Another milestone for sizzling Spurs

Kawhi Leonard kept the faith on Monday night. Eventually, LaMarcus Aldridge came through, too.

Together, the new faces of the San Antonio Spurs produced a familiar result - a 110-106 victory over the Indiana Pacers for another milestone moment.

With their 42nd victory, the Spurs extended their streak of consecutive winning seasons to a league-record 20.

"It was a heck of a competitive game," coach Gregg Popovich said.

"It was real physical and aggressive. I thought both teams played real well. I'm obviously thrilled with a win on the road. It could have gone either way."

The Spurs have had a winning record every season since Tim Duncan was a rookie in 1997-98, this one coming after his retirement.

The Utah Jazz set the record with 19 straight winning seasons from 1985-2004.

So, of course the Spurs did it their way.

They struggled early, gave away the lead in the fourth quarter after it looked like they might pull away and then had to grind it out with a 13-4 closing run after the Pacers retook a 97-94 lead with 4:08 left.

Leonard made 13 of 23 shots including two 3-pointers and finished with 32 points, six rebounds and four steals, including the one that sealed it. It was his fifth straight 30-point game.

"I'm just trying to win," Leonard said.

Aldridge, like most of the other Spurs, looked weary on the second game of a back-to-back. He finished 7 of 22 from the field with 19 points - roughly half coming in the final 6 1/2 minutes, when the Spurs needed everything he could muster to avoid losing consecutive games for the third time this season.

Paul George scored 27 points and Myles Turner had 22 for the Pacers, who have lost four straight - three on their home court.

"San Antonio played San Antonio ball," George said. "They screen, they move the ball. I thought we had great looks and an opportunity to win this game, multiple occasions to pull away. But at the end of the day, they played San Antonio basketball."

Top grades

The Spurs aren't just rewriting the history books in one category.

Since joining the NBA in 1976, San Antonio has the highest winning percentage at .623. The Spurs are one percentage point behind the New England Patriots (.713) for the best winning percentage of any team in the four major sports leagues since 1997.

At this rate, they could extend their NBA record of consecutive seasons holding opponents to less than 100 points to 22.

No other team has accomplished that in more than 18 seasons.

Man to man

Popovich acknowledged that he thoroughly enjoyed watching the head-to-head matchup between Leonard and George.

"At times, you had to slap yourself watching those guys guard each other and do what they do out there because they are so much fun to watch," Popovich said.

George enjoyed it, too.

"Good friend, good matchup," he said.