SAN ANTONIO -- If the San Antonio Spurs werent aware of how poorly theyve played in the opening half of most games this season, they were forcefully reminded recently.After coach Gregg Popovich called out their professionalism and effort, the Spurs rebounded from their first road loss of the season with their most efficient home performance.Kawhi Leonard had 30 points and the Spurs set five season highs, rolling to a 130-101 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday night.The Spurs led by as many as 38 three days after what Popovich deemed another 24-minute effort in a 95-91 defeat at Chicago.We have so many professional guys and veteran guys, it shouldnt take him to do that, San Antonio reserve guard Patty Mills said, but it definitely affected everyone to know that weve got to lace them up here and do what we do. No one messing around.The Spurs set season highs for points, points in a quarter, points in a half, assists and 3-pointers in winning their 14th straight at home over the Nets. San Antonio also matched its largest margin of victory, set in a season-opening win over Golden State.It feels good, especially to do it at home, said point guard Tony Parker, who had a season-high seven assists. Weve been struggling a little bit at home. We had a good start today. Energy was good. And we kept it for the whole game.The Spurs effort through the opening 36 minutes enabled them to sit Leonard in the final quarter, which was the only time the Nets could slow the sleek 6-foot-7 forward.Leonard was 10 for 18 from the field, including 4 for 7 on 3s, in scoring 30 points or more for the seventh time this season. He had four 30-point games in his previous 324 career games.San Antonio was 14 for 26 on 3-pointers.They execute their offense with pace, Brooklyn coach Kenny Atkinson said. They are tough to chase around; they really share (the ball). It was a great challenge for us and we werent up to it.After a string of anemic starts at home that had frustrated the Spurs, San Antonio set season highs for points in any quarter and any half with a 41-point effort in the opening period that helped produce a 67-52 lead at halftime.The 41 points in the first quarter were nine more than the Spurs had against Chicago in the first half.We didnt like the way we played, Spurs veteran Manu Ginobili said. We needed to feel better about the way we played.San Antonio had five assists on its first six baskets, with Parker collecting a pair of assists off bounce passes for mid-range jumpers from LaMarcus Aldridge and Pau Gasol. The Spurs had a season-high 38 assists.Bojan Bogdanovic led Brooklyn with 20 points.TIP-INSNets: Brooklyn has not won consecutive games all season. ... Nets F Trevor Booker, who has a team-high nine double-doubles, finished with nine points and four rebounds. ... The Nets have not won in San Antonio since Jan. 22, 2002, losing 14 straight on the road against the Spurs. ... The Nets are 1-9 on the road this season. . Brooklyn PG Jeremy Lin missed the game due to a strained left hamstring. ... The Nets have 50 games missed due to injuries this season.Spurs: San Antonio is 40-4 against the Nets at home, the best home record by a team against an opponent in NBA history. ... San Antonio is 13-0 when scoring 100 points or more. ... Gasol had three assists and passed former Lakers big man Vlade Divac for third all-time among those 7-feet or taller. Gasol has 3,543 career assists, placing him behind Kareem Abdul Jabbar (5,660) and Wilt Chamberlain (4,643). ... The Spurs previous high for any quarter was 39 points in the third against the Lakers on Nov. 18. The teams previous high for the opening period was 31 in the season-opening win against Golden State.WORTH WATCHINGThe Spurs gave the Nets plenty of film to watch on how to execute properly.One thing thats great seeing a team like that is watching how they move the ball, how they share the ball (and) how quick their decisions are, Atkinson said. Its good for us as a coaching staff and good for our players to kind of feel that and feel what its like. Hopefully one day we will try to imitate that.ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENTSan Antonio might have the NBAs second-best record at 19-5, but the Spurs know they still have much to improve on.I think in this case we can, Ginobili said. I dont think youre going to find anybody in this locker room that feels satisfied with the way we are playing. We all know we can do so much better. The record is not that important when youre not playing well.UP NEXTNets: At Houston on Monday.Spurs: Host Boston on Wednesday. http://www.cowboysrookieproshop.com/Cowboys-Robert-Newhouse-Jersey/ . -- Al Jefferson found a groove just in time for the Charlotte Bobcats. http://www.cowboysrookieproshop.com/Cowboys-Tony-Dorsett-Jersey/ . -- James Young couldnt wait to apply those tweaks to his jump shot, and the first one he made against UT Arlington told him it could be a good night. http://www.cowboysrookieproshop.com/Cowboys-Dez-Bryant-Jersey/ . In taking its goal tally to 99 in all competitions already this season, City delivered another demonstration of its lethal firepower at Etihad Stadium to set up a fourth-round match at home to another second-tier team -- Watford. http://www.cowboysrookieproshop.com/Cowboys-Jonathan-Cooper-Jersey/ . -- Jonathan Drouin gave Halifax the boost it needed to edge host Sherbrooke Phoenix 3-2 in a shootout in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action. http://www.cowboysrookieproshop.com/Cowboys-Keith-Smith-Jersey/ .35 million, one-year contract that avoided salary arbitration. Plouffe batted .254 with 14 home runs and 52 RBIs in 477 at-bats last season, his second as a regular in the lineup. LOS ANGELES -- As roughly 21,000 fans gathered at Staples Center in Los Angeles for the League of Legends World Championship, two of the countrys most well-known media influencers and businessmen, Peter Guber and Bruce Stein, sat in the Los Angeles Lakers suite in the arena.Guber and Stein are former executives at Sony Entertainment, and Guber is a co-owner of the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles FC. Their time at the League of Legends World Championship affirmed what they believed to be true when their ownership group purchased one of the most popular esports teams in the United States, Team Liquid, several months ago.Guber says there were two reasons his new esports ownership group, aXiomatic, invested in the bourgeoning esports industry.One, Im attracted by the sport itself, which is a digital play, millennial play, its an over-the-top play in a sense, Guber told ESPN on Saturday night. Its an engagement that can be at