Anderson Return Is Up in Air

The Spurs are discouraging speculation that Derek Anderson, who suffered a shoulder separation in the last series, will make it back for this one, even though Anderson is back to shooting and running.

“It’s not something we’re planning on,” Coach Gregg Popovich said. “Nobody’s told me to expect that. . . .

“I guess you guys are going to ask every day, but when you see him in a contact practice, that’s going to be the first sign that he’s within four, five, six days. Because I’m always going to want to have a guy practice a couple of times and knock heads before he can go in a game.

“When he gets through a couple practices like that, then you feel more confident you can get him out in a game situation and if he gets torqued a certain way, you’re not going to worry about him going back to Square 1.”

Said Anderson: “I don’t really know when I can come back, but I know I’m going to take my time. Hopefully, it will be this series. . . .

“I’m pain-free. It’s just a matter of me going out and going hard, getting hit on the shoulder, coming off a screen and getting hit. I don’t know if I can take it.”

When Anderson went out on May 5, he was said to be three-six weeks away.

Three weeks would be May 26, the day before Game 4.

The Spurs continue to pooh-pooh anything the Lakers say. Popovich, asked about Phil Jackson’s assertion they play a 1-2-2 zone, is now calling it “our point zone.”

Said Avery Johnson, “You know, it’s really gonna stretch my career, personally. I don’t have to chase all those little guys, just keep on playing that zone we’ve been playing.”

Said David Robinson, “You could go back at them and say a whole bunch of stuff about their team too, watching some of those series. All kinds of stuff was going on, so. . . .

“I’m gonna let the refs call the game and we’ll just do what we need to do.”

Robinson, on his problems with Shaquille O’Neal: “I mean, the same thing happened with [former teammate] Doc Rivers. When he came here, he wouldn’t talk to me the first week he was here and I had no idea why he wasn’t talking to me.

“He said, ‘The first game I played against you guys, I was excited to play against you and we came up on the court and I went to shake your hand and you walked by and ignored me on the court, and I’ve hated you ever since. I just wanted to kill you every time I played you.’

“It was surprising. Here’s a guy, his locker’s right next to mine and for two weeks, I wonder why this guy doesn’t say anything.

“Stuff like that just sticks with people and how do you explain it?”