Spurs show hunger for another championship vs. Clippers
LOS ANGELES – When it comes to the San Antonio Spurs and their two decades of dominance, there's one vital element that is often overlooked about their greatness.
The psyche.
The ageless quality of their older members is certainly amazing, not to mention the incredible coaching of their white-haired captain, Gregg Popovich. But the status of the Spurs' collective spirit has always been as relevant a factor as you'll find for this group, things like heart and will and focus that often make or break their championship pursuits.
Thus, the question that will have everything to do with how the rest of the NBA playoffs unfold: How bad do the Spurs want to defend their title?
To see them pull out an overtime win against the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 2 at Staples Center on Wednesday night was to be reminded of how capable they can be, especially when soon-to-be-39-year-old Tim Duncan is dominating like he did. To hear Manu Ginobili reflect on it not long after the Spurs had evened the first-round series 1-1 was to realize that their desire is growing by the day. Again.
"I'm telling you, when I see us play, like (Game 2) down the stretch, you can see fire," Ginobili told USA TODAY Sports. "You can see determination. Maybe it's not the same one (as last season), or at least for the same reasons, but hopefully we can get there."
This matters because the Spurs can't win another title without playing with edge. Other factors will certainly matter, not the least of which is Tony Parker's ailing health and the fact that it remains unclear if he'll be able to play like himself anytime soon. The road life makes matters harder than normal for San Antonio, too, as this is just the third time in Duncan's 18 playoff appearances that they did not have homecourt advantage at the start of the postseason (they fell in the second round the other two times).
But if they want it – if they truly want it – then the odds of them getting what they want will most certainly improve. It's the invisible snowball that the rest of the playoff field had better hope doesn't get any bigger.
The Spurs' 2014 title was largely about vengeance, about righting the wrong of the 2013 Finals loss to the Miami Heat and putting an exclamation point on their storied tenure. Popovich talked about it at every turn, openly sharing all his inner thoughts about how the pain of their recent past haunted the players and coaches. Their narrative is more nuanced this time around, and Ginobili was the first to admit that the struggle to dig deep for edge and motivation is now different.
But the inner drive that propels San Antonio's title pursuits, he explained, is not always a linear sort of thing. Last year, for example, anyone who watched the Spurs' first-round series against the Dallas Mavericks might have been so foolish as to predict that their end was near. The top-seeded Spurs dropped two of the first three games to the eighth-seeded Mavs, then lost Game 6 on the road before surviving Game 7 at home. Only then, Ginobili remembers, did things truly start to click.
"I think after Game 7 against Dallas, you could tell that something was different," he continued. "The first six? Not really. We know (the drive) is not going to be the same (now). It's impossible. But now we've got to find it. We've got to fight through it.
"(Game 2 was a) huge win. Huge win. Especially considering the situation – Tony out, I foul out, it was very unusual. And the team managed to find a way. We had different people handling the ball. Great defense. Big balls down the stretch. I'm proud to see the team react that way."
The fascinating part of their journey at this juncture, it seems, is that they're looking inward on an almost-daily basis at this point. Breaks and circumstance aside, the moxie is either going to be there or it's not. It's the challenge within the challenge, one that the Clippers – who are at risk of becoming the latest best-team-that-never-was in NBA lore – don't have to face because of all the built-in incentive that's born out of their recent history.
For the Spurs, legacies aren't on the line anymore. Duncan has his place, Pop his, and Manu his. Others continue to find their way, youngsters like Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green who are now part of this San Antonio fabric.
As Spurs weathervanes go, Ginobili has always been a good one. But not all of the Spurs are quite so reflective. They're a good mix in that way, the old-heads playing the part of spiritual advisors and the next gen types simply playing their respective roles. Leonard, who was named the league's Defensive Player of the Year on Wednesday, is maintaining the same robotic approach that has worked wonders for him so far.
"Ever since I've been here I feel like this team had the same drive," Leonard told USA TODAY Sports. "They want to win the championship. That's how it's been every year. They just want to win the championship."
The Spurs showed late in the season how dominant they could still be, winning 21 of 24 games before dropping the regular season finale in New Orleans that cost them the No. 2 seed and a chance to start at home. But the playoffs require that extra emotional push, especially with the road component complicating matters, and Game 2 may have been just the kind of nudge they were looking for.
"It's the same (level of motivation), but it's a different team, a different group, a different attitude," Green told USA TODAY Sports. "It's tough to have the same attitude after winning (the title), but we still have the same main goal as a group. We all want to win. We all sacrifice our own egos for the greater good of the group. It's not about individuals or a guy's numbers. It's about us collectively winning and everybody getting praise because of it."
