Spurs still clinging to best winning percentage, but schedule stiffens

By foxsports
Published

Michael Dugat
FOX Sports Southwest

December 23, 2010

Back on Nov. 22, San Antonio welcomed the Magic to town in search of consecutive victory number 11. Behind the brilliance of Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli, they were able to achieve it.

Thursday night, they traveled to Orlando to face a strikingly different team, who had lost eight of their last nine games, and found themselves in the same situation, once again in pursuit of an eleventh straight win.

Though Tony Parker did his best to ensure a duplication of result, leading the Spurs, along with Gary Neal, with 16 points on 7-of-12 field-goal attempts, the Spurs came up well short in a 123-101 loss on the second night of a back-to-back to see their second double-digit win streak of the season snapped at ten.

Late in the first quarter, the Spurs capitalized when Dwight Howard went to the bench with two early fouls, the second coming thanks to a charge earned on Tim Duncan, and made their largest push of the game with a 16-to-4 run to take a six-point lead, 24-18.

From that point on, fueled by the inside dominance of Dwight Howard (29 points and 14 rebounds) and the best game as members of the Magic for their three major newcomers with Gilbert Arenas (14 points, nine assists and six rebounds) leading the way, Orlando took control.

The Spurs never got closer than an 11-point deficit in the second half, or less than 14 in the final quarter.

Though all five starters did manage to reach double digits in scoring, Manu Ginobli, DuJuan Blair and Richard Jefferson canceled out the efficiency of Parker and Duncan by shooting 34.4-percent from the floor.

With the looming increase in schedule difficulty, an Orlando team yet to find its stride with so many new faces stood to be one of the most favorable matchups in the near future.

Beyond the next scheduled game on Dec. 26 against the Washington Wizards, the Spurs will then face the Lakers, Mavericks, Thunder, Knicks and Celtics in consecutive contests between Dec. 28 and Jan. 5, with the Knicks and Boston falling on back-to-back nights.

Things will not get easier in the near future.

With the second double-digit winning streak of the year now ended, the first time they