ANTONIO -- The dime-store analysts were out with enough opinions to fill every vacant shelf in the Institute of Pop Psychology.

They would look into his face, stare into his eyes, pretend to rummage into his very private soul and understand what was happening there in the deepest corners.

Tim Duncan returned to the Spurs, four days after abruptly leaving practice in Seattle upon learning of the death of his father, and so much of the talk was of rebirth, of the emotional lift he would give to his team and to the throng of 23,369 in the deciding game of this first-round playoff series.

Would he be a symbolic warrior, a modern-day version of the wounded Willis Reed hobbling onto the court in 1970 to an ovation that sounded like the area around the launch pad at Cape Canaveral when the space shuttle lifts off?

Would he be a driven, inspired, spiritually-motivated Joe Dumars in the 1990 NBA Finals, playing the game of his life on the very day that his own father's had ended?

He would be Tim Duncan.