The age thing gets old as Spurs’ talented threesome still soars

MEMPHIS, Tenn. â€”  -- Paul McCartney rocked FedEx Forum on Sunday night in the sixth stop on his worldwide tour. The legendary singer, who turns 71 next month, had ended a recent show by assuring fans he would be back.

The San Antonio Spurs have a trio of aging stars who can relate to being pestered about their futures.

And they wish everyone would let it be.

“If we listened to you guys,� point guard Tony Parker recently said of the media, “we would be done in 2008. We don’t think like that. We just try to improve every year and every year we always feel we have a great chance to win a championship and sometimes we fall short, sometimes we win it.�

Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili collectively have been part of three of the Spurs’ four NBA championships in their 11 seasons together, and they are on the verge of competing for another title after five seasons without an appearance in the Finals.

San Antonio leads the Memphis Grizzlies, three games to none, in a best-of-seven Western Conference finals that resumes with Game 4 here Monday night. No team has rallied from a similar deficit to win an NBA playoff series.

Credit the Spurs’ age-defying threesome with putting them a step away from basketball’s biggest stage.

Duncan, 37, combined for 13 points in the overtimes of Games 2 and 3. The Grizzlies scored 11 points in those games … as a team.

Parker, 31, has shrugged off a sore left calf to become a constant pain to Memphis, running the pick and roll to perfection while averaging 20.3 points and 10.7 assists per game in the series.

Ginobili, 35, has persevered through an uneven playoff performance by making timely three-pointers, backdoor layups and smart passes to teammates.

The only thing getting tired is questions about how much longer the Spurs’ core will stay together.

“Yeah, it gets old,� Ginobili said. “We’ve been old for probably eight years now. I remember in 2007, our last championship, they were saying that we were old, and it’s all right. I guess we are. But we play well, we play together, and every year we are out there contending.�

Duncan was recently selected to the All-NBA first team, becoming the second-oldest player chosen behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who made the team at 39 during the 1985-86 season. Parker was a member of the second team this season.

Awards and titles are only part of the story. There’s something about the trio that transcends their basketball talent.

“They’re all very competitive,� San Antonio Coach Gregg Popovich said. “They may or may not do something perfectly, but they’re going to do it to the best of their ability, and that allows one to go to bed at night and deal with whatever the consequences are.�

Although Ginobili is the only one of the stars whose contract expires this summer, it’s expected that he might be willing to give the Spurs the kind of hometown discount Duncan agreed to last year when he signed a three-year extension. Duncan’s $9.6-million salary this season was about $11.5 million less than he made the previous season, a reduction that allowed the team to re-sign free agents while staying under the luxury tax threshold.

Now Duncan could be on the cusp of a fifth championship, having won a title in 1999 that preceded the arrival of Parker and Ginobili. Does Duncan wonder whether this could be the group’s last run?

“It’s the last one until the next one,� Duncan said. “I’m not worried about the last one or the last one we had or anything else. We’re worried about the here and now. We’re worried about the next game.�

It will be just one, it seems, of many more to come.

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