Oklahoma City had a chance to bring the Thunder against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 3 of their Western Conference semifinals series on Friday night.
San Antonio didn’t look like a 67-win club in Game 2, and while Kawhi Leonard (31 points and the game’s biggest rebound in the final minute) and Tony Parker (19 points, many of them in the fourth quarter) certainly stepped up for the Spurs, the NBA’s second-best team has lost the blended contributions which made it so formidable during the regular season.
Boris Diaw. Patty Mills. Tim Duncan — yes, him. Players who have been indispensable to the Spurs in previous playoff campaigns have all been peripheral to this series. The idea of receiving contributions up and down the roster has given way to the need to coax maximum production from a smaller core cluster of players. LaMarcus Aldridge and Kawhi Leonard have to be right for the Spurs to win in this series. If only one of the two is on his game, the Spurs are 0-1 in this series. Because both men played well Friday, and because Parker provided an essential third option, the Spurs lead, 2-1, and should feel confident about their ability to ride out this Thunder-storm.
Yet, while the Spurs deserve a measure of credit for quickly retaking the upper hand in this series in Game 3, the central story — as it so often is at this time of year in the NBA — is how Oklahoma City faltered down the stretch.
It’s essentially a rite of spring at this point: NBA fans and bloggers wonder what the fire truck is going on with the Thunder in the fourth quarter of a playoff game, and one player stands in the center of the discussion more than anyone else.
Why is Westbrook taking so many shots, man?
Why is Westbrook launching all those threes?
Why doesn’t Kevin Durant demand the ball more from Westbrook?
Why doesn’t Oklahoma City move the ball more?
Why can’t the head coach get more out of this offense, and two of the 10 to 15 best players in the world?
If you’ve heard these questions once, you’ve heard them a million times over the past five NBA seasons. What was true under Scott Brooks is no less true under Billy Donovan.
It’s true that Westbrook’s ball-sharing is an over-scrutinized topic — one which observers often view to be more of a problem than it is, because Westbrook is necessarily ball-dominant and extremely overwhelming when he attacks a defense smartly. Westbrook shouldn’t necessarily have the ball less or not try to be selfish. The more precise point to be emphasized with the Thunder’s offense is that Westbrook has to take smarter shots, shots that make sense, shots that give him a better chance of earning free throws.
Friday in Game 3, Westbrook didn’t get to the foul line in the fourth quarter until after the Spurs had taken a seven-point lead with 1:15 left. The absence of free throws, plus the abundance of long jumpers, is what drives Thunder watchers batty.
What also drives OKC fans nuts is when Westbrook pays lip service to the right ideas and concepts… which he just spent a whole game spitting on:
Westbrook: "Just too many shots … gotta get other guys involved."
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) May 7, 2016
If this series shows us anything, it’s that it’s extremely difficult for Billy Donovan — in his first season as an NBA coach (after years spent studying the college game; Steve Kerr studied the NBA game before coaching Golden State) — to change Westbrook’s mindset. He hasn’t yet gained that level of authority and trust. A more seasoned NBA voice such as Tom Thibodeau might have been able to impress upon Russ the need to change his ways.
Just how impossible a task is it (and has it been) for Donovan to control Russ? Just consider the Thunder’s next-to-last possession of the game. It is the kind of possession about which long essays and “This Is How The Franchise Never Lived Up To Expectations” books are written, years after the fact.
This possession for the Thunder wasn’t perfect, but it was very good. The ball movement around the perimeter was crisp. The passing was authoritative. Players changed direction with clarity and decisiveness. The ultimate shot was an off-balance 15-footer, but Dion Waiters did hit it, and at the very least, Oklahoma City made the Spurs work on defense. Doing that over the course of a whole game puts pressure on an opponent.
If Oklahoma City had produced dozens more possessions like that one, it probably would have been a lot more successful in Game 3.
The big revelation: For all the patience and persistence displayed in that possession, it just happened to be the rare possession in which the Thunder actually NEEDED to hoist something quickly… but didn’t. They scored with under five seconds to go, and when the Spurs made two foul shots moments later, that was the game.
That possession for the Thunder began with 18 seconds left. San Antonio led by four points. Oklahoma City needed to launch a quick three or hunt a very quick two. How ironic is it that Russell Westbrook — who missed more shots (21) than Kevin Durant attempted (18) — became the more patient player OKC needs him to be only when patience was no longer a desirable attribute?
That’s not on the coach. That’s on the player. Westbrook’s swerve from quick-shot merchant to cerebral point guard — precisely when the Thunder actually needed him to act quickly — represents a low-IQ play from a superstar-level player. More to the point, it’s a low-IQ play from a superstar who is not the senior citizen Tony Parker is, but is hardly a young pup.
Russ should know better. He’s been through enough battles and seasons to grasp when a given situation requires a given approach. The Thunder’s patient and well-crafted possession — taking 13 seconds at a time when OKC couldn’t afford to burn that much time — is in so many ways an emblem of all the wrong turns the Thunder have made in the playoffs over the years.
There’s still time and opportunity for the Thunder to win this series, but they must win again in San Antonio, which will require a ton of heavy lifting. Russell Westbrook can be great at times; the difficult reality the Thunder must confront is that they need Russ to be Thunderous all the time, not just some, if they want to advance to meet the Warriors in a few weeks.
