WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2010

KLMNO

PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL

Mason and Bogans find their way to San Antonio, and the 2nd round

spurs from D1

because we were rivals growing up. My mom was shocked, his mom, too. She said something to me because we were always rivals, but to be on the same team, it’s been kind of fun, kind of cool. I was happy to have a hometown guy on the team. We share stories on growing up, DeMatha-Good Counsel rivalry. Go-Go music. Stuff from back home.” Mason and Bogans are the last

two players remaining in the league from a heralded high school class of hoop stars from the District in 1999. That class produced five NBA players, in- cluding three first-round picks in DerMarr Johnson, Rodney White and Forte. Johnson spent his sen- ior year at Maine Central In- stitute, but the other four were first team All-Met that season, with Forte earning player of the year honors. Johnson, Forte and Bogans were all McDonald’s all- Americans. “We the last two standing,” said Bogans, who has averaged 7.1 points in seven NBA seasons with Orlando, Charlotte, Houston,Mil- waukee and San Antonio. “My man thing was to keep working, don’t ever get comfortable. It’s al- ways somebody trying to take your job. That’s how I look at it. I’m always working. I tell Rog, he tells me the same thing. It paid off this far.” Mason and Bogans routinely

talk trash to one another about their high school days, when their schools squared off two times a year. But they cannot agree on how those games ended. “He seems to think that he got the up- per hand on us and I seem to think that we got the upper hand on them. The record books will have to settle it. I told him that. He doesn’t remember when I hit the game-winning free throws at DeMatha to beat them. He don’t remember that, but I do.” Bogans was seated nearby and shook his head when asked if he recalled that loss. “I know we used to win most of the time. I’m sup- posed to look it up to see what really happened, because Rog ain’t going to tell the truth.” Mason remembers having to

gauge himself against Bogans, who was always among the top- ranked players in the country. “He was the number one player in the country, freshman year, sopho- more year, junior year, so ranking wise, he was always ahead of me, him and DerMarr Johnson. I scored 30 against [DeMatha] my sophomore year and it helped me get notoriety.”

PLAYOFF SCHEDULE AND BOX SCORES

Conference Semifinals

(Best-of-Seven)

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Cleveland and Boston tied, 1-1

Game 1: at Cleveland 101, Boston 93 Game 2: Boston 104, at Cleveland 86 Friday: Cleveland at Boston, 7 Sunday: Cleveland at Boston, 3:30 Tuesday: Boston at Cleveland, TBD x-Thursday, May 13: Cleveland at Boston, TBD x-Sunday, May 16: Boston at Cleveland, 3:30

Orlando leads Atlanta, 1-0

Tuesday: at Orlando 114, Atlanta 71 Thursday: Atlanta at Orlando, 8 Saturday: Orlando at Atlanta, TBD Monday: Orlando at Atlanta, TBD x-Wednesday, May 12: Atlanta at Orlando, TBD x-Friday, May 14: Orlando at Atlanta, TBD x-Sunday, May 16: Atlanta at Orlando, TBD

MAGIC 114, HAWKS 71

Orlando showed it could survive with Dwight Howard in chronic foul trouble. With him on the floor, they looked dominant. Howard had 21 points and 12 re- bounds in one of the most crushing wins in Magic history, a 43-point vic- tory against Atlanta in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal. Howard added five blocks and

avoided the fouls and frustration that overwhelmed him in the first round, helping the Magic go ahead by as many as 46 points. Vince Car- ter finished with 20 as Orlando showed no signs of rust after an eight-day layoff. Josh Smith scored 14 points and

Zaza Pachulia 12 for the Hawks.

SCORING

Atlanta Orlando

23101127 — 71 25 28 32 29 — 114

Atlanta Min FG FT O-T A PF Pts.

MWilliams 34:39 4-10 0-0 0-4 1 2 8 JosSmith 23:29 7-14 0-1 0-3 0 4 14 Horford 22:28 1-7 2-2 2-6 1 1 4 Bibby 19:26 1-5 0-0 0-1 3 3 2 JJohnson 29:53 4-11 2-4 3-7 3 0 10 Collins 4:30 1-2 0-0 1-1 0 3 2 Crawford 34:15 1-11 3-3 0-2 1 3 5 Evans 21:39 2-5 0-0 0-1 1 2 4 J Smith

4:58 0-0 0-0 0-1 0 0 0

Pachulia 21:02 3-6 6-8 4-7 1 5 12 Teague 17:31 3-9 0-0 0-2 1 0 8 West 6:10 1-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 2

Totals 240 28-81 13-18 10-35 12 24 71

Percentages: FG .346, FT .722. 3-Point Goals: 2-13, .154 (Teague 2-4, Evans 0-1, Bibby 0-2, Craw- ford 0-2, J.Johnson 0-4). Team Rebounds: 9. Team Turnovers: 16 (26 PTS). Blocked Shots: 4 (Horford 2, Pachulia, Jos.Smith). Turnovers: 15 (J.Johnson 5, Crawford 3, Teague 2, Bibby, Collins, Evans, Pa- chulia, Jos.Smith). Steals: 9 (Jos.Smith 3, Bibby 2, Teague 2, Evans, Pachulia). Technical Fouls: None.

