'Awful' fourth quarter can't tarnish Tim Duncan's big night
LOS ANGELES — Forty-eight minutes into his second-highest-scoring playoff performance in five years, Tim Duncan entered the San Antonio huddle and did something none of his teammates expected.
He apologized.
The same guy who sank 10 of his first 11 shots and kept the otherwise cold-shooting Spurs in the lead for most of Wednesday's game was in no mood to celebrate any of that. Duncan felt responsible for the Clippers rallying from an eight-point fourth-quarter deficit to force overtime after blowing a couple of fourth-quarter shots he thought he should have made and committing a costly turnover that led to a pair of late J.J. Redick free throws.
"I was awful," Duncan said. "I missed two or three layups. I made two or three defensive mistakes where I got out of position and gave up dunks. I was awful in that fourth quarter."
Duncan certainly never had reason to apologize after a performance in which his brilliance far outweighed his blunders, but the 38-year-old perennial All-Star found a way to redeem himself in overtime anyway. He hit a pair of huge baskets including a jumper that gave his team the lead for good, propelling the Spurs to a 111-107 victory in a game San Antonio players viewed as must-win.
Had the Spurs lost Wednesday night, they would have gone back to San Antonio in a 2-0 hole in their best-of-seven opening-round series, a deficit only 6.1 percent of NBA teams have rallied from in league history. Instead, the series is even at a game apiece and the reigning NBA champs need only to win their three remaining home games to advance to the Western Conference semifinals.
"There are not many teams who have come back from being down 2-0," guard Manu Ginobili said. "It has happened but it's very hard. For us, it was a very important game. We were very upset about our performance in Game 1 and we did not want to go home down 0-2."
The biggest reason San Antonio avoided that fate is because Duncan continues to defy the aging process. Three days before his 39th birthday, he scored a team-high 28 points on 14-for-23 shooting, all despite being guarded most of the night by DeAndre Jordan, maybe the best interior defender in the league.
Some of Duncan's buckets came on vintage post moves. Others were via mid-range jumpers when the Clippers gave him too much space. He also deftly managed to avoid fouling out despite picking up his fifth foul with three minutes left in regulation.
"He was spectacular," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "He continues to amaze me with the things that he is able to do. He knows he had to stay on the court and he figured out a way to do it."
San Antonio needed a performance like that from Duncan on a night when Tony Parker missed all six shots he attempted before exiting in the second half with a sore right Achilles. Doc Rivers' strategy of blitzing ball screens and walling off the paint kept Parker and Ginobili out of the lane, and San Antonio's array of shooters again did not hit enough open corner threes to make the Clippers pay for their unconventional approach.
The only San Antonio players who hurt the Clippers besides Duncan were starting forward Kawhi Leonard and reserve guard Patty Mills. Leonard torched Matt Barnes for 23 points and Mills spelled Parker down the stretch and scored all 18 of his points after halftime.
The Clippers will go to sleep Wednesday night believing this was a game they should have won. Chris Paul missed the potential game-winning 18-foot jump shot at the end of regulation and Blake Griffin had a pair of critical late turnovers, one in the final 20 seconds of regulation with his team up two and the other as the Clippers were trying to rally late in overtime.
While the Clippers will remember Game 2 as an opportunity lost, the Spurs will look back on it as another night when Duncan fought off Father Time. He scored more points than any other San Antonio player, grabbed more rebounds than any other San Antonio player, yet somehow found reason to apologize to his teammates.
"It just shows you what type of guy he is," guard Danny Green said. "This is a very humble team, and it starts with him. He wasn't happy with the fourth quarter he played. He said, 'My bad fellas, it was a bad fourth quarter.' Then he kept shooting and helped us get a big win."
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
