| Thursday, March 30
By Mike Monroe
Special to ESPN.com |
|
Don't look now, but the Spurs are putting their disappointing season
back together just in the nick of time.
Every Western Conference team -- yes, that includes the Lakers -- should
be more than a little bit scared.
|  | | Duncan has been playing angrier -- and better -- recently. |
Why?
Because suddenly, Tim Duncan is playing like ... well ... Tim Duncan. Did you see what Duncan did Tuesday night in Portland?
It was deja vu all over again for Blazermaniacs, who
must have thought they were back in last season's Western finals when
Duncan went for 36 points and 15 rebounds and six assists and scored
eight in the final minutes, after David Robinson got thrown out of the
game, to rally the Spurs for an 89-85 win.
Now, I know what you're thinking: Just last week this guy was telling
us the Midwest title race was over, and now he's telling us to watch out
for the Spurs.
That is correct, and I'm not backing off from last week's contention,
either. I don't think the Jazz are going to lose three more games this
season and I don't think the Spurs are going to win their remaining 11
games, so Utah still is going to win the division title. But that is
beside the point of this week's column, which is that the Spurs are
getting scary again.
See, the Spurs have been waiting all season for Duncan to dominate the
way he did in last season's playoffs, and now that the end of the regular
season is in sight he is beginning to do so.
Hey, maybe that was the problem. Duncan needs to be able to at least
see the playoffs in view before he plays like an MVP.
Did someone say MVP?
The whole world knows who this season's MVP is, and it isn't Duncan.
Shaquille O'Neal is going to run away with this year's vote. But Duncan
could have been pressing O'Neal for the league's highest individual
honor if he had played all season as he has for the last week. More on
that later ...
For now, though, the Spurs will take Duncan's re-emergence as a prime
time monster and be happy about it. As little as two weeks ago it was
looking as if Duncan was not going to recover from that lower abdominal
strain in time to make the Spurs anything but a nuisance in this year's
playoffs. He had been missing the same shots we all had taken for
granted he was going to make before the injury he suffered back on Feb.
15, especially those soft bank shots that had become something of a
trademark, nearly as reliable as a layin.
The problem was obvious. Duncan's shooting motion had been affected,
however slightly and subconsciously. His shooting form just wasn't the
natural, easy motion it was, pre-injury.
Said coach Gregg Popovich: "Tim's injury has limited him to some
degree. I think he's probably a little more tentative. It's that type of
thing. When it's right in the middle of your body, it's pretty logical
that you may not extend, you may not be as explosive, you may not even
know that you're holding back a bit."
Duncan went through a stretch where his shooting percentage was not
just abnormally low for him, it was low by any standards. Over a stretch
of four games he made only 21 of 61 shots, culminating with a 3-for-14
against the Nuggets that left Antonio McDyess stunned enough to say, "I
know that's not the Tim Duncan I usually see."
Since that game, though, Duncan has broken out. He made 20-of-31 shots
and scored 56 in games against Dallas and the Clippers, but was even
more impressive in wins at Seattle and Portland in back-to-back games
Monday and Tuesday that pushed the Spurs' road record back over .500, to
19-17.
That's 30 points and 18 rebounds against the Sonics and the 36 and 15
against the Blazers, who are suddenly hoping their big lead over the Jazz is big
enough to get them to the end of the regular season with the second-best
record in the conference. (Clearly, the Blazers are not playing as well
over the last month as either Utah or Minnesota, and after Tuesday's
game don't appear to be playing as well as the Spurs, either.)
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Whether Duncan's resurgence is simply a matter of physical health or a
re-focusing as the playoffs approach, it is bad news for the rest of the
West, which obviously means the rest of the league, as well. The Spurs
are the only team in the league capable of keeping the Lakers from
romping to the championship because they are the only team capable of
neutralizing O'Neal with their own formidable inside presence.
Now, as to that MVP race ... for years I have relied on Larry Bird to
determine my vote. See, back in Bird's playing days, he came up with his
very own formula for quantifying a player's value to his team: Add up
points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots, then subtract
missed shots, missed free throws, personal fouls and turnovers. Divide
by the number of games played and you have that player's "Birdies" per
game. Strange as it may seem, 20 turns out to be something of a
watershed number for Bird's formula, just as it is for scoring. When
players begin to approach 30 "Birdies," you discover they are among the
top two or three MVP candidates.
As of this week O'Neal is a runaway leader in "Birdies" for this
season, at 30.7 per game. Second on the list is Kevin Garnett, at 26.7.
Duncan, after his last four games, is at 25.1, followed closely by Karl
Malone, at 24.5, and Chris Webber, 24.1. Gary Payton is sixth on the
list, at 23.6.
So get the engravers working on putting O'Neal's name on this year's
MVP trophy. It's just too bad Duncan didn't play like ... well, Duncan
... all season long. Then the MVP vote might have been one of the most
interesting ever.
By the way, it should surprise nobody that the top six players in
Bird's objective evaluation of a player's overall game come out of the
West. The highest "Birdie' figure for an Eastern player is Alonzo
Mourning, at 22.0. Allen Iverson? He averages 17.2. Vince
Carter? 17.0.
Of course, in some corners, no further proof was needed of the West's
ascendancy as the dominant conference.
Mike Monroe, who covers the NBA for the Denver Post, writes a Western Conference column for ESPN.com. You can e-mail him at monroe128@go.com |  |
West: Midwest is looking like all Jazz
