Soft-Spoken Duncan’s Game Is Loud, Clear

SAN ANTONIO —  Tim Duncan is the Quiet Storm.

You never see it coming, don’t realize it even while it’s happening. He never takes your breath away until you check the statistics afterward.

For Game 1 of the NBA Finals, the damage looked like this: 32 points, 20 rebounds, six assists, seven blocked shots and three steals.

There were plenty of contributors to the San Antonio Spurs’ 101-89 victory over the New Jersey Nets. Tony Parker outplayed Jason Kidd, his rumored replacement at point guard. David Robinson, just a couple of weeks from being mothballed, outscored New Jersey’s three centers, 14-9.

Those are just sidebars. Tim Duncan was the story. He always is for the Spurs, but it’s not told often or extravagantly enough because he gives writers so little to work with. No boasts, no insults, no colorful phrases. I had already covered six Spurs’ playoff games without quoting Duncan once.

Well, here goes:

“I don’t care about my image,” Duncan said. “You guys, you write something good.”

He isn’t just saying that.

“He cares about this team winning,” Spur backup center Malik Rose said. “For this team to win, we need him to do certain things and to play a certain way. That’s where his heart is. He’s going to lay it out on the line for the guys in this locker room. When it comes to off-the-court accolades, he really doesn’t care.

“He shies away from the limelight. He’s not your typical superstar. He’s rare.”

Basketball might be a team game, but individuals matter more in the NBA than any other sport. Almost every NBA champion has featured a player who was either a best player in the league or could state a valid case that he was.

For the last two seasons, voting members of the media have deemed Duncan the league’s most valuable player. But some people -- especially last year, when he raised the Nets out of the swamp and into their first NBA Finals -- believed it’s Kidd, because he makes everyone around him so much better.

Would New Jersey be this good, and would we vault Kidd over Duncan, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett if the Nets played in the West? No.

Do you realize that if we flipped the scenario and sent Duncan to the East -- where he wouldn’t have to go against the likes of Garnett, Chris Webber and Dirk Nowitzki regularly -- that Duncan would look even better?

Even if Kidd were every bit as good as Duncan, I’d still take the big guy over the little guy. Because what happens when little guys drive to the basket? They have to shoot over the big guys. That was too much to ask for the Nets against Duncan and an inspired Robinson on Wednesday night.

The Spurs’ big men combined to block 11 shots, alter countless others, and closed down the lane like CalTrans.

They turned New Jersey into a jump-shooting team. Rushed jump shots at that. Jumpers with hands in faces.

On offense, Duncan facilitated the Spurs’ 32-point outburst in the third quarter.

“We got the ball through our quarterback, through Tim Duncan,” Spur Coach Gregg Popovich said. “That always helps when he’s initiating offense.”

One more thought on the location argument: Duncan would be this good anywhere, and at any time.

“Tim Duncan is the epitome of old-school basketball,” Julius Erving said before the game. “Any time you go to the playground in Detroit, where George [Gervin] is from, or New York, where I’m from, when you see the big guy in the low post, he’s doing the type of thing that Tim Duncan does: the fundamentals first, the team approach. And when the smoke clears, he’s usually on the winning side.”

Weak free-throw shooting wasn’t enough to deny O’Neal’s greatness, and it isn’t enough to derail Duncan.

He’s just that good.

Duncan didn’t dominate the game early. Thanks to a combination of the Spurs’ desire to get other players (especially Robinson) involved and the Spurs playing “jittery” (in Duncan’s words), Duncan only had two shots in the first quarter.

But the sign of a truly great player is his ability to make an impact without the ball, and Duncan did that by grabbing seven rebounds and blocking three shots in the quarter. He also had an assist and a steal.

He took over the fourth, though. First he ended a Spurs’ scoring drought that lasted almost the first three minutes of the fourth quarter by rebounding a Stephen Jackson miss and scoring to end a 5-0 Nets’ run. Then he posted up for a dunk. He made long jump shots, sank three of four free throws and scored 11 points in the quarter.

“You know that the guy’s going to score,” Net Coach Byron Scott said. “He’s such a great offensive weapon. When he starts hitting jump shots from 17, 18 feet, then you know you’re in a little bit of trouble.”

Duncan always does a little bit more than expected. San Antonio’s game plan was to hustle back on defense to prevent the Nets from scoring fastbreak points. You wouldn’t expect that to be Duncan’s responsibility, but there he was, the first Spur back to break up a long Jason Kidd pass in the first quarter.

Afterward, as he finished his uneventful news conference, he left the stage as Robinson arrived. He stopped in his tracks, gave Robinson’s bright yellow suit the once-over, then widened his eyes in surprise/horror. That drew a laugh from the roomful of reporters on deadline (as tough a crowd as it gets).

Once again, Tim Duncan got it done with his actions, not his words.

*

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com