PHOENIX, 3 June 2005 — Tim Duncan nailed 31 points and snared 15 rebounds as the San Antonio Spurs held off a furious comeback bid by the Phoenix Suns to claim a 101-95 road victory on Wednesday and book their place in the NBA finals.
Manu Ginobili added 19 points, eight rebounds and six assists while Tony Parker chipped in with 18 points as San Antonio took the best-of-seven Western Conference finals 4-1 and returned to the championship series for the second time in three years.
The Spurs now await the winner of the Eastern Conference finals between the Detroit Pistons and Miami Heat, which is deadlocked a 2-2.
The finals are scheduled to begin on June 9.
“Persistence,” the two-time NBA MVP Duncan said.
“These guys (the Suns) are an incredible offensive team.
“They can score and they kept scoring and kept on coming but we stuck with it and got the stops and continued to play hard.”
Amare Stoudemire did his part to keep the Suns championship dreams from setting, pouring in a playoff career-high 42 points, including 17 in the fourth quarter, and grabbing 16 rebounds.
NBA MVP Steve Nash had 21 points and 10 assists while Joe Johnson had 14 points.
No team has ever rallied from a 3-0 deficit to win a conference championship but after a victory in Game Four and playing at home in Game Five, the Suns had their sights set on making history.
“It’s always frustrating when you lose,” Nash said.
“You always feel frustrated when you get beat and we got beat by a team that is a little more seasoned than we are.
“I really didn’t play well enough in the second half for us to win.”
With Stoudemire and Nash leading the way, the Suns led 50-49 going into the intermission.
However, the Spurs responded with a 20-6 run to start the third quarter and opened up a 69-56 lead to silence the Phoenix crowd.
While the Spurs could hardly miss, the Suns went stone cold and missed 12 of their first 14 shots to start the half.
The Suns, however, refused to fade away and staged one final rally in the fourth quarter, trimming the deficit to 93-90 with just under three minutes to play.
That would be as close as the Suns would get, Duncan and Parker each finding the bucket to restore a comfortable 97-90 lead with the final minute ticking off the clock.
“For us to win we had to make some stops because we are not as good as them offensively,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said.
“We are a little better than them defensively and we made some stops in the fourth quarter that allowed us to win.
