NBA PLAYOFFS : Spurs Get Even on the Rebound : Western Conference: San Antonio continues road trend in series with 103-81 victory at Houston.

The Spurs no longer go jingle, jangle, bungle. They do, however, have other problems, such as again being in an enviable position in the Western Conference finals. Big mistake.

San Antonio either regained the home-court advantage or stepped back into the quicksand Sunday afternoon with that 103-81 victory over the Houston Rockets in Game 4 before 16,611 at the Summit. The way this series has gone, it’s hard to tell.

This much is for sure. The Spurs, with “Taps” playing loudly as they pulled out of the Alamo City on Thursday, got the sweep here to earn a 2-2 tie before heading back to San Antonio. They didn’t fall on their face, they saved face, this time led by David Robinson’s 20 points and 16 rebounds and Dennis Rodman’s 19 boards, 12 on the offensive end.

“To come here and win back-to-back is huge,” guard Vinny Del Negro said after contributing 19 points and seven rebounds. “But that doesn’t mean anything if we don’t continue to play well.”

Who invited consistency into this?

It was only a week ago tonight, after all, that the Rockets came to San Antonio for the opener, about 48 hours after finishing a seven-game series at Phoenix. The Spurs had been waiting at home about four days, though it looked more like four minutes.

Houston 2, San Antonio 0.

Only the foolish dared suggest sweep as the parties headed 200 miles east along I-10.

Then everything changed. Robinson stopped making like Hakeem Olajuwon’s sparring partner and asserted himself, Sunday more than in any of the previous three games. San Antonio eliminated most of the sloppy defensive rotations that had given Robert Horry and Mario Elie a ton of open three-point shots that prove costly.

Goodby, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hello, competitive series. The team that closed out the first round at Denver and then eliminated the Lakers in the second round at the Forum came to the Summit and found themselves.

In Game 4, the Rockets stayed close until near the end of the second quarter, then crumbled under the weight of their own ineptitude and Spur rebounds, especially on offense. It turned out San Antonio’s 12-2 run the final 3:08 before halftime, good for a 54-45 advantage, was only a hint.

What followed was the Spurs scoring on their first two possessions of the third quarter, good for a 13-point lead. The Rockets got within six, but Chucky Brown’s 16-foot basket with 7:44 remaining turned out to be their last field goal for 5:03.

San Antonio had another 12-2 rally in that time. Five of the points came on second-shot opportunities.

Then it really went bad for the Rockets. Horry got a foul for pushing Avery Johnson 10 feet behind the play as Del Negro cruised in for a fast-break layup, then a technical for arguing the call with official Ed T. Rush.

Del Negro made the technical free throw, and only Johnson missing one of his foul shots saved Houston from being on the wrong end of a five-point play.

Rocket guard Sam Cassell then ran into a soft trap from Johnson and J.R. Reid. No one came to help, so Cassell was forced to waste a timeout to avoid a 10-second violation, which was supposed to allow the Rockets to gather themselves. In truth, it provided only a brief rest before they broke the huddle, got the ball into play and had Elie throw a bad pass.

“We frustrated them a little bit,” San Antonio’s Sean Elliot said. “But I think they were a little tired today. They had played a lot of games. A lot of games.”

Countered Clyde Drexler, dismissing the exhaustion theory: “Maybe it played a small part. But we were fatigued when we played the first two games.”

Soon, the deficit was 20, 78-58. The quarter ended as Drexler, about 20 feet out on the left flat, dribbled out the final seconds without getting off a shot.

All that remained was for the Spurs to finish the tattoo in the fourth quarter. Their final advantage on the boards was 64-39, with Olajuwon accounting for 14 but no other Rocket more than six.

It was 24-10 in offensive rebounds, meaning Rodman had two more in that category than Houston combined.

“Think about it,” Rocket Coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. “If we only had closed off most of those possessions and cut the offensive rebounds in half. Twenty second-chance points. That’s way too many to give up.”

It only gave the Rockets something else to contemplate while devising a way to regain the momentum. They do have the obvious advantage, though. Game 5 is in San Antonio.