Spurs @ Blazers 04/02/10

Ce soir les SPURS se déplacent en back to back à Portland. Match à 4h30 du matin heure française, je crois que je vais le louper celui là!
TP est toujours incertain, mais pourrait faire son retour ce soir. Si ça ne tenait qu'à moi, je le laisserais encore quelques temps en retrait (au moins jusqu'après le allstar break.)

Spurs' Parker probably will return today
Jeff McDonald

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Injured point guard Tony Parker participated fully in the Spurs' light shootaround Wednesday morning and came away without any ill effects on his sprained left ankle.

That wasn't enough to get him into uniform against Sacramento later that night, as coach Gregg Popovich opted to keep Parker out for the third consecutive game.

Parker, however, does at last have a clearer idea about when he might be ready to return to the court after his latest bout with the injury bug.

“Tomorrow,” he said after the shootaround.

Tomorrow, of course, would mean tonight, when the Spurs continue their annual rodeo road trip at Portland. Popovich said that timetable sounded plausible to him.

“I think he's possible, or probable, or whatever the words are,” Popovich said.

Parker, a third-team All-NBA selection last season, is averaging 16.9 points and 5.8 assists. His numbers are down across the board from last season, but he had eclipsed 20 points in five straight games before injuring himself in a Jan. 27 win over Atlanta.

Making perfect: Veteran center/forward Antonio McDyess was not surprised to learn Popovich had scheduled a morning shootaround for the first time since the start of the regular season.

“You can't be surprised at anything when you've lost two or three in a row,” McDyess said.

Popovich has scheduled all afternoon practices this season, in hopes of giving his players more rest and recovery time after games. After the team arrived in Sacramento a little late and a lot jet-lagged Tuesday night, Popovich called off the traditional practice upon arrival, instead pushing the workout to 10 a.m. Wednesday.

McDyess said Wednesday's refresher, a light walk-through focused more on the Spurs' Xs and Os rather than anything Kings-specific, was a much-needed one.

“It kind of gets your alertness back, as far as knowing what you're supposed to do,” McDyess said. “There's no excuses now.”

Rodeo memories: Kings swingman Ime Udoka, who spent the previous two seasons with the Spurs, got nostalgic when informed that Wednesday marked the first game of his ex-team's rodeo trip.

“Man, I miss that trip,” Udoka said wistfully. “It was always a good time.”

Udoka and the Kings got their fill of the road earlier this month, going winless on a six-game Eastern Conference swing. After that, Udoka said it was good to be back in Sacramento, where he had dinner with former teammates Parker and Roger Mason on Tuesday night.

Odyssey overblown: Though the Spurs have gone a combined 40-16 on seven previous rodeo trips, Popovich said the annual effect it seems to have on his team has “probably been mythologized a bit.”

“We really do try to use it to come together and get distractions away,” Popovich said. “We take it as an opportunity to make a jump, but it has been exaggerated to some degree.”

Tres franchement qu'il se repose encore, visiblement Hill a su plutot bien prendre sa place. Au moins Tony peut bien se reposer et prendre plus de temps pour sa rééducation. Ce serait bete qu'il revienne trop tot pour avoir encore des pepins par la suite.

Sinon, Tony doit commencer à se faire du soucis si Hill continue de faire d'aussi belles performance (je sens deja les foudres s'abattre sur moi ), peut etre pas forcemment au niveau de sa place de titulaire mais au niveau de son temps de jeu (un mal pour un bien surement), sans parler de sa negociation de contrat.

La victoire est possible , Portland vient de se faire battre par les clips , Tony revient , meme si c'est vrai que george est pas mal , je pense que c'est atout supplémentaire .
Par contre pour Tony ca fait 2 entorses en une quasi mi saison , il paie cher son euro .

Moi j'y crois bien pour ce soir .

Courte défaite de nos Spurs alors qu'il menait à la fin du 3éme 1/4. Mais bon -15 dans le money time, ça fait mal !!!!
Je vous l'ai dit cette équipe de Portland va faire un malheur au complet !!

Gagner contre une grosse écurie sans ses joueurs majeurs, ce n'est pas donné à toutes les équipes !!

Même si c'était prévu au programme, cette défaite n'est pas la bienvenue.
On lache encore le match au plus mauvais moment alors qu'on a les cartes en mains.
TP est de retour, mais c'est tellement rapide... Franchement de mémoire, je ne l'ai jamais vu revenir aussi rapidement après une entorse même pour les petites.
J'espère que ce n'est pas trop tôt...
Mason n'a pas joué, ça n'est pas bon signe pour lui je pense. A l'heure où tout le monde parle d'un transfert imminent aux SPURS il se mange un DNP, c'est douteux.

14DAVE a écrit:

Même si c'était prévu au programme, cette défaite n'est pas la bienvenue.
On lache encore le match au plus mauvais moment alors qu'on a les cartes en mains.
TP est de retour, mais c'est tellement rapide... Franchement de mémoire, je ne l'ai jamais vu revenir aussi rapidement après une entorse même pour les petites.
J'espère que ce n'est pas trop tôt...
Mason n'a pas joué, ça n'est pas bon signe pour lui je pense. A l'heure où tout le monde parle d'un transfert imminent aux SPURS il se mange un DNP, c'est douteux.

