Buck Harvey: Duncan gets overlooked? He does here
Web Posted: 04/29/2007 12:28 AM CDT
San Antonio Express-News
DENVER — Allen Iverson dribbled on Tony Parker until the two reached Carmelo Anthony and Bruce Bowen. Then Anthony bumped Parker, freeing Iverson, and Bowen moved as seamlessly to Iverson as Parker did to Anthony.
Iverson gave the ball to Anthony, which was the smart play. And Anthony posted up Parker, spun baseline and headed to the basket.
Toward the best defender in the NBA.
Tim Duncan.
If that hasn’t been clear to everyone for most of a decade, it should have been in this Game 3.
The voters have never agreed with that opinion. The NBA honored Marcus Camby on Saturday as the Defensive Player of the Year, and San Antonio fans likely don’t agree with that, either. Bowen has long been the standard of defense in San Antonio.
Camby blocks shots as few do, and nobody irritates the league’s scorers as Bowen does. Bowen deserves to win the award at least once in his career, partly because no one has ever put together such an odd package of moving hands and intelligence.
But coming in third in the voting this season, as overlooked as a two-time MVP can be, is the one who has always made the Spurs’ defense work. Duncan, ever rotating and ever calling out to teammates what is coming next, summed up that again Saturday. Then, he went on the road, with two of the game’s best scorers coming at his team, and he anchored a unit that held Denver to 43 percent shooting.
He needed everything to win, from a Parker surge in the fourth quarter to Robert Horry being himself. And Duncan needed this, too, from last season: Had the Spurs completed the trade that would have sent Brent Barry to the Hornets for J.R. Smith, they would have been stuck with the kind of immaturity that loses playoff games.
What meant more — J.R.'s flagrant foul on Manu Ginobili or his bad pass that Horry intercepted and turned into a 3-pointer? Those mistakes allowed the Spurs to build a small lead.
But the Spurs held on to it because they protected the rim against a team that wants to attack it. And literally, the center of it was Duncan.
Blocked shots get too much attention when it comes to the Defensive Player of the Year award. That’s why Bowen hasn’t won; there’s not a statistical way for him to impress voters.
Blocks don’t define Duncan, either, though he had five Saturday. So when he blocked Nenê with about three minutes left, the more telling sequence came shortly after. Then, Camby went after his own block.
Camby does this partly out of habit. Camby played on one of the league’s worst defensive teams in the regular season, which means a lot of players were free at the Denver basket.
Back to his award: Can the best defensive player be part of one of the league’s worst?
But Camby was reacting then, stretching for a Parker baseline jumper. Parker missed, and Camby was now out of the play. Ginobili kept the rebound alive, and when he tipped the ball to the other side of the rim, there was Duncan. Without a Nugget within five feet, Duncan pushed the Spurs to a seven-point lead.
These kinds of moments happened often to the Denver defense.
Sometimes Parker got to the rim, and sometimes Horry and Michael Finley had open looks, and sometimes Duncan turned and didn’t see a defender near him.
That’s why Gregg Popovich’s praise of Denver’s defense in this series is Popovich trying to be kind to an opponent. The Spurs’ shooting percentages have been down, but they’ve been going where they want to go, and they’ve been getting the shots they want. They’ve also scored 97 and 96 points in their last two games.
But even when the shots fell Saturday, they took control of this series with what happened on the other end. Then, Bowen stayed with Anthony and Parker battled Iverson, and moving in concert with them stood the force behind these playoff moments.
Duncan’s award?
It came Saturday, just as they often have in playoff games in his career.