TIM SHARP/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Dallas’s Jason Terry bisects Spurs’ Roger Mason Jr., left, and Keith Bogans during the teams’ first-round matchup. San Antonio became the first No. 7 seed to win a seven-game first-round playoff series.

Although Bogans has always found a home in the NBA since he was selected 43rd overall in 2003, Mason has bounced around since his initial run in the league, hav- ing to scrap back after playing in Greece and Israel for two seasons, before latching onto the Wizards in 2006.

Both players will be free agents this summer and have been used sparingly this postseason. Mason had a terrific start with San Anto- nio, averaging 11.8 points and 42.1 percent shooting from three- point range last season, but he fell out of favor after a disappointing showing in a first-round loss against Dallas. He has been lim- ited to spot duty, with the Spurs adding Richard Jefferson last off- season and George Hill emerging as a starter in his second season. “It hasn’t been a free agent’s dream year, but at the same time,

About this series

Even though the Wizards missed the NBA playoffs, the Washington area is still heavily represented in the postseason. Michael Lee and Michael Wilbon are taking a look at players and coaches competing in the playoffs who are either native Washingtonians or who spent significant time playing in the metropolitan area.

it’s a different situation,” Mason said. “We have a very, very tal- ented team. A team that’s built for a championship. To be part of that has been fun. Obviously, I would’ve liked for my role to be more the way it was last year, but it just wasn’t that way. Wherever the chips fall, I know that eight or

MICHAEL WILBON

It took longer than usual, but Spurs are sharp at the perfect time

wilbon from D1

warn his players, most of whom have never faced the Spurs in a playoff series, not to think for a second they had accomplished anything by winning Game 1. “Just when you get

comfortable, they’ll run right back at you,” Gentry told his team. “They have the most competitive guy on the planet in Ginóbili, and I’m talking basketball, tennis, badminton, curling, any sport. They’ve got the smartest guy on the court in Tim. And if Pop isn’t the best coach in the league then he’s in the top two [after the Lakers’ Phil Jackson]. . . . They’re fundamentally sound. They not only don’t beat themselves, they never give you anything, ever.” While most basketball folks had the Mavericks beating the Spurs, the Suns knew better, particularly Gentry and Steve Nash, whose teams are 0-3 against the Spurs in recent postseasons, and Grant Hill, who played in the last playoff loss to San Antonio and has been around long enough to know the Spurs. Hardly anybody in the Suns locker room thought Dallas would beat San Antonio. So, they’re back whether the casual fan wants the Spurs or not. They’re back, low TV ratings, low-wattage personalities and all. Though Popovich said recently he was certainly trying to get his team out of the No. 8 spot to avoid the Lakers, the reality is everybody in the West had a wary eye on San Antonio. “How do they fly under the

radar?” Grant Hill asked rhetorically. “People in the business of basketball respect them. But the Spurs simply aren’t into all the antics. They’re all business. They want it that way. Most folks think the only thing sexy about the Spurs is Eva Longoria.”

MATT YORK/ASSOCIATED PRESS

With talent, experience and four titles, players know Tim Duncan and the Spurs are trouble.

Once again, the Spurs are built around the steady fundamental dominance of Duncan, who might be working his way toward being a top 15 player in NBA history, the all-court reckless brilliance of Ginóbili, and the blurring quickness of Longoria’s husband, Tony Parker. And then there’s the usual stable of utterly professional role players. Richard Jefferson took longer than he or anybody thought he would to fit into the Spurs way but he finally did once (in early March) Pop reminded him he could affect games by crashing the boards and taking the ball to the basket. George Hill, who stayed in the starting lineup at point guard even with Parker healthy again, brings a needed youthful athleticism at both ends. Matt Bonner and Roger Mason Jr. come off the bench to spread the floor and shoot. DeJuan Blair, the rookie nobody was smart enough to draft except the Spurs, finds loose balls and putbacks and spells Duncan. And Antonio McDyess, a former Sun, does