home. You get the chance to get very close to the players, which is not as easy in other sports. You can participate in the sport easily; some of the games are very complicated -- like, wow -- but you can participate in it. You can follow the sport in a way thats unique and unique to that audience.According to research company Newzoo, esports has over 148 million fans, with an additional 144 million occasional viewers. Furthermore, within the United States, of the 20 million people who are esports fans, six million do not watch other traditional sports. Gubers second reason for investing comes from these demographics and similar numbers that he believes makes this investment worthwhile.I saw the psychographics and demographics of the audience, and Bruce and I talked about that; the idea that it isnt a fad, the median age keeps getting older, older and older as it goes through it and the bottom is also growing too, Guber said. So you get both things growing -- the tail and the head grows. Its a tsunami, it has that effect. Its an influencer, too -- it influences product, it influences sponsors, it influences behavior. It has all the components that makes it a viral activity.Talk of Gubers investment in the space began in early 2016 as he and his associates discussed a potential purchase of Team Liquid. The deal was finalized in late September, a day after the Philadelphia 76ers announced they had purchased Team Dignitas and Apex Gaming.The seeds of both deals, and perhaps other NBA interest in esports, were planted after a late-2015 NBA Board of Governors meeting, which featured a presentation on the growth of esports. Guber, for his part, says esports was already on his radar before that presentation.Really, it just drew out of my experience of being around Sony and running Sony and part of my experience of way back, he said, being an amateur radio operator and building my own rigs. [It] came out of my experience of recognizing that Im in the audience business. When you own the Dick Clark company with all of the attractions, when you own sports teams, big sports teams, and sports media companies, youre in the entertainment business.Youre engaging audiences. Thats what your job is, to engage audiences, and when you see an audience that is engaged as this, its magnetic, its exciting and you want to try and be a part of it.While Guber did not say exactly why his deal with Liquid took the better part of a year to complete, he did say that he and his associates felt it was best to take it slow before moving into the esports officially.Bruce and I have a view: You can put all the ingredients together and if you take it out of the oven too soon, its chocolate pudding, he said. If you leave it in the oven enough, you get a soufflé. Were in the soufflé business.Out of multiple options possiblle, Guber and Stein both say Liquid was the obvious option for a number of reasons: brand authenticity, popularity and the willingness of the organization to think outside the box with the deal to be purchased.ddddddddddddThe [Team Liquid] brand was incredibly strong with gamers who view authenticity as valuable, Stein said. Its a very valuable and authentic brand.Two, management: [Liquid co-CEOs] Steve [Arhancet] and Victor [Goossens] were really important to this. When you have short-term player contracts as a sport, it has in almost every game, you have to have a very responsive group that can deal with the changes. Steve and Victor were the two people who stuck out to us as partners that we could be invested with both in time, energy and resources over the long haul.Guber and Steins group has chosen to retain Arhancet, formerly of the Curse Gaming esports team which merged with Team Liquid in late 2014, and ?Goossens, the original founder of the Team Liquid StarCraft clan in 2000. The 76ers instead moved the Team Dignitas and Apex Gaming founding members, Michael ODEE ODell and Michael Slan, to operations manager positions.When asked why aXiomatic decided to keep Goossens and Arhancet in their current positions, Guber laughed.Seventy-sixers, Warriors, 76ers, Warriors, Guber joked, in reference to Golden States rising success in recent seasons. You do the math.Steve and Victor are progamers at heart, Stein said. If we lost a drop of the authenticity, there would be brand diminishment. Our intention is to keep every bit of the authenticity and add best practices from other areas. I think we want to take what Steve and Victor have done, acknowledge the dynamic that has changed in the business [money and other management], and add an ownership group from NextVR, Dick Clark Enterprises, every sort of imaginable traditional business and bring those practices to the sport. Thats what we add.As far as team management, players and constructing it, were advisers and partners of Steve and Victor, but thats what we think of it, and were following their lead in that regard.Joining Stein and Guber in their endeavor is Ted Leonsis, former AOL CEO and current owner of the Washington Wizards, Washington Capitals?and the Verizon Center; and Hall of Fame point guard Earvin Magic Johnson.[Ted is] a leader in digital technologies and software, he owns the Washington Capitals and the Wizards and a whole bunch of other sports teams, too. Hes just giant and over the top, Guber said. Hes an unbelievable leader with resources, hes a major participant and player, a full owner and partner in this, and his leadership, strengths and talent is going to be fundamental to us being successful.Moving forward, Guber says aXiomatic isnt just interested in owning an esports team. Guber compares his ambitions to that of what he has done with the Warriors since the purchase by him and majority owner Joe Lacob in 2010. Since the purchase, the team won a NBA championship in 2015 and is planning to open a new stadium in San Francisco by the 2018-19 season.I would say that [aXiomatic] should become a platform for the elements that are center and surround [esports], whether its engagement of venues, merchandise, peripherals or products that support the teams, Guber said. This a multifaceted enterprise, this sport is a multifaceted enterprise.If youre in baseball, youre in -- bam -- youre in venue management, youre in hospitality, youre in fan management, memorabilia, youre in a lot of other elements that depend on the success of the sport and the success of your team. We expect to grow [our new] business horizontally as well as vertically. Wholesale HoodiesNFL Shirts OutletJerseys NFL WholesaleCheap NFL Jerseys Free ShippingWholesale Jerseys CheapCheap NFL Jerseys ChinaWholesale JerseysWholesale NFL JerseysCheap NFL Jerseys ChinaCheap NFL Jerseys ' ' '