NBA Playoffs

[Rilecomm]

How abotu the Mavs Kings matchup. The game is really close right now maybe one & one before the nights over. [img]images/smilies/icon_thumb.gif[/img]

[SuckaInA3Piece]

I was flipping back and forth between that and hockey last night. It was a pretty good game I thought. If you can keep the Mavs under 80pts, then more times then not you're gonna win.

[SuckaInA3Piece]

I love this type of stuff!

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Kenyon Martin taped the back page of a newspaper with the headline "Whiny Tim" to his practice jersey Thursday before his New Jersey Nets' Game 3 against the Knicks.


Martin also mocked and challenged Knicks forward Tim Thomas, who criticized his own teammates and called Martin a phony tough guy a day earlier.


"He knows I'm going to be there at 7 o'clock tonight," Martin said. "He knows where to find me. ... Lock me and him in a room together and see who comes out."


A league spokesman said NBA vice president Stu Jackson was monitoring the developments, which have provided the most intrigue in a one-sided series. New Jersey won the first two games by an average of 21 points.


To the amusement of teammates and the Nets' staff, Martin walked out of the trainer's room at the team's practice facility wearing the back page of the New York Daily News across the front of his jersey. He then proceeded to insult Thomas for several minutes.


"If you take a poll around the league and asked people who they want on their team, they're not going to say Tim Thomas. Teammates never questioned how hard I played," Martin said. "They know what they're going to get out of me when I step on the court. I'm not like Pandora's box -- you open it up and don't know what you're going to get. That's him."


Thomas hasn't played since being flagrantly fouled by Nets center Jason Collins in Game 1, taking a hard fall and bruising his hip, lower back and ankle. He has been ruled out of Game 3.


Thomas made his first public comments since the foul at practice Wednesday, criticizing teammates for failing to retaliate and dismissing Martin as "fugazy" -- a slang term for a fake.


"I think it applies to him more than me," Martin said.


Asked to rank the use of the word "fugazy" on a 1 to 10 insult scale, Martin gave it a zero.


"If it was coming from someone who did something in his career, maybe," Martin said. "Coming from him, it's nothing."


Amid the increasing tension, Nets coach Lawrence Frank said he felt no need to remind his team of the NBA rule prohibiting players from leaving the bench area during a fight.


"Our focus is on winning, our focus isn't on bench control or fighting," Frank said.


Thomas wasn't at the Knicks' morning shootaround but was expected to be in street clothes at Thursday's game.


Martin was surprised Thomas would make such inflammatory comments on the eve of a game he wasn't planning to play in.


"He's a career underachiever. He hasn't done nothing in his career. I've been to the finals twice," Martin said. "His teammates in Milwaukee last year questioned him. That should tell you something right there.


"Sooner or later his teammates now are going to start questioning him calling people out when he's not playing."

[SuckaInA3Piece]

Miami Herald

NEW ORLEANS -- The Hornets' postgame dressing room had mostly emptied Sunday when suddenly it filled with the playful words of guard David Wesley. He was speaking to nobody in particular, to everybody in general. He was speaking -- shouting, actually -- of his team's confidence at the moment.

''We packed for Indiana?'' he boomed. ``When's the Indiana series start?''

The Pacers await whichever team will survive as much as win this brutal NBA playoff series lurching to its finale in Miami on Tuesday, and you can forgive the Hornets the feeling that they are leading a series tied 3-3. The evaporation of Miami's 2-0 lead -- which seems like it was a month ago and a thousand ill-intentioned elbows ago -- has left the pressure bull's-eyed squarely on the foreheads of the young Heat even as they retreat to the now-desperate comfort of home.

The same savvy that has helped veteran New Orleans force a Game 7 kept the cockiness mostly in check after its 89-83 victory here Sunday, but it has become pretty clear that if you administered truth serum right now and asked a Hornets player where he lived, his answer might be, ``In the Heat's head.''

Steve Smith, of all players, meant to wiggle and giggle around in there as he held seven digits aloft in the closing seconds, then pointed an accusing finger at the Heat's Eddie Jones, and tapped over his heart, and shook his head no.

''Did I do that?'' Smith would say later, a small grin sneaking across his face.

No matter that those seven digits he held up were four more than Smith would have needed to represent his minutes played. No matter that Jones' 23 points happened to be 23 more than Smith had scored.

MOMENTUM AS FUEL

When you win a game this large, even as a passenger, you get to strut and bounce a little. When it is your third win in the past four series games, you get to feel as if your momentum has become a tangible thing. Food. Fuel.

''There has to be doubt in their minds now,'' the Hornets' P.J. Brown helpfully suggested of his former team after spending the afternoon playing in a magician's hat and making Lamar Odom disappear.

Said point guard and professional irritant Baron Davis: ``We have put a lot of pressure on Miami right here. Now we are going to Game 7 and do everything right. We have yet to play our best game.''

Davis, preening, wearing a gum-snapping grin, attempted to invade the Heat's huddle during a timeout with 1:56 left before being forced away by a referee. (Not to say Davis is a hot dog, but, once, when diving for a loose ball Sunday, he left a mustard stain on the court.)

