Spur Future Is Bright, but Present Is a Little Iffy

Other than that, how did you guys enjoy your weekend?

This was the Spurs’ series when they arrived Thursday but by the time they lifted off Sunday, it was anybody’s again and the Lakers were no longer reeling but rolling.

The Spurs effectively no-showed in Game 3, got caught in the wave of emotion after Coach Phil Jackson’s angioplasty, made a contest of Game 4 but lost that too, 99-95, after foul trouble forced Tim Duncan out for two stretches totaling 7 minutes 21 seconds, in which the Lakers outscored them, 28-6.

“We have one star, that’s Tim Duncan and there’s really not going to be someone else who’s going to sustain us, game after game after game,” Coach Gregg Popovich said afterward.

“We have to do it as a group and ever since our new additions, sometimes it’s not going to be the most wonderful thing to look at. So it puts a lot of pressure on our defense and our rebounding, when Tim’s not on the court. So we’ll just continue over time to work on that....

“I wish we would have competed like this in Game 3. We took too many things for granted in Game 3, which is still a mystery to me, when you’re playing somebody that’s won three championships, how you can take anything for granted.

“But I was very pleased with the way we competed.”

Popovich is the NBA’s coach of the year for compiling the best record with a team everyone -- including Popovich -- thought was only in the process of rebuilding for a better tomorrow.

Nor are they a finished product or anything like it. When Popovich says they’ll work on it, what he means is, “Wait till we go shopping this summer and then come see me.”

The Spurs will be $14 million under the salary cap, making them the big consumers in the free-agent bazaar, with a wish list thought to start with New Jersey’s Jason Kidd and Indiana’s Jermaine O’Neal.

For those who have heard the Spurs are targeting Kidd and wondered why, with a rising young point guard like Tony Parker on the lot, we present the answer:

The 2003 postseason.

Parker, a revelation as a two-year starter at 20, has had two good seasons but started struggling in the first round against Phoenix and has come out of it only sporadically since. Since he became their surprise No. 2 option, averaging 16 points after the All-Star break, they’ve missed him.

He missed seven of eight shots in Game 3, leading the young Spurs in a team swan dive, after which Popovich said he was unconcerned.

“I don’t have a whole lot of control over that,” Popovich said between games. “You know, they go in or they don’t go in. It’s not something you can go run a drill for today and insure that they’re going to go in tomorrow.

“So sometimes they have those nights where all three of them [Parker, Stephen Jackson and Manu Ginobili] are having a tough time being consistent at both ends of the court, and other nights, they’ve got it down to a science....

“I gotta go with ‘em, let ‘em do what they do and hope it’s positive.”

For part of Sunday’s game, at least, Parker, Ginobili and Jackson were OK. The Spurs jumped to a 43-27 lead, but Duncan picked up his third foul with 3:27 left in the first half, and the Lakers closed it out with a 12-3 run.

The Spurs still led, 64-55, with 2:54 left in the third quarter, when Duncan picked up his fourth foul, contesting Kobe Bryant’s reverse layup.

Duncan came out, Bryant made two free throws and the Lakers were off on a 16-3 run to close the quarter. As Popovich said, his offense during that time wasn’t pretty.

So a big lead became no lead and the Spurs lost down the stretch, when the Lakers are hard to beat.

On the positive side for the Spurs, no one has won on the road ... yet ... so they retain home-court advantage.

“Well, Game 3 definitely hurt us,” said David Robinson, after a weekend foreshadowing his coming life, in retirement, with a total of four points and seven rebounds.

“I mean, you can’t come out and just give away a game. And like we talked about before, that was definitely not our type of performance. So it hurt us giving that away but [the Lakers] can probably say the same thing about Game 2.

“It’s back to 2-2 and we’ve got a chance to go home and play in the SBC Center so we’ve got to take advantage of that.”

At this point, it’s the one of the few advantages they have left but, ask the Lakers, there’s still no place like home.