Kaman returns in loss to Spurs

SAN ANTONIO -- Every game is important now for the San Antonio Spurs, who are in a tight playoff race in the Western Conference.

The Clippers, with Chris Kaman back in the lineup, also played with some urgency Wednesday night, even though they won’t be in the postseason.

The Spurs withstood a late Clippers rally before gaining their fifth straight victory, 97-88. The Clippers lost their ninth in a row.

“It was just great focus,” said Spurs point guard Tony Parker, who scored 15 points. “Even when we were down five it was like, ‘Come on.’ We knew that, the standings, we can’t afford to lose the game.”

The win gave San Antonio a 1 1/2 -game lead over the sixth-place Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference, where the standings change nearly every night.

Tim Duncan led the Spurs with 26 points and 12 rebounds to close out the last of six back-to-backs the team played this month. They went 4-2 on the second night of them.

Corey Maggette scored 22 points for the Clippers and Al Thornton added 21 points and nine rebounds. Kaman, sidelined for nine games by a sore lower back, scored 16 points.

“We just wanted to play well,” Clippers Coach Mike Dunleavy said. “And we’ve been playing a lot of good games. But we play a lot of guys a lot of minutes because we’ve been short-handed. It catches up to you a little bit. Tonight our guys were tired. We had good, open looks. We just didn’t finish.”

The return of Kaman, who had been relatively quiet for the first three quarters and played limited minutes, proved crucial to the Clippers in the fourth quarter. He and Maggette keyed an 11-0 run, and his basket with 7:23 to play gave them their first lead -- 80-79 -- since they were up, 3-2, early.

The Clippers went up by five before the Spurs answered with a 10-0 run -- highlighted by a Manu Ginobili three-point basket -- that put them ahead, 89-84, with 1:43 to play. At the same time, the Clippers didn’t score for more than 4 1/2 minutes and didn’t make a field goal for the last 5:58.

“We took the lead there and just couldn’t capitalize. They got a bunch of stops in a row. We just fell apart on offense,” Kaman said. “I think we panicked a little bit. . . . We were up five points but we couldn’t finish the game, which has been a consistent problem for us all year.”

The surge gave San Antonio the lead for good, though Ginobili didn’t stop and scored another basket, followed by a three-pointer from Michael Finley to make it 94-86 with 37 seconds left and put the game out of reach.