Spurs rip off big late run to stun misfiring Rockets, snap Houston streak

On Saturday night, the Houston Rockets erased a double-digit fourth-quarter deficit in the blink of an eye, thanks to some timely shooting and costly defensive lapses by their opponents. The tables turned on Mike D’Antoni and company on Tuesday night, though, as they watched a big late lead evaporate before they knew it at the hands of a bitter rival.

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Playing their first game without injured starting center Clint Capela, who will miss at least the next month after breaking his left leg, the Rockets held a 96-83 lead over the San Antonio Spurs after a pair of Ryan Anderson free throws with 4:39 remaining in the fourth quarter, and looked to be in good position to extend their winning streak to 11 games. From there, though, the bottom fell out:

The Rockets lead the NBA in 3-pointers made and have been rewriting the long-distance record books of late, but they couldn’t find the touch on Tuesday, and that came back to bite them late, when Gregg Popovich’s Spurs started to make a run. San Antonio clamped down defensively and got in rhythm from deep in the closing minutes, ripping off a 19-4 run over the final 4:39 capped by a dagger 3-pointer by reserve guard Patty Mills with 12.9 seconds remaining that left the Rockets slumped, stunned and on the short end of a 102-100 decision.

The Spurs’ veteran wizard, Manu Ginobili, served as the catalyst for the late-game run. With top dog Kawhi Leonard struggling to both knock down shots (5-for-14 from the field, 0-for-3 from 3-point range) and make plays (seven turnovers against four assists in his 36 minutes), Popovich elected to keep lead guard Tony Parker on the bench down the stretch and let Ginobili run the show. He was rewarded when the Argentine legend knocked down a 3 with three minutes remaining to get San Antonio within five, then stole the ball from Rockets All-Star James Harden and set up Danny Green for a transition triple that cut the deficit to two with 2:42 left.

Houston had a chance to go up by six with just over one minute remaining, but the 39-year-old Ginobili slid over to take a charge on Trevor Ariza that kept the score at four and gave San Antonio back the ball with 1:07 to go. On the ensuing possession, Ginobili found Green for another long ball that got the Spurs within one.

Two more dreadful Rocket turnovers later, Ginobili gave Leonard a life preserver after a stalled-out drive, taking Kawhi’s kickout pass, driving left into the middle of the Houston defense and drawing help before firing a feed out to Mills above the break on the left wing. The Aussie spark plug, who entered Tuesday shooting a blistering 42.6 percent from long range, rose, fired and splashed through what would wind up being the game-winner.

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“I have no clue [how I got so open], mate,” Mills said after the game, according to Kristie Rieken of The Associated Press. “I didn’t do anything other than just stand there. It was a [heck] of a pass, right in the shot pocket.”

Ginobili finished with 12 points on 4-for-9 shooting (4-for-5 from deep), four rebounds, three assists and three steals in 19 1/2 critical minutes of work off the bench. Mills added 13 points on 5-for-9 shooting and two steals, while Leonard (21 points, five rebounds, five steals, four assists) the scoring charge for San Antonio, who improved to 15-1 on the road and 23-5 overall despite facing some exceptionally long odds with just under five minutes to go:

The Rockets gave the Spurs plenty of help in completing their 1-in-1,388 comeback. They committed six turnovers leading to 11 San Antonio points over the final 4:39, committed four personal fouls that gave the Spurs six free throws — the finish might not have been quite so dramatic had San Antonio not missed four of them — and shot just 2-for-8 from the field, missing all five of their 3-pointers.

“The biggest thing that happened is that we had about three or four wide open shots we missed,” D’Antoni said, according to the AP.

According to the eye in the sky, the coach’s estimate undersells it. Houston shotjust 14-for-46 on “uncontested” field goals, identified by the NBA’s SportVU optical tracking cameras as shots on which no defender was within 4 feet of the shooter. Coming into Tuesday, Houston had shot 45.3 percent on such “open” looks this season; on Tuesday, that fell to 30.4 percent.

All told, the high-powered Rockets shot just 38 percent from the field against San Antonio. That included a dismal and season-worst 6-for-38 from beyond the arc, which top scoring threats Harden (who finished with a game-high 31 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists in 37 minutes) and Eric Gordon (13 points and four assists off the bench) combining to shoot just 2-for-19 from long distance. The Rockets mitigated the damage of those missed shots by pulling down 20 offensive rebounds for 21 second-chance points, with Nene and Sam Dekker each grabbing five offensive boards apiece. Eventually, though, all the misses and miscues caught up to Houston, who lost for the first time since Nov. 29 to fall to 21-8 on the season.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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