Spurs’ Problems Seem to Go Beyond the Lakers

That easy-listening music you hear in the background means the Laker-Spur rivalry is on hold, to be picked up again whenever it is the San Antonio Spurs can get their act together.

As Kobe Bryant said after the Lakers’ made off with a larcenous 90-86 victory over the Spurs on Wednesday night, “They have bigger issues to worry about than playing the Lakers right now.”

Issues like a 9-10 record, the return of their fourth-quarter implosions, introspective questions about their own toughness and resolve, and even an inability to give the customers their money’s worth when they come to Staples Center.

In the fourth quarter of the Lakers’ blowout victory over the Spurs at Staples Center last Friday, a fan yelled a complaint to Spur Coach Gregg Popovich.

“Popovich! I paid $2,000 for this. Don’t you ever waste my Friday night like that again,” Popovich recalled Thursday night.

“I almost turned around and said, ‘I apologize.’ ”

Popovich didn’t feel a need to apologize for his team’s effort after this game. In fact, he felt compelled to praise his team’s competitiveness.

This came even though the Spurs caught the Lakers on a night when the Quad Squad took a step backward, when their offense stopped generating so many quality shots, Shaquille O’Neal morphed into Dikembe Mutombo for a half of almost nothing but rebounds and blocked shots, Bryant had his worst shooting game in almost a month and the Lakers showed an inability to take their dominance at home on the road.

The Lakers had no business winning, but the Spurs let a 15-point second-quarter lead dwindle to six by halftime. Then they coughed up eight turnovers in the fourth quarter, when the Lakers outscored them, 28-15.

“We have a lot more room for improvement than the teams that are playing better than us right now, like the Lakers,” Popovich said. “That’s good. That’s a real good feeling.”

By those standards it ought to be party time in Clipper Country.

But these are the defending champions we’re talking about, supposedly one of the biggest impediments on the Lakers’ path to the NBA Finals.

And they’re relegated to talking about building on the small signs of hope. Their solace right now is in playing the Lakers close.

When I asked Tim Duncan if one thing they could take away from this night was that they showed they can beat the Lakers, he said, “We showed we can compete with them,” which is an entirely different thing.

“They’re a very good team, a very talented team,” Duncan said. “They have a lot of guys that can do it, all the time.

“We just have to find a way to close out games. This is the team we’re going to go with, we’re going to have to figure out how to do it.”

Duncan later said the team’s confidence was low, then amended that to say “not low.” But the message is clear. The Spurs are trying to talk themselves through this.

The Lakers, meanwhile, have the confidence to back up everything they say.

Bryant sounded like one of the villains in the James Bond movies, in the inevitable scene where he details his plan for world domination, when he said: “This is a whole new team. This is a completely different season. Our attack is so different; it’s so well balanced. Defensively we get after you from all angles. We’re a different ballclub than we were last year.”

Popovich alluded to that before the game, when he said that in addition to gearing to stop the triangle offense there is the new problem of newcomers Gary Payton and Karl Malone, who can create their own scoring chances.

The Lakers’ 15-3 start took them to the top of the league, while the Spurs found themselves trailing the Denver Nuggets in the Midwest Division.

“I don’t know if it’s as much of an effect on the Spurs as it is on the Lakers,” said Steve Kerr, a reserve sharpshooter for last year’s Spurs team who now serves as a television analyst. “ [The Lakers] found out last year how difficult it is just to try to turn it on, and that it really is important to lay the foundation all season. For the Lakers, they’re building confidence right now, especially beating up on the Spurs early in the season. The Spurs, I think, are more concerned right now with finding themselves than with what the Lakers are doing.”

The Spurs need to round up a posse to find Bruce Bowen’s jump shot. The NBA’s top three-point shooter last season is shooting 31% from behind the arc this year. He’s reluctant to shoot and opponents know it; Bryant was leaving him to double-team Duncan and Bowen didn’t make him pay often enough.

Bowen, Manu Ginobili, Malik Rose and Hedo Turkoglu -- four of the top seven players in Popovich’s rotation -- are shooting below 40%, and Popovich hasn’t found any creative lineups to counter that statistic.

Popovich said the team played “frenetic” at times, and that’s a direct reflection of Ginobili, whose anxiousness can wipe out the many great things he does, the way his six second-half turnovers outweighed everything else Wednesday.

Right now the Lakers and Spurs are headed in different directions -- and not just to Dallas and Orlando, Fla., for their next games.

“It would be great to get some wins and we need to get some wins, because that helps your confidence,” Popovich said. “If we had not competed tonight or played poor and they scored 115 points and beat us by 27, you look down the road and say, ‘Oh my God.’ So this is good.”

No, this isn’t good for the sake of competition. Not good at all.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com