By Michael Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 22, 2006
SAN ANTONIO, April 21 -- Hours before they won their franchise-record 63rd game against the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, the San Antonio Spurs were faced with a dilemma. Sitting in the visitors' locker room at Toyota Center, Tim Duncan was hunched over, shoulders slouched, looking toward the ground and shaking his head.
"What are you going to do, Timmy?" Spurs point guard Tony Parker said.
"I don't know," Duncan said, looking like a kid who had just dropped his lollipop.
The cause for concern? No, it wasn't Duncan's sore foot. Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich had decided to sit his superstar forward-center and give him some rest before for the playoffs. But it meant that Duncan would finally have to adhere to the league's business casual dress code -- which Duncan once called "a load of crap" -- and wear a sport coat on the bench. Duncan doesn't own a jacket or plan to ever buy one. But luckily, he was able to borrow one from seldom-used reserve forward-center Sean Marks.
Problem averted.
The defending champion Spurs have greater reason for trepidation, though, as they enter their first-round series against the Ron Artest-energized Sacramento Kings on Saturday night at AT&T Center. Despite besting the regular season record of their previous NBA championship runs (1999, 2003 and 2005), San Antonio seems more vulnerable in this postseason, with its centerpiece Duncan plagued by plantar fasciitis and swingman Manu Ginobili unable to do those manic, twisting, daredevil antics because of injuries to his thigh, foot, left calf and shin.
"It's funny. Every year, something has to be said about what the Spurs are lacking, what they're not doing very well," Spurs forward Bruce Bowen said. "We'd rather fly low and come up big when we need to."
While several Spurs players laugh off the notion that they can be had with Duncan and Ginobili playing through injuries, Popovich agreed. "I think that's a valid comment," Popovich said. "I don't think either one of them is at 100 percent. I think that's valid. There's nothing we can do about it. Nobody is going to play as well as Tim Duncan. Nobody is going to play as well as Manu on our team. You don't replace those guys. You just hope they get as healthy as they possibly can."
Parker has carried the squad this season, leading the team in scoring and making the all-star team for the first time in his career. Duncan said Parker was San Antonio's "rock" this season, but everyone associated with the Spurs knows that their hopes of repeating as champions for the first time hinges on the health of Duncan.
"That's our foundation," Bowen said.
"Nothing's changed at all. Timmy is our go-to guy," said Parker, who averaged a career-best 18.9 points. "It all starts inside with Timmy."
Duncan had his worst season as a pro. His scoring average is a career-low 18.6 and his 48.4 field goal percentage also is his lowest since entering the league. He hit at least 49 percent in each of his previous eight seasons and came into the season as a 50.7 percent shooter.
"Timmy's been grinding it out on that foot all year," Popovich said. "I'm sure there have been occasions when he's paced himself on his foot, especially on back-to-back [games]. It's a like a sprained thumb: It almost gets healed and you keep banging it. He's going to need the whole summer to heal it."
The Spurs are one of the oldest teams in the NBA, with seven players age 30 or older (Duncan turns 30 on Tuesday), and their age showed in the regular season on the second end of back-to-back games, when they lost 10 of their 19 games this season. Duncan was at his worst on the second end of back-to-back games, averaging just 14.8 points and 8.6 rebounds, but the Spurs won't have that concern in the playoffs, with games spread out over several days.
Duncan doesn't appear to be the same dominant player he once was, but the Spurs dispute claims that there are dents in his game.
"If they don't see someone performing to what they're accustomed to seeing, immediately they go to, 'Well, something's got to be wrong.' But a lot of times, it's been the ineffectiveness on our behalf of getting the ball to him," Bowen said. "That has been more of the problem more than anything else. I wouldn't say that it's been an injury because everybody plays with injuries. Last year, he played with injuries, but he was still effective and nothing was said. He's the kind of guy, he really appreciates when guys do well and he's very supportive and he's not the type of person to say, 'Hey, hey, hey, y'all better get the ball to me or else,' and things like that."
Although the Spurs have relied on different sources for offense and have what was expected to be a deeper bench with the offseason additions of Michael Finley, Nick Van Exel and Fabricio Oberto, Duncan averaged more minutes than last season -- 34.8 minutes compared with 33.4 -- and played more games. Before sitting out the season finale against Houston, Duncan missed one game with the flu. But Duncan said he feels healthier entering the playoffs than he did last season, when two badly sprained ankles forced him to miss 16 regular season games. Parker said that he felt Duncan was at "90 percent."
"I feel very good. I'm not at 100 percent, but I'm better than I've been all year," Duncan said. "It was a tough season. My numbers were down, of course, and I've been up and down on the injury front. There were times when I wasn't as confident as others. But I'm ready now, I'm healthy now and I'm ready for the playoffs."
Duncan said his problems with the foot began last summer after he won his third NBA Finals MVP award, and it grew progressively worse as the season wore on. "I played through it. It was more debilitating than painful," he said. "It's taken away some of my explosiveness more than hurting nonstop."
Duncan's game, however, isn't predicated on explosiveness. It has always been about his efficient movement and unparalled footwork, which has been understandably absent with a bad foot. For most of the season, Duncan rarely took his patented bank shots or set up in the low post, often settling for outside jumpers. His body language also revealed the frustration. "I noticed it," Popovich said. "I can tell when he turns shots down. When he's open on the perimeter and he turns them down because he feels like he's not shooting that well."
Duncan's struggles, however, haven't derailed the Spurs this season. They went 21-6 when he failed to score 16 points and 10-5 when he shot 40 percent or worse. "It's amazing. I know I had one of my worst years so far. I've been kind of hurt all season. Manu's missed a lot of games. But all in all, it's been a great season for us," Duncan said.
"If people think we're struggling with 63 wins, that's fine. I'll take that every year," Parker said, flashing his sly grin.
When asked if he felt that the Spurs were vulnerable, Duncan replied, "We're as vulnerable as we are every year."
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