SAN ANTONIO - Manu Ginobili barreled into the lane with his hair flying and elbows flailing. Somehow avoiding two Pistons, he lofted the ball toward the hoop while he tumbled the other way.

By most measures, it was a terrible shot - but it hit the rim and dropped through, impervious to logic, physics or Detroit's defense.

Ginobili seemed to have a million of 'em, and the San Antonio Spurs used that Argentine energy to take an early lead in the NBA Finals. He scored 15 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter, and Tim Duncan added 24 points and 17 rebounds in San Antonio's 84-69 victory in Game 1 on Thursday night.

The winner of the finals opener has won about 70 percent of the championships in league history, but there hadn't been a Game 1 so dominated by defense in 51 years. Only Ginobili's marvelous late surge allowed San Antonio to get comfortable, and this series seems sure to be decided by tiny margins and big individual efforts.

Ginobili's freewheeling game has seemingly improved with every round of his third trip to the playoffs, but he was upset with himself at halftime. The Pistons limited him to four points on 1-of-6 shooting, and he knew the Spurs needed more.

"The emotional part of this game is so big," Ginobili said. "When I started feeling that everything was going so good for me and I was able to finish ... I just felt I couldn't feel better."

He went 6-for-6 in the final quarter, and he started the Spurs' decisive 19-4 rally by drawing a personal foul and a subsequent technical on Ben Wallace, the NBA's top defensive player this season. Ginobili has matured immeasurably in his three seasons with the Spurs, but had never carried his team to a victory under such a spotlight.

"No doubt that my confidence has been built up a lot," he said. "Now I know that even if I don't play that well at the beginning, I'm going to be on the court, and probably in the fourth quarter, I'm going to have the ball in my hands. ... It's a whole different role. I feel that responsibility at the end of the game way more, and that's what I love doing."

After watching Ginobili's succession of drives, dishes and a swooping one-handed dunk, the Spurs praised him much more than their own defense - even though they hounded Detroit into one of the worst offensive performances in finals history.

"I don't think we did anything to separate ourselves," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "We got out of kilter in the first half, and I think everybody was trying to do it themselves. ... Offensively, it was Manu Ginobili. He was something else."

For the first three quarters, the NBA's two best defensive teams seemed capable of playing to a draw. The game proceeded at the pace most expected, with long possessions, few fast breaks and more attempts at drawing charges than most teams would try in a month.

The clubs' 153 total points and the Pistons' 69 were the lowest marks in an opening game of the NBA's final playoff round since 1954, when Minneapolis beat Syracuse 79-68. Only two teams scored fewer points in a finals game than Detroit managed against San Antonio's stifling schemes.

Game 2 is Sunday night.

Pistons coach Larry Brown disliked most aspects of his team's performance after the opening eight minutes, when they briefly took a 13-point lead. While the Spurs initially struggled to reclaim their rhythm after eight days off, the Pistons seemed to run out of fuel in the fourth quarter, when San Antonio made its decisive run.

"We got up and got a good lead, and kind of forgot about how we got the lead," said Chauncey Billups, who scored 25 points in his first finals game since winning the series' MVP award last year. "I thought we had some energy (in the fourth quarter). I don't think they just really outworked us. They outplayed us, and out-executed us in some stretches."

The point total tied for the fourth-lowest in the finals in the shot clock era, eight off the record set on April 7, 1955, when Fort Wayne beat Syracuse 74-71. The Pistons' 69 points were the third-lowest in the finals, 15 off Utah's total in a 42-point loss to Chicago on June 7, 1998.

The Pistons were shut down, but they caused many of their own problems. Rasheed Wallace vanished, going scoreless and taking just three shots in the final three quarters, while Richard Hamilton had 14 points on 7-for-21 shooting.

"We missed so many easy shots tonight," Hamilton said. "We missed a lot of layups. We missed a lot of 5-foot jump shots and things like that. We've just got to relax a little bit. At times, we were real good. We just have to relax a little bit and take our time and run our offense."