NBA ROUNDUP : Warriors Even Series With Spurs; Suns Win

The little Golden State Warriors came up with a big effort Saturday at San Antonio.

A 17-0 run in the middle of the second game of their best-of-five first-round series enabled them to beat David Robinson and the Spurs, 111-98, and tie the series.

With a couple of minutes left in the first half, the Warriors scored seven points to lead at halftime, 55-47.

They opened the third quarter with the first 10 points and a 65-47 lead. Although Robinson, who wound up with 28 points and 15 rebounds, rallied the Midwest Division winners, they couldn’t catch the Warriors.

The teams go to Oakland for the next two games, but Warrior Coach Don Nelson didn’t really sound confident.

“We played a near-perfect game,” Nelson said. “We are probably going to have to come back here for a Game 5--that’s if we play well and win one at home.”

It is Nelson’s theory that you need a small, quick center to try to handle the 7-foot-1 Robinson.

With this in mind, he had 6-7 Tom Tolbert and 6-7 Mario Elie defensing the Spurs’ center.

The Warriors kept the Spurs at bay largely because Chris Mullin, who was one for eight in the first half, found the range. He scored 22 of his 27 points in the second half.

The Spurs’ effort to catch up was hampered by the loss of Sean Elliott. The 6-8 forward who usually does a good defensive job on Mullin, broke his nose early in the second quarter and did not return. He is expected to play Wednesday at Oakland.

Phoenix 102, Utah 92--Jeff Hornacek, who missed all eight of his shots in an embarrassing loss to Utah Thursday night at Phoenix, made up for it to get the Suns even.

Hornacek scored 11 of his 25 points in the last quarter as the Suns shook off the doldrums to pull away in the second half.

Andrew Lang came off the bench to make six of eight shots and score 20 points.

Kevin Johnson (2-10) and Tom Chambers (5-17) remained in shooting slumps and the Suns shot 42.1% from the field. In the opening game, the Suns, who shot 49.6% during the season, shot 40.5%.

Philadelphia 116, Milwaukee 112--Charles Barkley, ignoring a bulky brace on his injured knee, had a triple-double and the 76ers pulled out a victory in overtime to go ahead, 2-0.

The series shifts to Philadelphia. No team that lost the first two at home has won a five-game playoff series in the NBA.

Barkley had 22 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists, but it was Rick Mahorn’s layup with 19 seconds left in overtime that was decisive.

Jay Humphries’ 25-foot three-pointer at the buzzer enabled the Bucks to make it to overtime after they blew a 14-point lead.