The Hornets crushed the Heat, which continues to travel about as well as a dead body left in the trunk of a car. Miami never led, and you know you are looking very hard for a bright spot when the best you can say after a loss is (as coach Stan Van Gundy said), ``We didn't quit.''

GETTING FRUSTRATED

Hornet Jamaal Magloire, asked if he sensed Brian Grant getting frustrated:

``I sensed their whole team getting frustrated.''

You want a metaphor for this game? The Hornets claim Robert Traylor weighs only 284 pounds. And he probably did. When he was 15. And there Traylor was Sunday, falling onto the rail-thin Jones like the boulder falling on Wile E. Coyote in those Roadrunner cartoons.

''I didn't know I knocked him down,'' said the boulder.

The onus and imperative is on the Heat to win on Tuesday to advance.

The parameters of this season changed when Miami gained control of the series like that. The way we will remember this season changed.

It's no longer about a young, ascending team overcoming a coaching change and an 0-7 start and unexpectedly making the playoffs.

The feel-good season won't feel so good if Miami doesn't win Tuesday.

It's different now. Lose this series -- which would mean losing four of the past five games -- and it would feel like a little bit of a lie to try to put a smile on this season. You don't blow a 2-0 series lead. You just don't.

[SuckaInA3Piece]

Is it just me, or are the NBA playoffs missing something this year? There just doesn't seem to be any sort of drama, or story line to follow any of the series. I gotta admit, other then the Spurs series, I really dont have any interest in watching. I have watched that Hornets/Heat series alot though I must say. I'm also still keeping my eye on the Pistons, but I'm not nearly as interested as I was in previous years.

[SuckaInA3Piece]

Miami Herald

Posted on Mon, May. 03, 2004

Anger, passion collide for a Game 7 -- the best thing in sports

Seventh games define players

DAN LE BATARD


NEW ORLEANS -- Up here, at the height of insane tension and nausea and fun, with locusts approaching and poison about to fall from the sky, the Miami Heat season teeters right on the edge of extinction.

Isn't it great?

Sports do not get better than this.

This Heat-Hornets volcano has been gurgling lava for six tempestuous playoff games. Now we all get to stand back with mouths agape and watch the whole thing blow.

Game 7.

The best thing in sports.

It approaches like a hostile storm, Tuesday night in Miami, all this anger and passion and hatred gathering an avalanche of momentum, 88 games over seven months culminating in just this one.

The clawing, bleeding, seething Heat and Hornets have been locked in a room, winded and wounded, and only one of their seasons will be allowed to emerge from it still alive.

It's hard to shoot straight when your hands are trembling, so this one game will allow you a clear and undiluted glimpse into the Heat's soul. There will be players who rise to meet the moment the way Tim Hardaway always did and others who shrink to the size of postage stamps. It has been several years, plural, since South Florida had a pro basketball game that mattered like this one.

Isn't it great?

''This is what it's all about,'' Lamar Odom said. ``This is where you want to be. Game 7 of the playoffs. Say no more.''

He was sitting in the losing locker room after this 89-83 loss, making a lot of eye contact and answering every last question politely, head up, after the worst playoff game of his life. He played about as poorly in the first and second halves as William Hung sang between them. Everything about the Heat goes through Odom, from offense to attitude, and he had just gone 3 of 12, vanishing for long stretches before finally fouling out.

Limited P.J. Brown (16 points, nine rebounds) had torched him, somehow outplaying Odom at the position where Miami has its most decided advantage in this series. Miami loses 99 out of 100 games that Brown outscores Odom by seven points. That, more than anything, explains how Miami trailed throughout this afternoon and wasted the best games Dwyane Wade (27 points, seven rebounds, six assists) and Eddie Jones (23 points, four rebounds, three blocks) have had.

Not only that, Brown scowled and growled at Odom from the first quarter on, standing over a fallen Odom at one point after a dunk. Brown is a community leader, a sportsmanship-award recipient and widely regarded as one of the nicest men in his sport, but he dropped a verbal barrage of X-rated language on Odom, got in his face, his ear, his head. We've never seen him this angry, not even when flipping Charlie Ward into the upper deck in those Heat-Knicks bloodbaths.

''A little playoff chit-chat,'' Brown called it afterward through a smile.

P.J.'S ANGER

He was asked where all that anger had come from, but he didn't want to talk about it in the newspapers, not just yet, because neither team wants to add gas to a roaring fire. ''I'll tell you all about it right after Game 7,'' Brown promised.

Odom shrugged the whole thing off, even after having a Stacey Augmon dunk spike off the top of his head and then a world of New Orleans noise crash atop it, too.

''I've been embarrassed before,'' he said. ``Humbled all the time. You can be the man one night and go 3 for 24 the next.''

New Orleans has been trying to bully him all season, even getting him ejected from one spectacularly physical regular-season game. The idea is to intimidate a young team with brute force, figuring if you tear out the team's heart (Odom), the rest of the body will collapse around it. That's why the only role of Tractor Traylor this series, far as anyone can tell, is to be a 700-pound bouncer.

''Some classify it as dirty basketball,'' Heat guard Rafer Alston said. ``Some people classify it as playoff basketball.''

Odom shrugged.

''I expect that; I like it,'' he said. ''It's good to be loved. It's a compliment.'' He added, ``We do our fighting with our play. You have to have controlled aggression. You can't be intimidated in a basketball game. You never hear about two basketball players meeting in a back alley at midnight after a game.''

