Spurs’ Parker ruptures quad tendon, out for playoffs

Game 3, 9:30 p.m., ESPN.

Parker is in his 16th season in the National Basketball Association and has helped the Spurs to four National Basketball Association titles in the past. That means he did not take the big win for granted and wanted to come back just as big in their second game in San Antonio before the action headed home to Houston.

The Spurs might be able to survive the loss of Parker, considering they no longer rely on him like they once did. He and LeBron James are now the league’s only players to have scored 4,000 points and dished 1,000 assists in postseason play. Parker ruptured a left quadriceps tendon while going up for a shot and will miss the remainder of the postseason.

His 18 points marked the sixth time in eight post-season games that he has scored 15-plus points after doing so just 16 times in 63 regular-season games. That’s tops among players still in the postseason.

KAWHI Leonard bucked a slow start to lead the San Antonio Spurs to a resounding 103-92 victory over the Houston Rockets to regain homecourt advantage in their West semis series on Friday (Saturday, Manila time) at the Toyota Center.

After the first two games of the series were decided by a combined 52 points, things were much more interesting Friday.

There’s been speculation that Aldridge might not be completely healthy, possibly dealing with a knee injury. Each team has won a game.

Veteran guard Manu Ginobili, a longtime member of the Spurs’ brain trust, alluded to the likelihood of Leonard’s increased involvement in initiating San Antonio’s offense. Will Murray make mistakes? On Wednesday, he went 8-of-13 from the field before the non-contact injury, scoring 18 points. James Harden should come back very strong after an terrible outing on Wednesday.

Houston isn’t venturing into the great unknown in structuring a game plan suited for slowing Mills and not Parker.

“It sucks to see somebody go down that way especially for what he brings to their team”, Ariza said. “I didn’t convert layups”.

“We knew we were coming to a hostile environment, we knew they were going to give us everything they had, no matter who was in the lineup”, James said. That helped mitigate 21 turnovers that led to 25 Rockets points.

Warriors guard Klay Thompson said he expects Harden to put up big numbers when he plays against him.

Kawhi Leonard was a master on the court taking over when he needed to and getting the ball to the open man.

Since joining the Spurs in the summer of 2015, Aldridge’s points per game have decreased by 6.1 points.