LOS ANGELES, 9 November 2004 — On most nights, San Antonio’s Tim Duncan is unstoppable, but Seattle’s Danny Fortson found a way keep the two-time league most valuable player in check.
Rashard Lewis scored 27 points, and Fortson chipped in with 15 and 13 rebounds, helping the Seattle SuperSonics route the visiting Spurs, 113-94 on Sunday night.
“A lot of guys don’t like to have a hard body against them,” said Fortson, who held Duncan to 17 points on just 4-of-16 shooting. “I know I don’t but you have to be in an attack mode and I did that tonight.”
Duncan chalked it up to a bad day for him and his team, however. “It was just a bad day,” the perennial All-Star forward said. “All they did was stay in front of me and I didn’t make shots. We played very badly. I do give a lot of credit to them because they played well, but we can play a thousand times better than we played tonight.”
Frenchman Tony Parker and Argentine ace Manu Ginobili each scored 21 points for San Antonio, (2-1), which suffered its first lost of the season.
“Seattle played really fine basketball,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “They played hard basketball. They outplayed us every way that a team could outplay somebody. Fortson was super on the boards, but everybody played well. They played smarter than we did and they deserved to win the game.”
Ray Allen netted 24 points and Antonio Daniels added 14 for Seattle, which shot 51 percent from the floor en route to snapping a seven-game slide against San Antonio dating back to 2002. “Tonight, I thought Danny Fortson did what he does best, especially on the boards on both ends of the floor,” Seattle coach Nate McMillan said. “He did a good job of keeping Tim Duncan out of the paint. I thought this team tonight outworked San Antonio.”
Toronto Raptors 101 Portland Trail Blazers 97: Vince Carters scored 25 points, including the go-ahead 3-pointer with 4.8 seconds left, lifting the unbeaten Raptors to their third consecutive victory.
Knotted at 95-apiece, Carter faked Nick Van Exel on drive, and buried a step back jumper from the left wing. He added two free throws with 3.2 seconds left to clinch the victory.
“I was waiting for the shot clock to come down,” Carter said. “As I went left, everybody went left so I just stepped back and hey, do or die. Fortunately it went in.”
Rafer Alston, Jalen Rose and Donyell Marshall chipped in with 16 points apiece, for Toronto, which moved to a 3-0.
“It was a total team effort,” Rose said. “It is picture perfect. This franchise has never started 3-0. For us to get all three is a good start and hopefully we can go on the road and play good basketball.”
Zach Randolph had 25 of his 33 points in the second half and grabbed 15 rebounds but Portland (2-1) fell for the first time this season.
L.A. Lakers 106 Atlanta Hawks 90: Kobe Bryant had 23 points and Caron Butler added 22 to lead a balanced scoring attack as the host Lakers kept the Hawks winless.
Chris Mihm netted 19 points while Lamar Odom finished with 11 and 11 rebounds for Los Angeles, (2-2), which shot 56 percent from the floor to stop a modest two-game slide. Reserves Tierre Brown and Jumaine Jones had 13 and 11 points respectively.
“Different guys are going to score on different nights, that is just the way we are,” Mihm said. “Everyone did tonight and when that happens we are going to be hard to beat.”
Al Harrington scored 22 points and Antoine Walker added 20 for Atlanta, which dropped all three games on the road by an average of 21 points.
“We weren’t necessarily worried about stopping Kobe,” Walker said. “We didn’t want to let other guys get off tonight. What we didn’t want to happen happened. Caron Butler was the dagger tonight.”