Robinson: Let’s Play a Bit Longer

David Robinson, recent play notwithstanding, is not ready for some time off.

He’ll take two more games against Utah, thank you, and then three against Seattle and. . . .

But first the Jazz. Robinson scored 24 points and grabbed 15 rebounds Tuesday night to lead the Spurs to a 98-87 victory at San Antonio and cut Utah’s lead to 3-2 in the best-of-seven series.

He had scored 11 points in each of the last two games of the series, losses of 30 and 15 points by the Spurs.

“We’ve still got two games to go, so everything’s still up in the air right now,” Robinson said. “We believe we can do it. The last two games were not indicative at all of the team that we have.

“It’s only one win, but it’s a big one and we got it,” Robinson said.

It was enough to have Jazz players talking defensively.

“If we can’t go home and take care of business on Thursday . . . maybe we don’t deserve to win this series,” said Karl Malone, who, despite scoring 24 points and grabbing 12 rebounds, hit only eight of 21 shots.

San Antonio is seeking to become only the sixth team in NBA history to come back from a 3-1 deficit.

Trailing, 45-35, at halftime, Utah opened the third quarter with a 10-2 run and cut its deficit to 47-45. But San Antonio responded with 14 points in a row and Utah couldn’t recover. The Jazz went 5:44 without scoring, and San Antonio pushed its lead to 61-45 with 3:32 left in the quarter.

The Jazz threatened midway through the fourth quarter, pulling to 81-70 with 5:30 to play on two free throws by Malone. Avery Johnson answered with a basket, and Malone came back with another to keep Utah within 83-72 with just under four minutes to play.

But Utah could get no closer.

Spur Coach Bob Hill said his team played its brand of basketball for the first time in the series.

“We really had them on their heels for the whole game. . . . We were very active with our hands and very active with our feet,” he said. “We needed to play well and we needed to win. We didn’t need to win and not play well.”

Jeff Hornacek added 16 points for Utah.