Series After Series, These Spurs Refuse To Die

Throughout these playoffs, the San Antonio Spurs have shown an unusual resiliency, even for a four-time champion.

Down double figures in the first two games of their opening series against Phoenix, the Spurs came back to win both games — the first thanks to three-pointers at the end of both regulation and overtime, the latter coming off the unlikely hands of Tim Duncan.

Down 2-0 in the second round to New Orleans, they again pulled a rabbit out of their hat. The Spurs shook off two one-sided defeats on the road to beat the Hornets just as badly at home, and eventually prevailed in a seventh game in New Orleans despite losing by 18, 19, and 22 in their first three tries there.

In doing so, they became only the first team since the NBA-ABA merger to drop the first two games on the road, have a negative scoring margin after four games, and still win the series. If you're into omens, the other one was the 1995 Houston Rockets — who, like the Spurs, were defending champions. They repeated.

San Antonio has to win two more rounds to equal Houston's feat, but that didn't seem likely when the conference finals started off on a similar foot to the New Orleans series. San Antonio punted a 20-point lead to lose the opener, then fell by 30 in Game 2. But just when it seemed they couldn't recover, the Spurs again improbably bounced back — this time with a 103-84 dismantling of L.A. to pull within 2-1 in the best-of-seven series.

So the lesson, obviously, is to write this team off at your own risk. They're harder to kill than Rasputin. Harder even, dare I say, than Steven Seagal.

Thus, when the San Antonio Rasputins take the floor tonight against the Lakers in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals, the question is whether they have an encore performance left in them.

That's always the tricky question when we see a team rise up on its home court in Game 3 after getting pasted on the road in the first two games. Too often, what we're seeing is not a turning point in the series but a "dead cat bounce" from a team tapping one final reservoir of emotion in its cornered state before putting its season to bed with a defeat in Game 4. So far in the playoffs, we've seen that exact feat from Toronto, Orlando, Dallas, and Washington; one wonders if the Spurs are next.

That said, after three games, some trends have cropped up that must be alarming to Lakers supporters. Most notably, the Spurs have been able to gum up the Lakers' normally free-flowing offense in two of the three contests.

It all starts with defensive ace Bruce Bowen, who has guarded Kobe Bryant largely one-on-one and been effective. While Bryant is getting his points — he scored 30 in Game 3 — one factor stands out: He's not getting to the line at all. Bryant has only six free-throw attempts in the three games, after attempting nine a game during the regular season and a whopping 16 per contest in a second-round win over Utah.

Instead, the Spurs have made Bryant a jump shooter. Here's the scary part for L.A.: Bryant has made the shots so far, hitting 34 of 61 for a sizzling 62.5 True Shooting Percentage (the league average this season was 54.0). But if they start going awry, he has nothing to fall back on, because those easy points at the line are no longer coming his way.

And with Bowen eliminating the need for double-teams, the easy looks for his Lakers teammates haven't been as prevalent either. Derek Fisher, for instance, normally feasts on the easy jumpers that Bryant sets up for him; in this series he's 6-for-18 and hasn't made a single 3-pointer. Neither has fellow spot-up shooter Vladimir Radmanovic, while another favorite Bryant target, Sasha Vujacic, is 3-for-11 from downtown and 7-for-22 overall.

Meanwhile, the Spurs' leading scorer is revived. Manu Ginobili, who led the team despite coming off the bench, was a dud in the first two games but sizzled in Game 3. Hobbled by a balky ankle and undoubtedly affected by a torn fingernail, he was just 5-for-21 from the field, with six turnovers in the first two contests, and seemed unusually affected by Vujacic's overplaying defense.

That wasn't the case in Game 3, as he was taking transition pull-up 3s with confidence and had 22 points by halftime. He finished with 30, including 5 of 7 from behind the arc, and, of equal importance, he had only a single turnover. If he's feeling this spry for the rest of the series, L.A. may find a much tougher battle on its hands.

Thus, the question heading into Game 4 comes down to repeatability. Can Ginobili mirror his Game 3 effort, or will he revert to the careless passes and forced shots that characterized the first two games? Can Bryant shake loose from Bowen and get to the line, or will he continue to count on jump shots? If the latter, can Kobe continue to make such an amazing percentage of them, or will a spate of bricks doom his team to defeat?

Questions like those are the subtext for the biggest question of all: Can the Spurs rise from the dead one more time? The history of other playoff series says their odds aren't particularly strong, and if L.A. wins Game 4 in particular, this shindig could be over quicker than you can say "Radmanovic."

On the other hand, the Spurs' own recent history tells a different story. San Antonio has won 13 straight playoff games at home, most of them by lopsided scores, and will get Game 4 in the friendly confines of AT&T Center.

Of course, even Rasputin eventually died (thought not Seagal, as of yet), and one suspects these Spurs will have their last gasp at some point too — long playoff runs are rarely built on repeated comebacks from two-game deficits. Nonetheless, San Antonio's strong effort in a losing cause in the opener and even more impressive Game 3 showing are indicators that these conference finals may have a while to run before the Lakers' coronation.

jhollinger@nysun.com