whatever is asked on a given evening, usually defending other people’s stars, like Amare Stoudemire, and hitting the open 13-foot jumper. There are no drama queens, nobody dying his hair or carving slogans in it. Nobody is in the news because he was at the club late or missed practice or said something controversial about the coach. The Spurs run pretty much the same basic stuff they did when Duncan was young, playing alongside David Robinson, Sean Elliott and Avery Johnson. And they still run it to perfection. Relentlessly. They never break the game plan, never panic no matter what the early returns in a game might look like. Of course, that’s not where the Spurs were the first four months of the season, which began to worry even Popovich. “It took us a month, maybe a month-and-a- half longer than usual,” he said recently. “We always assume it’s coming because we see the process. But this time we weren’t seeing it. We saw guys not trusting each other, being disappointed in each other. The returning players weren’t grabbing the new players and showing them how it’s done.” Pop, who despises any kind of credit, did re-emphasize roles relatively late in the season, like telling Jefferson to hit the boards and go to the basket and forget about the jump shooting. And perhaps most important, Ginóbili got healthy. . . . Yes, he just got better. He decided to do almost nothing all summer, just bail on basketball altogether since he plays year-round most of the time (for Argentina and the Spurs). It’s as if he just started to get into midseason form in March. “The new guys were looking at him wondering, ‘This is Manu?’ ” So what else happened? “They

worked and listened to what we wanted done,” Pop said. Nothing magical, just working at it, practicing, accepting coaching, being better on Thursday than on Tuesday. Boring stuff. Spurs stuff. Now, they have four players (Duncan, Ginóbili, Parker and George Hill) rolling. They lost Game 1 in the Dallas series, too, and look how that turned out. Of course, nobody is more wary of the Spurs than Phoenix. Gentry pointed out before Game 1, “Hell, they’ve got four rings; they must have beaten somebody other than us.” Yes, but the losses Phoenix has

suffered to San Antonio have been crushing, even franchise changing, especially the 2007 six-game series in which Stoudemire and Boris Diaw were suspended for leaving the bench when they saw then-Spur Robert Horry bounce Steve Nash off the scorer’s table. The Suns actually won that Game 4 in San Antonio and were coming home for Game 5 and 7 with the series tied, 2-2. The winner, we all knew, was going to claim the NBA championship. The Suns lost Game 5 in Phoenix without Stoudemire and Diaw, then Game 6 in San Antonio and never fully recovered.

So here the Suns are, knowing

they need a 2-0 lead in this series to gain any kind of early control of the action. “We know,” Grant Hill said, “we’re playing a four-time champion, a team with pedigree, a team with three guys [Duncan, Ginóbili, Parker] who’ve seen it all. Nothing fazes them.” The Spurs are certainly on everybody’s radar now, including the favored Lakers and Cavaliers. They’ve pulled even, maybe even slightly ahead of the pack, and the Spurs know better than anybody in basketball how to run the race from here.

wilbonm@washpost.com

Think of it as GPS to financial success.

nine months ago, I was one of the go-to-guys on the team. And as free agency comes up, I’m hopeful that I’ll have some good opportu- nities.”

Bogans is used as a defensive specialist and has been asked to guard the likes of Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Richardson this post- season. “It’s a great experience for me. I’ve been in a few different places, but here, everything is done first class. You got a lot of veteran guys who have been around, like Timmy [Duncan], Manu [Ginóbili] and Tony [Par- ker]. They just do a great job of teaching new guys when they come in here.” It also didn’t hurt to have a fa- miliar face around. “It’s a lot of fun, especially to be on the same team as someone you knew since you was a kid,” Bogans said.

leem@washpost.com

Orlando Min FG FT O-T A PF Pts.

Barnes 24:00 0-2 4-4 1-7 0 2 4 Lewis 28:54 4-9 0-0 2-7 1 0 9 Howard 28:48 8-10 5-10 3-12 2 3 21 Nelson 25:26 8-12 0-0 0-1 5 1 19 Carter 27:48 7-16 5-5 0-6 3 1 20 Redick 20:12 4-9 0-2 1-2 2 2 10 JWilliams 17:49 1-5 0-0 0-1 3 0 2 Anderson 12:56 2-4 0-0 1-6 0 3 4 Pietrus 24:00 3-6 0-0 1-2 3 2 8 Gortat 19:12 4-6 1-1 3-6 2 3 9 Bass 6:10 2-3 2-2 2-3 0 0 6 AJohnson 4:45 1-2 0-0 0-0 2 0 2

Totals 240 44-84 17-24 14-53 23 17 114

Percentages: FG .524, FT .708. 3-Point Goals: 9-23, .391 (Nelson 3-5, Pietrus 2-3, Redick 2-5, Carter 1-2, Lewis 1-4, Barnes 0-1, A.Johnson 0-1, J.Wil-

liams 0-2). Team Rebounds: 8. Team Turnovers: 13

(20 PTS). Blocked Shots: 7 (Howard 5, Anderson 2). Turnovers: 13 (Nelson 3, Howard 2, Lewis 2, Pietrus 2, J.Williams 2, Carter, Redick). Steals: 6 (Redick 2, Barnes, Lewis, Pietrus, J.Williams).

