NBA FINALS Nets hold on, 77-76, to tie series at 2

Game 5 is Friday at the Meadowlands.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) -- In one impossibly fluid motion, Manu Ginobili stole a New Jersey pass and dribbled the ball behind his back while hurdling the intended receiver. He raced up the floor for a layup -- and he somehow missed the entire rim.
Almost every moment of beauty so far in the NBA Finals has been obscured by something hideous. The Nets and the San Antonio Spurs are crossing new frontiers of offensive ineptitude.
But when Ginobili launched a 3-pointer that could have tied the game with three seconds remaining, the struggles of the previous 48 minutes were forgotten for a moment.
Strangely enough, these teams' relatively equal awfulness has produced a tense series with the promise of genuine drama -- or at least more tragi-comedy.
K-Mart leads
Kenyon Martin had 20 points and 13 rebounds, and Ginobili badly missed the next-to-last shot in the Nets' bruising 77-76 victory over the Spurs in Game 4 Wednesday night.
New Jersey's first home finals victory evened the series at 2-2, with Game 5 Friday night at the Meadowlands.
Martin personified the Nets' ragged determination on a play that probably determined the game. New Jersey trailed by a point with 1:16 remaining when Richard Jefferson drove the lane and passed to Martin, whose shot was blocked by Tim Duncan.
Martin grabbed the ball and went up again, and Duncan blocked it again. Martin snarled as he grabbed the ball again; the third time up, he drew a foul, and his two free throws put New Jersey ahead for good.
"We're not satisfied," Martin said. "I wasn't satisfied when he blocked the first one and got it back and blocked the second one. I was going to make something happen.
"That's the attitude of this team. We are never going to quit until it's over."
Horrible shooting
Jefferson added 18 points and 10 rebounds, and Jason Kidd had 16 points, nine assists and eight rebounds despite another horrible shooting performance. The Nets survived an 11-point third quarter that was just the start of their troubles.
They shot 36 percent. They blew a 15-point lead. They didn't have a basket in the final four minutes. They allowed Ginobili to get open on the final inbounds play.
But their woes were nothing compared to the Spurs' miserable offensive performance. San Antonio shot 29.8 percent (26-of-90) -- the third-worst shooting game in NBA Finals history.
Duncan had 23 points, 17 rebounds and seven blocks, but Tony Parker's 1-for-12 performance lowlighted an erratic team effort.
Put them together, and it's no wonder Martin left the court shrugging his shoulders and grinning sheepishly. There have been only three lower-scoring games in the finals since the advent of the shot clock in 1954.
"Shooting was a little bit of a problem," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said.
Added Nets coach Byron Scott: "We struggled offensively, but the good thing is, so did they, the whole game."
After Martin won his low-post battle with Duncan, New Jersey stayed ahead by controlling the ball for 45 straight seconds during the final minute. The Nets got two offensive rebounds before Kidd made two free throws with 9.1 seconds remaining for a three-point lead.
After a quick jumper by Duncan and two more free throws by Kidd in the hushed arena, the Spurs executed a pretty cross-court inbounds pass. Ginobili got a clear look at the basket after a pump-fake, but the Argentine guard barely got it to the rim, where Kidd swatted it away.
Duncan made a jumper as time expired -- but San Antonio needed three points to tie, not two.