Getting back up to speed
Healthy White has San Antonio again playing at breakneck pace
SAN ANTONIO — Now that their young backcourt is fully intact, the Spurs have been able to rekindle their fun-and-gun style from Orlando
With 38.7 seconds remaining in the Spurs’ 27th game of the season Sunday, Derrick White at last felt like himself again.
Charlotte’s Terry Rozier was barreling to the basket. White beat him to a spot in front of the rim and did what he does best. He simply stood there. White’s first drawn charge of the 2020-21 campaign felt good, and not just because he had missed being mauled by an opposing player.
“I was still getting mauled,” White said after the Spurs’ 122-110 victory over the Hornets. “I just wasn’t getting the call.”
White’s 30 charges taken last season were tied for second in the NBA behind Kyle Lowry.
It took him a while to get on the board this season in part because of a series of toe injuries that has limited him to eight games to start the season.
White also saw himself the victim of bad luck and tough whistles.
“Man, I’ve had like three blocks (foul calls) since I’ve been back,” White said. “I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe I will get on a roll right here.”
Maybe the Spurs will get on one too, if they are not already.
With White back in the fold, their young core intact, the Spurs are back to playing the fun-and-gun style that hallmarked their stay in the Orlando, Fla., bubble to close last season.
White had a season-best 25 points and four steals in Sunday’s victory, teaming with backcourt mate Dejounte Murray to eviscerate the Hornets.
Murray led the way with 26 points and 12 rebounds as the Spurs improved to 9-2 since the end of last season with both him and White in the starting lineup.
This is what the Spurs envisioned when they spent back-to-back picks on Murray and White in 2016 and 2017.
“It’s what we have been waiting for, but it seems like the past couple of years one of them is injured,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “I guess now is the time for them to play together. We are thrilled to have them out there.”
White’s fractured toe was the latest impediment to fielding the backcourt of the future.
He returned — hopefully for good — in a Jan. 30 loss to Memphis.
Though White has not been cleared to play in back-to-backs, he has been able to otherwise play without limitation.
White’s scoring outburst in Charlotte marked his highest point total since going for 26 against Sacramento to open the Orlando bubble in August.
Murray, for one, was not surprised by White’s best game of the season.
“He’s a hooper,” Murray said.
Afterward, Popovich singled out two crucial fourth-quarter White baskets — a 3-pointer that put the Spurs ahead by nine with 5:23 left, and a tough drive to push the edge back to eight with 47.8 seconds left.
“He made a lot of really wise plays that we are used to,” Popovich said. “He looked more frisky. Down the stretch, he made some great plays.”
With White back to doing Derrick White things, the Spurs are back to looking as they did in the Orlando bubble.
There has been another difference, as well. With LaMarcus Aldridge missing six consecutive games rehabbing a hip injury, Jakob Poeltl is back in the starting lineup.
Poeltl was the team’s starting center for the eight games in Orlando, as Aldridge remained home after shoulder surgery.
Back in the Spurs’ first five now, Poeltl again is bringing the energy he supplied often during the rebooted schedule last summer.
Over the past six games, Poeltl is averaging 10.2 points, 9.8 rebounds and a game-changing three blocks.
“Obviously we miss LA,” forward Rudy Gay said. “He’s a big part of this team and has been for as long as he’s been here. With him gone, people have stepped up. Jak has been great in his own way.”
Charlotte coach James Borrego noticed all of this on film before the Spurs arrived at the Spectrum Center on Sunday.
Borrego spent 10 years on Popovich’s bench in San Antonio in separate stints before leaving for the Hornets job in 2018.
In the Spurs, Borrego sees a team that has changed its spots since he was last in the locker room.
“They’re playing faster, with less structure,” Borrego said. “They move the ball, share the ball, just like they have before. It just looks a little different — less play calls, less structure, more read and react.”
Asked if he thinks his old boss is enjoying flying by the seat of his pants with the youngest roster of his Spurs career, Borrego chuckled.
“Depends on what day, I guess,” Borrego said.
Borrego says he admires how Popovich has adapted his coaching style since the Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili dissolved late last decade.
“When you have a veteran group, they are almost in cruise control,” Borrego said. “They are just going and playing ,and there is less teaching. They already know the script.
“This season has probably ignited his love for teaching and coaching again.”
With players like White throwing their bodies around, this team is easy for Popovich to love.
Lying on his back at the Spectrum Center in the fourth quarter Sunday, White waited for the whistle that would tell him he was officially back.
That first drawn charge of the season felt like a breath of fresh air. At least this time he had been mauled for a reason.
“I prefer to get the call,” White said.