Tuesday night, the Oklahoma City Thunder won a pivotal Game 5 on the road in San Antonio, taking a 3-2 series lead. During the regular season, the Spurs went 40-1 at home, dropping a game to the Golden State Warriors, who have been making history of their own. The Spurs have now lost two straight games in San Antonio, something that seemed unfathomable at the start of the series, and only punctuated following a blowout win in Game 1.
Lost in this narrative is just how well the Thunder are playing. Since the Game 1 embarrassment, OKC has come out playing the most consistent defense of the season. San Antonio’s points per game in the last 4 games has plummeted to just 96/game. To put that into perspective, San Antonio averaged 103.5/game during the regular season and 103/game in the first round against Memphis. The Thunder’s defense has been much maligned all season because of their penchant for taking possessions off, but Games 2 and 3 in particular were some of the best defensive performances for the Thunder all season.
Despite LaMarcus Aldridge averaging 28.6 points/game in this series, the Thunder have actually played some excellent defense on him. Aldridge was just hitting some very difficult shots, and finally saw his hot streak come to an end Tuesday, shooting a paltry 6-21 (28.6%) from the field. What was surprising was that in addition to finally missing the difficult contested shots he had been making earlier in the series, he missed a few wide-open elbow jumpers.
Those kinds of misses first started happening in Game 3, but the excellent game from Tony Parker helped offset Aldridge’s dip in production. However, in the last two games, San Antonio’s “Old 3” haven’t been able to step up and fill in the gaps. Speaking of the “Old 3”, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons recently made an excellent point. The pace of the games has seemed to be a half step faster than Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili seem comfortable with playing.
In the first half of the last four games, the Spurs are scoring a shade over 5o points, while shooting 46% from the field and 40% from beyond the arc. Fast forward to the second half and those numbers plummet to 40.1% from the field, 32.4% from beyond the arc, and only 46 point/half.
Is this a case of Father Time catching up with San Antonio’s aging stars or perhaps something else? In reality, Russell Westbrook is running the Spur’s backcourt off the floor. Russ often plays at a crazed pace, but he is in the middle of a maniacal frenzy right now. In Game 1, following OKC’s worst loss of the series, Westbrook was asked about the difference between being guarded by Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green and how that affects him from getting to the rim.
His response was quintessential Westbrook, “Me personally, I never look at the guy in front of me. I always look at the help.”
In Game 5, Westbrook took over. His stat line is obviously eye-popping: 35 points, 11 rebounds, and 9 assists. And, it could not have come at a better time. After going off for 40 points in the last game, Kevin Durant was unable to really get going. He only shot 3-7 in the second half. The Thunder needed every single point they could get from Westbrook. And it wasn’t just his scoring, between Russ and KD, the Thunder’s two superstars scored or assisted on 80 of OKC’s 95 points in the game. That 84% offensive responsibility mark is the second highest of their career.
However, this series hasn’t been just about the Thunder stars. An interesting wrinkle that Billy Donovan has thrown out on the court has been playing Steven Adams and Enes Kanter together for extended minutes, especially down the stretch in the 4th quarter. This is a lineup that the Thunder had to use last season under Scott Brooks more out of necessity than anything else because of just how injury riddled they were, with both Durant and Serge Ibaka missing considerable amounts of time.
The Thunder have been nothing short of a title contender with their new crunch time lineup featuring Russ, Dion Waiters, KD, Kanter, and Adams. In 23 minutes on the floor together in this series, they have posted an absurd offensive rating 128.5, while posting a rebounding percentage of 71%. In other words, San Antonio’s only viable defense is a prayer, and even in the few cases, when the Thunder miss, Kanter and Adams are extending possessions with offensive rebounds. The Spurs have simply had no answer and the problem lies in something the Thunder figured out in Game 4.
In crunch time, the Thunder have started running a few more pick & rolls with Durant as the primary ball handler. This creates a matchup nightmare, with switching. Tim Duncan is too slow to stay in front of Durant and prevent him from getting to the rim, as are Boris Diaw, and David West. In Game 4, David West played the entire 4th quarter and Durant made the Spurs pay, however it’s unlikely that Duncan would fare any better.
The other wrinkle is that if the Spurs don’t switch, Durant is getting some very easy pull-up jumpers from the separation from his primary defender. Their best defense would be to put Kawhi Leonard on him, but in Game 4, Durant was able to get just enough separation to get his shot over him, and in Game 5, Westbrook showcased the ability to get by Danny Green to the rim a few times. On top of that, Westbrook is able to post up on Danny Green, and if the Spurs send help, Westbrook is able to punish them with excellent passes to Adams and Kanter, who have been able to finish at the rim very well in this series.
On top of that, Dion Waiters has turned into a viable scoring threat because of his ability to create a shot off the dribble, and is knocking down his jumper at a rate that the Spurs actually have to respect. As a result, any doubling Westbrook or Durant has compromised the Spurs defense as well. In fact, in Game 2, Waiters hit a huge 3-pointer on one of the biggest possessions of the game because his man sagged off him too much.
It seems as if the Spurs are one big man short of being able to defend this Thunder lineup and it has been killing them in crunch time, which is ironic considering it was the Thunder who had a penchant for blowing games in the 4th quarter throughout the regular season. The Spurs will have to rely on Leonard making shots difficult enough for Durant that he misses a few, but will have to make sure that some combination of Aldridge along with either Duncan, Diaw, or West can crash the glass, preventing Kanter and Adams from getting easy put-backs.
Game 6 could prove to be a pivotal point in OKC’s long-term future, especially with Durant’s impending free agency implications. It seems unlikely that the Spurs would lose three straight games, so it’s imperative that the Thunder treat the next game like a Game 7 and put away the Spurs. Reaching the conference finals should be enough to convince Durant that the Thunder are in position to win a championship, especially with the jump in the cap, allowing them to add a viable third ball handler.
Throughout the season, there have been many rumblings about whether the Thunder have surrounded Durant and Westbrook with enough talent to win a championship, and this series has shown that they have, but it all still has to come together.
Beating the Spurs will go a long way towards that.