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<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.latimes.com/sports/basketball/nba/lakers/la-sp-lakeside14may14,1,2213581.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dsports%2Dnba%2Dlakers" target="top"><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Oh, What a Relief It Is for Spurs</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>
By Steve Springer, Times Staff Writer<br>
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SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio Spur guard Stephen Jackson kept his fist clenched Tuesday night as he walked down the hallway at SBC Center. He smashed it into the wall again and again.<br>
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Teammate Bruce Bowen got in his face.<br>
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"Hey, man," Bowen told him, "we won."<br>
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It was hard to tell.<br>
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The Spurs may have hung on to win Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Lakers, but the reaction was a sigh rather than a shout, relief rather than revelry.<br>
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A 25-point lead had dwindled to two and maybe less.<br>
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With 1.6 seconds left on the clock and the Spurs clinging to a 96-94 lead, Robert Horry launched a shot from behind the three-point line, the kind of shot that sank the Sacramento Kings in Game 4 of the conference finals last season.<br>
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And don't think all of that didn't cross the minds of the Spurs.<br>
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Horry's shot went in the basket, but then the ball popped out and into the waiting arms of David Robinson.<br>
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"I thought about Sacramento," Robinson said. "I thought about the shot he hit last year. That is not the guy you want to shoot an open three-pointer at the end of the game.<br>
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"But we should not have let it get that close. That was a nail-biter. If you look up the definition of nail-biter in the dictionary, this was it."<br>
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And what was Robinson feeling as he held the ball as time expired?<br>
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"I just wanted to get off the court," he said.<br>
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As if someone might decide to have them play some more if he didn't exit immediately.<br>
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San Antonio reserve Steve Smith let out a big smile as he finally reached the sanctuary of the locker room. "You gotta love it," he said to no one in particular and everyone in general.<br>
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This wasn't a team that had moved one knockout punch away from dethroning the champion. This was a team that had hung on the ropes until the bell had sounded.<br>
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"That was w-a-a-y too close," Malik Rose said. "I thought it was good all the way. Thank God it popped out."<br>
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Admitted Jackson: "I was frightened. Robert knows how to spoil a person's season. He has done it a lot."<br>
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Guard Tony Parker had a big smile when the media army descended on him.<br>
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"Last year," Parker said, "Horry makes that shot. Maybe this is our year."<br>
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Parker made eight of 16 shots from the field, totaled 21 points and steadied the offense.<br>
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That's five more points than he totaled in Games 3 and 4.<br>
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Parker gave Coach Gregg Popovich credit for supplying the spark that ignited him.<br>
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"He has been saying that I was not playing hard enough," said the 20-year-old guard. "I was trying to show him he was wrong.<br>
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"He thought I was on vacation."<br>
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Many in the sellout crowd of 18,797 thought all the Spurs were about to go on vacation when Horry launched his potential game-winning shot.<br>
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But not this time.<br>
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This time, the Spurs were the winners. It just took a few minutes for them to really, truly believe it.
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