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NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana: Manu Ginobili scored 26 points and Tim
Duncan added 16 points and 14 rebounds Monday to lead San Antonio
into the National Basketball Association semifinals by beating New
Orleans 91-82.
The defending NBA champions took the only road
victory in the best-of-7 series to win the Western Conference
semi-final four games to three and advance to a showdown with the
Los Angeles Lakers to decide a berth in the NBA Finals.
The Spurs and Lakers, who split four
regular-season meetings, open the Western Conference final Wednesday
at Los Angeles, where they flew immediately after the victory.
Laker star Kobe Bryant is 14-11 against the
Spurs in the playoffs with an average of 26.8 points a game against
San Antonio in post-season match-ups.
“It’s a quick turnaround for us,” Spurs
guard Tony Parker said. “They have a presence inside [in Spanish
star Pau Gasol] and Kobe is playing unbelievable.”
The Lakers have not lost at home in two months
and have won 16 of their past 19 games but New Orleans had a home
mastery over the Spurs as well until the game-seven match-up,
leading the series 2-0 and 3-2 before San Antonio rallied.
“Sustaining everything they gave us and
finding a way to win, this was a huge, huge series for us,” Duncan
said. “We’re right back in it. We feel good about ourselves. We
felt we could get it done. We gained a lot of confidence.”
San Antonio led most of the night but the Spurs
hit only 3-of-17 from the field to open the fourth quarter, allowing
the Hornets to rally within 83-80 on a 3-pointer by Jannero Pargo,
who scored 15 of his 18 in the fourth quarter.
“Everybody is playing well when they make
shots. When things aren’t falling, those are the tough times. You
have to play through them and I thought we did that pretty well,”
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.
“Everybody was really focused, starting with
the defense and the rebounds.”
Pargo missed a 3-pointer that could have leveled
the game and Spurs guard Tony Parker answered with a key jump shot
to stretch San Antonio’s lead to 85-80 with 50 seconds remaining.
The Frenchman finished with 17 points.
New Orleans star Chris Paul drove to the basket
but missed a shot over Fabricio Oberto and was forced to foul to
stop the clock. The Spurs hit six free throws down the stretch to
keep New Orleans at bay.
“It was a good season but we weren’t
satisfied,” Paul said. “One thing D-West said in the locker room
is that we will be right back here next year. We will be back here
next year and we’ll get through it.”
David West led the Hornets with 20 points while
Paul and Pargo, who went 6-of-18 from 3-point range, each had 18
points. Paul added 14 rebounds.
“I told them when they start working for next
season, remember how they feel right now,” Hornets coach Byron
Scott said.
“You don’t go from not making the playoffs
to winning the championship. But we’ve got something working here.
We’re going in the right direction and we’ve got some good
pieces of the puzzle.”
The Spurs led at New Orleans for the fourth game
in a row, but where the Hornets had roared ahead with superb third
quarters, they were frustrated by the Spurs defense and made their
comeback only in the final minutes.
“Finally, experience helped a little bit,”
Parker said. “The first three we were up a little bit. We felt if
we could hang in in the third quarter we would be all right and in
the fourth they missed a lot of open shots.
“We were playing well. We just played terrible
fourth quarters. That was the key, playing a full 48 minutes.”
This time, the Hornets were undone in the third,
outscored 20-14.
“A bad third quarter,” lamented New Orleans
standout Peja Stojakovic, who hit only 3-of-11 from the field.
“Our defense was solid. We just couldn’t make shots in the third
quarter. They separated themselves. We couldn’t come back.”
-- AFP
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