You might after Tuesday night.

LIKE AN ESCALATOR

This entire series has been like an escalator, climbing and climbing and climbing, bleep-yous and shut-ups in the first two games growing to elbows and cheap shots in the middle two games and growing again to technical fouls and ejections in the past two.

And now the whole thing gets ratcheted once again, to the highest place in all of sports.

One team is going up.

And one is going down.

[SuckaInA3Piece]

LA Times

By Tim Brown, Times Staff Writer

The Lakers had a day out of the air Monday, their only one in five, and spent it in El Segundo sorting through the details of a fourth quarter Phil Jackson called, among other things, "unprofessional."

The morning after San Antonio played from five back to 13 ahead, 10 fourth-quarter minutes that carried the Spurs to an 88-78 win and a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinals, the Lakers tried again to find function in their game.

The theme of 22 turnovers, half in the fourth quarter, ran through an hour-long film session and a 90-minute practice. In the final quarter of Game 1, the Spurs had gone to Tim Duncan, and he played them to stability and precision, while the Lakers turned scattered and uncertain.

Asked what he had stressed Monday, Jackson said, "Just precision. More than anything else, we were unpoised, unprofessional in a lot of our attack. You have to credit the aggressive behavior of the Spurs. They got into us and made us turn the ball over 22 times, which gave them 17 fastbreak points.

"Those are things that, professionally, if you're paying attention to your business you can take care of that."

So, they grinded through the particulars of the Spurs' defensive pressure and the Lakers' inability — or unwillingness — to move the ball against it.

And they waited on Gary Payton, who was an hour late, causing him to miss the film study. A team official said Payton's tardiness was because of "personal reasons," and that he'd called ahead, per team policy. According to teammates, Payton then had a lackluster practice and walked off the floor 15 minutes early because of a sore lower back, summoning Bryon Russell to replace him.

And they tried again to understand how the fourth quarter went so wrong, how six consecutive turnovers turned up with the game on the line, and with their most reliable players on the floor.

It was in those times when Duncan shot freely from 17 feet, a bank shot on the left wing to give the Spurs a six-point lead, and the Lakers responded with Kobe Bryant's dribbling for nearly all of 24 seconds before hoisting a 25-foot airball.

"We have operations that we thought failed us," Jackson said. "Some of it has to do with the familiarity that players still don't have [with each other] in pressure situations."

If so, the Lakers have reached May and aren't sure where teammates will be, or if they'll make a play, which is not new. But, presumably, Jackson squeezed his rotation — Karl Malone, Shaquille O'Neal and Bryant each played at least 43 minutes, Payton played 38 — to avoid late-season, late-game clumsiness, and guards Bryant, Payton and Derek Fisher combined for six fourth-quarter turnovers.

"They'll make adjustments as they go through," Jackson said. "We'll get the right situation going out there and we'll find a right pattern of substitution."

Bryant and O'Neal left again without addressing the media, after so many years having found a common activity outside of basketball. On his way through the parking lot, Payton said over his shoulder he'd be well enough to play in Wednesday's Game 2.

That left Malone, who accepted the responsibility for the loss, even in parts that were not necessarily his obligation, and then talked eagerly of moving on. Malone is so busy lifting the physical and emotional burdens of his teammates, it's a wonder he's got the strength to play the games. But, among other things, he promised to shoot better and spend his fouls more freely.

"We were passive," Malone said. "I've got to get out of my mind how many fouls I've got."

He called it "that Houston mentality," where the Laker big men feared foul trouble because of what Yao Ming would do to the rest of them. "I don't want to look around at the end of the night and have three fouls," he said. "I want four or five."

As many in the organization have, Jackson has taken such a liking to Malone he can barely stand to criticize him.

"I told him it's fun to play the blame game, but we can blame the full moon. It was a full moon yesterday, we'll just say the full moon set things off," Jackson said.

"Karl, just shoot the ball, basically. He played a good enough ballgame if he just shoots the basketball with any kind of accuracy…. He and Shaquille's free throws make a big difference in the ballgame. Some of the wide-open shots and the free-throw situation. That may not change in Shaquille's department, but we hope it will."

The Big Four

How the Lakers' four future Hall of Famers have performed in six playoff games (per-game averages):
Player Min FG% 3P% FT% Reb Ast St Blk TO PF Pts
Kobe Bryant 44.5 .386 .240 .907 6.30 5.8 2.67 .17 1.67 2.80 25.5
Karl Malone 39.5 .471 .000 .645 10.50 3.5 1.50 .00 2.33 3.20 16.7
Shaquille O'Neal 42.0 .525 .000 .281 11.50 3.3 .50 3.17 2.50 4.30 16.7
Gary Payton 33.7 .333 .250 .778 3.20 5.2 1.33 .00 1.50 2.20 7.7
Key: Min-minutes; Reb-rebounds; Ast-Assists; St-Steals; Blk-blocks; TO-turnovers; PF-personal fouls; Pts-points.

[SuckaInA3Piece]

Miami Herald

None of the five Heat players who took the court Tuesday night seemed qualified to respond to this moment.

