Sports

Spurs roll over Heat in Game 3

SAN ANTONIO — After Miami cruised to an easy Game 2 victory and used suffocating defense to shut down San Antonio’s efficient offense, some thought the Heat had figured the Spurs out, and were well on their way to a second-straight championship.

Then Game 3 started, and, suddenly, the Heat looked like the team in search of answers once again.

The Spurs jumped on the Heat from the start, never trailing as they came away with a 113-77 blowout victory Tuesday night to take a 2-1 lead in this best-of-seven series in front of a sellout crowd inside AT&T Center.

Hitting a Finals record 16 3-pointers — including having Danny Green and Gary Neal go a combined 13-for-19 from behind the arc — the Spurs answered Miami’s 33-5 second half run in the Heat’s Game 2 victory with a 41-19 run of their own to open the second half to obliterate the Heat.

Green, who led San Antonio with 27 points and Neal, who had 24, couldn’t miss all night, and the Heat struggled. LeBron James had 15 points, 11 rebounds and five assists, but shot just 7-for-21 from the floor and scored nine of those points in a quick burst to end the third quarter.

The Spurs, feeding off a raucous partisan crowd attending the team’s first Finals home game in six years, jumped out to an early 9-4 lead, one they would maintain for nearly the rest of the first half behind 14 points from Neal and 10 from Tim Duncan.

San Antonio extended its lead in the second, with a beautiful outlet pass from Duncan from under his own basket to a streaking Kawhi Leonard for a slam dunk giving the Spurs a 40-30 lead with 4:37 to go in the half before a Neal 3-pointer gave them a 43-32 advantage — their biggest of the game to that point — with 3:27 remaining.

The Heat then responded, immediately launching into a 12-1 run that culminated in a nifty reverse lay-up by Dwyane Wade after a baseline drive that tied the game at 44 with 37.8 seconds left in the half.

But it was San Antonio which closed the half strongly, getting a 3-pointer from Tony Parker with 26.9 seconds left before, following a shot off a drive by James that missed everything, a beautiful Duncan outlet pass to Parker at midcourt followed by a pass to Neal for a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from the wing that sent the Spurs into the half with a 50-44 lead.

That momentum carried over into the second half, which the Spurs opened with a 9-2 run capped by a Green 3-pointer to give them a 59-46 lead. Then, after a couple of 3-pointers by the Heat’s Mike Miller, the Spurs ripped off another 11-0 run to give them a 73-52 lead with 2:54 remaining in the third.

James went on a quick scoring binge to end the third quarter to cut Miami’s deficit to 78-63 after three quarters, but the Spurs opened the fourth with yet another flurry — this time a 13-0 burst — to start the party early.

tbontemps@nypost.com