Suns-Spurs Preview

By JEFF BARTL
Posted Apr 14 2012 1:43AM

While most seem to wonder when Tim Duncan will call it a career and wait for his Hall of Fame induction, he continues to be a key part of the aging San Antonio Spurs' unexpected success.

The Phoenix Suns know all too well that he's still capable of putting up big numbers.

San Antonio seeks its sixth straight home victory over Phoenix when the teams meet Saturday night.

Following losses to Utah and the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday and Wednesday, Duncan tied his season high with 28 points and grabbed 12 rebounds Thursday to lead the Spurs (41-16) to a 107-97 home win over Memphis.

After coach Gregg Popovich rested the 35-year-old Duncan, 34-year-old Manu Ginobili and 11th-year veteran Tony Parker on Monday, and Ginobili and Parker combined to shoot 5 for 20 in Wednesday's loss, Duncan stepped up Thursday.

"We got back on track. That was the key to the whole thing, getting back on track," Duncan said. "Played awful against the Lakers. Got blown out, came back in there (Thursday) against another good team. A much better effort."

The Spurs are one game behind Oklahoma City for the Western Conference's top seed but are tied in the loss column with two games in hand after Duncan's heroics.

The veteran has played similarly well in each meeting with Phoenix this season for the Spurs, who have won 17 of the last 21 regular-season meetings. Duncan had 24 points and 11 rebounds Jan. 15 in San Antonio's 102-91 home victory over the Suns, and 26 points with 11 boards March 27 in Phoenix. The Spurs won that contest 107-100, overcoming a career-high 32 points from Suns guard Shannon Brown.

Marcin Gortat scored 20 points and grabbed 15 rebounds Friday, while Nash added 18 points and 10 assists in the Suns' 112-105 win at Houston, helping Phoenix (31-28) pull within one game of both the Rockets and Denver Nuggets, who currently hold the West's final two playoff spots.

Phoenix is 19-9 since Feb. 19 and has won six of its last eight as it seeks to avoid missing the playoffs for the third time in four years.

"It was a huge win for us. Every game is big and we didn't play great in the first half," said Grant Hill, who scored four points Friday after missing the previous nine games due to surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee. "We just came out with a sense of urgency in the third quarter."

Nash is averaging 11.1 assists per game - second in the league to Boston's Rajon Rondo - and is averaging 17.4 points and 10.4 assists in his last 20 regular-season games against the Spurs.

San Antonio has defeated the Suns five straight times at home since Phoenix's 103-98 victory Oct. 29, 2008.

Spurs rout Suns to dampen Phoenix's playoff chase

By PAUL J. WEBER
Posted Apr 15 2012 12:35AM

SAN ANTONIO (AP) The San Antonio Spurs insist that being the No. 1 seed in the West isn't important to them. They still might wind up with it.

Simply making the playoffs is important to Phoenix. And this blowout won't help.

Tim Duncan had 19 points and 10 rebounds and Tony Parker scored 14 before calling it an early night, and the Spurs made the Suns' playoff pursuit that much harder with six games to go, coasting past Phoenix 105-91 on Saturday night.

The Spurs officially clinched the Southwest Division, but more importantly, stayed neck-and-neck with Oklahoma City for the No. 1 playoff seed in the Western Conference. San Antonio remains a game behind the Thunder with eight games remaining.

"It doesn't matter what we do. We're going to end up where we end up. There's no reason to sit there and study it," Duncan said. "We're going to play these games as best as we can. Win or lose, we're going to end up where. We're in a great position right now. Hopefully we can end on top. If we don't, hopefully we're number two and we're happy with that."

Sebastian Telfair scored 21 points for Phoenix, which simply wants to make the postseason. Yet the Suns never looked ready to play from the start and slipped 1 1-2 games behind Denver and Houston for the West's eighth and final playoff spot.

Phoenix trailed by 17 before the first quarter was even halfway finished, and Steve Nash and Grant Hill sat out the entire second half. Nash said he irritated his right hip socket in a loss to Memphis on Wednesday, and despite fighting through it in Friday's win at Houston, he only lasted the first 6 minutes.

Yet even that early, it was clear it wasn't going to be the Suns' night.

"It was a situation where, one, I wasn't going to be effective and two, I didn't want to miss the last six games," Nash said. "Lucky to get out, I think, when I did."

Nash said he hopes to be OK for Monday's game against Portland.

The Spurs also didn't needlessly wear out their stars in this blowout. Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili all sat out the fourth quarter and most of the second half, giving coach Gregg Popovich some bonus rest for his Big Three after he began the week by not even letting them on the plane to Utah.

Duncan got the rout going by hitting his first five shots, and quickly racked up 11 points and five rebounds by the time the stunned Suns found themselves down 21-4 just 6 minutes into the game.

That's when Nash called it a night. The 38 year old played 34 minutes the night before in Houston, where the Suns squeaked out a big road win against one of the teams in front of them for the No. 8 seed.

Hill was coming off a long night, too. Houston was the 39-year-old veteran's first game since undergoing surgery March 30 to repair a medial meniscus tear in his right knee, and Suns coach Alvin Gentry admitted the 25 minutes Hill played was probably more than ideal. Hill wound up playing eight minutes against the Spurs, scoring four points.

"We've been on the road a lot. We get a chance to be at home and try to finish," Hill said. "It's a tough loss, it's embarrassing, but we're still in the hunt. "

Rookie Kawhi Leonard added 14 points for the Spurs and DeJuan Blair had 10.

Phoenix's starters combined for just 20 points. Michael Redd scored 13 and Markieff Morris had 10 in a game that was hardly as close as the final score indicated. Phoenix trailed by as much as 28.

