Home sweet home. The San Antonio Spurs, home at last, finally beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.
And in convincing fashion, nonetheless.
The Spurs opened the game with a ten point halftime lead, but didn't let it slip away this time, en route to a 103-84 win over the Lakers.
Manu Ginobili was obviously the star Sunday night, as he broke out of his cold streak. He scored a total of 30 points coming off the bench, and grabbed two rebounds.
Tim Duncan continued to dominate as he has been doing all series, scoring 22 points with 21 rebounds. Tony Parker also contributed 20 points and five assists.
No team in the history of the NBA has overcame an 0-3 hole, which the Spurs avoided Sunday night.
Kobe Bryant led the way for the Lakers in the losing effort, scoring 30 points and had five rebounds.
Pau Gasol and Jordan Farmar were the only other Lakers to score in double figures. Lamer Odom, scoring only seven points, grabbed a team-high 11 rebounds and dished out a team-high six assists.
"They played solid defense, but we missed a lot of easy ones," Bryant said.
Los Angeles struggled to make their free throws, which is not typical of them. They went 8-17 from the free stripe, while San Antonio went 17-23.
The Lakers shot 42.7 percent from the field, while the Spurs shot 51.4 percent.
After a Parker layup with eight minutes left in the game, with the Spurs up by 20, Bryant almost brought his team back single handedly...again.
Bryant nailed four treys within two and a half minutes and brought Los Angeles within twelve points.
The Spur's renowned defense shut down the Lakers the remainder of the game, however, and San Antonio escaped with a 19 point victory.
Ginobili had come off a string of games in which he was ineffective. Bryant knew he would come back.
"He bounced back the way I thought he would. He had a spectacular first half."
Ginobili impressed his coach as well.
"He is such a competitor," Gregg Popovich said of Ginobili. "He puts so much on his shoulders, he fights through a lot of things."
This Spurs-Lakers bout will continue on Tuesday night on TNT. Game Four will tip off at 9 pm EST.
2 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Matthew Thompson about 1 year ago
Keep up the good work, very well done article. But have read so far 5 or 6 or them and they are all starting to look the same, lol.
I'm trying to figure out how to write to get a bunch of comments. Don't understand that this one shows that it has been read by 220 people, but "0" comments? I have some like that, trying to figure what I'm doing wrong.
Anyway, enjoyed reading it even though I read others like it. GO SPURS GO!!!
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Andrew Kneeland about 1 year ago
The trick to get comments is to be either controversial, or just write a marvelous article so people can't help but give you props.
I didn't really write anything too controversial, but that's okay. Thanks for the comment! Go Lakers go!
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