My everything by 98 degree

Manu Ginobili has the ball in his hands, an open floor in front of him and what appears to be a clear path to the basket. But no sooner does Ginobili start racing down court than Pacers point guard Jamaal Tinsley appears in front of him.

Fully squared. Ready to absorb a charge. With only two steps separating Ginobili from Tinsley and a certain offensive foul, the Spurs backup shooting guard does what any self-assured 25-year-old Argentine NBA rookie would do: He skips the ball between Tinsley's legs.

Tony Parker, ahead on the break, is caught off guard by the move. Instead of waiting for Ginobili to dart around Tinsley and pick up his dribble, as Ginobili intended, Parker scoops up the ball, takes two dribbles and throws a perfect no look, behind-the-back pass to Malik Rose, who streaks in for a reverse layup. Ginobili's teammates, stunned by the sequence, leap off the bench.

"Crazy," Tim Duncan says in the locker room after this late-January victory. "Manu's crazy. He does that stuff without a second thought, which I guess is what you're supposed to do if you do stuff like that."

Yes, the methodical, dump-it-in-to Duncan Spurs have an air of unpredictability about them these days. That they are challenging for the league's best record--San Antonio began the week just three games behind the No. 1 Mavericks in the loss column--comes as no great surprise. The team always will be a legitimate contender as long as Duncan, the league's reigning Most Valuable Player, is at or near his prime. Rather, it's the way the Spurs have made their recent push up the standings that has everyone doing a double take.

After years of relying on veterans such as Avery Johnson, Mario Elie and Terry Porter, San Antonio now surrounds Duncan with the young, lively legs of Parker, Stephen Jackson and Ginobili. The Spurs, whose success has been built on tough defense and possession basketball, still aren't the up-and-down, let-it-fly Mavericks or Kings. But they also aren't the Spurs of yesteryear, whose offense was more suited to a sundial than a shot clock.

"As far as the combination of shooters, athleticism and youth, we have the best mix I've ever seen in our backcourt," says longtime Spurs center David Robinson, who is retiring at the end of the season. "My first few years, we didn't have any shooters. Then we had some speed and athleticism defensively, but not too much penetration. Now we have three or four guys who can get to the hole."

As a result, San Antonio, which won a championship in 1999 but has been caught in the Lakers' shadow since, now has an offense to complement its defense, which ranks third in the NBA in points allowed. In a recent 13-game stretch that included eight consecutive road victories, the Spurs averaged 99.0 points, topping 100 10 times--a marked improvement over November and December, when they averaged 92.3.

More important, San Antonio's athletic perimeter players have lessened Duncan's scoring burden. No one needs to remind the Spurs how their season ended last year. Though they led the Lakers in the fourth quarter of all five games of their second-round playoff series, they lost all but one when the Lakers bottled up Duncan down the stretch and forced his teammates to shoot.

"At some point, Tim needs to know we're not 100 percent reliant on him," teammate Steve Kerr says. "Maybe only 98 percent."

The Spurs, ironically, remain the league's most experienced team with graybeards Kerr, Robinson, Danny Ferry, Steve Smith and Kevin Willis (average age: 36) on the roster. How San Antonio became younger and more athletic was, in fact, part design, part luck.

Prepared to wave farewell to Johnson, their longtime floor leader, the Spurs snatched up Parker, their 20-year-old point guard from France, with the final pick in the first round of the 2001 draft. In his initial workout, Parker was beaten badly enough by Lance Blanks, a Spurs scout who briefly played for the Pistons, that the team's coaches didn't want to select him. After agreeing to watch Parker a second time, coach Gregg Popovich was convinced. "This kid," he said. "is going to be starting for us 10 games into the season."

Popovich was almost right. Parker took over the starting job five games into the season and later made the All-Rookie team.

Ginobili, MVP of the Euroleague finals, was drafted with a second-round pick in 1999--No. 57 overall--but played in Europe until this season.

"I wish I could tell you (I knew) Manu was going to be what he turned out to be," general manager R.C. Buford says. "I wish I was that smart. But he just turned himself into a hell of a player."

The same summer the Spurs drafted Parker, they signed Jackson, a talented but raw 6-8 swingman who had worn out the patience of Nets coach Byron Scott as a rookie. Jackson played only 23 games last year for San Antonio but matured over the course of the season. He wasn't even sure he had a roster spot when training camp started last fall, but he made eight 3-pointers against the Lakers on November 20. A month later, Popovich benched Smith and moved Jackson, 24, into the starting lineup.

"They have gotten three or four players who are young and very, very quick," Heat coach Pat Riley says. "Bruce Bowen and Jackson can defend and stretch the defense. Ginobili has proven to be a great find. But I think the gem of all of them is Parker. He has a jet."

Duncan, who again is putting up MVP-worthy numbers, remains the key to the Spurs offense. Almost everything runs through him when he is on the floor, and he often acts as a distributor, drawing the double-team then kicking the ball out to an open shooter. Through the first 21 games of the sea son, he was the only Spur averaging more than 12 points. However, Parker has developed into a dependable pick-and-roll partner and complementary scorer. In the first 15 games in which he scored at least 20 points, the Spurs didn't lose.

"To me, Tony and his ability to push the ball has given us a whole new dynamic offensively," says Kerr, who inherited the backup point guard job when Speedy Claxton got hurt and has held on to it even with Claxton now healthy. "Manu and Jack slashing to the basket has given us some thrust as well. I just feel we're much more potent and less predictable?"

Porter, now an assistant coach with the Kings, agrees. "With the quickness and athleticism, they have some guys who can put it on the floor and get to the basket," he says. "The one thing we struggled with at times when I was there was just not getting easy opportunities."

With youth comes inexperience. Because of his younger players' sometimes error-prone ways, Popovich has tried to follow the advice former NBA coach Chuck Daly once gave him over dinner.

"What I did a great job of with certain players and certain situations," Daly said, "was ignoring."

It's not always easy. "With my Serbo-Croatian background, it's hard for me to ignore as much as (Daly) might have," says Popovich, who can be as easygoing off the court as he is intense on it. "But I've really tried to take that to heart. Being patient with Manu and lack and Tony is really important in their development. Some nights I've done a great job of it, and some nights I've been God awful."

Jackson, Parker and Ginobili have done their share to test Popovich's patience. Early in the season, Jackson sometimes focused too much on the officiating, which hampered his defense. He and Ginobili sometimes force passes or shoot too quickly. Late in a recent loss to the Mavericks, Ginobili attempted a 720-degree wraparound pass that caught everyone by surprise, including Bowen, the intended recipient.

Parker has had to learn when to push the ball and when to run the offense. After he shook off one of Popovich's play calls against the Suns in January, the coach angrily signaled for a timeout. "Do that again," the coach yelled, "and I'll play Steve Kerr 95 minutes a night if I have to."

Parker's decision-making has improved over the past month. He has done a better job of pacing the team. As a result, Popovich has loosened the reins.

"I think we're a little smarter at knowing whether to pull it back, when to take advantage of our halfcourt game and when to take advantage of our speed," Robinson says. "Everybody is working together a little bit better."

But there still are lessons to be learned. When the Spurs played the Pacers again February 22, San Antonio outscored Indiana, 24-4, at the start of the second half, seemingly running every possession.

"Pop had to calm us down," Rose says. "We were playing defense, but we were looking to get out on the break too much. And that's never been Spurs basketball."

Running too much? The Spurs? Now, that's a change.

Johnny Ludden covers the Spurs for the San Antonio Express-News.