San Antonio – Send flowers, a get-well card and a teddy bear. One last time, with feeling, let’s all cry for San Antonio star Tim Duncan and his poor health.
Boo. Hoo.
“I’m going to put a big sign up here,” Nuggets forward said Sunday night, pointing to his locker and punctuating his emotion with an expletive. “I’m not concerned about Tim Duncan.”
The pity party for the Spurs and Duncan’s tender ankle ends here.
“I’m not concerned about how Tim Duncan’s feeling,” said Martin, his sympathy underwhelming. “I’m worried about us. If he’s fine, great. If not, that’s fine. I don’t care.”
Denver upset San Antonio 93-87 to win the opening game of this NBA playoff series.
Ouch. That’s got to hurt.
So give Duncan a bag of ice and two aspirin.
Then, call Martin this morning and ask him if he feels bad for taking advantage of a poor man playing on one leg.
“I don’t mean to be a jerk about it,” Martin said, his sincerity leaving something to be desired, “but you all are going to keep asking me how Duncan feels. And I don’t know. I’m fine. We won. I’m happy.”
Watching Duncan, normally nimble on his feet, lumber in the post was like watching Frankenstein dance.
It was excruciating.
Not to make excuses, but San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich sounded like a politician gritting his smiling teeth through every last miserable word of a concession speech.
“Tim gave us everything he could,” said Popovich, worried 35 minutes of court time for Duncan was detrimental to his star forward’s health. “He’s obviously not in his typical rhythm and not at the top of his game, but we knew that coming in.”
Last week, Duncan estimated he was operating at no more than 80 percent of his all-pro capacity.
“I feel fine,” said Duncan, whose 18 points and 11 rebounds would be satisfactory for anybody except him. “I just had a bad night.”
Duncan is a nice guy and sweet player, but a lousy liar. I suspect this series will be history before he feels right.
How the Nuggets won was so weird and ugly it caused San Antonio’s loyal fans to turn on the home team and walk out of the arena before the game was over.
Clink, clank, clunk. The Spurs missed 17 straight shots in the fourth quarter. Duncan, twice the league’s MVP, missed all seven of his field-goal attempts in the fourth quarter.
“If they had won, you wouldn’t have been asking me how he feels,” said Martin, who has some playoff history with Duncan that the Denver forward would rather forget.
In the 2003 NBA Finals, when Martin was with New Jersey, Duncan made him look weak and small.
This time, Martin preyed on Duncan’s lack of leg strength, muscling him repeatedly in the low block.
The magnitude of Denver’s victory was not diminished because Duncan was hurt. And there will be no asterisk attached if the Nuggets can somehow eliminate the ailing Spurs.
“There’s nothing small about this win,” Martin said.
San Antonio won 38-of-41 regular-season games at home. The Spurs, however, have now lost twice this season in the SBC Center to Denver.
“That’s why you play the game. We’re not playing ‘how many games the Spurs have won.’ We’re playing the game that’s in front of them,” Martin said.
Before tipoff, Nuggets coach George Karl showed his players video clips of Al Pacino from “Any Given Sunday” interspersed between game highlights. A cheesy motivational technique? Perhaps.
Hey, whatever works. The ends justified Karl’s means.
“How about that one?” declared Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke, recalling how his team was unprepared for the tough road that is the NBA playoffs only 12 months ago. “This was a lot better than last year. I like where this win came, too.”
On Sunday night, the SBC Center was turned into a house of pain.
In the final 30 seconds of the fourth quarter, as the crowd deserted the Spurs, one disgusted spectator shouted in vain at the mass exodus, “What are you, a bunch of front-runners?” Know what the San Antonio fans are?
Sore losers.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
