McDonald: ‘Legitimately Banged-Up' Ginobili Sits

[duncan228]

‘Legitimately banged-up' Ginobili sits
Jeff McDonald

DENVER — Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has not often been accused of coddling his players. Popovich, however, does admit to worrying often about Manu Ginobili's health.

“We're not going to go very far without him,” Popovich said. “So it's important to protect him to some degree.”

Popovich was all about protection Tuesday, when he opted to give Ginobili the night off in a 104-96 loss to the Denver Nuggets.

Popovich also chose to rest All-Stars Tim Duncan and Tony Parker and veteran Michael Finley, providing them a break after Monday's energy-sapping victory at Golden State went to overtime.

Ginobili is the only one of those four Popovich described as “legitimately banged-up.” El Contusion, it seems, has a hip contusion, suffered in Monday night's victory over the Warriors.

Perhaps as a show of how bruised Ginobili really was, he did not dispute his coach's prescription for a day off.

“Usually, I would try to argue with him,” Ginobili said. “This time, I didn't. I woke up really sore.”

Ginobili took his first lump in the second quarter against the Warriors, when he fell awkwardly in an unsuccessful attempt to block a Corey Maggette layup. He fell hard again on the Spurs' last possession of regulation, drawing a foul on Ronny Turiaf and making two free throws to send the game to overtime.

Ginobili ultimately ended up pouring in a season-high 32 points. He didn't get the chance at an encore in Denver. His coach wouldn't let him.

“With all the away games and the travel we've had, and the travel we have coming up, and with what he went through last night, this is the perfect time to give him a break,” Popovich said.

Ginobili expects to be available when the Spurs play next, on Sunday at Boston.

Streak-breaker: Finley did not play for just the sixth time in 294 games since joining the Spurs before the 2005-06 season.

In doing so, he broke a string of 284 consecutive games played, the fourth-longest active streak in the league.

Lineup fun: The unavailability three starters obviously required Popovich to get creative with his starting five.

George Hill started at point guard for the first time since Nov. 19, Bruce Bowen got his first start at small forward since Nov. 28 and Kurt Thomas logged just his second start since Nov. 7.

Another first: Afforded 20 minutes of playing time with the Spurs short-handed, rookie swingman Malik Hairston logged his first NBA points.

His first basket came on a dunk, off a feed from Roger Mason Jr., early in the first quarter.

“What it does is give you a little confidence,” said Hairston, who did not score in his first two appearances this season. “I got a lot of support from the bench and the other guys, so it was fun.”

Hairston finished as the Spurs' second-leading scorer with 12 points, and made six of eight field goals.

Another Duncan fan: Count Nuggets coach George Karl among those who believes Duncan has stepped up his game this season.

“He's playing as well as he's been playing for three years, in my opinion,” Karl said. “He's now back to being an MVP candidate.”

[timvp]

“Usually, I would try to argue with him,” Ginobili said. “This time, I didn't. I woke up really sore.”

Man, it's going to be tough for Pop to juggle between getting Manu ready for the playoffs and trying to keep him healthy. Recently, Ginobili has played a battering ram role in the offense in which he catches the ball off movement and attacks the rim. It works great and helps Ginobili put up very good numbers ... but it also isn't something Ginobili can keep up for 82 games. Heck, it's not really something he can keep up for ten games.

Ginobili and Pop have to pick his spots and play it smart the rest of the regular season. Any championship hopes for the Spurs are tied to health and more specifically Ginobili being able to peak in the postseason.

[DespЏrado]

I wonder if they have ever thought of putting el contusion in a pair of these:
(not that even they would do much good.)

[Blackjack]

Man, it's going to be tough for Pop to juggle between getting Manu ready for the playoffs and trying to keep him healthy. Recently, Ginobili has played a battering ram role in the offense in which he catches the ball off movement and attacks the rim. It works great and helps Ginobili put up very good numbers ... but it also isn't something Ginobili can keep up for 82 games. Heck, it's not really something he can keep up for ten games.

Ginobili and Pop have to pick his spots and play it smart the rest of the regular season. Any championship hopes for the Spurs are tied to health and more specifically Ginobili being able to peak in the postseason.

Yeah, you've got to love how Manu's gotten back to attacking the rim and getting to the free-throw, but you can't help but wonder how long he can keep that up.

Well, I guess that means more playing time for Hairston, so he can share some of that burden of attacking the basket and getting to the free-throw line.

[TMTTRIO]

Well this is where his 3 pointers and jump shot would come in handy that he's been working on the last few years. Unfortunately since he's gotten back from that ankle injury he hasn't shot well and now pretty much has to rely on doing everything to getting to the rim. At least last year he was able to mix it up.

[024]

ginobili only started to play intensive basketball 3 games ago against phoenix. if he can't handle three days of driving to the rim, he won't be able to handle the playoffs. troubling signs.

[Yorae]

please guys don't forget that he came from an OT game and will have to play b2b. And he got mugged a lot.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

Man, it's going to be tough for Pop to juggle between getting Manu ready for the playoffs and trying to keep him healthy. Recently, Ginobili has played a battering ram role in the offense in which he catches the ball off movement and attacks the rim. It works great and helps Ginobili put up very good numbers ... but it also isn't something Ginobili can keep up for 82 games. Heck, it's not really something he can keep up for ten games.

Ginobili and Pop have to pick his spots and play it smart the rest of the regular season. Any championship hopes for the Spurs are tied to health and more specifically Ginobili being able to peak in the postseason.

That's a very good point. I guess the corollary is that we need other players to take over some of that role.

TP seems to penetrate more some games than others, dependent both on how he's feeling (people often forget that it's an 82-game season and sometimes these guys just wake up tired or banged-up) and the defense packing the paint to discourage him. He has to keep driving and not rely too much on the jumper as he occasionally does (just as Manu was until recently, about the last 4 games).

And then more 4-down might take some of the strain off Manu too, although it's a juggling act and you don't want to tire TD too much either - that's about the only explanation for the 2nd Q against the Warriors when Pop went away from an absolutely dominant Tim, and by the time he came back to him his game was off (Turiaf also played him very well).

Unfortunately many of the prominent role players are not suited to the drive: Finley, Mason, Hill are not driving effectively at the moment (although Mason and Hill did it just fine against poor early season defences and are good in the open court), Bonner is a surprising 50-50 proposition (50% TO/50% score), and Bruce, love him as I do, is mostly an impending disaster on the drive (interspersed with the odd flash of brilliance when you think: "wait, was that Bruce Bowen??!??").

If there's one guy I want to see more of it's Hairston in some of Finley's minutes. He can bull his way to the rack and harass the other team's best scorer, and maybe take some pressure off Manu.

[RuffnReadyOzStyle]

I wonder if they have ever thought of putting el contusion in a pair of these:
(not that even they would do much good.)

He already wears padding, as do many other players, especially constant driver's like Manu and Wade. I've seen it during closeups on both shoulders and thighs.