Spurs Blast Supersonics
San Antonio Spurs will be sorry to see March end.
The Spurs capped off a great month Tuesday night with a 95-87 victory over the Seattle SuperSonics.
Tim Duncan scored 26 points for San Antonio, which went 14-2 in March and moved into contention in the Midwest Division.
"Our confidence was low at the beginning of the season. Everyone was questioning what they were doing and what their roles were," said David Robinson, who had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Spurs. "You have to give credit to the coaching staff because they kept everything together."
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Gary Payton scored 15 points for Seattle, but was only 5-of-13 from the field and 4-of-8 from the foul line.
"Gary Payton is a great player, so tonight we wanted other people to have the ball and make decisions," said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. "We were going to double team him from the beginning to the end of the game and just hope that the others didn't make as good of decisions."
San Antonio led 49-41 at halftime, but Seattle closed to 62-60 on Dale Ellis' jumper with 3:36 left in the third quarter.
Avery Johnson answered with six straight points for San Antonio, giving the Spurs a 68-60 lead with 2:21 remaining and San Antonio led 74-67 going to the fourth quarter.
"Avery's play really sparked us and got us over the hump," Popovich said. "Without him we would have been in trouble. He was the catalyst."
A 3-pointer by Jaren Jackson gave San Antonio its biggest lead, 95-81, with 59.2 seconds left.
San Antonio scored the first eight points of the game and never looked back. The Spurs led 27-14 after the first quarter behind Duncan's 12 points. Seattle was only 4-of-23 from the field in the period.
"The bad start killed us tonight," said Seattle coach Paul Westphal, whose team played its thirgame in three nights. "We did a lot of good things, but we just couldn't shoot the ball tonight. Fatigue may have played a part but you can't make excuses." Notes: San Antonio forward Sean Elliott has scored in double digits in 18 games. He did it only 14 times all last season. ... Seattle leads the all-time series with San Antonio 49-48. ... The Sonics are 3-10 on the road this season.
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