Horry Earns His Spurs

Robert Horry didn’t wait until the final seconds to make his trademark shot. Instead, his dagger of a three-point basket -- two of them, actually -- came earlier than usual.

After the visiting Memphis Grizzlies slashed San Antonio’s lead to one point late in the third quarter, Horry made two three-point shots and a putback to swing the game’s momentum back to the Spurs in an 87-70 victory Monday night for a 2-0 lead in their first-round series.

Horry finished with 14 points on six-of-nine shooting and 10 rebounds, prompting teammate Tim Duncan to accuse him of sandbagging during the regular season -- just the sort of thing the Lakers used to tease him about when Horry was cementing his late-game reputation while playing in Los Angeles.

“He just kind of hung out and did what he could,” said Duncan, who had 23 points and 12 rebounds. “Now it’s playoff time and he wants to play.”

Game 3 is Thursday at Memphis.

Horry, who collected five championship rings during his time in Houston and Los Angeles, said the first three-point basket picked him up. He made only 41 of them during the regular season, only two in April.

“I thought, ‘I hadn’t made a three-pointer in so long,’ ” he said. “I just took what was given to me.”

San Antonio’s defense clinched the game by holding the Grizzlies without a field goal for nearly 11 minutes spanning the third and fourth periods.

The Spurs, up by nine after three, went on a 14-0 run early in the final period to build their largest lead, 82-60.

Tony Parker led San Antonio with 27 points, 17 of them coming in the first half. He was four of six on three-pointers.

Parker took 20 shots, double the number he tried Saturday in the Spurs’ 98-74 win in Game 1.

“Sometimes he tends to forget that he’s open and to let it fly,” said San Antonio Coach Gregg Popovich. “He was better at that tonight.”

Pau Gasol led the Grizzlies with 20 points and 11 rebounds, but he had only one field goal in the second half.

“We were playing with intensity, running and executing and stopping them,” Gasol said of the Grizzlies, who got within 55-54 early in the third quarter. “But they had that run in the fourth quarter that really killed us. We weren’t playing like we did in the first three quarters.”