Ginobili Headed Back to Starting Lineup

CLEVELAND -- How to adjust to life without your standout point guard?

Put the standout sixth man into the starting lineup.

That appears to be the choice of the San Antonio Spurs, who from all indications were leaning toward replacing Tony Parker with Manu Ginobili in the starting lineup starting (no pun intended) with Monday night's game against the Cavs.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich did not say Ginobili would start -- mainly because he wasn't asked -- but Ginobili talked as if he will.

"I'm afraid I might shoot at the wrong rim," he said with a smile. "I'm not used to that. I'm used to seeing guys from the bench."

Then he mentioned he's started one game this season. That came in Dallas. He played seven minutes before straining a groin muscle.

"It wasn't a happy one," he said.

The last time Ginobili was in Cleveland wasn't real happy either.

That was April 5, 2009, and Ginobili started that game too. During a 20-point loss, he suffered a stress fracture in his foot. That injury sidelined him for the rest of the season and the playoffs, essentially ending San Antonio's playoff hopes. Now he's starting because of another injury that might affect their playoff hopes. Parker will be out six weeks after breaking a bone in his hand in a game in Memphis on Friday.

Ginobili did not even try to minimize the impact of the injury.

"Huge," Ginobili said. "TP is a big part of what we do."

"No one wants to lose their point guard," Popovich said. "It's a good impact."

But ...

"Nobody cares about us," Popovich said. "We still have to win or lose -- whether Tony is there or not. We have to make sure that's irrelevant to us and just go play."

Making Parker irrelevant is a tall task. Though he's averaging a career-low 16.6 points and 5.7 assists, and though he'd missed 10 games earlier this season, he is a vital part of the Spurs offense.

Too, San Antonio had recently settled on a starting five that included Parker, George Hill, Tim Duncan, Keith Bogans and Antonio McDyess. The Spurs had won four in a row and five of six with that lineup and with Ginobili and Richard Jefferson coming off the bench.

Now Ginobili slides into the shooting guard role, where the Spurs can take immediate advantage of his offense. Hill probably moves to the point guard.

The shuffling does not come at an ideal time. These are the days when an NBA team most wants to be healthy, and April is the time a team wants to be rested and healthy -- and playing well and together as the playoffs approach. Parker probably will not be able to return until the playoffs have started.

"He's going to have an adjustment when he comes back," Popovich said. "All players need to get their rhythm back. It doesn't happen instantaneously because you step on the court. The quicker we can get him back the better obviously, but I don't expect him to be Tony Parker the day he comes back. That'd be difficult."

The Cavs are a team Parker might have liked to face. He was the MVP when the Spurs won the NBA title by sweeping the Cavs in 2007, and he has consistently taken advantage of Mo Williams' defense.

"Someday he'll come back," Popovich said. "In the meantime we'll figure it out by committee."

"It's tough to face the last 15 or 20 games without him," Ginobili said. "But nobody cares but us. We have to stay together, play better, harder and smarter."

If there is a Spurs mantra, it's what Ginobili said: Nobody cares about Parker's injury except the Spurs. But even without Parker the Spurs might be able to win their fifth in a row because they may face a Cavs team that will be resting LeBron James for the second game in a row. Factor in that the Cavs do not have a true center with Shaquille O'Neal out and Zydrunas Ilgauskas waiting to re-join the team that traded him and the Spurs might be able to use a guy named Duncan effectively.

"When somebody gets hurt like that we always look at it philosophically, where the basketball gods giveth and they taketh away," Popovich said. "When somebody like Manu goes down last year in the layoffs or Tony goes down now, I think about the way the ping pong ball bounced and we got Timmy. Which would you rather have?

"So we have to shut up, take our licks and move on."