Gay aims to return for two-game road swing.
Injured Spurs forward Rudy Gay knows he missed an opportunity to put up some big numbers in last week’s 154-147 double-overtime win over the Thunder.
“I saw 25 points I could have had,” he said.
But Gay, who missed his fifth game in a row with a sprained left wrist Monday, might soon be in a position to help the Spurs again with his textbook jumper and explosive dunks.
Gay said he will be on the twogame road trip this week to Dallas and Minnesota and is hopeful he can return to action against the Mavericks on Wednesday night. “We’ll see how it goes,” he said. To aid the healing process, Gay received a cortisone injection over the weekend.
“I just have to let it calm down now, but (the wrist is) getting better and better,” said Gay, who is third on the team in scoring with a 13.6 points-per-game average and second in rebounding with 6.6.
Gay put up plenty of shots at shootaround Monday morning. He said he has been helped by wearing a “nice little brace” on the wrist.
“That stops me from doing more than I have to,” Gay said. “It’s basically just getting used to that.”
The Spurs also played Monday without sharpshooting reserve guard Marco Belinelli, who missed the game after hurting his left knee in Saturday’s 122-112 loss at Oklahoma City.
“He hyperextended it, and it didn’t feel good in shootaround this morning, so he’s going to sit,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.
Belinelli scored a season-high 24 points Saturday. During his past three games, he’s averaging 19.0 points while shooting 70.6 percent from 3-point range (12 of 17). He’s averaging 10.5 points for the season while shooting 38.6 percent from distance. Working his way up: Spurs assistant-turned-Charlotte coach James Borrego reflected on his humble beginnings in the NBA as an assistant video director for the Spurs in 2003.
“I never wanted to let the group down, especially Pop,” Borrego said. “When he was about to make a point to the team, I wanted him to make his point at the right time, with the right clips, and in an efficient way. If he lost that moment, he wasn’t able to hit the team the way he wanted to. I didn’t want to let him down in that moment. I took pride in making sure things went according to plan.”
Popovich remembered Borrego being “totally committed to doing anything we asked him to do.”
“I think he held that position for six years, before being promoted to assistant,” Popovich said. “He very quickly made it clear to us that he knew the ins and outs of everything we needed.”
And he compiled it in a very efficient manner, Popovich said.
“There is so much film, so you have to be pretty specific in cutting it up because players fall asleep,” Popovich said. “They are not going to pay attention after a while. They want it now, tell me what the deal is and I’m out of here. He was perfect in getting me what I needed to teach. He was basically like the teacher in the film room who gave me something I could teach the players with.”
All those hours in the video room helped Borrego learned the art of preparation from Popovich.
That’s basically why I’m standing here today as a head coach,” he said.
But there’s at least one thing Borrego has going for him that he didn’t learn from Popovich.
“His demeanor is beyond reproach,” Popovich said. “He didn’t learn that demeanor from me.”