With 20,286 pleading for a Heat win in a winner-take-all Game 7, out walked Dwyane Wade, a rookie; Caron Butler, a second-year player with no previous playoff experience; Lamar Odom, also experiencing his first postseason; Eddie Jones, who has never played in a Game 7; and Brian Grant, who lost the only Game 7 in which he has participated.

How was this group supposed to answer a deafening crowd's plea, shake off all the pressure that comes with every Game 7 and beat a New Orleans team that has not only been here before but had won three of the past four games in this series?

By taking all the drama out of the game early, that's how.

A relatively inexperienced Heat team jumped on the Hornets from the opening tip of its 85-77 win Tuesday, building confidence as the lead grew and en route to winning the series 4-3 advancing to the second round against Indiana, starting Thursday in Indianapolis.

''The energy we came out with was incredible,'' Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said. ``The one thing you couldn't question at the start of that game, you could not question whether our guys were afraid or not.''

If that was a lingering question, Caron Butler answered it immediately. The Heat forward knocked down his first two shots -- a 16-footer and a 17-footer -- in the first 45 seconds of the game to give the Heat a 4-0 lead and a record Heat crowd reason to believe the group was ready.

Just 4:30 into the game, the Heat had already taken a 14-4 lead, doing it in the fashion it has succeeded with all year. Lamar Odom scored on a fast-break dunk, Dwyane Wade on a fast-break layup and Butler on a dunk to build the double-figure lead.

The Hornets came back to tie the game within three minutes, but the Heat replied with an even larger run, taking a 33-18 lead with 8:12 left in the second quarter, again on a fast-break score from Wade.

DEFINITELY PREPARED

By the end of the first half, Butler had 15 points, five rebounds and two assists. And his team had a 10-point lead, and there was no longer a question of whether it was prepared for this.

''I knew that's how we had to do it, because whenever we went to New Orleans, they kind of jumped out on us,'' said Butler, who led the Heat with 23 points, nine rebounds and two steals. ``They got a great lead and it was just so hard for us to bounce back from it. We tried to do the same thing here. Let's just jump out on them and see what happens.''

What happened was just what the Heat had hoped: The Hornets were dejected just long enough for the Heat to take control. It helped the Heat that Baron Davis, the Hornets' leading scorer, left the game in the second quarter with a back injury and made only a feeble attempt to come back in the third quarter.

But based on the start, the Heat was ready for any challenge presented to them this evening.

''The real thing was just our team, the whole team, and just the energy level at the start of the game really, I think, backed them up a step. And it was fabulous,'' Van Gundy said. ``Nobody could look at this team and say there was any fear in them or any quit in them or any choke in them.''

The Hornets tested that with a late run behind Steve Smith, who scored 25 surprising points. But after the Hornets closed the gap to 75-70 with 2:49 remaining, Odom answered with a driving layup that extended the Heat to seven with 2:26 left, erasing any final bit of doubt.

`CAME OUT RUNNING'

''We came out real aggressive,'' said Odom, who finished with 16 points, nine rebounds and four steals. ``We realized a lot of people were talking about how they beat us up [in New Orleans], and the we didn't respond well. We came out running. It was like a race track there tonight.''

The win makes Odom a winner in his first playoff series, gives Jones and Grant their first playoff series win with the Heat and makes Van Gundy just the fourth rookie head coach to win a Game 7.

More important, the Heat keeps playing continues its self-discovery.

''We took a lot of steps this year, and I think just being in the playoff race with our young guys was a huge step,'' Van Gundy said. ``But then they not only played in big games, they succeeded. Then after we got in the playoffs, we set the goal of trying to get a home-court [advantage]. And not only did they get through that pressure, but they succeeded.''

[SuckaInA3Piece]

NY Post

May 5, 2004 -- The Game 1 beating was fearsome and ferocious - not to mention record-setting in its futility. But Game 1 was only one game, the Nets insist. Only one degrading, humiliating, senses-numbing, manhood-challenging, reputation-wrecking game. That's all. It's not going to crush the Net psyche.

"One game does not take away 21/2 years of success," said Richard Jefferson.

And the best thing the Nets were able to do, said Jason Kidd, was flush the game already.

"By the time we got home, I think it was out of our system," Kidd stressed.

This is the NBA and so fortunately for the Nets, they get to go right back at it and play Detroit again in the Eastern semis. Oh, wait, the TV schedule is involved, so Game 2 will go off before the onset of the next Ice Age. Actually, the Nets must wait only until Friday, but three days off in between games seems like an eternity. The Nets began trying to right the wrongs of Game 1 yesterday at their practice facility. They came home for the off days and will head back to Detroit tomorrow.

"We're still a very confident team. We're not going to let one game shatter what we're able to accomplish," said coach Lawrence Frank, looking very much like a man who didn't sleep (he didn't). "But at the same time we have a great deal of respect for Detroit. We've watched a lot of games of teams that have been effective against Detroit. It just comes down to: We have to do a couple of things different and some things just better."

Man of many words Aaron Williams summed up the Nets' task with his usual lengthy take: "Score more."

The Nets watched tape of their 78-56 gag-fest and saw enough sins to last a lifetime in too many areas - shooting, rebounding, passing, attacking. They're confident they can fix the ills.

