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By FRAN BLINEBURY<br>
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle<br>
SAN ANTONIO -- It took doctors only a couple of hours to perform the angioplasty that restored normal blood flow through one of Phil Jackson's arteries and get him walking around pain-free for the first time in months. <br>
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Now it's up to the head coach to remove the blockage in the Lakers' game and get rid of the nausea. Green in the face clashes so with those purple and gold uniforms. <br>
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Here were the Lakers, back at the SBC Center looking for all the world like a bunch that should be hooked up to IV bottles, if not life support. <br>
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Here were the Spurs, back at home and running comfortably all around their back yard. <br>
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It is a week later now, and what does Game 5 prove that Games 1 and 2 didn't? <br>
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Only that the Spurs are no more sure of how they're going to kill off the monster than at any time in last two failed playoff seasons or before this series started. <br>
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Tony Parker runs freer in familiar surroundings. Manu Ginobili attacks the basket harder. Bruce Bowen plays defense with more edge, more teeth. Speedy Claxton turns into an unstoppable force. Even David Robinson manages to score as they build a 25-point lead. <br>
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Yet with the clock winding down, there was Kobe Bryant dodging and weaving around defenders deep in the corner, and there was Robert Horry popping open out on the left wing, catching the ball and maybe a chance to steal the series in his hands. <br>
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There was another one of those shots that has made Horry into such a mythic figure at this time of the year. Another one of those situations where the ball seems to find him. How many times through the years has he been a playoff hero with a late 3-pointer? How many teams has he crushed with one of those babies? <br>
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The Spurs had felt his sting, in another building in another lifetime, when Horry beat the horn as a member of the Rockets in Game 1 of the 1995 Western Conference finals. <br>
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This time Horry's shot with 3.6 seconds left went halfway into the basket and then rattled out and the Spurs held on for a 96-94 victory and a 3-2 lead in the series. <br>
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An entire city that had been dancing in celebration just a short time earlier avoided getting a mariachi band stuck in its throat and breathed a sigh of relief. <br>
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The Spurs can, of course, move on by continuing to defend the home turf. But that would require one roll of the dice in an always-chancy seventh game. What really would it say about the presumed championship pedigree of a team that doesn't finish the job at hand? And after this, would anyone in silver and black want to risk it? <br>
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In these fast and tense times, opportunity doesn't always knock anymore. Often it merely beeps and drives by. <br>
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The Spurs then were fortunate not to see this chance in what is always a critical game fade in their rearview mirror. <br>
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"If we can ever figure out how to stop somebody in the fourth quarter or score against somebody in the fourth quarter, we'll be dangerous," said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. "It would be hard to describe my feelings on that last shot. It would be something that involved a roaring gulp and maybe my heart finally coming back up out of my belly. I've seen that shot before." <br>
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The fact that everyone has seen the Spurs fail to take care of business in the fourth quarter makes you wonder if they can in Game 6 in Los Angeles and avoid the ultimate slippery slope back here Saturday. <br>
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"This game in any series is always a chance to open it up," Jackson said. "Usually, the team that wins Game 5 wins the series." <br>
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That is what history says when you add the numbers. But if you flip the pages of the history book back to just last year, there were the Lakers down 3-2 to Sacramento, and that scenario ended up with LA celebrating another championship. <br>
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Now the Lakers are older, more beaten up, more broken down, looking so much more vulnerable than at any time during their run. But they were able to win a pair of games over the weekend in LA, taking advantage of a huge breakdown by the Spurs in the last 90 seconds of Game 4. <br>
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That is what has to still be lurking in the darkest corners of the Spurs' minds. That and what did happen in Game 5. They blew their poise, they blew their lead and they almost blew the game, the series and their reputations. <br>
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If they are back here for a Game 7, it's not good. <br>
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