Spurs’ Parker out for season
One of the top priorities for San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich in the final weeks of the NBA regular season was making sure veteran point guard Tony Parker was healthy and in rhythm for the postseason push.
More than seeding or home-court advantage, Popovich said, the Spurs would need Parker in order to stay competitive against the other heavyweights in the Western Conference playoffs.
Now that Parker will miss the rest of the season with a leg injury, the Spurs will be tested like they rarely have been before.
On Thursday, the team announced that Parker has a ruptured quadriceps tendon in his left leg. The injury likely will require surgery to repair, meaning the Spurs will have to go through the rest of the postseason without their floor leader. The injury came as San Antonio is locked in a second-round battle with the Rockets.
That series is tied 1-1, with Game 3 tonight in Houston.
“If we don’t have him, it’s going to be a lot tougher to hang with teams like Houston and Golden State, the Clippers, that kind of thing,” Popovich told The Associated Press before the regular season ended.
While Parker, 34, is not the dynamic playmaker he was in his younger days, he has still been hugely important to what the team does. After the Spurs were blown out in Game 1, Parker helped them even the series by scoring 18 points in 25 minutes before the injury ended his night.
He appeared to land awkwardly while taking a shot with 8:34 to play Wednesday, crumpling to the court and needing teammates to be carry him off the floor. That cast a pall over San Antonio’s victory, with Popovich saying after the game that it didn’t look good, and the Spurs’ fears were confirmed after an MRI on Thursday. The team said there is no timetable yet for his recovery.
With Parker out, backup Patty Mills could move into a starting role, and the Spurs will also likely will give Kawhi Leonard more ball-handling responsibility. Dejounte Murray, a rookie, is another candidate for more minutes.
Perhaps most disappointing for Parker and the Spurs is that, two weeks before his 35th birthday, he seemed to have found another gear in the playoffs after an underwhelming regular season. His 10.1 points-pergame average in the regular season was his lowest since his rookie year in 2001-02, but he averaged 15.9 points on 53 percent shooting in eight playoff games, including a vintage 27-point night in Game 6 against Memphis to clinch the first-round series.