"You're not going to get five or six guys have a bad game on the same day like we did," said Kenyon Martin. "We knew what we did wrong. The film didn't have to tell us that. We could have gone to the offensive glass a little more. We could have made shots but we didn't. Our defense played well enough for us to win. But when you shoot 27 percent and you miss shots and you don't go to the offensive glass, it's going to make for a long game."

To recap the embarrassing numbers in the wipeout, the Nets scored the fewest points of any game, regular season or playoffs, in their history with 56 - also the second-lowest total ever in an NBA playoff game. They tied an NBA playoff low of 19 field goals. They shot .271. They had 12 assists. They were outrebounded, 48-29. No one expects a repeat, especially the Pistons.

"I've watched them too much and I've been around three of their players too long to think we can expect what we saw," said Piston coach Larry Brown, who coached Jefferson, Martin and Kidd last summer in the Olympic qualifier. "I'm hopeful that we are a better team than last year, but still they are the team to beat. They aren't going to have games like that. They're not going to shoot 27 percent no matter how good we defend."

[SuckaInA3Piece]

LA Times

SAN ANTONIO — Tony and "Teemy," a love story.

Tony is Tony Parker and "Teemy" is what he calls Tim Duncan in his French-accented English, coming as he does from Paris (France), which is not merely the City of Lights anymore but also the city of point guards.

Their story is also the Spurs' story, in which a small-market franchise in a sleepy South Texas tourist trap, er, city, that appears headed for some other small market, takes its place as one of the NBA's powers.

Duncan is the game's best player, except when hurt or bricking free throws, but can't do it alone, leaving Parker as their linchpin, with gruff Coach Gregg Popovich helping Parker realize his potential at whatever decibel level is necessary.

Or as Popovich put it Monday:

"Let me tell you about Tony Parker. We want him to be a combination of John Stockton and Stephon Marbury, all rolled into one. That's what I want. I don't want much.

"And he told me the other day, when I said that to him, 'No, no, Pop! I am Tony Parker.' "

This is wonderful for them and promises to become more wonderful, although there's a problem.

Tony Parker is 21.

He turns 22 in two weeks — ah, maturity! — but has started almost from the day he got here, at 19.

As a leader, Popovich now compares him to their Little General of yesteryear, Avery Johnson. This means, when Popovich tells Parker what to do, Tony may tell him to sit back down, he's got it.

Nevertheless, Parker is still erratic, as he showed in March when he made 31% of his three-point shots, and April (20%), and in last spring's Finals, when he averaged 14 points the hard way — 21 over the first three games, seven over the last three.

Of course, the Spurs won a title, making Parker one of the youngest starting point guards to get a ring, not to mention the only one from Gay Paree.

His importance transcends last season's title or this spring's hopes. It was his arrival in 2001, weeks after the Lakers had laid waste to the Spurs in a humiliating 4-0 sweep, that began the transformation of the Spurs' old roster into their new roster, ending speculation that Duncan would leave.

Only Duncan and Malik Rose remain from the 2001 team the Lakers put to the torch, and Rose is so deep in Popovich's doghouse, light doesn't penetrate that far.

The Lakers still have Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher, Rick Fox and Devean George from 2001, although everyone is eager to see how long that lasts.

"I'd rather not change the team every year," Popovich says. "Seems like we have to start from scratch every year, put everything together. And we don't do that on purpose, 'cause we think that's the way you should do things."

Because they won a title pre-transformation in 1999 and one in mid-transformation in 2003, and their starters now average 26 years of age, it's been some rebuilding program.

No. 1 in Their Hearts Forever, They Hope

Not that greatness seemed imminent in 1994, when Popovich arrived as general manager.

The hiring demonstrated how desperate the franchise was. Popovich, an assistant coach on Don Nelson's Golden State staff, had no front-office experience.

The Spurs were hemorrhaging money, prompting owner Red McCombs to sell the team to Robert McDermott, a retired Air Force general and insurance executive, who'd formed a group just to keep it in town.

Not that that assured its future. The Spurs played in the cavernous Alamodome, a misbegotten civic project that was supposed to attract the NFL and almost chased the NBA out of town, with awful sight lines and few luxury suites.

Nor was there a line of buyers for the suites they had. The "awl bidness" was in Houston and the financial community was in Dallas. San Antonio was more like a bedroom community for the outlying military bases, Ft. Sam Houston and the Randolph, Lackland and Brooks Air Force bases.

"There were people wanting to buy the [franchise] and get it moved out," Popovich says. "That's why Gen. McDermott stepped in with the other 22 guys.

"And that's continued. People have been in here trying to buy the place. Not in the last three, four years....

"[But] they just said, 'Get it done. What do you need? If it makes sense, we'll do it.'

"We've come to them with a program that could sustain something year after year with players who want to be here. And you've got to do it like the big boys. You've got to do it like they're going to do it in Chicago and L.A. and New York and all the markets that are bigger."

Of course, their first priority was to keep the big boys from eating them.

The Spurs had one blessing, David Robinson, but he was 28 when Popovich arrived and 32 when a second bolt of draft lightning delivered Duncan in 1997.

The Spurs won their "asterisk" title — thanks, Phil Jackson — in the lockout-shortened 1999 season, with Popovich coaching too, and a supporting cast of aging journeymen such as Johnson, Sean Elliott, Mario Elie and Jaren Jackson.

