You could almost forgive Spurs coach Gregg Popovich if he wandered far from his side of the court in search of consultation Thursday night.
Mike Budenholzer, his assistant of 19 years, is no longer close at hand. He left the organization to assume control of the Hawks this summer. The first meeting between teacher and student came during Thursday’s exhibition game.
“I miss him more than anyone else does because I depended on him a lot,” Popovich said before the game. “In games, he would make suggestions or do things, and I wouldn’t know what … was going on. He substituted somebody or he changed the defense. I would say ‘Why did we do that?’ He would tell me and I would say ‘Oh yeah, that makes sense. That sounds good. I wish I had thought of it.’ You sort of miss all that. You have to start all over. I’ll have to actually coach more.”
Teacher got the better of the student on this night. Of course, the teacher still has Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.
Parker gave the Spurs 14 third-quarter points, including a run of 10 consecutive, en route to a 106-104 victory over the Hawks. The Spurs closed the third quarter on a 15-2 run to take control of the game and led by as many as 15 points.
The Hawks came storming back in the fourth quarter by playing their starters the majority of the period. Kyle Korver erased the deficit and tied the score at 97-97 on a 3-pointer with 2:20 remaining. Jeff Teague tied it at 104-104 with a 3-pointer with 1:04 remaining.
DeMarre Carroll air-balled a 3-point attempt with 23.2 seconds remaining. Aron Baynes made a jumper in the lane with 3.0 remaining to win it for the Spurs.
Parker (17), Duncan (16) and Ginobili (11) combined for 44 points.
Korver led the Hawks with a game-high 26 points. Teague (15), Carroll (14), Al Horford (13), Jared Cunningham (11), Mike Scott (11) and Paul Millsap (10) were the other double-digit scorers.
Budenholzer started in the Spurs’ video room and worked his way to the bench two years later. He spent the past six seasons as Popovich’s top assistant. The Spurs won four NBA championships in their time together — and just missed a fifth last season.
Budenholzer said it would be surreal to coach against Popovich and the players with whom he shared so much success.
“It’s a preseason game, so it will be good to take a little bit of the edge off and play these guys in a game that I guess technically doesn’t count in the win-loss record,” Budenholzer said before the game. “You get to say hello to them and see them before that first regular-season game.”
The Spurs were in town a day before the game, which afforded Budenholzer, Popovich and Hawks general manager Danny Ferry, another with Spurs ties, to have dinner. Little basketball was spoken.
“He tends to prefer conversations about other things than basketball — the government shutdown and the debt ceiling and all of those different things,” Budenholzer said of Popovich. “Occasionally it would come back to basketball. In his ideal dinner there is probably not a lot of basketball.”
Pero Antic, Eric Dawson, Royal Ivey and Cartier Martin did not play.
Rookie point guard Dennis Schroder did not play because of a bruised left knee suffered when he bumped it during a recent practice. John Jenkins (lower back) sat out and has missed all four exhibition games. Gustavo Ayon (right shoulder) and Lou Williams (right knee) continue to rehab injuries.
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