Spurs reach Finals with rout of Utah

San Antonio closed out the Western finals in five games, 109-84.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Tim Duncan and Tony Parker wasted no time showing how serious the San Antonio Spurs were about getting back into the NBA finals — immediately.

Duncan and Parker powered an early 14-0 spurt that featured perhaps the most dominant stretch the Spurs have played all postseason and the Utah Jazz never recovered, letting San Antonio cruise to a 109-84 victory Wednesday night and into the championship round for the third time in five years.

The Spurs took all the suspense out of it by taking a 23-point lead early in the second quarter. Although Utah got an emotional lift at halftime when Derek Fisher arrived from New York, where his infant daughter was getting medical care for a rare eye condition, the only thing in doubt by then was whether San Antonio will play Detroit or Cleveland in the finals.

The title series begins a week from Thursday in San Antonio, regardless of who comes out of the East. The Pistons-Cavaliers series is tied 2-2, with Game 5 on Thursday night in Detroit.

Having a nine-day layoff before the next round was part of the motivation behind San Antonio’s get-it-over-with approach to Game 5. After all, the Spurs have the oldest roster in the league, so they’re both wise enough to value not giving the underdogs any hope and eager to avoid playing another trip to Salt Lake City.

Key stretch

San Antonio led only 16-11 when the game-breaking stretch began with Parker cutting through several big guys and making a tough layup. Over the next 2:13, Parker had seven more points, plus a perfect lob that Duncan slammed with as much authority as he ever does.

Then Bruce Bowen capped the blitz with a 3-pointer from the left corner that put the Spurs up 30-11. They’d made eight straight shots, were 12-of-16 for the game, and were outrebounding the Jazz 13-4.

Duncan and Parker each finished with 21 points and Manu Ginobili scored only 12. None of them played in the fourth quarter — it was that much of a blowout.

By getting to the finals, San Antonio continues its bizarre trend of dominating the league in odd-numbered years since Duncan arrived for the 1997-98 season. The Spurs won it all in 1999, 2003 and ’05, and even came close in the lone exception, losing the 2001 conference finals to the eventual champs, the Los Angeles Lakers.

Utah won 51 games and its division this season, but opened the playoffs on the road and lost the first two games. The Jazz rallied to beat Houston and got past eighth-seeded Golden State to reach the conference finals for the first time since 1998, yet were no match for the Spurs, especially in San Antonio.