San Antonio Express-News
The Spurs finished off their 13th set of back-to-back games Sunday night against the Houston Rockets.
They have only three left this season, which means they are in very good shape for the stretch run as they try to earn the top seed in the Western Conference, and maybe even home court advantage throughout the playoffs.
By now, everyone who pays even scant attention to the NBA knows more than half the Spurs' losses have come in the second game of back-to-back sets, though the reason for this is less evident.
Blame the aging process. Adding 35-year-old Nick Van Exel, 33-year-old Michael Finley and a 30-year-old rookie, Fabricio Oberto made the Spurs one of the league's older teams this year, plus Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili have battled injuries and need regular rest.
Whatever the cause, the Spurs' 4-8 mark in the second game of back-to-backs heading into Saturday's contest was much worse than last season's mark in second games, 10-9.
The Spurs haven't complained about their schedule being unfair. They have only 16 sets of back-to-backs, three fewer than last season. The Orlando Magic have more than any team, 21.
This isn't random schedule inequity. Because the TNT network made Thursday a night of TNT exclusivity — the only games played on Thursdays are the two the cable network airs — bad teams like the Magic and Hawks that rarely get scheduled on TNT have the bulk of their games crammed into a six-day week.
"Popular" teams, like the Spurs and Lakers, often have seven-day "work weeks."
In truth, it's the fans, not the teams, who ought to be angry about back-to-back games. That's because the product clearly suffers when one team, or both, is playing with any degree of fatigue.
Those who know the game best always can tell.
"You see the difference," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "You just can't bring the juice for 48 minutes. It shows in the discipline on the court and the execution on the court. If it was possible to change the entire schedule for everybody to have fewer of those, the quality would improve, without a doubt."
It might be possible if the league would consider adding one or two weeks to the regular season, and Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy suggests it wouldn't be the least bit difficult.
"It depends on what you want to do," Van Gundy said. "If that's your focus, you can do it. If you cut two weeks out of the preseason, those two weeks would cut down dramatically the number of back-to-backs you have.
"Everybody's ready to play after two weeks (of training camp and exhibition games) anyway. I think it would be good."
The fiscal health of the league doesn't hinge on the few exhibition games that would be eliminated. Van Gundy's idea seems worthy of consideration.
Van Gundy also suggests something he called "The Ironman Challenge." This would lump all the back-to-back games into a one-week stretch, with all teams playing seven nights in a row. Then, he said, there would be many more dates for the remaining 75 games.
Go ahead and presume Van Gundy was just trying to make a point with that wacky suggestion.
Van Gundy was deadly serious when he recommended that no team ever be scheduled to play the second game of a back-to-back set on its home court. The hometown fans, he said, always deserve to see a team's best effort.
He recommends making certain no team is completing a back-to-back set in a national TV game, too.
This, of course, isn't possible, but Van Gundy's point about serving the fans deserves more than a raised eyebrow in the league office.
Popovich has another suggestion that has significant merit, and could probably be accomplished by application of another parameter in the computer formula the league uses to help formulate the schedule each season.
The Spurs coach believes no team should be required to play the second game of a back-to-back set in a time zone east of its previous night's game.
That would eliminate situations like the Spurs faced a couple of weeks ago, when they arrived back in San Antonio after 3 a.m. after a late start in Phoenix the night before. They tipped off against the Lakers roughly 16 hours after landing at the airport.
The good news for the Spurs in the final month of this season: Their three remaining back-to-back sets are relatively easy.
Their next one involves a relatively short plane trip, from Portland to Seattle. The April 4-5 back-to-back gives them an extra hour on the trip from Salt Lake City to Sacramento. Same thing applies for their final back-to-back going from Minnesota to Salt Lake City, with an early start for the first of those games.
Of course, the Spurs lost to the Clippers at Staples Center one night after defeating the Lakers there. There was no plane trip in between those two.
