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Finley discovers shooting tendency

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA20080102.spurs.EN.167a31b.html

Web Posted: 01/02/2008 09:48 AM CST
Mike Monroe
Express-News

The best teammate Michael Finley ever had was down on the court, writhing in pain and holding his right knee.

The opponent who had tangled with Tim Duncan in the low post stood over the Spurs' star, and in Finley's mind, he had become a menacing presence.

Without hesitation, Finley poked a forearm in the chest of Portland's James Jones and “guided” him away from the fallen star.

In the Spurs' first game of December, Jones was just about the only thing Finley hit all night.

Eight of his 10 shots against the Blazers failed to fall. Coming on the heels of his 1-for-11 game in Minnesota, a player unaccustomed to hardwood bricklaying could do little but shake his head and fall back on 8homespun philosophy.

Hitting on all cylinders
Spurs guard Michael Finley is in the midst of his most productive stretch this season, having scored in double figures in eight-straight games. Here is a look at how Finley has fared over the past eight games compared with the previous 21.
Past eight games
MPG: 31.9
FG%: 45.3
3PT%: 39.6
RPG: 5.3
APG: 2.6
PPG: 15.6

Previous 21 games
MPG: 17.7
FG%: 35.3
3PT%: 36.8
RPG: 3.0
APG: 1.6
PPG: 8.4

“Sometimes,” Finley said, “you're the Louisville Slugger. Sometimes, you're the ball.”

Lately, Finley has been swinging a big bat for the Spurs. In the 11 games in December that followed that errant night against the Trail Blazers, Finley has made 61 of 142 shots, including 30 of 71 3-pointers. His average of 14.6 points for those 11 games raised his average for the season to 10.4, making him the fourth Spurs player with a double-figure scoring average.

He made 5 of 7 long-range shots in the Spurs' victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday at the AT&T Center for a season-high 22 points. It was his second-straight game of 20 or more points, the first time he put together back-to-back 20-or-more games since Dec. 12 and 13, 2005, his first season with the Spurs.

Nobody who sees Finley shooting jump shot after jump shot long after most of his teammates have walked off the Spurs' practice court is surprised when his shots fall, least of all Finley.

“I'm a firm believer that hard work pays off,” he said. “I know I put in the work to give myself the opportunities to have good games, so when they come, I'm not surprised.”

Now in his third season with the Spurs, his 14th in the NBA, Finley's teammates understand the importance of finding him when he is hot.

“When he shoots the ball that well, you just make sure you don't miss him when he is open,” said Duncan, who passed out of the post to set up three of Finley's 3-pointers against Memphis.

“It's not even that you look for him more often. He always moves well without the ball and is one of our guys who is great coming off screens, and a lot of our offense is that. So he just ends up being that kind of guy.”

Duncan and Finley have developed a nice feel for playing off one another, but Finley says he continues to learn from all his All-Star teammates.

“This is only my third year with the team,” he said, “and I'm still learning the guys. Playing with All-Stars like Tim, Tony (Parker) and Manu (Ginobili), you learn something every game. And every game, I'm trying to learn to pick and choose my spots so I can be aggressive offensively; pick and choose my spots where to be when they have the ball.

“The more time I play with those guys, the more comfortable it gets.”

DerMarr Johnson's recovery path leads to Spurs

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA010308.01C.BKN_Spurs_Johnson.en.29a8c24.html

Web Posted: 01/02/2008 11:15 PM CST
Jeff McDonald
San Antonio Express-News

DENVER — The memories of Sept. 13, 2002, come floating back to DerMarr Johnson in snapshots both vivid and incomplete, like morning-after recollections of a bad dream.

Stopped at a red light in suburban Atlanta. Two friends asleep in his Mercedes-Benz. Turning down the radio.

Then, fire and fury. Panic and pandemonium.

Now he's running down the street in the ghostly gray light of pre-dawn, in frantic search for help. It would still be a few hours before doctors will tell him he has broken his neck.

Johnson doesn't remember exactly how his car came to be wrapped around that tree, leaving everyone in it seriously injured but miraculously alive. He doesn't remember the 10 seconds that would inexorably alter the course of his NBA career.

"I just fell asleep at a red light," Johnson said, "and must have hit the gas."

