Derozan’s return provides boost for Spurs’ offense.
Derozan ‘special’ in first game since his father’s death
To record his 31st and 32nd points Saturday night, Demar Derozan barely needed to break a sweat.
He was already well behind the New Orleans defense when Patty Mills shipped him the ball for the uncontested dunk that put the finishing stamp on the Spurs’ 117-114 victory.
Derozan didn’t have to run at top speed to make the play happen. He didn’t have to give it his best jump. When Derozan arrived at the rim, he dropped the ball through with the same force he might have later used to toss his game-worn jersey into the laundry hamper.
After the gut-wrenching week Derozan had endured, he deserved to close his first game since Feb. 14 with something so easy.
“No one will really be able to understand what he’s been through over the last period of time,” Mills said.
Before Saturday, Derozan had not played since a Valentine’s Day win in Charlotte.
Later that night, four Spurs players tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, prompting a five-night teamwide quarantine in Charlotte and the postponement of the club’s next four
games.
Near the end of the Spurs’ unexpected stay in North Carolina, Derozan received word his father, Frank, had died in Los Angeles after a lengthy illness.
Derozan flew to Southern California on Feb. 19 to be with his family and help attend to funeral arrangements.
“All I cared about was making you proud,” Derozan wrote to his father in an Instagram post last week, his only public comments about his family tragedy. “Over the past three years I seen you display the ultimate measure of a man fighting to the end. Wish I could tell you thank you one last time.”
Back on the AT&T Center court Saturday, having not played in a game nor participated in a full practice in nearly two weeks, Derozan did his best to do his father proud.
He finished with 32 points and 11 assists, propelling a short-handed Spurs team that still has five players in NBA health and safety protocols to a much-needed victory.
As much as the Spurs needed Derozan, perhaps he also needed the respite basketball provided.
“This is his happy place,” point guard Dejounte Murray said. “What he was going through, I can only imagine.”
Derozan was not available to reporters after Saturday’s game.
His teammates were impressed, but not surprised, by the grit and determination Derozan showed in playing with such a heavy heart.
“You just admire the guy for his abilities, his heart, his passion for the game,” Mills said. “He makes a lot of people important to him very proud and very happy. Just happy to be his teammate.”
From a basketball standpoint, the Spurs were glad to have their leading scorer and assist producer back in the lineup.
With Derozan among six players unavailable Wednesday, the Spurs struggled to score in a 102-99 loss at Oklahoma City.
Upon Derozan’s return Saturday, the Spurs’ offense regained its crispness.
It marked Derozan’s fifth game of at least 25 points and 10 assists since joining the Spurs in 2018. In club annals, only Tony Parker, Alvin Robertson and Johnny Dawkins have posted more.
Derozan also committed only one turnover in 36 minutes.
“To be gone that long and not show any rust and be able to have wind and play as much and as hard as he did, he was special,” coach Gregg Popovich said.
The Spurs need all the offensive help they can get tonight as they welcome the star-studded Brooklyn Nets to the AT&T Center.
Even with Kevin Durant missing the past nine games with a hamstring injury, the Nets — led by the prolific backcourt duo of Kyrie Irving and James Harden — average a league-leading 120.7 points per game.
The Spurs are again expected to be without the players in health and safety protocols — Derrick White, Keldon Johnson, Rudy Gay, Devin Vassell and Quinndary Weatherspoon.
It will be another patchwork night for Popovich.
“We’re just trying to find ways,” Mills said. “It’s obviously very different from how we’ve been playing, rotation and people on the floor. It’s all new. It’s almost like we are at the start of the season again, trying to figure it all out.”
At least the Spurs have their glue back.
The team’s basketball issues pale in comparison to the real-life wringer Derozan has been through over the past month.
In January, Derozan left a road trip early to fly to Los Angeles after his father’s health took a bad turn. He missed two games during that excused absence.
Derozan fought through the first two weeks of February, averaging 21.3 points and 7.9 assists.
Then came the Spurs’ coronavirus-caused 10-day shutdown, interrupted for Derozan only by a family crisis.
Murray said he texted with Derozan daily while he was gone.
“I talked to him the whole time he was gone, trying to let him know I’m here for him, the team is here for him,” Murray said.
Derozan returned to San Antonio in time to participate in Saturday morning’s shootaround.
By tipoff time against the Pelicans, he was back in his usual spot in the Spurs’ starting lineup.
Eighty-three seconds into the game, Derozan cruised into the paint for a floater to give the Spurs their first points.
It was his first NBA basket in 13 days.
“That’s just Demar being Demar,” Murray said. “Back in his happy place.”