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SAN ANTONIO
VS.
LOS ANGELES
PHILADELPHIA
VS.
MILWAUKEE
|
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Spurs need healthy Anderson for Laker series
By Marc Stein
Special to ESPN.com
DALLAS -- We are halfway there. The two most must-see teams on the planet,
both safely up 2-nil, needing just a couple more victories to cement conference-finals Armageddon out West.
|  | | With Anderson down for the count, can the Spurs beat the Lakers? |
Only one problem.
The San Antonio Spurs are suddenly desperate to make a deal:
Game 1 or 2, either/or, handed back to the Dallas Mavericks, for the rights
to a shoulder-in-socket Derek Anderson.
Believe it: San Antonio would do it right now. Gregg Popovich undoubtedly
wishes he could ring up his good pal Don Nelson, offer Nellie his pick of
those first two Spurs routs, and resume the series at Reunion Arena with
Wednesday's Game 3 in a 1-1 deadlock. To have DA healthy for the rest of the
playoffs? A slam-dunk swap.
The Spurs, you see, are going to take the Mavericks and always were. Even
had they dropped one of the first two games at home. Even without Anderson
for the rest of this second-round series, after Juwan Howard ushered him back to
Earth with that controversial crack on the X-Factor's Game 1 attempt to take
the rim out of its socket.
In South Texas, that won't satiate the river-strolling locals. Surviving an
Interstate 35 pile-up with their intra-state cousins is not going to make
the Spurs' season.
They signed Derek X to unseat the Lakers as champions. Don Nelson keeps
calling San Antonio "the best team in basketball," and just about every
expert in cyberspace picked the Spurs to reclaim the NBA throne, but they
have to beat L.A. to make the talk stick. On your electronic 3Play card, are
you going to click on the Spurs' guys now, minus Anderson, when they're
matched up against Shaq's Lakes?
"Run for the championship?" Avery Johnson blurted in his unmistakable
pitch. "We can't even see that right now."
All you can guarantee, with the X-Factor having been X'ed out, is that we
have to wait again -- at least one more season -- before anyone sees a
meaningful Spurs-Lakers intersection with both clubs at full strength. Which
is true sadness, for neutrals everywhere, as the teams plow through the
Kings and Mavericks.
In 1999, when the Alamo citizens became champs, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe
Bryant were not what they are now. Not as players. Certainly not as adults.
The Spurs swept the Big Not Yet and his not-so-trusty sidekick in the second
round as convincingly as they've started against Dallas. More impressively,
actually.
Then last spring, when the new Shaq and Kobe had been coerced into the same
zip code by Phil Jackson, it's the Spurs who weren't whole. Tim Duncan hurt
his knee and had to miss the first round against Phoenix. Without Duncan,
relying solely on Admiral Robinson, there was no second round.
This spring, finally, was supposed to be thing. Time to unequivocally
determine the stronger side.
Instead, Phil Jackson might as well dig up his asterisk.
Because these won't be the same Spurs without Anderson. And, much as Derek X
is calling himself "a fast healer," the next round almost certainly comes
too quickly for Anderson to sufficiently recover.
Against the Mavericks, again, it's not a series-changing absence. Michael
Finley, so far, hasn't been able to abuse Antonio Daniels, Terry Porter and
Steve Kerr the way Bryant will. Juwan Howard and Shawn Bradley are helpless
inside, at both ends, against Duncan and Robinson, and the Spurs'
suffocating defense has forced the ball out of Steve Nash's hands. Nellie
has thus made Finley his point guard, knowing that Finley and a suddenly
gun-shy Dirk Nowitzki -- against Danny Ferry and Sean Elliott -- are Dallas'
only hopes. Those two have to create scoring chances on their own and
flat-out dominate their matchups for the Mavericks to have any shot.
Unfortunately, the jump-shooting Mavs are connecting at a .356 clip from the
field. That wouldn't even win a batting title, much less a playoff game
against Anchor and Admiral. In three straight games and four out of seven in
the post-season, Dallas is under 40 percent on field goals. Which makes
their mere presence in Round 2 that much more amazing.
The Lakers, of course, won't have those same woes. O'Neal has never beaten a
healthy Duncan and Robinson in the playoffs, but we're guessing he'll do a
little better than Juwan and Shawn. Remember, this isn't the same Shaq as seen in
'99. Ditto for Bryant.
And that's why Popovich, diplomatic as he sounds, needs a freelancing
X-Factor against L.A. No matter how ordinary Anderson looked against the
Timberwolves, averaging just 11.0 points on .319 shooting in the opening
round.
"You can argue 'til the cows come home about the [Howard] foul -- too hard,
not too hard, he should be suspended, he shouldn't be suspended," Popovich
said. "But Juwan is good people, and everybody knows that.
"What he did was probably unnecessary, but it should end there. And it will.
I don't think either one of these teams is the type of team" to keep seeking
retribution.
Duncan agrees, at least publicly, in spite of the most visible anger we've
ever seen from him. In Game 2, clearly motivated and emotional, Duncan
rampaged for 25 points and 22 rebounds and helped hound Howard into the sort
of performance that made it seem as though he was suspended: 2 for 14
shooting.
Yet all Duncan has said so far: "We're here to win the [Dallas] series.
We're not worried about payback."
DA back?
In a fantasy league, the Spurs could make that trade. In reality, if
anyone's getting payback, it's the Lakers. They lost the 1984 NBA Finals,
the year Kevin McHale clotheslined Kurt Rambis. Howard ending Anderson's
season might score them a belated set of make-up rings.
Marc Stein, who covers the NBA for The Dallas Morning News, is a regular
contributor to ESPN.com.
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