If you thought the Western Conference semifinals between the OKC Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs would not carry over to the Western Conference Finals, Game 1 on Monday night in Oakland gave you reason to reconsider your position.
A sluggish first half.
A pre-halftime quarter (first or second) with at least 27 points allowed.
Down by 10 or more points at some point in the game.
Down by eight or more points at some point in the third quarter.
Trailing entering the fourth quarter.
These five characteristics applied to Game 1 of the West Finals in Oracle Arena, a place where the Golden State Warriors had lost just two games all season heading into Monday night.
These five characteristics applied to Game 5 of the West semifinals in San Antonio’s AT&T Center, a place where the Spurs had lost just twice all season heading into the pivotal point of a 2-2 series.
These five characteristics applied to Game 4 of the West semifinals in Oklahoma City’s Chesapeake Arena, on a night when the Thunder had to win to save their season.
It’s not as though Oklahoma City’s path to a 1-0 lead in the West Finals — with home-court advantage now resting in Sooner State — has been straight and smooth. The Thunder have done things the hard way, which is how they’ve always done it.
They fell behind 2-0 to the Spurs in the 2012 West Finals before winning four straight to take the series. Russell Westbrook is precisely the kind of player who will throw down the kind of stat line he delivered in Game 1 — 27 points, 12 assists, 6 rebounds, 7 steals, on 7-of-21 shooting — and elicit the following reaction: “Oh, so in other words, that’s a typical Russ game.”
In Game 1, Kevin Durant hit 10 of 30 shots, barely better than the 7-of-33 line he posted a month ago (it feels like three months ago) against the Dallas Mavericks. Durant took good shots in the fourth quarter, but ke kept missing them.
This was not easy. This was not the Durant steamroller which crushed San Antonio in Game 4. This was not the Thunder at their best, hitting every shot left and right in a display of basketball omnipotence.
The Thunder’s playoff run — now that much closer to a conquest of a 73-9 opponent — is remarkable precisely because of how uneven it’s been.
Oklahoma City didn’t look like an NBA champion, or even a conference champion, against Dallas — not at any point.
The Thunder didn’t look like a conference champion, a team ready to beat the Spurs OR the Warriors (let alone both), after Game 3 of the West semifinals. Old man Tony Parker outplayed Russ in the fourth quarter… in Oklahoma City. Westbrook told the assembled press after that game he needed to distribute the ball more… as though he didn’t previously know he needed to at this stage of his career.
The Thunder, trailing 2-1 to the Spurs and down by six points early in the fourth quarter of Game 4, were on the brink. Durant rescued them on Mother’s Day night, but when Danny Green picked (for San Antonio) the perfect time to resurrect his three-point shot in Game 5, the Thunder fell behind by 13 points in the third quarter. They could smell the 3-2 deficit, smell the Spurs closing in for the kill.
Nothing about these playoffs has been easy for the Thunder… and they’re here in the West Finals, here with a 1-0 lead, here with the ability to return to the NBA Finals as long as they defend their home floor in the coming days.
Remind me: Wasn’t this the same team which chronically failed to close fourth quarters against the Spurs and Warriors in the regular season, home and away?
Wasn’t this the team which made the shaky decisions while the Spurs and Dubs found all the late-game answers?
Wasn’t this the team whose defensive reactions became panicky in the final few minutes of regulation and allowed free throws or unacceptably open shots?
The beauty of what the Oklahoma City Thunder are achieving is found partly in the caliber of the opposition they are turning to dust in fourth quarters. The Thunder have now held an opponent under 20 points in the third consecutive fourth quarter of a close game. (In Game 6 against the Spurs, the Thunder led by 26 after three, so a losing fourth quarter is entirely irrelevant in that context.) That stat is remarkable in itself, but the fact that those under-20 fourth quarters from the Thunder’s defense are coming against a 67-win team and a 73-win team truly boggle the mind.
What’s also remarkable about the Thunder is that this leopard has managed to change its spots in the postseason. In baseball, the randomness of an odd bounce can and does change everything in a short series, but we know that the NBA is more of a meritocracy than other sports leagues. This isn’t the NHL, in which the puck luck involved in a hit post makes the difference between a win and a loss, or between overtime and a regulation win. In the NBA, the large number of possessions packed into a game makes a single shot — one that spins out or improbably bounces in — a smaller part of the whole drama.
Teams that win NBA titles don’t just get hot and stay hot — that’s an NCAA Tournament dynamic. Champions in pro basketball perform the rugged mountain climbing in which disciplined defense, responsible ball handling, and timely rebounding become ingrained habits, called forth repeatedly in any moment of crisis.
Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant can and do make basketball look so effortlessly simple… but not in these playoffs, at least not often. In Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, they hit 17 shots… and missed 34.
They won anyway.
The regular season Thunder wouldn’t have stood a chance against the Warriors in Oracle with those numbers.
As we can all tell by now, these aren’t the regular season Thunder anymore.
The leopard looks really different: Its claws are no longer invisible in fourth quarters at the defensive end of the floor.
