SAN ANTONIO, April 10 (Ticker) -- It is easy to see why the San Antonio Spurs would like home-court advantage for as long as possible in the the playoffs.

Tim Duncan had 16 points and 11 rebounds and Malik Rose scored 14 points as the Spurs held on for their 12th straight home victory, an 87-79 triumph over the Denver Nuggets.

With the playoffs less that two weeks away, San Antonio has no chance at being the top seed in the Western Conference. But the Spurs are just one-half game behind the first-place Dallas Mavericks in the Midwest Division and the second seed in the West, which would give them home-court advantage until the conference finals.

"You can't control it, you just have to play the game," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "Whatever you have, you accept, but we'll take as much as we can get."

NBA TV highlights from Nuggets-Spurs: 56k | 300k As the playoffs near, Tony Parker keeps picking up his game. D. Clarke Evans NBAE/Getty Images

San Antonio has won 12 straight games at the Alamodome since losing here on February 23 and is 31-9 at home this season. However, the Spurs play three of their final four games on the road.

Duncan scored eight points and Bruce Bowen added seven in the first quarter as the Spurs jumped out to a 33-17 lead and never looked back.

Bowen scored five points during a 17-6 run that gave San Antonio a 32-13 lead with 77 seconds left in the opening period.

David Robinson scored eight of his 11 points in the second period and the Spurs had a 51-32 halftime cushion.

The Spurs had their largest lead at 57-36 on a short jumper by Duncan with 7:36 remaining in the third quarter.

Popovich removed Duncan, Rose and rookie Tony Parker with 9:16 to go, and the Nuggets responded with a 14-4 run to pull within 82-75 at 4:32.

Rookie Chris Anderson brought Denver within 85-79 on a pair of free throws with 94 seconds to play, but the Nuggets missed four shots in the final 1:19 as their comeback fell short.

"The Spurs could have crushed us at any time," Denver coach Mike Evans said. "Coach Pop knew he had that one. He rested his starters a lot. We made it interesting."

Malik Rose had 14 points and seven rebounds and Parker finished with 11 points for San Antonio, which shot 46 percent (32-of-70) and had a 41-35 rebounding edge.

The Spurs have won five straight games on the heels of a three-game slide.

"Any win is a good win at this point in the year," Rose said. "Tonight wasn't as pretty as we would have liked it to be, but it's still a win. The team has really gelled. I never thought we could have come together like this. We are really playing good ball right now."

Juwan Howard scored 19 points and Anderson added 11 and seven rebounds for Denver, which completed a winless four-game road trip.

The Nuggets, who scored a season-low 31 points in the first half, shot just 41 percent (30-of-73) from the floor and committed 17 turnovers leading to 18 points for the Spurs.

"San Antonio is such a tough team," Denver guard George McCloud said. "This team just has everything. Right now they are playing the best basketball in the league when they're supposed to."