Game of the week: Spurs at Nuggets, Thursday

With Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker back, San Antonio looks to prove it is still among the best teams in the West. Denver, meanwhile, is playing well with new point guard Chauncey Billups and is always tough to beat at the Pepsi Center.

LeBron James reacted strongly to Charles Barkley's comments that the Cavaliers star isn't showing respect for Cleveland fans and his teammates by discussing his possible free agency following the 2010 season. "He's stupid. That's all I've got to say about that," James said. Barkley made the comments on TNT's NBA studio show and Dan Patrick's radio show. "If I was LeBron James, I would shut the hell up," the Hall of Famer said on Patrick's show. "I'm a big LeBron fan. He's a stud. You gotta give him his props. I'm getting so annoyed he's talking about what he's going to do in two years. I think it's disrespectful to the game. I think it's disrespectful to the Cavaliers." ...

Tony Parker had 15 points and seven assists in his first game in three weeks, helping San Antonio to a 109-98 victory over Memphis. With Parker and Manu Ginobili now back from injuries, the Spurs are healthy for the first time this season and have won four straight and eight of 10 after a 1-4 start ...

Cleveland matched the best home start in franchise history Friday by beating Golden State, 112-97. The Cavaliers (13-3) have won 12 of 13 and are a league-best 9-0 at home, equaling their top home start, first set in 1976-77 and repeated in 1991-92. In the West, Portland improved to 7-0 this season at the Rose Garden, its best start at home since it went 9-0 in the 1998-99 season, by beating New Orleans 101-86 ...

Before what turned out to be his last game with Washington, Eddie Jordan painted a clear picture of hard it is to coach a losing team.

The injury-depleted Wizards fired Jordan on Monday after a 1-10 start, replacing him on an interim basis with Ed Tapscott. They lost their first five games, and after picking up their first victory, dropped another five in a row.

Before that final loss, a 122-117 defeat in New York to a Knicks team that had only seven available players, he talked about how difficult it was to work through such a bad stretch.

"It's been tough, because it wears on you," he said. "You go to bed with it; you wake up with it. In the morning, a win or loss is magnified when you wake up. A win feels a little bit better in the morning than it did even that night. And a loss feels just as worse. Yeah, it wears on you." ...