Loss Is Bump in Road for Spurs

“He’s a human being,” Gregg Popovich was saying of Tony Parker, and no one could disagree with that.

“He’s going to have a night where he doesn’t play well,” Popovich went on, accurate some more. “He’s been playing great for a long time, so the percentages are that he’s going to have a bad game at some point.”

Again, on the mark. Every 17 wins or so, Parker and the Spurs are allowed to fall flat.

So what was curious about Popovich’s quote? He said it before Sunday, when the Spurs acted like human beings who play for the Atlanta Hawks.

As if: They knew it was coming.

Popovich will deny that, naturally, as will the Spurs. They will say they fully understood that they couldn’t afford to treat Game 3 the way Moises Alou treats his hands.

Win and the Lakers would have spent Monday booking different sets of vacation plans. Lose, and what happens next?

The Spurs will say it’s against their work ethic not to compete, and the 17-game winning streak suggests as much. One of the NBA’s longest runs to ever flow from the end of the regular season to the playoffs doesn’t come without a certain professional approach.

But then came Sunday afternoon, when the Spurs gave in to a power greater than Gary Payton with a grudge. The Spurs wanted to win, all right, but they didn’t really need to, now did they?

Popovich always wants his team to have what he calls “the appropriate fear.” Funny thing, that is precisely what the Lakers had.

“Down 2-0,” said Kobe Bryant, “no one had to say a thing.”

So the Lakers played as they should have played more often this season. The Lakers actually moved their feet on defense too, which often comes in handy when slowing Parker.

And when Shaquille O’Neal dove at midcourt, fouling while nearly halving Hedo Turkoglu at the hip?

The crowd howled because their Hall of Famers appeared to care.

The Lakers did more than try, pushing the Spurs’ offense out, forcing the Spurs to shoot 27 three-pointers. As a result, Tim Duncan began to play like Rasho Nesterovic and Rasho Nesterovic began to play like Rasho Nesterovic in a coma.

Asked to evaluate Duncan afterward, Popovich smiled and said, “Tim was one of the starters.”

Duncan made no excuses, then complimented the Lakers. “They took us all out of our game,” he said.

They did, certainly. Karl Malone bodied Duncan, sometimes pulling the chair and sometimes stripping him. And when the Spurs turned their heads, Malone found Shaq inside.

How did the Lakers shoot almost 57% against the defense that allowed the league low? Dunks have a way of padding the stat.

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Buck Harvey is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.