The cast aged another year during the 1999-2000 season and expired in the first round of the playoffs, with Duncan hurt.

That was the summer Duncan, a free agent, almost went to Orlando with Grant Hill. Robinson came flying back from his vacation in Hawaii to assure Duncan he'd keep playing ... and Duncan finally told them he was staying.

"[Orlando] painted this picture for him," says R.C. Buford, who was once Popovich's assistant coach and has since succeeded him as GM. "They had a lot of No. 1 picks coming, they had the coach of the year [Doc Rivers].

"We didn't have a lot to sell. What we had was a team that was pretty good at the time.... But going forward, David wasn't going to play for a long time. We didn't have extra draft picks at the time.

"But Pop's basic philosophy was, 'Tim, we've done this before. We can do it again, trust us.'

"And their relationship, being what it was, allowed that to happen."

Of course, by the time that was over, the entire organization felt five years older.

Nor was that the end of that story, because Duncan got an opt-out in his new contract for 2003, when Robinson would be gone. In Orlando, the Magic set up its salary cap to keep a maximum slot waiting for him.

The 2000-2001 season went well, with the Spurs going 58-24 and becoming top-seeded. However, their postseason did not go well, ending when the Lakers walked on them in that 4-0 sweep.

"It was a difficult time," Popovich says, "because we didn't get to really defend the championship after '99 because Tim was hurt. So it's like not being in that playoff. So the following year, we just were embarrassed by the Lakers.

"We realized that part of it was because of age in certain spots on the court and we felt we had to add to what we had in the sense of more athleticism.... We felt that was absolutely necessary or there was a chance we were going to go in the wrong direction and waste our years with Tim Duncan."

The big question was, how many years that would be?

That was the spring they drafted Parker with the last pick of the first round.

The Spurs had begun looking overseas years before, but mostly with second-round picks.

International players still seemed to come with their promise discounted, such as the guard they'd taken with the No. 57 pick in the 1999 draft, Emanuel Ginobili.

Buford — and everyone else — had seen Parker in the 2000 Nike Hoop Summit in Indianapolis. Of course, Tony was 17 and who ever heard of a drafting a point guard off a team called Paris Basket Racing?

However, this particular tyke not only had blinding speed, which everyone could see, he was as brash as he was quick. If others thought him a longshot, that never occurred to him.

"A lot of people think a European point guard can't play in the NBA," says Parker, the son of a former U.S. college player and a Frenchwoman. "But I'm 50-50, you know? I still got another half that's American.

"Pop knew that, so he picked me."

Actually, the Spurs got more than they'd bargained for. Parker's brashness wasn't only the usual bravado. He had turned pro at 15, hadn't been overmatched then — and wasn't now.

"I don't know if you could tell that, but what you could see was that he felt he belonged," Buford said. "There were a lot of hyped guys. Zach Randolph was on that team [in the Hoop Summit]. Darius Miles. And every time they'd make a play, they'd act like fools.

"And Tony just played. He was a much more mature presence than most 18-, 19-year-olds. He was the guy that really was the driving force behind that international team....

"Then you went and saw him play in France in the European leagues and he's the puppy in the group and he's still playing like he felt he belongs, like this isn't special."

The 2001 draft was the one in which preps Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry went 1-2-3.

Randolph went to Portland at No. 19. Parker was hoping to go to Boston at No. 21, but Red Auerbach had heard good things about North Carolina's Joe Forte and the Celtics took him.

Orlando at No. 22, wanted a point guard but a bigger one, and took Jeryl Sasser of Southern Methodist.

Utah at No. 24 took a point guard from Spain named Raul Lopez.

Indiana at No. 27 took a point guard from Iowa State, Jamal Tinsley.

So Parker became a Spur, announcing on draft night, "I want to help the Spurs beat the Lakers."

No one got upset. He was an 18-year-old kid from Paris. What did he know?

Tony or Jason; Oh, Never Mind

What followed was an eye-opener: Parker took over in his rookie season as the starting point guard, ahead of veteran Terry Porter; playing for a veterans' coach like Popovich on a team that was competing for a title.

"I never envisioned he would be starting in his first year or even getting major minutes," Buford said. "I thought it'd be a two or three-year deal and by Year 3, who knows where he is?"

The change was immediate. Having stolen a top-level prospect, with the exciting Ginobili due to join them in a year, the roster looked different. There was no longer a buzz about Duncan leaving. A new owner, Peter Holt, bought the Spurs. The SBC Center opened. They built a practice facility, as Popovich had promised Duncan they would.

Of course, having installed a child who was more scorer than playmaker at the point, Popovich naturally offered a lot of direction and encouragement.

Discovering Parker could take it, Popovich dialed it up.

The greater the pressure, the better Parker did. Rookies are supposed to hit a wall and crawl through their first postseason play. In Parker's 2002 playoff debut, he lit up the great Gary Payton of Seattle, averaging 17 points in a 4-1 walkover.

In last spring's first round, Phoenix targeted Parker, sending the bigger, stronger Marbury at him. The Suns won the opener and Marbury outscored Parker in Games 1 and 2, 58-9.