More than five years after the crash, Johnson came to San Antonio last week still looking to resurrect his career from its wreckage.

He fractured four vertebrae in the accident, an injury that kept him out of the NBA for a year and a half. Two years after making him the No. 6 pick in the 2000 draft, the Atlanta Hawks gave up on him, setting in motion a tumultuous period that would see him play in seven cities and four leagues in five years.

Searching for depth on the wing following injuries to Manu Ginobili and Brent Barry late last month, the Spurs became the latest team to take a chance on the former lottery pick, plucking Johnson off the scrap heap of the Development League.

Tonight's game at Denver will be Johnson's second with the team.

To the Spurs, Johnson is a low-risk, high-reward signee: A 6-foot-9 swingman with seven years of NBA experience, signed to a non-guaranteed deal worth the veteran minimum. At worst, he is an inexpensive fallback option while Ginobili and Barry nurse their way back to health. At best, he can become a cheap but valuable perimeter-shooting threat on a team that puts a premium on such players.

Johnson is a career 33.6 percent 3-point shooter, a number that jumps to better than 35 percent if you discount his disastrous 19 of 88 campaign in Denver last season.

"He's been in the league, he's a good shooter," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "He knows the personnel of the league pretty well."

Johnson says he can still make good on his promise as a first-round draft pick. Given an opportunity with the Spurs, he aims to make his case.

"I haven't reached my peak yet," Johnson said. "I haven't played a lot of minutes, so I can still play a lot more years."

Friday the 13th

Until the day he broke his neck, Johnson never envisioned he would be 27 years old and still searching for a steady job in the pros.
"I had higher expectations of myself," he admits. "I'm living a dream, but it's been a struggle."

A first-round pick in the 2000 after leaving Cincinnati following his freshman year, Johnson seemed on a steady climb toward becoming an everyday NBA player.

In 2001-02, he averaged 8.4 points and 3.4 rebounds and started 46 games with Atlanta. He was poised to enter his third NBA training camp with high hopes of earning a regular starting job.

Then came the accident, and with it uncertainty.

Just before 5 a.m. that fateful Friday the 13th, Johnson was driving home from an evening at an Atlanta nightspot.

Before they reached Johnson's neighborhood, his passengers fell asleep. At a stoplight, Johnson joined the nap.

His next recollection is of one of his friends pulling him from the debris seconds before the car burst into flames.

"It was pretty scary," Johnson said.

Police toxicology reports later showed that alcohol did not play a role in the crash. Johnson's doctors, meanwhile, offered a sobering report.

They told him he probably wouldn't play basketball again.

Recovering from his injuries, Johnson did not play during the 2002-03 campaign, after which Atlanta declined to pick up his $3 million option.

Though he had survived his fiery crash, his career remained on life support.

Mile High letdown

After Atlanta let him go, Johnson wound up in New York, first as a member of Long Island's ABA team, then with the New York Knicks. He auditioned well enough during the Knicks' 2004 playoff run to earn a spot in Denver.
Each of his three season with the Nuggets was supposed to be Johnson's career breakthrough. Each season only brought more frustration.

He started 40 games in 2004-05, his first season with the Nuggets. Last season, he only played in 39, precipitating his departure from Denver.

"It kind of went downhill out of nowhere," said Johnson, who will make his return to Denver tonight when the Spurs play at the Pepsi Center. "I don't think it was anything I did. It just didn't work out in my favor for some reason."

Asked after Wednesday's practice what went wrong for Johnson in Denver, coach George Karl said it was a matter of guard numbers.

"You've got Kuba (Yakhouba Diawara), who can play. We've got Bobby Jones, who at times can play," Karl said. "It seems like teams get overloaded with guards."

Out of a job again, Johnson opened the 2007 season in the basketball bush leagues, first playing in Italy and then with the NBA Development League's Austin Toros.

He chose Austin, where he averaged 16.8 points and made 41.3 percent of his 3-pointers in 11 games, because of its affiliation with the Spurs. The team had been in talks with him since he left Denver.

Now, Johnson is back in the NBA hoping to stick. His fate remains in the Spurs' hands.

They have until Jan. 10 to decide whether to keep him. After that date, NBA rules require all non-guaranteed contracts to become guaranteed.

"Hopefully," Johnson said, "I can stay here for the rest of the season."

