him laugh.
"You just have to tell him, 'Hey, chill out,'" Bowen said.
Those pep talks are easier on nights like Friday, when Finley shook off his 0-for-4 performance against the Mavericks and made his first seven shots against Houston. He was the most accurate shooter in the building not named Luis Scola, which probably made a few thousand muscles in some Spurs fans bulge a little bit, too.
Scola, like Finley, had started the season slowly, never scoring more than eight points in any of his first nine games, but he made up for it against the franchise that drafted him five years ago and traded (or sold, depending on your point of view) his rights to the Rockets. In his first regular-season visit to the AT&T Center, he scored 20 points on 10-of-11 shooting, and afterward, Popovich said seeing Scola on another Southwest Division contender was "enough to make you spit."
Scola finally started to cool off about the time the Spurs' on-court promotions crew gave away airline tickets in a timeout version of "Deal or No Deal" (presumably, this was not the process by which the Rockets acquired Scola). And with Scola on the bench in the end, it was Finley who was on the floor to help decide the game.
But there will be nights when Scola will make the Spurs pay even more dearly and nights when Finley will struggle again. Nights like those will make both Popovich and Finley stew.
"But at the end of the year," Finley said, "you just have to let all that built-up frustration come out in the playoffs and hope that's enough to get you through."
Until then, the forehead muscles keep tightening.
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LINK: http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA111707.01C.COL.BKNfinger.spurs.318ed94.html
Web Posted: 11/17/2007 01:07 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News
There are two major muscles in the human forehead, but when Michael Finley gets frustrated, you'd think he has thousands. They crumple the skin below his hairline and tighten his eyebrows like tiny bulging biceps, and they give Gregg Popovich a furrowed snapshot of just how hard his jump-shooting perfectionist is being on himself.
"You can read a lot in that brow," Popovich said.
Popovich has other concerns these days — the latest being the nagging feeling the Spurs hand-delivered a difference-making Argentine power forward to one of their biggest rivals — but he admitted Friday he occasionally worries Finley's self-flagellation is going too far.
Once, sensing Finley was taking his early-season shooting slump especially hard, Popovich told him the police were, in fact, not going to put him in jail and take away his family if he missed another shot.
Finley smiled at the joke, but it didn't relax him for long. He's not a selfish player, but he's not at peace with himself unless he's contributing to victories and living up to his own lofty standards. So games like Friday's — when he made 7 of 8 shots, scored 17 points and swished a clutch baseline jumper in the final minutes to lift the Spurs over Houston — give him a reason to feel relief, not excitement.
Teammates have told him he should be enjoying himself more. But he realizes if his personality hasn't changed by now, it probably never will.
"Sometimes I overdo it," Finley said. "I'm my own worst critic. That can be a good and bad quality."
There certainly is no criticism coming toward him from any other corner of the Spurs locker room. Like Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Robert Horry and others, Finley has the kind of track record that makes everyone confident he'll be where he needs to be when the games really start to matter.
But Finley, who should be familiar with the build-toward-the-finish idea by now, doesn't act like he takes much comfort in it. He was shooting just 32 percent from the field this season entering Friday's game, which wasn't good but was hardly bad enough to consider his career finished.
Still, Finley beat himself up like a rookie trying to impress the old guys, not like a guy who'd been on All-Star teams and won a championship ring of his own. Bruce Bowen said he thinks Finley assumes so much responsibility because his years as Dallas' franchise player still make him feel "like he has to be the foundation of something."
After a loss, like Thursday's at Dallas, Bowen sees Finley take too much blame and makes a point of trying to make him laugh.
"You just have to tell him, 'Hey, chill out,'" Bowen said.
Those pep talks are easier on nights like Friday, when Finley shook off his 0-for-4 performance against the Mavericks and made his first seven shots against Houston. He was the most accurate shooter in the building not named Luis Scola, which probably made a few thousand muscles in some Spurs fans bulge a little bit, too.
Scola, like Finley, had started the season slowly, never scoring more than eight points in any of his first nine games, but he made up for it against the franchise that drafted him five years ago and traded (or sold, depending on your point of view) his rights to the Rockets. In his first regular-season visit to the AT&T Center, he scored 20 points on 10-of-11 shooting, and afterward, Popovich said seeing Scola on another Southwest Division contender was "enough to make you spit."
Scola finally started to cool off about the time the Spurs' on-court promotions crew gave away airline tickets in a timeout version of "Deal or No Deal" (presumably, this was not the process by which the Rockets acquired Scola). And with Scola on the bench in the end, it was Finley who was on the floor to help decide the game.
But there will be nights when Scola will make the Spurs pay even more dearly and nights when Finley will struggle again. Nights like those will make both Popovich and Finley stew.
"But at the end of the year," Finley said, "you just have to let all that built-up frustration come out in the playoffs and hope that's enough to get you through."
Until then, the forehead muscles keep tightening.
[email protected]
LINK: http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA111707.01C.COL.BKNfinger.spurs.318ed94.html