Breaking it down - and barking back
By Sam Amick -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, April 27, 2006
Kings coach Rick Adelman said Tuesday's Game 2 loss in San Antonio ranked among the top five most painful in his 68-66 postseason record in 16 seasons. The Kings looked primed to pull an upset, but Brent Barry's bouncing three-pointer with 4.9 seconds left in regulation forced overtime and led to the Spurs' 128-119 win and 2-0 series lead. A day later, frustrated fans and skeptics still wondered why
Adelman didn't have his team foul on the Spurs' final possession of regulation following a timeout - or why his players didn't guard the perimeter well enough. Adelman explained himself and his team in great detail Wednesday.
"People are probably saying, 'Well, you've got to tell (the Kings) to stick with the three-point shooters.' Well I'll tell you, there's nothing else we said during that timeout but to stay with the three-point shooters, but people are human. ... You can draw it up, cover it, talk about it, and it takes mental discipline to go out and know the time and know the score and stay with it and allow it to happen. We didn't do that, and they took advantage of it.
"It's such an easy cop-out to say, 'Well, God, you should foul.' There's 14 seconds to go. I mean, how many times are we going to have to foul them in the 14 seconds? When do I foul them? Do I foul them when (Spurs point guard Tony) Parker gets it? Do I foul them when (Spurs guard Manu) Ginobili gets it? Just about the time we're about to foul them, do they shoot it and score? With 14 seconds to go, if we play that play right, they don't get a three, they get a two. But if I foul them right then with that much time left, they shoot two (free throws). They're not going to miss on purpose. And now they're going to foul us right off the bat, again. And again, we had a lot of guys out. I probably would've had to call a timeout to make sure our best shooters were shooting. ...
"But if they would've scored, (and) we would've made two free throws, now they're coming with no timeouts with about six seconds (left). That's a totally different story. I can understand that. I can't understand it with 14 seconds to go. That's just gobs of time.
"People should just look at the NBA and rebounding on a free throw. The only shot in basketball at any level that you can't block people out. You can't block the two people standing out beyond the three-point line. You can only stand next to him. The guy releases the ball, and everybody can get in there. And they let them jockey in and out. You can't put four guys in the paint. It's not any guarantee. People act like, 'Well, if you foul them, it's a guarantee you're going to get the rebound.' We've had a hard enough time keeping these guys (the Spurs) off the boards as it is. And the guys who rebound the ball are your worst free-throw shooters. I mean, there's a lot of other variables when you do that, and I think it makes a lot of sense when there's less time - five or six seconds - where maybe you can tip the ball out of there and run it down. With 14 seconds, I'm sorry. I wasn't going to do it."
On Jason Hart guarding Ginobili:
"(Hart) was up on him, but you need to be on his left hand. Don't let him go baseline. ... If he would've kept him going to the middle of the court, it's easier to stay with your guy. You don't get the back-picks normally, but when he got going baseline, I could see Barry, I could see (Spurs forward Tim) Duncan step up, and I could see myself dying at that point. ... They made a great play, and we made a stupid mistake. What else can you say?"
