Heat drops to 0-4 with loss to Spurs

SAN ANTONIO -- There was Manu Ginobili, making another three-point basket for the San Antonio Spurs and scoring 25 points. And there was the Miami Heat, which looked as if, even if it had Dwyane Wade back, it might not have been enough.

“Ginobili is a handful,” Heat Coach Pat Riley said Wednesday night after his team lost, 88-78, and fell to 0-4 this season. “He’s unpredictable. It’s hard to defend him.”

But Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich wasn’t ready to claim too much credit, saying, “We realize they were pretty undermanned.”

Riley nor the team would hide behind the Wade excuse, but they did acknowledge what the guard recovering from off-season knee and shoulder surgeries creates for the Heat.

“I think that’s where [the Spurs], a lot of times they scored in the last six or seven seconds of the shot clock with” Tony Parker and Ginobili, Riley said. “Right now, when we break down, we don’t have anybody that’s doing that. He happens to be sitting on the bench. That’s what we used to do.”

Ginobili made four of the Spurs’ seven three-pointers and scored 12 points in the third quarter, after San Antonio led by only one at halftime.

Shaquille O’Neal led the Heat with 17 points but had only three rebounds.

Around the league

Phoenix will play host to the 2009 All-Star game, the third time the city has held the event. . . . Washington Coach Eddie Jordan believes point guard Gilbert Arenas will play tonight against New Jersey despite having his surgically repaired knee drained for the second time in three weeks and missing his third straight practice. . . . Golden State forward Matt Barnes could miss tonight’s game against Dallas after dislocating the knuckle on his right ring finger in Tuesday’s loss to Cleveland.