I’ve just one question for the San Antonio Spurs, and when they answer it, they’re free to go back to sleep: Where’s the passion?

I know I’m not the only person who can’t understand how the Spurs could come out with so little energy against Seattle after Jerome James, whose name will never be mentioned with Tim Duncan when the discussion turns to the game’s great big men, called them out after Game 3. Ray Allen had already thoroughly dissed Bruce Bowen when James delivered his un-humble opinions of the Spurs.

San Antonio had won the first two games of the series, then lost the third in Seattle. The Sonics barely escaped with the win when Duncan missed what would have been the game-winner at the buzzer.

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It was then that James felt the need to light a fire under the team from Texas. "I don't give them no respect, none,” he said, managing to get off a triple-negative in a seven-word sentence, which may be a record.

Right then, the fans back home along the River Walk must have been drooling in anticipation of what their Spurs would do to James and the Sonics in Game 4. It wasn’t a question of whether the Spurs would stomp the Sonics for their temerity. It was more a question of whether Seattle would need a spatula, a fire hose or both to remove the remains of its team from the court when the game was done.

In Seattle, Sonics fans had to be cringing at every replay of James’ words, certain that he had just provided the Spurs with more motivation than they needed to sweep the next two games and the series.

Instead, with the exception of Duncan, who scored 35, the Spurs didn’t bother to show up. They were down by two after one, six at the half, and 16 after three. Bowen contributed three points. Spurs guards Tony Parker and Brent Barry were outscored by Allen and Luke Ridnour 52-14.

San Antonio committed 20 turnovers and allowed the Sonics to shoot 50 percent from the field.

In short, the Spurs rolled over, fetched up a deep yawn, and took the night off.

The Spurs have been one of the top franchises in the game, and the citizens of San Antonio, who don’t have a lot else going in the way of major league sports, treat them as well as any fans treat any team in the game. They’ve won their two titles, in 1999 over the Knicks and in 2003 over the Nets. No one can say they are failures.

But if they haven’t failed, they have disappointed, and they have at various times played in ways that raise questions about their level of desire, about their pride.

Just last year, they beat the Lakers in the first two games of the Western Conference semifinals, then lost four straight to a team that would lose the NBA Finals to Detroit.

They beat New Jersey in six games in 2003, but the year before that, they were steamrolled by the Lakers in five games. And that was an improvement over the 2001 Western Conference Finals, when they went down in four straight to L.A.

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