Terrific Tony Parker helps San Antonio Spurs defeat Toronto Raptors 113 – 106 – NBA Recap
The San Antonio Spurs are the form team at the moment in the NBA and they stretched the winning streak to 9 games with a 113 – 106 win over the Toronto Raptors. Playing at the Air Canada Centre, the Raptors never really threatened, thanks largely to veteran Spurs point guard Tony Parker.
Parker was in scintillating form once more as he led San Antonio with a game high 34 points and game high 14 assists. Tony has been on fire recently but he hasn’t drawn the attention warranted, mostly because of the Jeremy Lin show in New York.
Parker though is fine with it, and said he is happy to see Lin performing so well.
"There's no bigger story than Jeremy Lin right now," Parker said of the New York Knicks' rising star. "I'm happy for him. It's almost like you want to cheer for him. You want him to make every shot. His story is like a movie and he's performing every night right now."
In the meanwhile, Tony and his Spurs have stringed together the best winning spree of the season. The Spurs don’t mind the fact that no one’s focusing on it, because they are not doing so themselves. They just want to keep getting better.
"No one is walking around here talking about (the streak), no one is sitting here focused on it," said Richard Jefferson, who scored 10. "It's more about how can we get better and how can we improve going into the next game?"
Along with Jefferson and Parker, Danny Green, Tiago Splitter, Manu Ginobili and Matt Bonner crossed the double figure mark for San Antonio.
The Raptors depended on their back court combo to keep them in the game. DeMar DeRozan scored a team high 29 points while Jose Calderon had 16 to go along with 11 assists. 4 other players made it into double figures for Toronto but no one was able to make a significant impact.
From the start of the game, San Antonio looked like the stronger team. They opened with a 10 – 2 spurt to get a hold on the first quarter. The lead went into double digits before the Toronto Raptors cut it down, trailing 25 – 17 at the end.
Toronto were better after the interval. They came out firing in the 3rd quarter and used an early 8 – 2 run to get back into contention. A 6 – 0 spree just before the halfway mark brought the Raptors level with Spurs at 66 – 66. San Antonio however were able to pull away again and were leading 83 – 78 going into the final period.
The Raptors weren’t going to give up without a fight though and took the game to Spurs in the penultimate quarter. They matched San Antonio in the early exchanges and then, just after the halfway mark, used a 6 – 0 burst to get within 1 point, 97 – 96.
Spurs stopped the rot with 4 quick points and Raptors were never able to get close again, the game closing 113 – 106.
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