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Barry, Parker lead Spurs past Clippers

Dec 12, 2006 - 6:15 AM LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Brent Barry and Tony Parker refused to let a change of scenery lead to a reversal of fortune for the San Antonio Spurs.

Barry came off the bench to score a season-high 24 points and Parker added 21 for the Spurs, who won for the fifth time in six games with a 103-81 triumph over the Los Angeles Clippers.

After setting a career high with 15 assists in Friday's 111-82 victory over the Clippers, Parker made 9-of-16 shots from the floor to help lead San Antonio to its 31st win in its last 35 meetings in the series.

Parker hit two baskets early in the opening quarter and Manu Ginobili nailed a pair of 3-pointers as the Spurs opened with a 23-7 run in the first 7:42. The Spurs shot 55 percent (11-of-20) to open a 32-17 lead after the period.

"Since I have been with the Spurs, we have never (played) two games in a row bad, so I knew we would show a lot of heart tonight and play very hard," Parker said. "We came out very strong, had a great start and that was basically the whole game."

Barry, who finished shooting 8-of-10, scored 11 points in the fourth quarter, including three baskets from the arc. His second of two consecutive 3-pointers gave San Antonio a 97-74 advantage with 4:39 remaining.

"I had a couple of open shots," Barry said. "Having (Tim Duncan) down low, it is such a devastating decision you are going to make. Are you going to double-team Tim? If you're not he is pretty successful down low. ... You had to pick your poison. When we are shooting the ball well as a team, it is really hard to play us."

Ginobili scored 18 points and Duncan added 17 for the Spurs, who finished shooting 52 percent (39-of-75) to win for the ninth time in 12 road contests.

"This game was important to us for two reasons," Ginobili said. "One, because of (the) upset last night and two, because we play well in back-to-backs. It was important to us to play well after last night."

San Antonio bounced back after Sunday's 106-99 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, when the Spurs gave up a 24-3 third-quarter run.

"The defense was there from beginning to end," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "We didn't have periods of time like last night where we stopped playing defense. When we stopped doing that, we also got sloppy on offense, we had all those turnovers.

"Keeping the defense up sustains our focus and that helps our execution on offense and that was the difference tonight."

Rookie Paul Davis tied a season high with 15 points, Elton Brand added 14 and Shaun Livingston 13 for the Clippers, who slipped to 9-3 at home.

"We can make ... excuses, but the bottom line is we have five players," Livingston said. "We can play. I think we still could have got it done. Ultimately, we have to get better. We just need to use this right now as a learning experience."

Los Angeles guard Sam Cassell left the game in the second quarter with plantar fasciitis and center Chris Kaman sat out with a stomach virus.

"Missing a couple of guys to a team like San Antonio, (it's) really tough to beat a team like that," Brand said. "We still had a full team and got our butts kicked up there, so we have a lot of growing to do as a team."

"It doesn't matter, because you are going to have other guys that are going to step up," Parker said. "They are still a dangerous team with Elton Brand and the other guys. We respect everybody. We basically didn't care who we were going to play."