duncan228
05-09-2008, 01:33 AM
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/columnists/bharvey/stories/MYSA050908.01D.COL.BKNharvey.spurs.411e0fe.html
Buck Harvey: Manu moves up, becoming himself
San Antonio Express-News
Sometimes he goes the other direction, toward the bench. Sometimes he sits to get someone else going.
Sometimes it seems like the kind of adjustment that Gregg Popovich would mock. Whether a player starts shouldn't make a difference, should it?
But usually it does, and it did again Thursday. Then, on the same day Manu Ginobili was named to the all-NBA third team, he joined the Spurs first team.
What followed — from an end of the half jumper to a four-point play — gave Ginobili the promotion both he and the Spurs needed.
He became what he's so often been in the past.
This wasn't easy, nor was anything else for the Spurs. But they played as if they knew this and accepted it, and the opening minutes set the theme. Then the Hornets jumped out to an early lead, and from there the Spurs had to grind.
As Mike D'Antoni said in the first-round series of his Suns, New Orleans also looked at times like the superior team. That's because Chris Paul, the MVP runner-up, looked superior to the world.
Avery Johnson last week compared Paul to Tiny Archibald, and others see more Isiah Thomas in him. But neither description is accurate. Has anyone ever had coiled power that combines with touch and vision?
Maybe that's why Tony Parker impressed, too. He kept hanging with Paul, working on the defensive end and attacking on the other. In the end the numbers of these two point guards were similar, and that gives the Spurs a path to winning this series.
Maybe this is how you counter Paul and his 35 points. You get your starting backcourt to score 62.
Matching Parker's 31 points was the guard who started next to him. And this was Popovich's adjustment, along with cutting his rotation down to seven players.
Popovich did something similar in 2005. That year Ginobili had been a starter all season, and, not coincidentally, he was an All-Star then. But after losing the first playoff game of the postseason, to Denver, Popovich benched Ginobili to create a different dynamic.
Some called it a desperation move. Some said the same of Thursday night's move. But both times Ginobili shrugged, did what was asked and changed the outlook.
That's the way Ginobili has been about most of the details that often consume other players. When asked before the game about making his first all-NBA team, for example, he didn't come across as overly excited.
“I can't even waste time thinking about that,” he said.
After being bypassed for the All-Star Game, now he was ranked among the best 15 in the league. Couldn't he even think about it?
No, he said. He had something else to worry about. After all, he had called Thursday “a Game 7.”
It was, in effect, and all of the Spurs played with this urgency. Kurt Thomas and Fab Oberto combined for 19 boards, Tim Duncan had a double-double and Bruce Bowen defended Peja Stojakovic and outshot him.
But Ginobili was the one who ended the first half with 20-footer at the buzzer. He'd turned and shot with only 0.8 on the clock when the ball was inbounded, and Ginobili knew he had enough time; Derek Fisher shot over Ginobili once in half that time.
Ginobili, Duncan and Parker all combined to avoid the third-quarter collapses that came in New Orleans, and then came the beginning of the fourth. Ginobili threw in a three and got a tap from Bonzi Wells.
Four points in a possession can come in handy.
When Wells followed by posting up Ginobili, Ginobili came back with another three.
“We needed to make some big shots,” Ginobili said later. “Today was our turn.”
The Hornets pulled closer. But when Paul missed, Ginobili dribbled at midcourt and made the kind of pass missing in New Orleans — he led Parker perfectly for a fast-break layup.
Ginobili would either score or have a hand in the next three Spurs baskets, too. “Manu was amazing tonight,” Stojakovic said.
Amazing, all right, for a guy who sometimes starts and sometimes doesn't, and who is the same either way.
Buck Harvey: Manu moves up, becoming himself
San Antonio Express-News
Sometimes he goes the other direction, toward the bench. Sometimes he sits to get someone else going.
Sometimes it seems like the kind of adjustment that Gregg Popovich would mock. Whether a player starts shouldn't make a difference, should it?
But usually it does, and it did again Thursday. Then, on the same day Manu Ginobili was named to the all-NBA third team, he joined the Spurs first team.
What followed — from an end of the half jumper to a four-point play — gave Ginobili the promotion both he and the Spurs needed.
He became what he's so often been in the past.
This wasn't easy, nor was anything else for the Spurs. But they played as if they knew this and accepted it, and the opening minutes set the theme. Then the Hornets jumped out to an early lead, and from there the Spurs had to grind.
As Mike D'Antoni said in the first-round series of his Suns, New Orleans also looked at times like the superior team. That's because Chris Paul, the MVP runner-up, looked superior to the world.
Avery Johnson last week compared Paul to Tiny Archibald, and others see more Isiah Thomas in him. But neither description is accurate. Has anyone ever had coiled power that combines with touch and vision?
Maybe that's why Tony Parker impressed, too. He kept hanging with Paul, working on the defensive end and attacking on the other. In the end the numbers of these two point guards were similar, and that gives the Spurs a path to winning this series.
Maybe this is how you counter Paul and his 35 points. You get your starting backcourt to score 62.
Matching Parker's 31 points was the guard who started next to him. And this was Popovich's adjustment, along with cutting his rotation down to seven players.
Popovich did something similar in 2005. That year Ginobili had been a starter all season, and, not coincidentally, he was an All-Star then. But after losing the first playoff game of the postseason, to Denver, Popovich benched Ginobili to create a different dynamic.
Some called it a desperation move. Some said the same of Thursday night's move. But both times Ginobili shrugged, did what was asked and changed the outlook.
That's the way Ginobili has been about most of the details that often consume other players. When asked before the game about making his first all-NBA team, for example, he didn't come across as overly excited.
“I can't even waste time thinking about that,” he said.
After being bypassed for the All-Star Game, now he was ranked among the best 15 in the league. Couldn't he even think about it?
No, he said. He had something else to worry about. After all, he had called Thursday “a Game 7.”
It was, in effect, and all of the Spurs played with this urgency. Kurt Thomas and Fab Oberto combined for 19 boards, Tim Duncan had a double-double and Bruce Bowen defended Peja Stojakovic and outshot him.
But Ginobili was the one who ended the first half with 20-footer at the buzzer. He'd turned and shot with only 0.8 on the clock when the ball was inbounded, and Ginobili knew he had enough time; Derek Fisher shot over Ginobili once in half that time.
Ginobili, Duncan and Parker all combined to avoid the third-quarter collapses that came in New Orleans, and then came the beginning of the fourth. Ginobili threw in a three and got a tap from Bonzi Wells.
Four points in a possession can come in handy.
When Wells followed by posting up Ginobili, Ginobili came back with another three.
“We needed to make some big shots,” Ginobili said later. “Today was our turn.”
The Hornets pulled closer. But when Paul missed, Ginobili dribbled at midcourt and made the kind of pass missing in New Orleans — he led Parker perfectly for a fast-break layup.
Ginobili would either score or have a hand in the next three Spurs baskets, too. “Manu was amazing tonight,” Stojakovic said.
Amazing, all right, for a guy who sometimes starts and sometimes doesn't, and who is the same either way.