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 Priorities in order Duncan rather still be playing than win MVP
Posted: Thursday June 03, 1999 09:26 PM
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Tim Duncan didn't win the MVP award many people thought he deserved. He didn't even finish second. He seemed hardly to care, though, as he and his San Antonio teammates prepared for Friday night's Game 3 against the Portland Trail Blazers in the Western Conference finals. After all, the two players who finished ahead of him in the MVP voting, Karl Malone and Alonzo Mourning, are finished for the season. Duncan and the Spurs are two victories away from the NBA Finals. That means a lot more than any MVP award, he said. "I'd rather be right here right now, I'll tell you that," Duncan said. "I'm very happy with the position that I'm in right now." Teammate Mario Elie said such an attitude is typical for the team-oriented Duncan, who in just two years has become the Spurs' go-to player. "I was kind of disappointed he was all the way down to third," Elie said. "I understand those other two guys had terrific years. But we had the best record in the league. We won all the big games we needed to win, and Tim was a big part of that. I guess a lot had to do with Tim being in his second year. "I realize Karl Malone has a thousand games under his belt, but I felt this year Tim was the best player in the league. Karl Malone is out fishing or driving his 18-wheeler across the country. Tim is still in the hunt." Duncan gives himself an average grade so far in the Western Conference finals, even though he's averaged 22 points and 11.5 rebounds per game and shooting 61.5 percent from the field as the Spurs took a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 series. "Average for him," teammate Sean Elliott said, "but above average for anybody else. He can probably play better, but you've got to give credit to Portland, too. That's their defensive scheme." San Antonio is 4-0 on the road in the playoffs, and the Spurs are one of three teams to beat the Blazers in Portland this season. "I don't know what it is," Duncan said. "In a hostile environment, we just get better." The youthful Blazers, meanwhile, feed off the noise of the Rose Garden. "We're a dangerous team at home," Jim Jackson said. While the Spurs are preaching teamwork, sacrifice and cohesiveness, the Blazers were weathering Damon Stoudamire's ill-timed outburst. The Portland point guard is unhappy about being benched in the fourth quarter in favor of Greg Anthony. Stoudamire lashed out at the situation after practice on Wednesday. "I'll get over it, but I'm never going to forget it," he said in a wide-ranging conversation that also included a jab at his persistent critics in Portland, where he grew up and was a high school star. Portland's Mike Dunleavy, who earned NBA coach of the year honors for dealing with such problems on a deep, talented and young team, downplayed the issue. "The comments don't bother me. The timing of it at this point maybe does a little bit," Dunleavy said Thursday. "But it's nothing that major. I don't think it's going to affect the way he plays tomorrow night. It's not going to affect the way I coach tomorrow night." The four-day layoff has not erased the pain of Elliott's tip-toe 3-pointer that beat Portland 86-85 Monday night in Game 2, a game the Blazers led by as many as 18 points. "To wait this long, it eats at you," Jackson said, "but you know you have a chance for it to set in and hurt, because you know you gave a game away, or maybe two away, and you've got to have a time period where you sit there and think about it, about the little things you did wrong." The series has shown a marked contrast between the high emotion of the fragile Blazers and the even, uncomplaining keel of the Spurs. "We're an older group," Elliott said. "We've been through situations in our careers where maybe we were unhappy with our playing time or we were unhappy with the number of shots we got. But we're beyond that now. Guys here aren't trying to star in commercials. We're trying to win. We don't have a lot of time left on these legs, so we're trying to get it done now." Elie, who played on two championship teams in Houston, senses that special something on this team, too. "We're a confident group. We've got a lot of trust in each other," he said. "That's what I like. A guy can miss all day but if he's open, you get him the ball. That's what this team has been about all year, trusting each other, sharing the ball. We've got a bond right now that's hard to explain. We feel good about each other."
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