Solid D
02-22-2008, 05:07 PM
http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/15859552.html
Champs win by a thread after hero delivers at wire
The Wolves had the last shot and missed -- after unguardable Spurs guard Manu Ginobili had worked his magic for 44 points.
By JERRY ZGODA, Star Tribune
Thursday's stirring 100-99 loss to the NBA champion San Antonio Spurs at Target Center once again offered an answer, not to mention thunderous last-second theatrics.
Spurs guard Manu Ginobili, the 57th player selected in the 1999 NBA draft, for the first time this season deftly dispatched -- with a 44-point performance that included 26 first-half points -- the game-winning shot from the lane with 6.2 seconds left.
Of course, it all depends upon who's doing the choosing of those second-round picks.
While the Wolves' history there is mostly ignominious, the Spurs have built a championship program that every other Western Conference team is trying to catch. They plucked Ginobili near the end of the 1999 draft, then found Frenchman Tony Parker with the last pick in the first round two years later. (It probably didn't hurt, either, that the Spurs selected Tim Duncan No. 1 in 1997.)
On a night when Parker and Wolves center Theo Ratliff returned to their team's lineups, the Wolves clobbered the Spurs in points in the paint 50-30 and in assists (26-20).
But ultimately Ginobili decided what Wolves coach Randy Wittman called a "hell of a game" with an all-encompassing performance that still came two points shy of the 46 points he put on LeBron James and Cleveland eight days before.
"He was good tonight, wasn't he?" Wittman said.
His winning shot wiped away a Wolves comeback from four points behind with 1:40 left after Sebastian Telfair was called for a flagrant foul on Ginobili that outraged and dumbfounded Wittman. He called it a foul, but not one worthy of a very valuable Spurs free throw made at that juncture of the game.
Al Jefferson scored five unanswered points, including a three-point play, that gave the Wolves a 99-98 lead with 39.2 seconds left. But the Wolves sandwiched missed shots by Randy Foye and Telfair (rimmed out just before the buzzer) around Ginobili's game-winner and lost at the very end against a top-notch team (Boston twice, the Spurs once) for the third time in a month.
"We're doing all the little things, so we have no choice but to be there in the end," Jefferson said after his 28-point, five-rebound night. "We've got 29 games left. We just have to get better, learn from it."
Ginobili has averaged 32.2 points and shot 73.9 percent (17-for-23) from three-point range in three victories over the Wolves this season.
So good is Ginobili that Wittman uttered these words afterward when asked if he wanted his players to double-team Duncan in a certain situation: "No, no," he said. "Never leave Ginobili."
Champs win by a thread after hero delivers at wire
The Wolves had the last shot and missed -- after unguardable Spurs guard Manu Ginobili had worked his magic for 44 points.
By JERRY ZGODA, Star Tribune
Thursday's stirring 100-99 loss to the NBA champion San Antonio Spurs at Target Center once again offered an answer, not to mention thunderous last-second theatrics.
Spurs guard Manu Ginobili, the 57th player selected in the 1999 NBA draft, for the first time this season deftly dispatched -- with a 44-point performance that included 26 first-half points -- the game-winning shot from the lane with 6.2 seconds left.
Of course, it all depends upon who's doing the choosing of those second-round picks.
While the Wolves' history there is mostly ignominious, the Spurs have built a championship program that every other Western Conference team is trying to catch. They plucked Ginobili near the end of the 1999 draft, then found Frenchman Tony Parker with the last pick in the first round two years later. (It probably didn't hurt, either, that the Spurs selected Tim Duncan No. 1 in 1997.)
On a night when Parker and Wolves center Theo Ratliff returned to their team's lineups, the Wolves clobbered the Spurs in points in the paint 50-30 and in assists (26-20).
But ultimately Ginobili decided what Wolves coach Randy Wittman called a "hell of a game" with an all-encompassing performance that still came two points shy of the 46 points he put on LeBron James and Cleveland eight days before.
"He was good tonight, wasn't he?" Wittman said.
His winning shot wiped away a Wolves comeback from four points behind with 1:40 left after Sebastian Telfair was called for a flagrant foul on Ginobili that outraged and dumbfounded Wittman. He called it a foul, but not one worthy of a very valuable Spurs free throw made at that juncture of the game.
Al Jefferson scored five unanswered points, including a three-point play, that gave the Wolves a 99-98 lead with 39.2 seconds left. But the Wolves sandwiched missed shots by Randy Foye and Telfair (rimmed out just before the buzzer) around Ginobili's game-winner and lost at the very end against a top-notch team (Boston twice, the Spurs once) for the third time in a month.
"We're doing all the little things, so we have no choice but to be there in the end," Jefferson said after his 28-point, five-rebound night. "We've got 29 games left. We just have to get better, learn from it."
Ginobili has averaged 32.2 points and shot 73.9 percent (17-for-23) from three-point range in three victories over the Wolves this season.
So good is Ginobili that Wittman uttered these words afterward when asked if he wanted his players to double-team Duncan in a certain situation: "No, no," he said. "Never leave Ginobili."