The rest of the series, Parker averaged 18 points, shot 48% and the Spurs prevailed.

The Spurs went all the way, then began pursuing Jason Kidd as soon as the parade was over.

With one superstar getting the benefit of calls, and a bunch of kids, the Spurs wanted two superstars. They thought Kidd and Parker could play together ... and if they couldn't, Parker would be tradable.

Parker claimed not to care before finally telling the San Antonio News-Express' Johnny Ludden that he did care.

In contrast to the Lakers, who are happy to give chapter and verse on their years of controversy, the Spurs don't like having theirs brought up.

"That's old," Parker says. "You still want to talk about that?

"The Jason Kidd story, I think me and Pop, we learn a lot from it. I was kind of young so I didn't want to tell them that I was not very happy with that. So finally, the last couple of days, I told him, you know. So he was mad at me for not telling him before....

"I think we learned a lot from it, but I wanted to prove him that I can carry that team and be the leader of that team and be a point guard."

In other words, Parker told Popovich he was upset and Popovich got mad at him for that too.

When Kidd turned them down, and Karl Malone did too, the Spurs settled for Rasho Nesterovic, Hedo Turkoglu and Robert Horry, leaving Parker to try to become the second superstar.

Of course, in the first round, when Parker crisped the Grizzlies' Jason Williams, who isn't much of a defender, and Earl Watson, who is, averaging 21 points in the Spurs' sweep, it didn't seem ridiculous, or even premature.

"If you came to all of the games this year, you cannot think of one point guard who did that during the course of the season in this building," Memphis Coach Hubie Brown said. "He finishes in the paint in the face of your big people. Right in their face.

"You go through the NBA right now and you don't have five point guards who can do that.... So give him his due."

Then Parker scored 20 points with nine assists in Game 1 against Payton, who said he needed more help, or more chances to get back at Parker.

It's happening. Whether it happens fast enough or not, it's happening.

[SuckaInA3Piece]

Lakers Lose Again

[SuckaInA3Piece]

Lakers Not Listening to Coach

[SuckaInA3Piece]

Pacers Villans


Heat fans did what they could, trying to manufacture a villain.

New Orleans Hornet Robert Traylor was a rather gooey and substantive target, eating cheesecake in sideline timeout huddles when he wasn't being ejected for cheap-shotting Eddie Jones.

So, Traylor entered Tuesday to an avalanche of boos while screaming fans heckled him with taunts of ''Traylor Trash'' and a couple of creative ones waved long sticks at him with Burger King and Wendy's fast-food bags attached to the end as bait.

''I like this!'' a jiggling, nodding Traylor shouted to his teammates above the boos as he entered Game 7, but he wasn't a real villain.

You can't be when you score all of 10 points in seven games and don't even play in three of them. Traylor was just a 284-pound appetizer, ladies and gentlemen, but we're about to get our villains jumbo-sized.

It isn't just Reggie Miller, who picked a fight with all of New York once and won. It's Ron Artest, just about the baddest thing this sport has seen since Detroit's bad-boy days. There were a few drops of blood spilled in that violent Hornets series, but South Florida upgrades to hate now.

EASY TO DISLIKE

You will grow to dislike them, and you will like it. It's OK. No need for confession. Sports is one of the world's only places that allows you to spew pure, unfiltered hatred while feeling good about it.

And Indiana gives you two cartoon characters who enjoy being awash in it. The delicious basketball villain has been something of a dinosaur since Bill Laimbeer retired -- fans respected and feared Michael Jordan and Tim Duncan and Shaq more than hated them -- but Miller and Artest do their best to resurrect his evil spirit.

Miller is a fading star now, averaging exactly 10 points a game this season after a Hall of Fame career. He is Indiana's fourth-leading scorer after more than a decade as its signature face. But he remains a skinny, swaggering tempest who has hit some of the most memorable big shots in this sport, including a couple against New York that had him making choking signs at Knicks superfan Spike Lee, with whom he had engaged in verbal warfare.

TRASH MAN

Miller talks trash the way the rest of us exhale, throws elbows, baits fans, gets away from defenders with veteran savvy (otherwise known as cheating) and will happily punk opposing players in the newspaper afterward.

But the menacing Artest makes him look like Gandhi. Aside from everything else, Artest seems to have genuine anger-management issues. He leads the league in crazy. He's only 24 but has already put together an impressive résumé of flagrant fouls, suspensions, fines, obscene gestures and technicals.

And when he's really angry, he breaks stuff, like that TV camera that cost him $100,000 a few years ago. Tyson-esque, he is. On any given play, you can use the word ''foul'' to describe what he has done to an opponent as well as his general mood. He's what you want on your side in the playoffs, in other words.

And, oh yeah, one other thing.

He plays the best defense in the league.

Artest wasn't satisfied with merely beating up on Heat players last season. He also picked a fight with Pat Riley, of all people. He brushed Riley on the sideline after one play and got into it with Heat assistant Keith Askins, too. Then, for good measure, he flipped both middle fingers at the crowd, John Starks-style.

So, if you are keeping score at home, Artest, in one wonderful flourish, wanted to fight Miami's players, Miami's coaches, Miami's team president, Miami's crowd and then all of Miami. And that was just one game.

