SAN ANTONIO (AP) — That’s one way to make people forget about those third-quarter woes.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — That’s one way to make people forget about those third-quarter woes.
The Cleveland Cavaliers were so overmatched in the first half by the San Antonio Spurs Sunday night, there was nothing they could have done in the last two quarters to make matters any worse.
San Antonio rolled to a 25-point lead after one of the most lopsided first halves in NBA finals history and beat the Cavaliers 103-92, taking a 2-0 lead as they try for a fourth championship.
“We wanted to handle business at home,” said San Antonio reserve forward Robert Horry, who has six championship rings.
The Cavs are playing for their first — and they’re not doing it well.
Up in Cleveland, fans packed in Quicken Loans Arena and donned special glasses for a 3-D HD viewing of the game.
Maybe they would have preferred blinders instead. Because this one wasn’t worth witnessing for a Cavs fan, no matter how it was viewed.
Game 3 is Tuesday night at Quicken Loans Arena, which has never hosted a finals game and may only end up holding two unless the Cavaliers can put together four solid quarters.
James in foul trouble
LeBron James was on the bench with two fouls less than three minutes into the game, and Cleveland’s hopes of evening the series were gone not long after that.
“We packed it in defensively,” said Horry, “and keep them from going to the rack. We wanted to contest every shot.”
The Cavs trailed by as many as 28 points in the first 24 minutes, barely avoiding the largest halftime deficit in a finals game. Boston had a 30-point bulge in its romp over the Lakers in 1985.
Cleveland shot 27 percent in the half and allowed San Antonio to hit 55 percent. The Cavs were outrebounded 30-19, missed seven of eight 3-point attempts and were only 10-of-18 at the free throw line. By the time it was over, San Antonio had a 58-33 lead.
That’s not the way Cleveland had been doing things for most of the postseason. The Cavs had been struggling mightily in the third quarters, getting outscored 24-14 in Game 1 after they trailed by only five points at halftime.
“We’re just not coming out ready to play,” coach Mike Brown said before the game, “and I’ve got to continue trying to do a better job of getting our guys focused into the third quarter and getting our guys to play with a sense of urgency instead of coming out and kind of floating.”
Closer third quarter
The Cavs were outscored only 31-29 in the third quarter Sunday, but that left them with an 89-62 deficit heading to the fourth.
The Cavaliers went on a 22-4 run and eventually pulled within 95-87 on a three-point play by James with 4:53 left, a stunning turnaround for a team that looked done moments earlier.
But the Spurs, who got sloppy and perhaps disinterested, responded as they almost always do.
Ginobili hit a 3-pointer as he was fouled by rookie Daniel Gibson. The four-point play made it 101-89 with 2:24 remaining. Duncan grabbed a rebound and scored inside to bail out the Spurs, who were outscored 30-14 in the fourth quarter.
"We knew it was coming,” Parker said of the Cavs’ comeback. “They are an NBA team and have LeBron James. They played very good in the fourth quarter. They made a big run, but in the end we made a couple of stops and got the win.”
Parker, the Spurs’ petite Frenchman, was magnifique.
He went 13-for-20 from the field, spun his way through defenders at will and made the Cavaliers look like shorts-wearing statues. Parker kept pushing the action in the third quarter, scoring 10 points to the delight of fiance Eva Longoria and Spurs fans, who aren’t ready to plan any parades just yet.
No one to score
With James on the bench, Brown was unable to find a combination that could provide much scoring early in the game. But offense has never been Cleveland’s strength, anyway.
What has to disappoint Brown is the rebounding and defense, because the Cavs were among the league’s best in both categories during the regular season. But the Spurs have been superior in both during this series.
And James has been unable to get started until it’s too late. He was 0-of-7 in the first half Thursday, then shot just 4-of-11 in 15 minutes during the first half of Game 2.
Just as they did in the opener, the Cavs had a strong fourth quarter, but that did little more than make the score closer than the game really was. They got as close as eight points in the final minutes.
Cleveland did erase a 2-0 deficit against Detroit in the Eastern Conference finals, and Miami did the same against Dallas last year in the NBA finals. So there is still reason for the Cavs to think they can come back.
First, they need to show they can get started.
“We’re going to the enemy’s den,” said Horry, “and we expect them to be aggressive. LeBron attacked more tonight, and we expect him to try to attack us more on his home floor.”
Who got ‘whacked’?
The Cavaliers, who were down 0-2 against Detroit in the conference finals, can also look to last year’s finals for comfort. Miami lost Games 1 and 2 in Dallas before going home to Florida and winning three straight and then beating the Mavericks on their home floor for their first championship.
“We’re definitely still confident,” James said. “We’ve been down 2-0 before and we have to find a way to get back the intensity we had in the fourth quarter.”
Gibson added 15 points, Drew Gooden had 13 and Sasha Pavlovic 10 for the Cavs, who went just 19-of-29 from the line and got zero points in 20 minutes from point guard Larry Hughes, who is playing with a foot injury.
After building a 12-point lead in the first quarter while James was out, the Spurs pushed it to 17 on a 3-pointer from Ginobili. Parker scored on a three-point play and whizzed through the lane for a layup to make it 46-26.
Then, with 30 seconds left before the half, Parker drilled a 17-foot jumper to make it 58-30. By then, most of America had probably already switched over to “The Sopranos” series finale to see if Tony got whacked.
He didn’t. The Cavaliers did.
James was confident he would play better after his Game 1 flop, and as long as he did, he felt the Cavaliers would be OK.
“When I make adjustments, my team automatically makes adjustments,” he said. “We have to play hard for 48 minutes.”
But he was only on the floor for 2:55 before being forced to the bench with his second personal foul.