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Spurs, Suns Ready for a Game 4 Fight
By Chris Tomasson
Gregg Popovich was wearing a T-shirt with a boxer on the front. That must mean his Spurs, down 3-0 in a West semifinal, are ready to come out fighting, right?
San Antonio forward Matt Bonner had donned a Boston Red Sox hat. Must be that Bonner wanted to let everybody know the Red Sox in 2004 overcame a 3-0 deficit, right?
Well, not exactly.
Popovich's shirt actually was in reference to Jesse James Leija, a local boxer who comes to Spurs games. And Bonner said his hat really wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
"I'm from New Hampshire," said the dedicated Red Sox fan. "I wear this hat every day."
OK, maybe there wasn't symbolism all over the place when the Spurs met at their practice facility Saturday in preparation for Sunday's Game 4 against Phoenix. Still, these Spurs are of a determined mindset as they try to overcome a series deficit no NBA team ever has.
"Nobody came to the meeting with a Hawaiian shirt on," Popovich said. "Nobody had a travel guide. I saw no fishing poles or anything like that. So I think that's a good sign for (Sunday)."
It might also be a good sign that the Spurs, lists in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007, have championship tradition. And it's been well chronicled how they've beaten the Suns four times in four tries in the playoffs since 2003.
Wouldn't the ultimate Phoenix frustration being the Spurs coming back from a 3-0 deficit? That's why nobody wearing orange is taking anything for granted.
"They're not a team that's going to go quietly into the night," said Phoenix coach Alvin Gentry. "It's not going to happen. I tell everybody the (poem) that Nelson Mandela had in his cell (in South Africa). There's a line there that says, 'Our faces are bloodied but unbowed (actually, "My head is bloody, but unbowed").' I guarantee you, their faces may be bloody but they will be unbowed.
"We will have to come in and we will have to play at a real high level. They're not going anywhere ... (The Spurs are) talking about, 'We can make history. We could be the first team every to come back from 3-0.'"
Gentry is right about San Antonio's championship pedigree. Nobody, though, was heard talking at the Spurs practice facility about doing anything more than trying to win Sunday at the AT&T Center.
"The only mindset has got to be the next one," said guard Manu Ginobili. "We can't be thinking about four in a row now. We've just got to win one."
Cue the cliché machine.
"You take it one game at a time," Bonner said.
"It's not over until it's over," said center Tim Duncan, who likely didn't say "ain't" because he speaks such good English.
While Duncan is the only San Antonio player to have been on all four le outfits, he's also the only one still around from the last time the Spurs were down 3-0 in a series. It was 2001, when they dug such a hole against the Lakers in the West finals.
Bad news, Spurs fans. San Antonio, after getting blown out by 39 points in Game 3 of that series, bowed meekly by 29 in Game 4. But that didn't stop Duncan from letting it be known he believes it will be very tough to sweep the Spurs this time.
"We're not going to back off," Duncan said. "We're not going to give up. We're not going to lay down."
Even if the Spurs get knocked down, they're vowing to get up. At least guard Tony Parker was standing Saturday.
Parker was banged all over the place in Friday's 110-96 Game 3 loss at home. But he will play Sunday after having X-rays taken on his lower back that were negative.
"I've got an inflamed shoulder, a bruised elbow contusion and my back is sore," said Parker, who said the injuries were inflicted when he was knocked to the ground by burly Phoenix forward Amar'e Stoudemire in the second quarter.
But look on the bright side. At least Parker, whose broken right hand cost him about a month late in the regular season and didn't see him return to the starting lineup until Friday, said the hand is the least of his worries.
Both Parker and Ginobili admitted shock San Antonio is down 3-0. Despite being the No. 7 seed, the Spurs, who finally got healthy late in the regular season, had dispatched No. 2 Dallas 4-2, and No. 3 Phoenix looked to be another higher seed they could beat.
"I think everybody is surprised," Parker said. "We played very good against Dallas, and now we're in a bad situation."
Usually, it's the Suns who are in a bad position against the Spurs. So maybe that's why Phoenix guard Steve Nash, part of three of those playoff losses to San Antonio while Stoudemire is the only Suns player to have experienced all four, says his team can't act like a favorite.
"The Spurs are a great champion and ... the clinching game is always going to be the most difficult," Nash said. "So we really got to find a way to feel like the underdog and play with our backs against the wall."
Nobody on the Suns, though, was wearing a Red Sox hat. Even if he claimed donning it wasn't symbolic, Bonner said it can't hurt to bring up Boston's dramatic comeback over the New York Yankees in the American League Championship series.
"It's something that comes to mind, when you think about being down 3-0, that it's possible," Bonner said.
So expect the Spurs to come out fighting.