Phoenix has six games left and the good news is that five of them are at home - where the Suns are 10-2 since the All-Star break - including hosting the Nuggets on Saturday.

But the Suns must also face the Thunder and finish the season against the Spurs. Popovich, however, will give serious thought to playing his stars in the final game even if the No. 1 seed is still on the line, especially after Ginobili got hurt in that very same situation last season.

Newcomer Stephen Jackson, who the Spurs acquired at the trade deadline, isn't predicting how Popovich will manage minutes in the final two weeks.

"You never know what Obi-Wan is going to do," Jackson said.

NOTES: Both the Spurs and Suns emptied their benches, using all 13 of their active players. Everyone scored. ... The 13 points that San Antonio held Phoenix to in the first quarter was a season-best for the Spurs.

Notebook: Spurs 105, Suns 91

Posted Sunday April 15, 2012 12:16AM

By Tim Price, for NBA.com

THE FACTS: Steve Nash played the first six minutes of the game, then sat along with the rest of the Suns starters as the Spurs built a 22-point first-quarter lead. Nash was the only starter not to get back in the game, leaving streaking San Antonio to the trappings of an easy 105-91 victory Saturday at AT&T Center.

This all left a huge blemish on a Phoenix playoff drive that had been going swimmingly the past month. The Suns (31-29) entered the game having won six of their last eight and were just a game back in the loss column of Denver and Houston for the last playoff spot in the West.

As dormant as Nash was, Tim Duncan continued to be unchained. Duncan hit his first five shots, was 8-of-10 at one point and finished his work in the third quarter with a final stat sheet of 9-of-14, 19 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes.

With the win, the Spurs (42-16) clinched the Southwest Division championship. San Antonio shot 53 percent from the floor and outrebounded Phoenix 49-44. The Suns were 38-of-96 from the floor -- almost 40 percent.

The Suns fell behind 35-13 after shooting 6-of-21 in the first quarter and were outrebounded 17-8.

QUOTABLE: "(Nash) was not going to go back in the game. He was not feeling well, and we're not going to risk one game of putting him back in there and then him missing the rest of the season. I didn't think it merited him going back into the game."
-- Suns coach Alvin Gentry; he did not elaborate on Nash's status when asked.

THE STAT: The Phoenix starters were 9-of-28 from the floor (32 percent), got to the foul line just twice, had two assists to four turnovers and scored 20 points.

TURNING POINT: Nash scored on a running jumper from 10 feet -- it turned out to be his only basket of the game -- and the Suns trailed 7-4 just 3 1/2 minutes into the game. But even two timeouts from Gentry did nothing to slow the Spurs onslaught. Nor did Gentry's ultimate benching of the Suns starters for the rest of the first quarter. The Spurs hit six straight shots on the way to leading 21-4 (a 14-0 run) and finished the first quarter leading 35-15.

QUOTABLE II: "We were able to jump on them pretty quickly and we sustained it through the game. Sometimes it's your worst nightmare to jump to a big lead at the beginning of an NBA game. I thought (the players) focused pretty well and did a good job."
-- Spurs coach Gregg Popovich

HOT: Duncan is shooting 63 percent from the floor over his last five games (39-of-62).

NOT: Just a night earlier, Sebastian Telfair came off the bench, played 14 minutes and went 4-of-5 from the floor, hit both 3-pointers, and had 12 points. Two games earlier he was 6-of-7 at Minnesota. But when Nash was pulled for the night, the point guard spot was mostly Telfair's. He struggled with his shooting touch with the increase in minutes. He needed 21 shots to score 21 points, going 9-of-21 overall.

FANTASY SPOTLIGHT: Duncan has a double-double in three of the past four games he's played. He's averaging 20 points and 13 rebounds in those three games.

GOOD MOVE: Duncan has been playing so well as of late that the Spurs went to him immediately and often. He hit his first five shots over Marcin Gortat in a combination of ways -- running right-handers, running left-handed hook shots, spot-up soft jumpers from 12 feet and backside cuts into the lane.

BAD MOVE: Gentry perhaps overdid it by pulling all five of his starters just six minutes into the game. If he was looking for a lift, the second team didn't do much better. The Suns trailed by 17 when the starters came out and by 22 at the end of the first quarter. The whole team struggled on the second night of a back-to-back.

ROOKIE WATCH: In late March, Kawhi Leonard had a streak of three games where he had scored in double figures. But he's been in single digits in the eight games since. He finally broke out of it with 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting (he hit all three of his 3-point shots) and five rebounds. ... Markieff Morris played 32 minutes but was 3-of-10 with 10 points and nine rebounds.

NOTABLE: The victory gives the Spurs the season series (3-0 so far). The teams play on the second-to-the-last night of the regular season at Phoenix. ... Grant Hill played eight minutes before, like Nash, getting the rest of the night off. It was his second game back after missing nine because of a right knee medial meniscus tear. He hit 2-of-4 shots for four points and had a rebound.

UP NEXT: For the Suns, Monday vs. Portland, Wednesday vs. Oklahoma City, Thursday vs. Clippers. For the Spurs, Monday @ Golden State, Tuesday @ Lakers, Wednesday @ Sacramento.

• Suns: --
• Spurs: Joseph

• Suns: --
• Spurs: --

• Lead Changes: 0
• Times Tied: 1

• Arena: AT&T Center, San Antonio, TX
• Officials: #10 Ron Garretson, #26 Pat Fraher, #75 Eric Dalen
• Attendance: 18581
• Duration: 2:14