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SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- From big 3s to Big Three, the Spurs had it all in the NBA Finals' raucous return to San Antonio.

Danny Green made seven of the Spurs' finals-record 16 3-pointers, Tim Duncan has 12 points and 14 rebounds, and the Spurs clobbered the Miami Heat 113-77 on Tuesday night to take 2-1 lead in the series.

Green scored 27 points and Gary Neal made six 3-pointer while scoring 24 as San Antonio went 16 of 32 from behind the arc.

Duncan bounced back from his worst game ever in the finals, and the Spurs' combination of fresh faces and old reliables in a raucous return to a city that hadn't hosted a finals game since 1997.

The Spurs were as good as fans remembered in the old days, shutting down LeBron James until they had built a huge lead late in the third quarter.

James finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds, but missed 11 of his first 13 shots against the excellent defense of Kawhi Leonard, who had 14 points and 12 rebounds.

Game 4 is Thursday here, where the Heat are 3-22 in the regular season and so far zero wins and one really bad beating in the postseason.

Duncan shot 3 of 13 for nine points, his worst performance ever in his 25 NBA Finals games, in the Heat's 103-84 victory Sunday. Tony Parker wasn't much better, shooting 5 of 14 and committing five turnovers, and Manu Ginobili admitted afterward the veteran trio had to play well for the Spurs to win.

They were fine, but the lesser-knowns were better.

Parker and Ginobili combined for 14 assists, but the bigger story was the guys who had never played on this stage before.

- Neal, who went undrafted after playing for LaSalle and Towson, then playing overseas for three seasons in Italy, Spain and Turkey.

-Green, who had been cut multiple times - including by James' Cavaliers - and now has the shot to stick.

-Leonard, the draft-night trade acquisition from San Diego State who played the NBA's four-time MVP to a stalemate.

Mike Miller made all five 3-pointers and scored 15 points for the Heat, who broke open Sunday's game and seized momentum in the series with a 33-5 run in the second half.

The Spurs seized it right back, improving to 18-7 in the finals, the best winning percentage of any team with 20 or more games.

A brief flurry by James had Miami within 15 after three quarters, but Neal, Green and Leonard combined on a 13-0 run to open the fourth, Green's 3-pointer making it 91-63.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Michael Wacha recovered from a wild start to earn his first major league win and Allen Craig hit a three-run homer for the St. Louis Cardinals in a 9-2 victory over the staggering New York Mets on Tuesday night.

Matt Holliday had three hits and the NL Central leaders took full advantage of a crucial error by new Mets first baseman Daniel Murphy, who was shifted over from second after slumping Ike Davis got demoted to the minors Sunday.

David Freese extended his career-high hitting streak to 20 games, longest in the National League this season, and Wacha (1-0) even knocked in a run with a groundout for his first RBI.

Omar Quintanilla homered for the Mets, who gave up seven unearned runs and lost for the seventh time in eight games since a season-best five-game winning streak that included a four-game sweep of the Subway Series against the New York Yankees.

Jeremy Hefner (1-6) had a 2-1 lead until St. Louis scored five unearned runs in the fifth inning, capped by Craig's fifth homer. The outburst began when Jon Jay reached on a leadoff grounder to Murphy, who knocked it down on his backhand but rushed a high, off-balance throw to Hefner covering first.

Pete Kozma doubled and Hefner slammed down the rosin bag at the back of the mound after Wacha's grounder to shortstop tied the score. Matt Carpenter walked, Yadier Molina put the Cardinals ahead with an RBI groundout and Holliday reached on an infield single before Craig drove an 0-1 pitch to left-center for a 6-2 advantage.

At his best in clutch situations, Craig came in batting .400 with runners in scoring position - the same average he had last year.

St. Louis, which owns baseball's best record at 42-22, added two in the seventh after Kirk Nieuwenhuis misplayed a deep fly to right for an error. Holliday had an RBI single and reliever Josh Edgin, just recalled from Triple-A Las Vegas, walked Jay with the bases loaded to force in another run.

Shane Robinson, who replaced Craig in right field for defense, homered in the ninth off David Aardsma to make it 9-2. Craig made a painful-looking catch in the third when he fell at the base of the wall in front of the 375-foot sign, where his neck and the back of his head snapped back and hit the fence.

Wacha, drafted 19th overall a year ago out of Texas A&M, was making his third major league start after an impressive outing against Kansas City and a shaky one against Arizona.

Pitching on the road for the first time, he gave up a home run to his second batter and walked three in a 37-pitch first inning. Marlon Byrd had a sacrifice fly and the bases were loaded when Nieuwenhuis hit a grounder up the middle that appeared headed for center field and a two-run single that would have given New York a 4-0 lead.

Kozma, however, was positioned perfectly at shortstop and made a nice play to end the inning.

It was the sort of play that often goes unnoticed, but it stopped the Mets in their tracks. The 21-year-old Wacha did not walk another batter and yielded five hits over six solid innings before Randy Choate and Keith Butler finished up.

New York did not manage a hit after Jordany Valdespin's leadoff single in the fifth. With Davis sent down, Valdespin is getting an opportunity to play regularly at second base, his natural position.

