Winning matters to Spurs

LYON, France — The Spurs typically treat their preseason games, as most NBA teams do, as a laboratory experiment.

Coach Gregg Popovich will tinker with his lineup. Rest a starter or two. Give the guys trying to make the team some extended minutes in the fourth quarter. And rarely pay attention to the score.

Development is more important than the outcome. Tonight, however, is an exception. When the Spurs take the court for their exhibition against Adecco Asvel at L'Astroballe in neighboring Villeurbanne, they will be doing so to win.

Tony Parker refused to even think of the embarrassment he would face should the Spurs lose in his own country.

“It's not going to happen,” Parker said. “It can't happen.”

It has happened, though rarely. Only two NBA teams have ever lost since the league started sanctioning international competition in 1987: Atlanta, which fell to the Soviet Union national team in 1988; and Toronto, which lost to Maccabi Tel Aviv — the same Euroleague power the Spurs face on Sunday in Paris — just last season.

Spurs officials are still grateful to Terry Porter for keeping their franchise off that list. Were it not for Porter's clutch fourth-quarter shooting, the Spurs would have lost the championship game of the 1999 McDonald's Open in Milan, Italy.

“It's a game of a lifetime for most of the guys on those (interx national) teams,” Popovich said. “If they can win that game, it's something they'll talk about when they're in their 60s sitting in their dens.

“We're trying to get it across to our players that people are going to come at us like it's playoff time already.”

Adecco Asvel, the local team in France's top professional league, should pose less of a threat than Maccabi will in Paris. While Maccabi has won two of the past three Euroleague titles, Asvel didn't qualify to play in the Euroleague this season.

Still, Popovich is taking tonight's game serious enough to have dispatched assistant coach P.J. Carlesimo and advance scout Mike Wells to watch Asvel play last Sunday. He also cut back Wednesday's practice to make sure his players aren't too tired.

Popovich is leaning toward starting Fabricio Oberto at center with the rest of his usual lineup. Robert Horry, who has been slowed by a sore right shoulder and left Achilles' tendon, thinks he will play. Beno Udrih, who has spent all of training camp on the sideline nursing a right hamstring injury, will miss both exhibition games in France.

“We're preparing like it's a real game,” Popovich said.

So is the NBA. The game will be Webcast live at 2 p.m. San Antonio time on NBA.com. There also will be a tape-delayed broadcast at 8 p.m. on NBATV.

The Spurs' two exhibitions are part of the league's inaugural NBA Europe Live event, which also has Phoenix (Italy), Philadelphia (Spain) and the Los Angeles Clippers (Moscow) training overseas. The games will feature a hybrid of NBA and Euroleague rules, including the international trapezoid lane, shorter 3-point line in the corners and allowing players to swat the ball off the rim.

“We're definitely going to take it seriously,” Parker said. “Basketball is worldwide. All the teams are getting better. We can't go out there and think we're definitely going to win easy. We have to play well.”

The NBA has received an influx of international talent in recent years, led in part by Parker and Manu Ginobili. The talent gap between the United States and the rest of the world has narrowed enough that Team USA finished sixth, third and third in its past three international competitions.

Ginobili even said it wouldn't be “such a shocker” to see another NBA team lose in Europe this preseason. He prefers, however, it not be the Spurs.

“NBA teams have a big responsibility of being the most important league in the world,” Ginobili said, “so you don't want to give it up or lose against a European team.”

Toronto coach Sam Mitchell called the Raptors' loss to Maccabi last preseason “unacceptable.” But given Toronto's struggles in recent years, few in the NBA were that surprised by the outcome. A loss by a team of the Spurs' stature would still be viewed as a historic upset.

A few of Asvel's players have been teammates of Parker's in France's national program. None of them, he said, have joked about beating the Spurs.

“They're more scared than talking trash,” he said.

Asvel has sold out its 5,600-seat arena for tonight's game. Team officials hope the fanfare from the Spurs' visit will generate support to build a larger arena and a private practice facility. Their goal is to model Asvel's program after that of an NBA franchise. In addition to touring the Spurs' facilities in San Antonio, they've inquired about the team's marketing and community relations programs.

“The priority is not what we do on the court (today),” said Antony Thiodet, Asvel's general manager. “It's what we've already done with the NBA and the Spurs in preparation for this event and for the future. We just want to give to the crowd.

“If by chance we are still in position to get the game five minutes before (the end), I cannot even tell you how big it would be.”

Notebook: Of the six players competing for the Spurs' final roster spot, guard Charles Lee and forward Rich Melzer have looked the best in the team's six practices. ..... The Spurs will fly to Paris immediately after tonight's game. They won't practice Friday.