Ginobili gets 22, Spurs hang on to cool off Heat
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San Antonio's huge lead was almost gone, Miami's building was roaring and the Heat were clicking better than they had at any point all night.
With one shot, Manu Ginobili changed everything.
Ginobili scored 22 points, none bigger than a tide-turning 3-pointer with 7:58 left, and the surging Spurs wasted most of a 25-point, third-quarter lead before beating the Heat 88-76 on Tuesday night, San Antonio's eighth win in their past nine games.
"He makes everybody better," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of Ginobili, who's shot at least 50 percent in his past seven games. "He is one of the finest competitors we have in the league, one of the finest competitors in the world. He's a hell of a player. When he's Manu Ginobili, we're a significantly better basketball team and he's been Manu for the past month."
George Hill scored 16 points, Richard Jefferson added 15 and Tim Duncan had 12 points and 11 rebounds for the Spurs, who are 4-1 since point guard Tony Parker broke his right hand. The win ensured San Antonio would end the night no worse than No 7 in the Western Conference standings.
"It's as good as it gets," Ginobili said. "We played a really good defensive game."
Dwyane Wade scored 28 points for Miami, who lost for the first time in their past seven home games. Jermaine O'Neal added 13 points and Udonis Haslem finished with 10 points and 12 rebounds for the Heat, who missed a chance to move past Charlotte for the No 6 spot in the East race. Charlotte lost at Indiana.
"They came out and played very, very well, ideally how you want to play like on the road," Wade said. "They came out and played as a team. All of them .... they came out and jumped on us early and we didn't have it."
By the time Miami found it, it was just too late.
The Spurs never trailed and used a 26-6 run in the first half to take what seemed like total control. San Antonio made seven of their first nine shots during the run and by the time Hill made jumpers on consecutive possessions midway through the second quarter, the Spurs' lead had ballooned to 46-20.
"That was an example of a team that was very sharp and ready for this moment, first game of their road trip and they seized it," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "There in the first quarter, they set the tone and it carried through the rest of the game. We got beat in two departments - one, any kind of energy, effort, toughness type play ... and simply at the end of the possessions, they were brilliant."
Miami were stunned, probably for a lot of reasons.
The Heat hadn't trailed by more than one point in any of their three previous games and hadn't faced anything more than a 12-point deficit during the run of six straight wins on their home floor. The Spurs' 26-point lead matched the sixth-biggest deficit Miami faced in any game this season, including the 34-point hole they dug at San Antonio on Dec 31.
Unlike that night, the Heat didn't totally stop in the second half.
