The only thing that threw a scare into the Hornets Tuesday was a postgame bomb scare. The San Antonio Spurs? Not on this night.

Turning a most unusual set of circumstances to their advantage, the Hornets overcame an early assault by Tim Duncan and the Spurs, then controlled the second half on the way to a 78-73 victory at the Alamodome.

Charlotte (21-23) was fighting the odds in this one, coming off a back-to-back set of weekend defeats and playing one of the league's Western Conference powers in a road game. The outlook didn't change that much even though the Spurs (29-14) announced just before the game that one of their twin towers, 7-1 David Robinson, would not be playing because of a right knee bruise.

The scenario got worse. Starting point guard Baron Davis, the Hornets' leading scorer with a 19.3 average, was fighting a stomach virus. And once the game began, the Spurs started getting points in bunches from 7-0 Tim Duncan and sprinted away early to a 12-point lead.

With Davis and fellow backcourt starter David Wesley misfiring repeatedly as they began what would be a night of misadventure -- they finished with a combined 6-for-29 and 14 points -- it appeared that Charlotte was headed for a third consecutive loss.

That was before the Hornets' defense rose up with an aggressive second-half performance, before Bryce Drew scored 15 to power a dominating bench effort and long before someone phoned in a bomb threat that prompted San Antonio police to start rushing everyone from the arena just minutes after the game's conclusion.

The bench production was huge. In addition to Drew, Jamaal Magloire scored nine and Stacey Augmon eight. George Lynch grabbed nine rebounds, one off Elden Campbell's team-high of 10. Overall, Charlotte's bench topped San Antonio's reserves in scoring (34-10) and rebounding (23-9).

Duncan closed with 29 points, only nine in the final two quarters, and 21 rebounds.

"It seems like every time we get our backs to the wall, we come up with a big win," forward P.J. Brown said. "We really needed this game and we got it. But we shouldn't rely on things like this to get us out of trouble."

Drew started providing some of his points late in the first quarter as the Hornets began their comeback from the 12-point deficit. Just after entering the game with about four minutes to play in the period he hit a baseline jumper, then followed with a three-pointer.

That helped Charlotte close in by the end of the quarter, when San Antonio's lead was down to five. And the momentum carried over into the second, producing an overall 19-6 run that put the Hornets into the lead shortly before halftime.

They led 65-63 at the break. At that point Duncan was riddling their defense, however, hitting 8-of-9 shots and scoring 20 with nine rebounds. They knew they couldn't afford to let that continue.

"They missed David (Robinson)," Brown said. "Duncan had to shoulder more of the load with him out. Our big key was the second half. Duncan had 20 in the first so we went to work even harder on him defensively (doubling him with two big men every time he touched the ball)."

The Hornets opened a seven-point lead in the third quarter when San Antonio went six minutes without a point. They had a scoring drought of their own that allowed the Spurs to slip back within two, then pushed out to a nine-point lead.

San Antonio scrambled in the final minutes to pull it out. When Duncan hit one of two free throws with 45.5 seconds left Charlotte's lead was a single point, 74-73.

But, with the Spurs forced to foul, the Hornets responded at the line to close it out.

Brown and Augmon hit two free throws apiece in the final seconds to seal it.