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 Jeremy Lin rescued the Charlotte Hornets on a night when they
started miserably, and the Hornets rallied from a 23-point deficit
to stun the San Antonio Spurs 91-88 Monday night.
Lin scored 29 points on 11-of-18 shooting with four 3-pointers, and
he came up biggest with the game on the line. His fallaway jumper
with 48.4 seconds remaining gave the Hornets the lead for good at
89-88, and then he tacked on two free throws with 18.3 left to push
the lead to three.
"He's a very committed player," Hornets coach Steve Clifford said.
"He comes in and he works so hard. You're going to get his best
effort every night. He obviously came in and picked our energy up
tonight, in both halves. He was the catalyst."
The Hornets (40-30) bounced back from a bitter home loss to the
Denver Nuggets on Saturday night and won for the 10th time in their
past 12 games.
 "We just turned it up," Lin said. "I can't even think, man. We just
played hard. I'm just thankful to God. I've been struggling so much
and we lost one the other night that we felt we shouldn't have lost,
so to come out here and get this win is a huge boost for us. Now we
have to come out and take care of business (Tuesday at Brooklyn)."
The Monday game was all San Antonio in the early going, as the Spurs
showed no letdown after their big win over the Golden State Warriors
on Saturday.
The Spurs led 28-7 after one quarter, limiting the Hornets to 14.3
percent shooting from the field, 3-for-21.
Lin scored 12 points in the second quarter as the Hornets chipped
away at the deficit to trail 51-36 at halftime. The Hornets then
closed within 72-67 after three quarters, and then they got their
first lead at 75-74 on Lin's 3-pointer with 9:10 remaining.
"I told them, 'Please try harder, please,'" Clifford joked about
what he said after the Hornets fell behind by 23. "'I'm begging you,
please. I know you make more money than me, I know most of you could
get me fired. I'm just saying please, so I can sleep on the plane
tonight, please just try a little bit harder.'"
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Courtney Lee scored 17 points, Nicolas Batum scored 15, and Cody
Zeller had 14 rebounds for Charlotte. Leading scorer Kemba Walker
was held to six points on 2-of-11 shooting, and Al Jefferson was
just 1-for-9 for three points.
The Spurs (59-11) had a six-game winning streak snapped. They had
won 14 of their previous 15 and 20 of their previous 22.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich felt the game slipped away in the second
quarter, when his team had an opportunity to turn the outcome into a
rout.
"In the second quarter, I thought our second team was basically out
to lunch," Popovich said. "They stopped moving the ball. It was
one-on-one, turnovers, gave up 29 points in the quarter. That sealed
the fate right there. Charlotte recovered. They did a good job of
hanging in and playing hard and continued to do that."
Tony Parker led the Spurs with 19 points. LaMarcus Aldridge had 18
points and 12 rebounds, Tim Duncan finished with 16 points and 10
rebounds, and Kawhi Leonard scored 15. The San Antonio bench
provided just 18 points, though, and combined to shoot 5-for-22 from
the field.
"They just played better in the second half," Aldridge said. "They
picked up their intensity and they ended up making more plays down
the stretch than we did. We got some good looks down the stretch,
but guys just didn't make shots."
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