Parker, Ginobili spur San Antonio

There was no third-quarter breakdown for the Spurs on Thursday night in San Antonio, just the desperate play of a team whose quest for a second straight NBA title was on the line.

Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili both scored 31 points to lead the Spurs to a 110-99 victory over the New Orleans Hornets in Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals.

With the win, the Spurs avoided falling into an ominous 0-3 hole from which no NBA team has returned.

Chris Paul led the Hornets, who still hold a 2-1 series lead, with 35 points for New Orleans, which was dominant in the first two games of the series.

Game 4 is Sunday night in San Antonio.

After trading leads all night, the Spurs led 83-78 entering the fourth quarter.

New Orleans got within 90-88 before the Spurs took over, playing out the fourth quarter better than they have played all series.

San Antonio went on an 11-0 burst featuring Ginobili, Parker and Tim Duncan to take a 101-88 lead with 5:57 to play.

The Hornets got no closer than 10 points in the latter half of the quarter.

Celtics 89, Cavaliers 73: At Boston, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen found their shooting touch. LeBron James can only hope he left his in Cleveland.

Pierce scored 19 points, Kevin Garnett added 13 with 12 rebounds, and Allen broke out of a seven-quarter scoring drought with 16 points to help the Celtics beat the Cavaliers to take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

One game after going 2 for 18 from the field and missing his last six shots, including a layup to tie the game with 8.5 seconds left, James missed his first three tries and finished with 21 points on 6-for-24 shooting.

This time it was contagious: The Cavaliers shot 35.6 percent in the game, hitting just 11.8 percent in the second quarter as Boston turned an eight-point deficit into a nine-point lead.

Game 3 is Saturday night in Cleveland. The Cavaliers will need their crowd to pull them out of their funk.

Cleveland reserve Anderson Varejao had 10 rebounds in 32 minutes after forward Ben Wallace went to the locker room 3:40 into the game with dizziness.