While any win against the defending NBA champions is a welcome result for a team incorporating three new starters Jefferson, Keith Bogans and rookie DeJuan Blair into its lineup, it’s the progress of the incorporation — and not their W-L record in January — that matters to this Spurs bunch.”Hopefully we’re not that far,” Tim Duncan said after going for 25 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks against Andrew Bynum, who is an inch taller, 25 pounds heavier and 11 years younger than The Big Fundamental.
“Hopefully we’re starting to turn the corner. Every little win counts and hopefully this solidifies something for us.”
San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich wants his team ready to compete for a title, come June. That’s why Mr. IV to Phil Jackson’s Mr. X, knew that he couldn’t read much into a win when his team let a 22-point third quarter lead slip down to six in the fourth against a Lakers squad that was missing Pau Gasol strained left hamstring for the game and without Kobe Bryant lower back spasms for all of the fourth quarter.
“We played well tonight,” Popovich said. “They obviously were wounded. Both facts are true. We’re happy to get the win.”
via Daily Dime – ESPN.
(Brief aside: You can find two pieces I wrote for the Daily Dime last night via a click through. They’re brilliant, BRILLIANT, I tell you!)
Let’s break this down to it’s simplest components, and then work our way back up.
This loss meant absolutely nothing to the Los Angeles Lakers.
This win meant a ton to the San Antonio Spurs.
The game was supposed to be about whether or not the Spurs can contend with LA on a meaningful level with the way these two rosters are assembled. Injuries made that an unattainable assertion either way. Los Angeles can slub this off. Bryant’s not going to have an injured back or broken fingers come May. And Gasol’s purposefully not coming back to not create a lingering issue. If you’re not at your best, you don’t have to look in the mirror about why backdoor cuts were so effective, why your bench sucks so much, why Ron Artest, injured or not, continues to have problems with focus. You can simply put a check in the “I was injured and unable to live up to my high expectations” box and move on to getting healthy and still probably going .500 during this stretch.
But for San Antonio, usually in situations like this, it’s nothing, it means nothing, it has no value. But instead, it was a different kind of win. Not a “we beat the team we’ve been chasing” but “we’re getting it. We’re finally getting it.”
You can see some relief, in Popovich, in Ginobili, in Jefferson, that this team is gelling, coming together, that the experiment in aggressive payroll is not going to result in a full-blown detonation. Duncan? Duncan was never worried at all. But Blair is now a functioning component as opposed to a freak sideshow. Jefferson is starting to meld and find his spots on defense. George Hill really may be good enough to not only backup Parker ably, but play next to him. Trey and I were both impressed by what it looked like with dual Parker clones on the floor at the same time, like some sort of French mime duo that could kill you and leave you bleeding before you knew you were hit. Hill literally ripped the ball away from Artest on rebounds last night. Twice. Just took it away. I was scared. For Ron, for Hill, who may end up as dinner for Artest one day because of this. But the point is, the complete team component for the Spurs is hitting their stride.
Expect them to go on a huge run through the next two months before putting it on cruise control, just like they do every year. As long as their star point guard doesn’t have plantar fasciitis, they should be fi…
Last week in a piece exploring Parker’s role on the team I stated the Spurs troubles were not their point guard’s style of play, but rather his inability to play like himself. Last night Jeff McDonald from the Express-News confirmed my suspicions of an injury.
Well, dang. One step forward, one annoying, painful half-step back.
