Spurs, Duncan Stuff Grizzlies

April 1, 1999 / 11:47 PM EST / CBS/AP

Tim Duncan made sure the San Antonio Spurs didn't miss David Robinson.

Duncan scored a career-high 39 points to lead the Spurs to a 103-91 victory over the Vancouver Grizzlies on Thursday night.

San Antonio got its 15th victory in 17 games despite playing without Robinson, who missed the game with an inflamed left knee.

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"I wasn't expecting to get so many shots tonight," said Duncan, who was 19-of-31 from the field and grabbed 13 rebounds. "The opportunities just came to me. I was not necessarily looking for more shots, but I got the ball in good position to shoot."

Duncan topped his previous scoring high of 35, against Golden State last season.

"Tim had a monster game tonight," San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said. "The team effort was great. It was just a good effort by a lot of people."

Sean Elliott scored 14 points for the Spurs, while Malik Rose added 11 and Jerome Kersey 10. Shareef Abdur-Rahim led Vancouver with 27 points.

"He (Duncan) was amazing," said Spurs guard Steve Kerr. "He's an unbelievable player. It's scary that he is only in his second year. He totally dominated tonight."

Duncan scored 22 points in the first half as the Spurs built a 50-38 lead, but the Grizzlies opened the second half with a 12-0 run and tied the game 50-50 on a jumper by Abdur-Rahim with 9:17 left in the third quarter.

"Our problems tonight went back to the start," said Vancouver coach Brian Hill, whose team dropped to 1-13 on the road. "I didn't like the way we looked in the locker room before the game. We believed we could win if we held onto the ball and hit our shots."

After Vancouver took its largest lead of the game at 61-56, San Antonio answered with a 7-0 run that was capped by Kerr's jumper.

San Antonio led 76-71 after three quarters, and Vancouver got no closer than four points in the final period.

Robinson missed his first gae of the season, and is questionable for Saturday's home game against the Los Angeles Clippers.

"My knee's banged up" said Robinson, who is averaging 14.7 points per game. "It's been swollen for a couple of days since the last game. We just decided to give it a break tonight. Tomorrow in practice we'll see how I feel."

The Spurs shot 52 percent from the field and scored 58 points in the paint.

"We did a poor job of being ready to play tonight," Abdur-Rahim said. "At the half we got back into the game, but we couldn't pull it all together at the end."
Notes: When Elliott scores at least 12 points, the Spurs are 13-3. ... Abdur-Rahim led the Grizzlies in scoring 23 times in 31 games this season.