Tony Parker leads the way with 28 points to help the San Antonio Spurs defeat the Utah Jazz 106-91 in the game-1 of the playoff series....
On Sunday night, in the game-1 one of the series, Tony Parker and San Antonio Spurs cruised their way to an easy win over the Utah Jazz 106-91 here at the AT&T Center. Tim Duncan came up big in the second half to chip in sizable
numbers, helping the Spurs break their six series long, game-1 losing streak.
Tony Parker racked up 28 points along with eight assists to lead the Spurs. Tim Duncan followed him up by notching up a double-double with figures of 17 points and 11 rebounds while Stephen Jackson also made a valuable contribution
by adding 14 points.
Manu Ginobili was brief yet sensational. Even though the Argentinean sniper had a low scoring output with only 7 points on the night, however he did end up having two highlight worthy dunks. Matt Bonner hit three triples on the
night for 9 points and Boris Diaw also added up 9 points to the score.
Despite having three players making sizable contributions on the night, the Utah Jazz came up short in the end as they could not hold on the charge from the Spurs. Paul Millsap led the Jazz charge with 20 points, Gordon Hayward
in the first playoff game of his career, played well for 17 points and Al Jefferson also contributed well with 16 points and 9 rebounds.
Spurs Coach, Gregg Popovich made a decision to insert Diaw into the starting line up before the game and it turned out to be a savvy move as Boris contributed 5 points to help San Antonio get a good start into the game.
Utah however stayed parallel and the team were tied at 15 each after the opening 7 minutes. From that point on, Spurs went on an 8-0 run which started off courtesy of four quick points from Jackson as they established a foot hold
in the game. At the end of the first quarter, Spurs were leading 28-22.
Utah started the second quarter strongly by managing to put together an 8-4 run and get back to within 2. However, that run was ended by a Jackson triple at the 8:21 mark. Till the 2:15 mark, Spurs were leading 47-43 and in that
span had only managed to get ahead by as much as 6. In the next 81 seconds of the quarter, Spur scored 5 quick points which helped them get ahead at the half way stage with the score being, 54-47.
Spurs managed to stay ahead for most part of the third quarter and never looked like giving up their lead. At the 6:54 mark, Spurs, for the first time in the matchup were able to get their lead into double figures. The advantage
remained above that mark for the next several minutes but at the 2:48 mark, Utah inched back a bit and trailed by 8.
In the quarter, Popovich decided to go with the small line up of Matt Bonner, Stephen Jackson, Manu Ginobili, DeJuan Blair, and Gary Neal and it turned out to be a wise decision as the Spurs closed out the quarter on a 17-8 run,
which saw three very important long range bombs from Neal, Bonner and Jackson respectively. The impressive shooting from long range propelled Spurs to an ample 15 point lead going into the final quarter of this all important game one of the playoffs.
Even though the Jazz got 4 quick points to start off the fourth, but with Parker doing the major chunk of the work, the Spurs lead never got below double digits. The hosts spent a major portion of the frame on the charity stripe
and got 8 points from there.
Parker got 8 points in the quarter to help San Antonio take this one by a margin of 15 in the end.
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