Tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN the Los Angeles Clippers head to San Antonio to face the defending champion San Antonio Spurs for Game 3 of their Western Conference Playoffs first round series, which is tied at one game each. Live stream the game free by clicking this link. Clippers fans can listen to the radio broadcast on KFWB 980, while Spurs fans may do likewise on 1200 WOAI.
This series was billed as a heavyweight battle and a treat of a Round 1 pairing; in Game 2 it lived up to that hype. Los Angeles got a monster triple-double performance from Blake Griffin, but it still wasn't enough to edge the wily Spurs. Part of that was a huge game from 39-year-old Tim Duncan, who had 28 points and 11 rebounds over 44 minutes and covered for an injured, ineffective Tony Parker.
"He was spectacular," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of his future Hall of Fame forward. "He continues to amaze me with the things that he is able to do. He knows he had to stay on the court and he figured out a way to do it. He continued to be aggressive, which is pretty amazing."
Expecting those kinds of minutes and production for Duncan consistently is unwise though, and if Parker, who is battling a sore Achilles heel, can't go full-speed then the Spurs will have problems.
"(I'm) very concerned," Duncan said. "I hope he's able to play and play well for us. We need him for that. He's a big part of what we do, obviously. So him not at 100 percent hurts us."
So far the Clippers are proving to have a massive advantage in athleticism over San Antonio. The Spurs typically counteract that with execution and scoring, but without Parker they might meet an early end. If Parker can't go all-out, the burden to make big plays falls on swingman Kawhi Leonard.
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