Last week, Deadspin ran the above photograph of Tim Duncan and Tony Parker’s Halloween celebration, leading some to suggest the two Spurs icons might face disciplinary action for threatening Joey Crawford, however jokingly.  As it turns out, on Planet Earth, San Antonio only gets hit with penalties when their coach tries to do his job properly. And that cutup David Stern must surely see the irony in Deadspin sounding the alarm about Duncan and Parker’s choice of costumes when Will Leitch suffered little public embarrassment over his own ill-advised Halloween ensemble.   At Spurs practice yesterday, a less than amused Tim Duncan tackled the issue with the Express-News’ Dan McCarney :

“It’s this day and age,” Duncan said. “It was a Halloween party in a private atmosphere. We were having fun. There was nothing to it. But this day and age, people want to blow things into something more than it is. Hopefully it’s gone and whatever is whatever.”

Head coach Gregg Popovich said he hadn’t seen the photo when asked about it on Monday.  Teammate Manu Ginobili, who attended the same party as Zorro, said the photo was “very innocent.”

“If somebody dressed like Pop was there,” he said, “I probably would have done the same thing with my little sword. I think it was a joke