 

NOTES: Cardinals RF Carlos Beltran, a former Mets star, was rested to give him consecutive days off. The team was off Monday and Beltran traveled home to attend commencement ceremonies for the first graduating class of his Carlos Beltran Baseball Academy in Puerto Rico. "We're happy that he was able to make that happen, and the Cardinals really tried to help out," manager Mike Matheny said. "It was a lot of travel. What he's doing down there is good for the game, good for the community." ... Matheny said RHP Jake Westbrook (elbow inflammation) is scheduled to come off the disabled list and start Friday night in Miami. ... Mets RHP Matt Harvey (5-0, 2.10 ERA) threw his bullpen session and is on target to make his next scheduled start in the series finale Thursday afternoon against RHP Adam Wainwright (9-3, 2.34). Harvey left Saturday's start after seven effective innings with tightness in his lower back.

NEW YORK (AP) -- After setting off a storm of criticism from abortion rights groups upset that a Democratic president had sided with social conservatives, the Obama administration said it will comply with a judge's order to allow girls of any age to buy emergency contraception without prescriptions.

But in doing so, at least one opponent of easy access to the contraception thinks the president is buckling to political pressure, rather than making the health of girls a priority.

The Justice Department notified U.S. District Judge Edward Korman on Monday that it will submit a plan for compliance. If he approves it, the department will drop its appeal of his April ruling.

According to the department's letter to the judge, the Food and Drug Administration has told the maker of the pills to submit a new drug application with proposed labeling that would permit it to be sold "without a prescription and without age or point-of-sale prescriptions." The FDA said that once it receives the application, it "intends to approve it promptly."

Advocates for girls' and women's rights said the federal government's decision to comply with the judge's ruling could be a move forward for "reproductive justice" if the FDA acts quickly and puts emergency contraception over the counter without restriction.

"It's about time that the administration stopped opposing women having access to safe and effective birth control," Annie Tummino, coordinator of the National Women's Liberation and lead plaintiff in a lawsuit over unrestricted access to the morning-after pill, said in an emailed statement.

She said women and girls should have "the absolute right to control our bodies without having to ask a doctor or a pharmacist for permission."

NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue welcomed the decision by the Obama administration.

"By making emergency contraception available to women of all ages, the FDA is taking an important step to reduce unintended pregnancies and put women in control of their futures," Hogue said in a statement.

But an opponent of the contraception plan, at the anti-abortion Family Research Council, criticized the government for not sticking with its decision to appeal.

"We're very concerned and disappointed at the same time because what we see here is the government caving to political pressure instead of putting first the health and safety of girls (and) parental rights," said Anna Higgins, director of the council's Center for Human Dignity.

The government had appealed the judge's underlying April 5 ruling, which ordered emergency contraceptives based on the hormone levonorgestrel be made available without a prescription, over the counter and without point-of-sale or age restrictions.

It had asked the judge to suspend the effect of that ruling until the appeals court could decide the case. But the judge declined, saying the government's decision to restrict sales of the morning-after pill was "politically motivated, scientifically unjustified and contrary to agency precedent." He also said there was no basis to deny the request to make the drugs widely available.

The government had argued that "substantial market confusion" could result if the judge's ruling were enforced while appeals were pending, only to be later overturned.

Last week, an appeals court dealt the government a setback by saying it would immediately permit unrestricted sales of the two-pill version of the emergency contraception until the appeal was decided.

The morning-after pill contains a higher dose of the female hormone progestin than is in regular birth control pills. Taking it within 72 hours of rape, condom failure or just forgetting regular contraception can cut the chances of pregnancy by up to 89 percent, but it works best within the first 24 hours. If a girl or woman already is pregnant, the pill, which prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg, has no effect.

The FDA was preparing in 2011 to allow over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill with no limits when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled her own scientists in an unprecedented move.

The FDA announced in late April that Plan B One-Step, the newer version of emergency contraception, the same drug but combined into one pill instead of two, could be sold without a prescription to those age 15 or older. Its maker, Teva Women's Health, plans to begin those sales soon. Sales had previously been limited to those who were at least 17.

The judge later ridiculed the FDA changes, saying they established "nonsensical rules" that favored sales of the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill and were made "to sugarcoat" the government's appeal.

He also said they placed a disproportionate burden on blacks and the poor by requiring a prescription for less expensive generic versions of the drug bought by those under age 17 and by requiring those age 17 or over to show proof-of-age identification at pharmacies. He cited studies showing that blacks with low incomes are less likely than other people to have government-issued IDs.

Reluctant to get drawn into a messy second-term spat over social issues, White House officials have argued that the FDA and the Department of Justice were acting independently of the White House in deciding how to proceed. That approach continued Monday, with the White House referring all questions about the decision to Health and Human Services.

Still, Obama has made clear in the past that he feels strongly about the limits, and he said in 2011 he supported Sebelius' decision to impose them despite the advice of her scientists.

"As the father of two daughters, I think it is important for us to make sure that we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine," Obama said then. ---

Associated Press Writer Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this report.

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