Tony Parker shooed away the NBA coach of the year. The San Antonio Spurs were ahead 36 points and he didn't want Gregg Popovich to end his night just yet.
"To stay in shape," Parker said.
That's how bad it got for the Utah Jazz. It was the third quarter of a playoff game, and Parker by then was practically treating it as just another workout.
Pummeling the Jazz in a fashion not seen since Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls humiliated them in the 1998 NBA finals, San Antonio handed Utah its second-worst playoff loss, winning 114-83 on Wednesday night to take 2-0 lead in the first-round series.
Parker scored 18 points, while Popovich -- a day after receiving the NBA's highest coaching honor -- could practically put the Spurs on autopilot after a 20-0 run in the second quarter. Jazz coach Tyrone Corbin had admitted to being unusually jittery before losing Game 1, but this time, it was center Al Jefferson summing up how this shiner felt.
"Embarrassing," he said.
The only bigger embarrassment for the Jazz in the playoffs was that 42-point loss to Jordan's Bulls in 1998. Game 3 is Saturday night in Salt Lake City. It's the first time the Spurs have led a series 2-0 since opening the 2008 playoffs against Phoenix. San Antonio won that series in five, and unless the Jazz can shake this off, this one will be over just as quick.
If not sooner. "I can't explain it. I couldn't explain it the other night," Jazz forward Paul
Millsap said. "They came out and just whipped us."Pacers 97, Magic 74: In the first two games against Orlando, Indiana struggled to make the most of its size and matchup advantages. After several days of repeated tongue lashings from coach Frank Vogel, the Pacers finally got the message and capitalized on both, running past the host Magic to take a 2-1 lead in the first-round series.
Danny Granger had 26 points and nine rebounds, Roy Hibbert added 18 points and 10 rebounds, and Indiana held Orlando under 80 points for the second straight game. The Pacers regained home-court advantage, riding good shooting early, building a 29-point lead in the fourth quarter and cruising to the victory.
"I think we're adjusting," Hibbert said. "We see what they're doing. ... They made their run at the end of the first quarter. We adjusted, then we tried to lay it on them as much as possible."
Indiana dominated scoring underneath thanks to a 46-33 rebounding edge and has outscored the Magic 81-43 in the third quarter in the series.
Knicks: Amare Stoudemire thinks there's a "great chance" he can play in Game 4 of the Knicks' series against Miami on Sunday despite cutting his left hand on a fire extinguisher case. Stoudemire is out of Thursday's Game 3 after a surgeon repaired a muscle in the hand Tuesday. The Knicks are calling him doubtful for Game 4, but Stoudemire said Wednesday he's "not totally sure yet."
- Tyson Chandler, the catalyst for New York's defensive improvement, was named the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year. Chandler beat out Oklahoma City's Serge Ibaka and three-time champion Dwight Howard of Orlando to become the first Knicks player to win the award.
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