San Antonio Spurs

[tackielarla]

---

minimize lang ang OT and Personal Attacks... thnx

I can always try. Depends on totoy over there if he wants to go on with this line of discussion.

Anyways, on to our regular programming:

Self-confidence lets Spurs' Bonner raise game
By Jeff McDonald

It took Spurs forward Matt Bonner a little more than four NBA seasons to figure out his biggest character flaw as a basketball player.

“I have a conscience out there on the court,” he says. “I can be a bit of a perfectionist, and that can cause me to be hard on myself.”

Bonner's penchant for self-criticism often could be self-defeating. It would make him tentative on offense, which in turn would make coach Gregg Popovich tentative about playing him.

Bonner's note to self over the past few weeks: Don't worry, just shoot.

“Whether I'm making them or missing them, I have to keep shooting,” Bonner said. “It's the one thing I can do to help the team.”

Life without a conscience seems to suit Bonner well.

In the nine games since failing to see the floor in a Nov. 12 loss at Milwaukee, Bonner is averaging 9.2 points off the bench and shooting a sizzling 57.8 percent (33 of 57).

Bonner is coming off his best game of the season in Saturday's 103-84 loss at Houston, in which he scored 17 points and made 6 of 7 shots, including 3 of 4 3-pointers.

Bonner even sparked a first-half rally with a rare defensive gem, stripping Houston's Luis Scola of the ball near the top of the arc and racing the other way for a fast-break dunk.

“I think Matt's done a wonderful job for us,” Popovich said. “He's gotten the minutes that Robert (Horry) used to get, and he's really played well.”

Ahearn to Austin: The Spurs on Sunday assigned point guard Blake Ahearn to the Austin Toros, their affiliate in the NBA Development League.

Ahearn appeared in three games after the Spurs signed him on Nov. 16, but was rendered superfluous this week when Tony Parker returned from an ankle injury.

Century-mark streaks: The Spurs had a couple of notable defensive streaks end in Saturday's loss to Houston.

It was the first time the Rockets had topped 100 points against the Spurs in 29 games, a streak dating to March 17, 2001. It also broke a string of 11 straight games this season in which the Spurs had kept opponents below the century mark.

“We were just plain bad on defense,” guard Manu Ginobili said. “We gave away too many points. We just weren't as intense as we needed to be.”

Roger that: One month into his Spurs career, guard Roger Mason Jr. has been one of the NBA's deadliest 3-point shooters. After 16 games, he has made 43 3-pointers, second-most in the league behind Orlando's Rashard Lewis (44).

Mason is shooting 52.4 percent from 3-point range, also good for second in the NBA.

Golden State rookie Anthony Morrow is first at 53.3 percent.

“The coaches have done a good job of putting me in position to get some good looks,” Mason said, “and I've been able to take advantage of it.”

[tackielarla]

Return of Spurs’ backcourt stars means new roles for Mason, Hill
By Jeff McDonald

Spurs guard Roger Mason Jr. was an architecture major, not a math major, at the University of Virginia. Yet even he can read the arithmetic on the wall.

There are 48 minutes in a regulation NBA basketball game. Only five players can play at a time.

With the recent addition of erstwhile injured guards Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker to the lineup, Mason is prepared for the inevitable subtraction to come in his minutes. In fact, he is looking forward to it.

“It’s a great thing,” Mason said. “Manu and Tony command so much attention out there. It’s going to help the rest of us get a lot of open looks and make us that much stronger.”

During the injury-plagued first act to their season, the most encouraging storyline for the Spurs has been the rapid emergence of two newcomers: Mason, the sugary sweet shooter signed away from Washington during free agency, and George Hill, point-guard gold the team found with the 26th pick in the June draft.

Mason is averaging 33.8 minutes per game, second on the team to Tim Duncan and more than double his career average. Afforded a larger role due to the Spurs’ backcourt injuries, Mason has made the most of it, scoring 14.8 points per game and fostering a reputation as one of the NBA’s deadliest deep threats.

Through 16 games, Mason has made 43 3-pointers, hitting them at a 52.4-percent clip, to rank second in the league in both categories. Hill, meanwhile, is averaging 11.1 points to become a steady cog in the Spurs’ rotation.

With those two joining the likes of Parker and Ginobili, as well as Michael Finley and Ime Udoka, the Spurs own perhaps the deepest collection of guards during coach Gregg Popovich’s tenure. For Popovich, the trick now will be finding enough minutes for all of them.

“That’s always part of it, figuring out what the rotation is going to be,” Popovich said. “The sooner we can do that, the better.”

That task resumes tonight at the AT&T Center, when the Spurs face a Detroit team in the midst of a backcourt makeover of its own.

On Nov. 3, the Pistons sent Chauncey Billups to Denver to acquire Allen Iverson, a dazzling score-first (and second and third) lead guard whose game may or may not mesh with Richard Hamilton’s.

The Pistons have gone 6-6 since, struggling to recreate the chemistry they enjoyed under Billups.

In a way, Detroit players are still feeling themselves out.

“It’s kind of like training camp right now,” Iverson said.

The Spurs, in some small way, know the feeling. Back-to-back nights late last week alternately showed the inherent potential of the Spurs’ semi-new backcourt, as well as the enormity of the chemistry project that lies ahead.

In a 109-98 victory over Memphis on Friday, the first game the Spurs played this season with both Parker and Ginobili in tow, those two combined with Mason and Hill to total 61 points.

