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作者 summerflower: 靠,我刚才看还只有13号的。。。= =! |
Spurs box up Paul, at least for a night
Posted on May 16, 2012 at 12:35 am by Buck Harvey
In an exercise called Keeping Up with the Thunder, the Spurs did.
Sweep first round. React to long layoff with some energy. Beat an L.A. team coming off a Game 7.
The Spurs weren’t as impressive as Oklahoma City was. But as the oldest (Tim Duncan) and the youngest (Kawhi Leonard) led them, the Spurs also managed to handle a chore the Thunder avoided.
After all, if not for David Stern, Chris Paul might have been in Oklahoma City this week.
Instead, he spent Tuesday further south on Interstate 35 surrounded by various Spurs.
The Spurs won for other reasons, including Duncan recreating the 2003 Finals. Then, three young teammates lined up with him (Stephen Jackson, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili). Then, a rugged defender named Kenyon Martin, a Net at the time, faced off against him.
Duncan’s line in the clincher: A triple-double.
He wasn’t as physically dominating Tuesday. Still, he made jumpers. Posted up and used his left hand. And generally played the way he did nine years ago — like the best player on the floor.
Duncan might not keep that title every night in this series, and Gregg Popovich knows why. The Clippers have a chance in this series as long as Paul is standing and chomping on his mouth guard.
“He’s got that nasty streak,” Popovich said Tuesday. “He’s got fiber and competitiveness. He wants to put his foot on your neck. That’s why he’s out there: to kick your butt. He has that mentality every second he’s out there.”
Popovich saw all of that in the 2008 playoffs. The Spurs beat Paul’s Hornets, all right, but it took the kind of rough Game 7 on the road that the Clippers won in Memphis.
Popovich remembers all of that. And, when asked about Paul, he marvels at what he calls “an uncanny bio-mechanic about him.”
He continued: “His balance is just incredible to me … all the different body positions he’s in and the way he handles the ball. Whatever he does — spinning, moving, cutting, faking — he’s on balance to pull up and shoot, deliver a pass.”
Paul had a different mix to play with in New Orleans, and an arguably better one. While those Hornets weren’t deep, they had options that made Paul’s job easier then.
Paul went where he wanted to go, and Popovich felt helpless. Destroyed in the previous three games in New Orleans, Popovich tried this for Game 7: He changed defenses on nearly every possession in the fourth quarter to try to keep Paul off balance.
The Clippers aren’t as versatile, and the Spurs used that Tuesday to try to contain Paul. They could back off of some Clippers — Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan — and in effect put a box around Paul and stop him from playing the pick-and-roll.
Popovich sniffed afterward about this. “Just because we won the game tonight,” he said, “doesn’t mean we played good defense.”
Maybe Popovich didn’t want to antagonize a guy who “wants to put his foot on your neck.” He also added that while Tony Parker and Danny Green defended Paul well, Paul and Eric Bledsoe “did a hell of a job on Tony. So it’s both ways.”
But it isn’t. The Spurs can survive when Parker struggles. They simply go elsewhere. Paul, in contrast, is the Clippers’ offense and system. While he ended with 10 assists, there was never a sense he was carving up the Spurs.
Paul was hard on himself afterward, and he will respond. Popovich believes this.
But on this night, the Spurs’ biggest accomplishment wasn’t keeping up with the Thunder. It was keeping up with the one in front of them now.
http://blog.mysanantonio.com/spursnation/2012/05/16/spurs-box-up-paul-at-least-for-a-night/
Here you go with the latest one. Posted full article FYI.
Thanks in advance.