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Spurs roll to ninth straight home win over Heat

Nov 23, 2006 - 3:27 AM SAN ANTONIO (Ticker) -- The San Antonio Spurs made the Miami Heat look nothing like defending champions, again.

Tim Duncan scored 19 points and Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker both added 17 as the Spurs rolled to their ninth consecutive home win over the Heat with a 106-86 rout.

Brent Barry made four 3-pointers and scored 15 points for San Antonio, which has won four games in a row.

The defending champion Heat won their first title last season, supplanting the Spurs as champions. But Miami has not been close to championship form this campaign, ending up on the wrong side of some ugly contests.

"Eleven years, I've been here and built this franchise with people who really care, and gone through some rebuilding and a lot of pain to get to this point, and I'll be damned if I'm going to allow people to crap on this franchise," Miami coach Pat Riley said. "They can crap on me, but not the franchise. I've been the good daddy for a while, and that's history now. That's not a warning now, that's just the reality."

San Antonio used a decisive 26-9 run in the second quarter, taking a 45-27 lead on a jumper by Parker with 3:47 left before halftime.

"Everytime we get challenged, we'll find a point in the game where we just let it go," Riley said. "In the second quarter, we just stopped playing. We got frustrated. We went from competing in the first quarter to not communicating in the second.

"Then we started to complain. And then we got disgusted at ourselves. And we went from disgusting to discouraging to despicable, and that's just the way it is. That's what I'm dealing with right now, and I'm part of the problem. So I'm going to have to find a solution for this."

Parker and Barry each scored 11 points in the period, helping the Spurs to a 57-38 cushion at the break. San Antonio led by as many as 29 points in the second half.

"Obviously Miami is not the same team without Shaq (Shaquille O'Neal), but a win is a win," Parker said. "Tonight was a great win for the whole team."

O'Neal is out another four weeks after left knee surgery.

"Miami has some tough circumstances with guys being hurt," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "The main thing we can take away is we kept focus during the game. It's just a tough situation for those guys."

Dwyane Wade scored 18 points and handed out six assists for Miami, which has dropped five of its last six contests.

"Right now, it just seems like there's no effort in trying to defend the championship," Heat forward Udonis Haslem said. "I wish I knew (what the problem was). I have no answer for that."