Early rest gives Spurs advantage in West
Zach Lowe
The Point Forward
SI.com
A pretty remarkable thing happened on Sunday: Tim Duncan played in the fourth quarter. That’s right. Duncan logged all of 2:18 in the final quarter of San Antonio’s easy win over Portland, ending his streak of
three straight games in which he did not see the floor at all in the fourth.
There is room for healthy debate about the significance of the NBA’s regular season, but you cannot debate that it is long, and that it’s a very good thing when one of your most important (and oldest) guys can relax on the bench almost as much as he plays.
Duncan is logging just 28.8 minutes per game this season, easily the lowest mark of his career. Over the Spurs’ past five games, he has played a total of 9:45 in the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, Pau Gasol is having the opposite experience in Los Angeles. He has logged at least 38 minutes in nine of the Lakers’ last 10 games, and he has eclipsed the 41-minute mark in seven of those games. The 30-year-old is playing more minutes than he has at any point in his career, and he’s doing it despite a sore hamstring.
It may be only December, roughly a quarter of the way through the season, but early-season minutes affect the latter months of the season. The Lakers’ core isn’t young anymore, and they’re coming off three consecutive appearances in the NBA Finals. And they are killing themselves — or killing Gasol, at least — to squeak out Sunday-afternoon wins in New Jersey before Christmas.
The Spurs, meanwhile, are cruising at 20-3, and they’re about to overtake the Lakers in
the league’s offensive efficiency rankings. Even worse news for the league: Their defense is playing quite well, despite the inevitable hand-wringing from coach Gregg Popovich. (Duncan had
the quote of the day when someone asked him whether Popovich would be satisfied that San Antonio’s defense held Portland to 78 points: “Absolutely not. What did they score? Like 70-something points. That’s 70-something reasons for him to complain.” Classic.)
The Spurs are allowing just 102.4 points per 100 possessions. That’s the eighth-best mark in the league, but it would have led
the NBA last season. If the Spurs can continue playing defense up to Popovich’s standards, they should shoot up the defensive ranks as the league’s scoring average (down a point so far this season) begins to increase, as usual.
The early-season rest has clearly helped San Antonio, and it begs the question: Is it time to declare the Spurs at least the co-favorite in the Western Conference? Or even to declare the Spurs-Mavs-Lakers tri-favorites? The Spurs are four games up on the Lakers in the loss column, and before you point out San Antonio’s weak schedule, take a look at which team has played the weakest schedule in the league,
according to John Hollinger’s power rankings: the Lakers. Hollinger’s strength-of-schedule rankings aren’t the end-all, but they are a solid measure of a team’s quality of opponents.
Duncan won’t be able to take fourth-quarter vacations against the best teams, but after years of bad injury luck, everything is going as well as could possibly be expected in San Antonio. And if that keeps up, I see no reason not to declare the Spurs at least co-favorites in the West.