Technical Fouls: None.

A: 17,461 (17,461). T: 2:20.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Phoenix leads San Antonio, 1-0

Game 1: at Phoenix 111, San Antonio 102 Wednesday: San Antonio at Phoenix, 9 Friday: Phoenix at San Antonio, 9:30 Sunday: Phoenix at San Antonio, 8 x-Tuesday, May 11: San Anton. at Phoenix, TBD x-Thursday, May 13: Phx. at San Antonio, TBD x-Sunday, May 16: San Antonio at Phoenix, TBD

L.A. Lakers lead Utah, 1-0

Game 1: at L.A. Lakers 104, Utah 99 Tuesday: Utah at L.A. Lakers, Late Saturday: L.A. Lakers at Utah, 8 Monday: L.A. Lakers at Utah, 10:30 x-Wednesday, May 12: Utah at L.A. Lakers, TBD x-Friday, May 14: L.A. Lakers at Utah, TBD x-Monday, May 17: Utah at L.A. Lakers, 9

(x-if necessary)

Late Monday

SUNS 111, SPURS 102

There would be no Game 1 heart-

break for Phoenix against San Anto- nio. Not this time. After resting his sore hip for three days, Steve Nash had 33 points and 10 assists, and the Suns fought off third- and fourth-quarter rallies to beat the Spurs in the opener of their Western Conference semifinal se- ries.

Jason Richardson scored 27 and

Amare Stoudemire had 23 points and 13 rebounds for the Suns. Manu Ginobili, tape across his

broken nose, scored 27 points, Tony Parker 26 and Tim Duncan 20 for the Spurs, who had won three straight Game 1s against the Suns, two of them in Phoenix. Both of those times, in 2005 and 2007, the Spurs went on to win the NBA title.

SCORING

San Antonio Phoenix

22 25 28 27 — 102 31 26 28 26 — 111

San Antonio Min FG FT O-T A PF Pts.

Jefferson 32:31 1-3 3-5 0-3 3 0 5 Duncan 37:10 8-15 4-9 4-11 4 3 20 McDyess 18:57 3-7 0-0 1-7 1 2 6 GeHill 32:49 2-9 5-6 0-2 1 4 9 Ginobili 38:20 9-20 6-7 2-5 5 5 27 Parker 35:42 11-21 4-4 0-2 3 2 26 Bonner 13:28 1-2 0-0 1-3 0 0 2 Mason 11:44 0-2 0-0 0-2 0 3 0 Blair 10:48 1-1 0-0 1-2 0 3 2 Temple 0:07 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Bogans 8:24 2-3 0-0 0-1 1 3 5

Totals 240 38-83 22-31 9-38 18 25 102

Percentages: FG .458, FT .710. 3-Point Goals: 4-19, .211 (Ginobili 3-9, Bogans 1-2, Bonner 0-1, Ma- son 0-2, Ge.Hill 0-5). Team Rebounds: 10. Team Turnovers: 12 (16 PTS). Blocked Shots: 5 (Duncan 3, Blair, Jefferson). Turnovers: 11 (Duncan 3, Gino- bili 3, Bonner, Ge.Hill, Jefferson, McDyess, Par- ker). Steals: 8 (Ginobili 4, Blair, Duncan, Ge.Hill,

Jefferson). Technical Fouls: None.

Phoenix Min FG FT O-T A PF Pts.

GrHill 32:15 2-7 3-4 1-6 4 2 7 Stoudemire 39:41

9-17 5-5 4-13 0 5 23

Collins 8:50 0-1 0-0 1-1 0 1 0 Nash 36:49 13-19 5-6 0-3 10 3 33 Richardson 35:24 10-16 4-6 0-6 0 3 27 Frye 28:49 2-6 0-0 0-5 2 4 6 Dudley 21:16 1-3 1-2 1-5 0 3 3 Barbosa 13:42 1-2 3-4 0-1 0 1 5 Amundson 12:03 1-1 1-2 0-4 0 2 3 Dragic 11:11 2-7 0-0 0-0 0 2 4

Totals 240 41-79 22-29 7-44 16 26 111

Percentages: FG .519, FT .759. 3-Point Goals: 7-20, .350 (Richardson 3-6, Frye 2-4, Nash 2-4, Dudley 0-1, Gr.Hill 0-1, Stoudemire 0-1, Dragic 0-3).

Team Rebounds: 7. Team Turnovers: 16 (18 PTS).

Blocked Shots: 2 (Frye 2). Turnovers: 16 (Nash 6, Richardson 3, Stoudemire 3, Dragic 2, Collins, Gr.Hill). Steals: 4 (Amundson 2, Gr.Hill, Rich- ardson). Technical Fouls: Defensive three second, 10:34 fourth.

A: 18,422 (18,422). T: 2:41.

S

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