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gotta love that“We will find the answers, like we always do,” Parker said. “I'm not even worried.”
Head games give Spurs' duo pause
Jeff McDonald
Thirty-five seconds into the fourth quarter of the Spurs' 95-88 victory on Sunday at New York, Manu Ginobili stopped on a fast break and rattled home a top-of-the-arc 3-pointer.
This was a good sign for the Spurs.
Several minutes later, with the outcome still in the balance, Tony Parker took off on one of his patented breakneck drives, finishing left-handed over Jared Jeffries, drawing a foul and completing a game-cinching three-point play.
This, too, was a good sign.
For all the talk about the battalion of new players the Spurs added in the offseason, and those players' struggles adjusting to a new scheme and new situation, it has been a couple of All-Star mainstays who have often looked most out of sorts.
For Parker and Ginobili, basketball has become the ultimate mind game. Parker, the point guard, is wading through the process of learning his new teammates while still looking for his own shots.
“Some games, I'm trying to pass, and the coaches say, ‘No, no, you have to be aggressive,'” said Parker, who finds himself in a lineup with three new starters this season. “It goes back like I'm a rookie. ‘Pass, no shoot, no pass, no shoot.'”
At times, that balancing act has made Parker, a three-time All-Star, a bit tentative. Heading into tonight's game against Minnesota, against whom he scored 55 points in a game last season, Parker is averaging 16.6 points — down from a career-high and team-leading 22.1 last season. He is also averaging a career-high 3.1 turnovers.
“It's like he's just starting out again,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “Every time he looks up, there are new people on the court, and he's trying to figure out what to do with them. He's got a lot to manage.”
If Parker has felt like a rookie at times, Ginobili has often felt like a guy picking up a ball for the first time in his life. He missed much of last season with various ankle injuries and spent the summer idle recovering from them.
Ginobili is averaging 12.2 points, down from 15.5 last season, which was down from a career-best 19.5 the season before. He is shooting 40.1 percent from the field, a career-low if it continues.
Ginobili says his ankles feel fine. His confidence, however, is always day-to-day.
“I need to play like 10 games in a row and feel good and let the game come to me,” Ginobili said. “Sometimes when I miss a lot of games, I come back and want to make things happen too quickly. A lot of things play in your head.”
There are indications both players are beginning to decipher this game of mind over matter. The pair combined for the Spurs' final 11 points against the Knicks.
Parker finished with 22 points, his most prolific outing since a Dec. 7 loss at Utah. It came a game after he dished out eight assists to go with 16 points in a rout of Milwaukee.
Ginobili totaled 30 points on the two-game trip despite not topping 30 minutes in either contest and made 11 of 20 field-goal tries. He shook off a slow start at New York to score 14 of his 17 points in the second half, including the pull-up trey that put the Spurs ahead by five to open the fourth quarter.
That shot came only moments after Ginobili had nailed a go-ahead 3-pointer from the same spot to close the third.
“That's when he's at his best, when he just plays,” Popovich said. “The positive outweighs the negative significantly.”
What Popovich wants, and what the Spurs need, is for Parker to be Parker, and Ginobili to be Ginobili.
Slowly, if not surely, they appear to be getting there.
“We will find the answers, like we always do,” Parker said. “I'm not even worried.”
gotta love that“We will find the answers, like we always do,” Parker said. “I'm not even worried.”
Loving it.
I thought we had to panic though?
6 games in 9 nights should help this equation. Will we see the Manu of old by the time we play Toronto?
I hope we see the 'Manu of Old' and not the "Old" Manu.
I never took into account that Manu Ginobili didn't even touch a basketball in like 6 months and that's why he was playing like .
Better?
that is something i think a lot of us forgot, actually.
And I thought we had to trade them both . . .
I agree, no need to panic but having a 2-10 record against above average teams, combined with a loss against a 3rd string blazer squad is definitely a cause for concern.
I'm riding with the black & silver til the wheels fall off, but the ball movement and perimeter defense has got to improve ASAP. I'm just not sure if we have the personnel to get it done.
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