Tim Duncan had a dominating performance with 22 points, 15 rebounds and four blocked shots, as the Spurs throttled the New Orleans Hornets 100-80, evening their Western Conference semifinal series after four games.
Tony Parker contributed 21 points, six rebounds and eight assists for San Antonio, which is 5-0 at home in this year's playoffs. Manu Ginobili and Ime Udoka each scored 15, while Michael Finley came off the bench for 12 points.
The Spurs have never won a playoff series when they lost the first two games, but they're now even with the Hornets at 2-2 as both teams head back to
New Orleans
for Game 5 on Tuesday.
Conversely, the Hornets have lost all four of their second-round playoff series, having lost to
New York
(1993),
Chicago
(1998),
Milwaukee
(2001) and
New Jersey
(2002).
Chris Paul scored 23 for the Hornets, who shot 40.2 percent from the field, 11 percentage points less than the Spurs. Jannero Pargo scored 11 and David West added 10 for
New Orleans
.
However, West was just 4-of-15 from the field, while Peja Stojakovic struggled by scoring just six points on 3-of-9 shooting for the Hornets.
