Oklahoma City shook down the Thunder against the San Antonio Spurs, but unlike the 2012 series in which Gregg Popovich was outmaneuvered by an unheralded opposing coach, Oklahoma City rallied from a 2-1 series deficit with its defense.
In 2012, the Scott Brooks Thunder captured Games 4 through 6 because they scored at least 107 points in each outing against the Spurs. The Game 5 road win in San Antonio which became the pivotal moment of the series? Oklahoma City took that game, 108-103, getting a basket whenever it needed to in the fourth quarter.
This year, Oklahoma City’s Game 5 win in the Alamo City was a 95-91 grinder in which the Thunder managed to bring the Spurs’ halfcourt offense to a standstill. This pattern — Oklahoma City’s defense grinding down San Antonio’s offense with a bigger lineup and a supremely focused Dion Waiters on the wing — continued into Game 6.
Oklahoma City’s offense didn’t run away with this series; the Thunder’s defense slowed San Antonio to a crawl, and this was never more apparent than in Thursday night’s close-out contest. The Spurs’ offense — long a model of flowing aesthetic efficiency — sank into the mud in the first half of Game 6, mustering only 31 points. The game opened up in the second half, but by that point, Oklahoma City had shifted into cruise control, content to trade baskets in a context stripped of scoreboard-based urgency.
As in 2012, the Thunder stormed past the Spurs to win a playoff series in six games. As in 2012, a coach who was doubted found answers Gregg Popovich couldn’t match. Unlike 2012, however, Oklahoma City won without getting much from Serge Ibaka. Unlike 2012, OKC forged a series comeback not by busting loose, but by getting tight — with its defense, its pressure, and its ability to seal out the Spurs on the glass. Unlike 2012, the Thunder didn’t have James Harden’s offense to call upon. They had to gum up the Spurs’ offensive engine, with Tony Parker losing the same burst he possessed four years ago… and they did.
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Discussions about basketball can so easily focus on intended goals that they ignore the equally (if not more) important need to take away an opponent’s strengths. It’s easy to say that the Spurs didn’t move the ball well enough in this series, and to be sure, that’s not an improper or incorrect criticism. San Antonio lost the very virtue it had managed to display so often in its 67-win season, the best in franchise history.
However, there’s a reason the Spurs couldn’t move the ball much: All five Spurs on the floor failed to play well at the same time after Game 1. San Antonio suffered through a steady stream of games in which only one or two players performed really well at the offensive end of the floor. After Game 1, only Game 3 turned in the Spurs’ favor, and that was because Tony Parker joined LaMarcus Aldridge and Kawhi Leonard as the team’s third offensive scoring presence. Parker outplayed Russell Westbrook in Game 3, but that was not a sustainable path for the Spurs. Parker predictably regressed in Games 4 and 5, and no one picked up the slack.
Any good, well-coached basketball team — the Spurs certainly qualify as one — enters offensive possessions intending to get a layup or dunk, but of course, this sport is a dialogue. The defense has something to say about that outcome. No matter how urgently an offense tries to get a layup, the defense can get in the way.
The plan might be to get the easiest shot available, but in the workings of basketball, high-level competition invariably involves the need to do something comparatively difficult in order to set up the easier approach and the more ideal outcome. On offense, this means hitting mid-range or three-point jumpers to create floor spacing and prevent the defense from cheating in certain ways.
Very simply, the Spurs needed to make jump shots in order to open up the paint and create a game flow in which the Thunder’s bigs, Steven Adams and Enes Kanter, would become more vulnerable on defense. That was always going to be necessary if San Antonio was to reshape the trajectory of the series. Danny Green did his part in Game 5, but no one else helped him. The paucity of mid-range makes from the San Antonio roster played a large part in giving Oklahoma City the level of defensive comfort it rarely enjoyed during the regular season.
Credit the Thunder for taking full advantage of their big lineup… and a commitment to defense which kicked in after the Game 1 debacle.
The Thunder have vanquished the Spurs, as in 2012, but the contours of Billy Donovan’s victory differed in a number of ways from Scott Brooks’s breakthrough four years ago.
