FAMILIAR FOE STANDS IN WAY
On the Spurs: Popovich-led teams have haunted the Rockets’ coach in playoffs since his days in Phoenix
SAN ANTONIO — Surely he has wondered. He wouldn’t be human otherwise.
Over the past 10 years there have been more than 3,600 nights, and at least a couple of them are bound to have been a bit restless. Even if Mike D’Antoni never divulges the details of the questions that keep him staring at the ceiling, the rest of us probably can guess.
How different would his life be if there never had been any such thing as the San Antonio Spurs, any such thing as Gregg Popovich, any such thing as, especially, that blasted Robert Horry?
Would he have one championship or two? Would people finally recognize him as a genius instead of as a gimmick? Would he have avoided those four miserable years in New York, as well as the ensuing nightmare in Los Angeles?
Will the Spurs haunt him forever?
Perhaps no man in the NBA has been more tormented by the Popovich era than D’Antoni has, and that adds an extra layer of intrigue to a Western Conference semifinals matchup already wrapped in plenty of them.
Playoff losses mount
Kawhi Leonard versus James Harden is the showdown this old rivalry has been awaiting since David Robinson versus Hakeem Olajuwon. But the guy in charge of the Rockets now has his own history with the Spurs, and it has been unfolding for the past dozen years.
Six times D’Antoni has coached a team in the NBA playoffs. Four of those trips ended with a loss to Popovich.
Once his Suns entered the postseason with the best record in the league. Two years later, they were the highest seed remaining in the playoffs. Had they beaten San Antonio either time, they would have been the overwhelming title favorites.
Instead, the Spurs lofted the Larry O’Brien trophy both years.
Sometimes it just wasn’t meant to be, like when Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker overpowered D’Antoni’s first great Suns team in the 2005 Western Conference finals. Most of those games were close, but the Spurs prevailed in five.
In 2007, though, everything aligned. The top-seeded Mavericks lost in the first round of the playoffs, and LeBron James was not quite ready to win anything more than the Eastern Conference. For all intents and purposes, the Spurs and Suns were playing for a ring.
The last minute of Game 4 at the AT&T Center altered not only the series, but also perhaps multiple careers. Steve Nash was at his brilliant best, and with 20 seconds left it was clear the teams would return to Phoenix tied at two games apiece.
But Horry wasn’t ready to concede anything, and this was the moment D’Antoni probably never will get over. Horry hipchecked Nash into the scorer’s table, which would have been fine if it didn’t provoke Amare’ Stoudemire and Boris Diaw into leaving the Suns’ bench.
Horry, Stoudemire and Diaw all were suspended for Game 5, which suited the Spurs just fine but left D’Antoni aghast at the injustice.
“Here in Arizona, we do have the most powerful microscopes and telescopes in the world,” he said that week. “You could use those instruments and not find a shred of fairness or common sense in that decision.”
D’Antoni never found much fairness after that. The Suns won 55 games the next year, but he was fired after a first-round playoff exit. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Suns finally beat the Spurs in a playoff series with Alvin Gentry as coach in 2010. Vindication
Meanwhile, D’Antoni’s “seven seconds or less” influence transformed the league. The small-ball roots that had been planted in Phoenix sprouted the system the Warriors used to win a championship in 2015.
Golden State coach Steve Kerr confirmed as much, saying D’Antoni “changed the way a lot of people in the NBA think.” And last fall, in a story on the NBA’s website, D’Antoni said he felt vindicated when the Warriors broke through by pushing the tempo and raining 3-pointers.
“Yes, you can win that way,” D’Antoni said. “I wish we had done it, but we didn’t. And they did. More power to them.”
Now 65, D’Antoni still has some power left. His Rockets run and shoot much like the teams he brought to the AT&T Center a decade ago. He’s upbeat and optimistic, and there’s only one thing that can make him miserable.
The same team that always has. mfinger@express-news.net twitter.com/mikefinger