A night later, in a 103-84 loss at Houston, none of the above played particularly well. Mason (eight points) and Hill (three) each endured his second-lowest scoring night of the season.

“I think we kind of forgot about them a little bit,” Ginobili said. “Tony and me have to realize they are both great players, and we have to involve them a bit more.”

A critical question going forward is what becomes of Mason.

Having started at shooting guard and point guard this season, Mason’s versatility has been vital. One way or another, he figures to play an essential role in the Spurs’ immediate future.

“He’s been everything we expected, plus,” Popovich said. “He’s really saved us at times.”

Mason’s goal for his first week of practices with Ginobili: Just don’t get hit in the face with the ball.

“He makes these crazy passes that just somehow find you,” Mason said. “You better be ready.”

For Mason and Hill, there will be more crazy passes to come and, with them, more opportunities ahead. That much is guaranteed, even if minutes might not be.

[tackielarla]

George Hill is now ESPN's #3 rookie.

ESPN - ESPN - 2009*NBA Rookies

Also later, dula with Detroit. Go Spurs go!!!

[zploj]

Manu and Tony are getting better..watch out boston and LA, here comes the Spurs!!

[tackielarla]

...and we lost. Oh well. Go Spurs go gihapon!!!

[Motownkid]

nice game for the Spurs though... until the last 5 minutes of the game.

Si Ginobili 1st five na along with Bonner... nya si Bruce Bowen off the bench.

[skyblue_lord]

gogoggogogggo pistonn..........................

[tackielarla]

gogoggogogggo pistonn..........................

Usa ra ka pistonn?

[tackielarla]

Ginobili knows that no role with Popovich lasts forever
Mike Finger

Gregg Popovich made another vow Tuesday evening, but he might have been the only one who believed it. He told Manu Ginobili he’s a starter again, this time “in perpetuity,” and later listed off all the reasons why the NBA’s reigning Sixth Man of the Year will never be a sixth man again.

Then Popovich watched his new starting unit in action, and followed that by saying a few other things Ginobili has heard before. He called his team “soft” and “intimidated,” words that traditionally have preceded other spurts of lineup tinkering.

Everyone in the Spurs’ locker room understood what this meant. Diamonds are forever, but perpetuity might not even last until Thursday.

Even before Rasheed Wallace rediscovered his wild oats and the Pistons ripped through the supposedly healed Spurs at the AT&T Center, Popovich admitted his comments about Ginobili’s future were a tough sell. Over the past six years he’s declared Ginobili a starter about as often as “Pacman” Jones has been declared a new man, and every time, people winked the same way when they heard it.

Ginobili is as skeptical as anyone. Informed Tuesday that his days of coming off the Spurs’ bench were over for good, he reacted like his coach had just promised him a visit from the tooth fairy.

“When I told him, he laughed at me,” Popovich said. “He kind of raised his eyebrows and said, ‘Sure, Pop.’.”

But won’t this be different this time? Hasn’t Ginobili earned a permanent promotion? Doesn’t the presence of Roger Mason Jr. and George Hill mean that the Spurs don’t need Ginobili’s scoring punch off the bench anymore?

Popovich said he thinks so. He likes the idea of starting the game with a Ginobili-Tony Parker-Tim Duncan group that’s been through big moments together — a group with what Popovich calls “an edge, some personality and some bravado” — and doesn’t foresee that changing.

Ginobili does, though. In his mind, he’s the townsperson and Popovich is the boy who cried wolf, only in this story, the townsperson never gets tired of riding to the rescue.

“I’m so used to being a backup,” Ginobili said, “sometimes I prefer it.”

He speaks as though he fully expects to be sent back to the bench again, because he knows the Spurs eventually will need another jolt, and he suspects Popovich will look for it in the same place he has before. Ginobili heard Popovich talk about perpetuity, and although he doesn’t doubt his coach’s sincerity, he’s learned not to be surprised by a change of heart.

“Every time I started (before), it was forever,” Ginobili said.

As has become his custom, he said he’ll do whatever the team needs him to do, and that familiar refrain came from the other end of the Spurs’ locker room Tuesday night, too. Mason, the man who had perhaps as big a role as anyone in the Spurs’ 7-1 run last month, sounded just like Ginobili when he talked about his role switch. Mason talked about how he’d gotten used to being a starter, how he enjoyed it and how coming off the bench would require a few adjustments, and then — just as Ginobili always has done — he looked at the bright side.

“A lot of times you can be more of a difference-maker,” Mason said.

That’s exactly what Popovich had in mind when he decided to start Ginobili again. He said he wouldn’t have made the move unless he was sure he had someone on the bench to “bring us something Manu used to,” and added that “Roger has shown he can do that, for sure.”

Even in what was perhaps the most discouraging loss of the season, Mason showed a glimpse of that. With the Spurs floundering midway through the fourth quarter and the Pistons on an 11-1 run, Parker nearly traveled and tossed the ball to Mason, who was forced to heave a 3-point-attempt with the shot clock running down.

The ball swished, just like it used to do when it came out of Ginobili’s hands.

But that was Mason’s only highlight of the night, and when it ended, people began to wonder. They wondered about roles and vows and perpetuity, and how long it would be before they all changed. And as for the man who started it all?

“Well,” Popovich said, “I wouldn’t believe me, either.”

[koontz_circle]

Spurs at 9th seed. this season excites me better than the previous seasons.

Go Spurs! it's getting Christmas!