Grave que c'est douteux !!!
J'ai pensé la même chose Dave en voyant les stats !
Mason a au moins 20 mn de temps de jeu et la Bing DNP, si ça, ça ne sent pas le transfert, je ne m'y connais pas en basket !!!
C'est con car je l'aime bien ce joueur !
Ca me rappelle le trade de Malik Rose, j'étais déçu qu'il se retrouve aux Knicks.
Enfin bref, c'est le jeu !!

ouai, surtout quand on voit la brèle qu'on avait reçu à la place de Malik!!!

On est moins attirant que l'année dernière ,
Perdre Roger Mason , pour un autre , on a vu l'année dernière avec Drew Gooden il a apporté en PO mais il a mis 2 mois à etre au point .
Perdre Roger Mason pour style Drew Gooden, pour faire un peu de ménage dans la défense adverse et avoir avec Matt Bonner/ginobilli la possibilité à 3 points. ?

Parker watches while Spurs wilt

By John Hollinger

PORTLAND -- All Tony Parker could do was sit and watch. Marooned at the scorer's table while he waited for a whistle to get him back in the game, he saw the clock tick inside 4 minutes ... and 3 ... and 2 ... while a six-point San Antonio turned into a dispiriting 96-93 defeat to Portland.

Parker’s whistle never came, courtesy of a 3:32 stretch without a dead ball, and by the time Parker got back in his team was trailing 88-87 and he was ice cold after spending five fourth-quarter minutes on the bench. San Antonio went 3:29 without scoring, encompassing five entry trips, until Manu Ginobili's lay-up with 18.5 seconds left and the outcome largely in hand.

The defeat continued a recent Spurs' pattern of floundering late in games, something Popovich mentioned before Sunday's game against Denver and again after tonight's defeat.

"We turned it over down the stretch," said Popovich, whose team made four miscues in the first 44 minutes but two in the five-possession sequence that basically cost them the game.

“Usually we’ve been a very mature team,” said Ginobili, “very experienced closing out games, and now we are not doing it right. I don’t think it’s a secret or something we’re messing up, but it’s a play here, a possession there... since we’re not winning that often it puts a lot of pressure on very possession and things are not going our way.

The ending ruined what had been a near-perfect start. With Parker back in the lineup from an ankle injury the Spurs looked like a much more formidable unit than the one that had lost four of six in its last homestand. Parker burned Portland for 16 first-half points by combining his speed off the dribble and periodic mid-range jump shots, and he finished with 18 and six assists in 30 minutes. Ginobili (23) and Tim Duncan (15 points, 12 boards) looked like the Big Three of old for much of the night.

Until the fourth quarter, that is, when a 76-66 San Antonio lead wilted under Portland's defensive pressure and clutch shooting by Martell Webster, who made all five of his 3-point attempts. LaMarcus Aldridge had a breakout game with 28 points and 13 rebounds to help the undermanned Blazers rally.

The Spurs had a chance to tie after a missed Andre Miller free throw left the door open and ran a beautiful play out of a timeout to free Ginobili in the corner, but he missed a wide-open 3 with 11 seconds left to seal the Spurs' fate.

“I thought [George Hill] was going to shoot it so I was going to the rebound and then I came back. But I had plenty of time, I stayed with the shot, but it didn’t look good form the beginning.”

Andre Miller left the door open with a brain-dead foul on George Hill with 2.1 seconds left and his team ahead by four. Hill made the first and intentionally missed the second, but the Spurs couldn't tap the ball out for another game-tying 3 attempt.

But the crucial sequence came with the Spurs up by four, just under five minutes left and Parker, who checked out at the eight-minute mark, at the scorer's table ready to check in for Hill. Popovich said the team weighed calling a timeout to get Parker back in the game, but never did until the Blazers called one of their own with 1:45 left.

While the timeouts proved useful at the end, helping design the play that nearly tied it, in 20-20 hindsight they probably wish they used it at the three-minute mark for Parker to help salvage an offense that was going off the rails.

If there’s a positive for San Antonio, it’s that Parker and Ginobili looks as good as they have all season. Ginobili told me this is the best he’s felt physically this season, while Parker tore up the Blazers defense in the first half in his first game back from a sprained ankle.

Nonetheless, the results need to change for the Spurs to start feeling good about the renewed vigor of their stars. San Anotnio’s Rodeo Road Trip continues with a winnable game against the Clippers on Saturday before heading into the break with a Lakers-Nuggets one-two punch, and it would help their psyche immensely if they can finish off a win against a quality team—something they’ve struggled to do in losing seven of their past 11 games.

"We just haven't played well and hit shots the last minutes of the game or executed the way we need to," said Richard Jefferson, and for a Spurs team that doesn’t deal in moral victories that will need to change quickly.
Blackjack is online now Reply With Quote