If he can pull that off — and given his rocky career path Johnson realizes nothing is certain — all the pain of his past might actually be worth it.

Every now and then, memories of that frightening morning five years ago come back to Johnson. The bad dream is never far away.

There is only one way he knows of to keep it at bay.

"I've just got to get in the right situation, get in the rotation," Johnson said. "And do some things to let people know I still can play."

Ginobili's return helps Spurs break road slump

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA010708.01F.BKNspurs.clippers.gamer.283b8d8.html

Web Posted: 01/06/2008 10:14 PM CST
Jeff McDonald
Express-News

LOS ANGELES — Manu Ginobili brought a jacket to the Staples Center, just in case.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich had informed Ginobili before the team left San Antonio that he would be making his long-awaited return from the injured list in Sunday's afternoon matinee against the Los Angeles Clippers.

"I'll believe it when I'm out there playing," Ginobili joked.

Turns out, Ginobili didn't need the sport coat after all. Back on the floor after missing two weeks with a sprained left index finger, his black No. 20 road jersey worked just fine in the Spurs' 88-82 victory.

Intact essentially for the first time since November, the Spurs' "Big Three" showed why they are the Spurs' "Big Three."

Tony Parker led the way with 26 points, Tim Duncan had a 17-point, 17-rebound double-double and Ginobili pumped in 23 points as the Spurs overcame another clank-filled shooting outing to open their two-game West Coast swing with a rare road victory.

The Spurs conclude their latest road trip tonight at Golden State.

Chris Kaman had 20 points and 14 rebounds for his 25th double-double, but couldn't keep the Clippers from losing for the ninth time in 11 games.

Afterward, no Spurs player's smile outshone Ginobili's, if for no other reason than he hadn't had to sport the business casual look the NBA requires of inactive players.

"I was very happy just to be back," said Ginobili, who had been out since Dec. 22. "At the beginning, I didn't care if I even did well. I just wanted to play."

The victory stopped a string of four consecutive road losses for the Spurs, who hadn't won away from the AT&T Center since Nov. 30. Not coincidentally, that was also the last time the Spurs had managed to finish a game with each of their "Big Three" upright.

For the past two weeks, the Spurs (23-9) had struggled to produce points without Ginobili, their bench catalyst and second-leading scorer.

"He's our finisher, our attacker," Duncan said. "It adds another dimension to our team when someone like that can break down a defense when things aren't working exactly."

Even though he was a little rusty and dealing with a cumbersome finger splint on his shooting hand, Ginobili at least made the Spurs' talented triumvirate whole again.

Not quite confident in his outside shot, Ginobili opted instead for an old standby scoring strategy — just get to the basket and at least get fouled.

Ginobili made 12 of 13 free throws Sunday, which shouldn't be surprising. For a much of the time he was out, all he could do was shoot foul shots.

"Some of them right-handed," the southpaw said with a grin.

For a good portion of the game, Ginobili's teammates seemed to be shooting wrong-handed as well.

In what is becoming a startling trend, the Spurs shot below 40 percent for most of the afternoon, needing a late surge to get to 40.5. They won instead with defense, most notably during a stretch of 7:35 to close the first half in which they held the Clippers without a field goal.

That allowed the Spurs to transform a 10-point deficit into a 42-42 tie heading into intermission.

By game's end, the Clippers (10-21) had become the seventh Spurs' foe in eight games to manage 90 points or less.

"Now if we can learn to score," Popovich said, "we'd be dangerous."

Thanks to the reconvening of the "Big Three," the Spurs scored just enough to win Sunday.

Nobody was happier to be a part of it than Ginobili.

He had been pestering Popovich to play him since the Spurs' last road trip, a loss at Denver last Thursday. Asking turned to begging after Popovich kept Ginobili inactive for Friday's home victory over New York.

Still, Ginobili's head coach wouldn't budge.

Popovich at last relented Saturday, just before the team left for the West Coast. He told Ginobili to pack his uniform.

Just to be safe, Ginobili packed the sport coat, too.

As he cleared out his stall in the visitor's locker room at the Staples Center, his brown corduroy jacket remained, hanging alone, exactly where it had been the entire afternoon.

If only for a second, Ginobili considered leaving it in Los Angeles. Just in case.