Artest is going to make some people in Miami really angry over the next week or so. And, man, is it going to be fun to watch.

But he isn't even Indiana's best player. That distinction belongs to Jermaine O'Neal, who just finished third in the Most Valuable Player voting, ahead of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.

TOUGH ROAD

That life-or-death struggle against New Orleans is going to appear easy compared with the mountain Miami tries to climb beginning tonight. It has been years, plural, since Miami beat Indiana even once, and now it must do so four times in seven games. Despite Miami's 16-game home winning streak, the last time the Pacers came here, they were so frightened they won by 22.

For whatever reason, the Heat doesn't feel anything like the Marlins did at a similar point last season, not community-wide. This Heat team hasn't captured South Florida the way the Marlins did.

Maybe it is because the sports are different, and the Marlins had a legitimate shot at the championship while nobody believes the underdog Heat can advance beyond this series, so why bother investing hope in an underdog about to become a speed bump?

Regardless, things become interesting and fun again tonight.

Enough with the little piranha.

Bring on the sharks

[SuckaInA3Piece]

Artest has Migrane

INDIANAPOLIS -- Ron Artest missed the Pacers' morning shootaround because of a migraine before Thursday night's second-round playoff opener against Miami.

"We hope he's going to be all right," Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. "I talked to him and told him to stay home. Hopefully, he'll be ready by game time."

Artest is the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year, and the Pacers were counting on him to help handle the versatile Heat lineup -- especially forward Caron Butler, who enjoyed a breakout performance in the first round against New Orleans.

Artest was the Pacers' second-leading scorer during the regular season, averaging 18.3 point

[SuckaInA3Piece]

Lakers Win big

LOS ANGELES - The Lakers have been stealing money.

From the people who pay to walk through the turnstiles, from those who plant themselves in front of their televisions, from the NBA, which has gone about the business of marketing this crew of supposed Dream Teamers and future Hall of Famers, even from Lakers owner Jerry Buss himself, saddled with their paychecks.

In Games 1 and 2 of their Western Conference semifinal series, seemingly every loose ball told the story, along with the inexplicable absence of hustle. And if that wasn't enough to highlight the flagrant lack of focus, effort and determination the Lakers have shown far too often this season, yesterday's 105-81 Game 3 thrashing of the San Antonio Spurs should do the trick.

"We have a team with a nebulous future," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said before the game.

Whatever.

The Lakers ramrodded the Spurs yesterday. Plain and simple. Shaquille O'Neal registered game highs with 28 points, 15 rebounds and eight blocked shots - hitting better than 50 percent of his free throws along the way. Kobe Bryant scored 22 points on 13 shots, drilling four three-pointers.

Gary Payton, embarrassed and outscored, 50-11, by Spurs point guard Tony Parker in the series' first two games, showed a pulse, then some pride and attitude, with 15 points and seven assists, while the Lakers shot 56.9 percent from the field - helped by O'Neal, of course, who hit 11 of 13 shots.

"We did what we were supposed to do," Shaq said afterward. "We did what we should have been doing all series, all year."

To know Shaq is to know he means he should have gotten the ball. Then again, there's a whole bunch of things the Lakers should have been doing long before yesterday.

It would have been nice if Bryant was able to avoid a sexual-assault case. It would have been good had Bryant and O'Neal avoided opening the season squabbling with one another.

Perhaps Jackson should have made sure Payton would not find his triangle offense problematic before signing him. That Rick Fox was still able to contribute. That someone in the Lakers organization - mainly himself - proved capable of pumping up the psyche of his troops long before the Spurs had them reeling at two games to none in this best-of-seven series, inching towards playoff expiration just like last season, wondering if they would ever see or talk to one another again, let alone play in purple and gold together.

Jackson addressed his team on Saturday. He told them he couldn't sleep, then "went down through the list of every single one of them," according to newspaper accounts.

"Where they're at. How old they were. What direction they're going to go and what their future is. We only have four or five guys whose future to remain together here seems possible. It's a team that has to play for the now."

Yet despite the specter of eight players being free to depart once this season is over, along with Jackson and his entire staff, the Lakers spent far too much time before yesterday lollygagging around, taking their greatness for granted, cheating themselves and their fans with more drama than a soap opera. Not good, solid, cohesive basketball.

Until yesterday, that is.

Tim Duncan was awful, hitting just 4 of 14 shots (10 points) on the afternoon. Parker wasn't much better, nailing 4 of 12 shots (eight points, five assists) and getting outplayed in this series for the first time.

The Spurs shot just 34.1 percent. They looked flustered by Shaq's presence. In the end, an 18-5 third-quarter run put them down by 23, ending their afternoon, surprising no one - except those of us who have been watching the Lakers lately.

"The Lakers had that beast in the middle [O'Neal]," Spurs assistant Mario Elie said. "That man is an amazing player. He's the most dominant player in the league, which he showed. I hadn't seen Shaq that active in a while.

"We've been fronting him in the post, and the Lakers were ready for it this time. So we may have to go back to the drawing board and rethink that, because he only missed two shots all day. They adjusted. They were patient, and they got the ball to Shaq. And when things happen for them like that, nobody is going to stop him, or them.

"It was the kind of game that made you look at them and say, 'Where have you guys been?' "

Exactly!