San Antonio’s huge lead was almost gone, Miami’s building was
roaring and the Heat were clicking better than they had at any point all
night.
With one shot, Manu
Ginobili
changed everything.
Ginobili scored 22 points, none bigger than a tide-turning 3-pointer
with
7:58 left, and the surging Spurs wasted most of a 25-point,
third-quarter lead
before beating the Heat 88-76 on Tuesday night, San Antonio’s eighth win
in its
last nine games.
“He makes everybody better,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of
Ginobili,
who’s shot at least 50 percent in his last seven games. “He is one of
the
finest competitors we have in the league, one of the finest competitors
in the
world. He’s a hell of a player. When he’s Manu Ginobili, we’re a
significantly
better basketball team and he’s been Manu for the last month.”
George
Hill
scored 16 points, Richard
Jefferson
added 15 and Tim
Duncan
had
12 points and 11 rebounds for the Spurs, who are 4-1 since point guard Tony
Parker
broke his right hand. The win ensured San Antonio would end the night
no
worse than No. 7 in the Western Conference standings.
“It’s as good as it gets,” Ginobili said. “We played a really good
defensive game.”
Dwyane
Wade
scored 28 points for Miami, which lost for the first time in its
last seven home games. Jermaine
O’Neal
added 13 points and Udonis
Haslem
finished with 10 points and 12 rebounds for the Heat, who missed a
chance to
move past Charlotte for the No. 6 spot in the East race. Charlotte lost
at
Indiana.
“They came out and played very, very well, ideally how you want to
play
like on the road,” Wade said. “They came out and played as a team. All
of
them. … They came out and jumped on us early, and we didn’t have it.”
By the time Miami found it, it was just too late.
The Spurs never trailed, and used a 26-6 run in the first half to
take what
seemed like total control. San Antonio made seven of its first nine
shots during
the run, and by the time Hill made jumpers on consecutive possessions
midway
through the second quarter, the Spurs’ lead had ballooned to 46-20.
“That was an example of a team that was very sharp and ready for this
moment, first game of their road trip and they seized it,” Heat coach
Erik
Spoelstra said. “There in the first quarter, they set the tone and it
carried
through the rest of the game. We got beat in two departments—one, any
kind of
energy, effort, toughness type play … and simply at the end of the
possessions, they were brilliant.”
Miami was stunned, probably for a lot of reasons.
The Heat hadn’t trailed by more than one point in any of their three
previous games, and hadn’t faced anything more than a 12-point deficit
during
the run of six straight wins on their home floor. The Spurs’ 26-point
lead
matched the sixth-biggest deficit Miami faced in any game this season,
including
the 34-point hole they dug at San Antonio on Dec. 31.
Unlike that night, the Heat didn’t totally stop in the second half.
Quite the contrary.
San Antonio was still leading 69-44 after Duncan’s 10th point of the
third
quarter with 2:24 left, when somehow, the Heat mustered up a rally try.
Back-to-back layups by Wade got it started, and his 3-pointer with 5.4
seconds
left in the quarter trimmed San Antonio’s lead to 71-54 entering the
fourth.
That 3-pointer started a 14-0 run by Miami, helped by Haslem—who
played
through stomach flu—getting three baskets within a 1 1/2 -minute
stretch, as the
Heat got within 71-65 with 8:23 left.
“We gave them too much of a lead, too much of a spot to try to make
up,”
Heat forward James
Jones
said. “When you’re playing a good team like that, you
don’t get very many chances to put them away. They showed it tonight.”
Ginobili was best at the end.
The long 3-pointer from the left side pushed the lead back to nine,
and he
added another 3 about a minute later—essentially ending any Miami
comeback
hopes right there.
“Manu’s been unbelievable,” Duncan said. “Obviously with Tony down,
he’s
got the ball in his hands a little more and he’s a playmaker. He always
has been
— at every level he’s played at. You can see it in his eyes. He wants
the ball,
he wants to make the plays, and he can do it.”
David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer
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