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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
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GAME FLOW
SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- Rasheed Wallace showed why he's one of the
best at guarding Tim Duncan.
|  | | Portland's Scottie Pippen was in vintage form, with 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists. |
Wallace held San Antonio's All-Star to 5-of-18 shooting and scored 22 points of his own to rally the Portland Trail Blazers to a 95-87 win over the Spurs on Tuesday night.
"I just couldn't knock anything down," said Duncan, who
finished below his 21.3-point average with 16. "Rasheed played
some good defense, though. That's when it's up to me to make a good
pass."
Wallace, 6-foot-11, was held to seven points in the first half by the 7-foot Duncan.
But trailing by 11 to start the third, Wallace sank two free
throws and hit two turnaround jump shots in the first three minutes
to whittle the lead to 49-47.
He went on to nail a 3-pointer and another jumper as Portland
outscored the Spurs 33-16 in the third.
After San Antonio tied it at 81 with 4:16 left, Wallace hit two jumpers and Scottie Pippen drained two 3-pointers to make it 91-83 with just one minute to play.
"We can only go as far as he takes us," Pippen said of Wallace. "He's been our catalyst. He came out and played aggressively on both the offensive and defensive ends."
Pippen, in his fourth game back from elbow surgery, finished
with 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists as the Blazers won
for the second straight night.
San Antonio blew a 15-point lead in the second quarter by
shooting 21 percent in the third. The Blazers, meanwhile, hit 67
percent of their shots in the period, taking their first lead at
66-65 with 1:49 left on Arvydas Sabonis' layup. They never trailed again.
"We knew that we had to come out aggressively in the second
half," said Bonzi Wells, who had 18 for Portland. "We took advantage of their mistakes in the second half, just like they did
of ours in the first."
The Blazers' third-quarter showing "took the juice and momentum out of us," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "In the fourth quarter, we tried to get back in it, but Wallace hit every shot and Pippen made a couple of 3s."
Wallace added nine rebounds but also picked up his NBA-leading 31st technical foul, called when he argued with a referee after Sabonis got called for traveling.
Both teams finished with a 42.5 shooting percentage. Portland,
shooting a league-best 47 percent this year, shot 33 percent in the
first half.
Derek Anderson scored nine of his team-high 20 for the Spurs in the first four minutes. Duncan added 13 rebounds, while David Robinson had 16 points and 10 rebounds.
"He kind of hurt us tonight, but now we know what he can do," Wells said of Anderson. "We have to keep building."
The teams match up three more times this season.
Game notes
The Blazers are 11-2 in the second of back-to-back games,
6-2 on the road. They beat Houston 95-89 Monday night. ... The
Spurs last beat Portland at home on May 1, 1991. ... With his 12
points for San Antonio, Terry Porter became only the seventh NBA player to reach 15,000 points, 6,000 assists and 1,000 steals since assists became an official NBA statistic in 1973.
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ALSO SEE
NBA Scoreboard
Portland Clubhouse
San Antonio Clubhouse
RECAPS
Toronto 101
Cleveland 89
Miami 103
Washington 95
New York 101
Seattle 92
Portland 95
San Antonio 87
Sacramento 106
LA Clippers 93
Dallas 116
Vancouver 112
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