Spurs Blow By Nuggets

The San Antonio Spurs kept up their run of success against the Denver Nuggets.

David Robinson broke out of his scoring slump with 17 points and Tim Duncan had 19 as the Spurs defeated Denver 112-82 Tuesday night.

It was the Spurs' eighth straight victory over the Nuggets.

"When you have the upper hand on a team, naturally you want to take advantage of it," Spurs guard Avery Johnson said. "They have a lot of talent. They're just young."

Robinson, who had not managed more than 10 points in any of his previous three games, shot 7-for-10 from the field and also had nine rebounds in 28 points.

Nick Van Exel led the Nuggets with 18 points and Johnny Taylor and Eric Williams had 14 each for Denver.

Antonio McDyess, who scored 29 points and 23 in the Nuggets' two previous games with the Spurs this season, was shut down after the first few minutes. He his first three shots from the field, but missed nine of his next 10 and finished with only 10 points.

"I thought the team did a good job on Antonio McDyess," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "He's a great talent. There's no one player who can stop him."

The Spurs scored the game's first six oints and kept pulling away. They led 54-42 at halftime and were ahead by 20 with 4:19 left in the third quarter.

"We didn't push the ball up the court (in the third quarter) like we did in the first half," Van Exel said. "We didn't play both ends of the court. We got in a half-court game with them and in a half-court game, they're awesome."

Duncan was the only San Antonio starter on the court to begin the fourth period. With nine minutes left in the game, all the Spurs starters were on the bench for good.

Notes

• Current Denver players Cory Alexander and Carl Herrera both wore Spurs uniforms last season. Nuggets assistant coach John Lucas was a head coach and player for the Spurs, and Nuggets assistant coach Louie Dampier played for the Spurs during their ABA days. Nuggets head coach Mike D'Antoni and assistant coach Mike Evans are also former Spurs players.
• The Nuggets scored a franchise-low 61 points the last time they played the Spurs. In the four games since then, Denver scored at least 100 points every night and averaged 105.5 points.

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