The Swedes are coming!
This was bound to happen. No streak lasts forever, and the Spurs heretofore dominating 20 game winning streak came to a resounding end in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals in Oklahoma City. That the Spurs lost is somewhat unsurprising. The Thunder are too talented to allow themselves to be swept out of the playoffs against any team, no matter how good, and they are an outstanding team at home. In fact, they have yet to lose at home in these playoffs. It's perhaps easy to write this game off. Reason that the Spurs simply collapsed under the pressure of maintaining their own standard of excellence, and that sweeping the Thunder was a pipe dream anyway. But the margin of victory here, 20 points, suggests that there may be cause for worry, and that this game is worthy of closer examination.
So what went wrong? Well, to begin with, the Thunder are a young, deep, and very talented team. And their backs were against the wall going into this game. They played like it. Secondly, the OKC home crowd brought an incredible level of energy to the game, and the Thunder responded in kind. They were the aggressor from the beginning, leaping out to an 8-0 lead to begin the first quarter. The Spurs did bounce back and take the lead 24-22 as the first quarter drew to a close, despite turning the ball over 7 times (a testament to the aggressive defense of the Thunder). Unfortunately, that 24 points was the most that the Spurs would muster in a quarter all night.
Kudos to Coach Scott Brooks who, after enduring seemingly unending criticism throughout this series thus far for reasons ranging from his substitution patterns to his lack of in-game and between-game adjustments, made at least two major adjustments for this game that truly proved to be difference-makers. Most notably, he assigned Thabo Sefolosha, arguably the Thunder's best perimeter defender, the task of checking Thunder killer and Spurs MVP Tony Parker. And he played the Swedish swingman big minutes (36), something he had been hesitant to do to this point in the series (Sefolosha had only logged 15 minutes in Game 2). This is a change that many observers had been really calling for, and though some may argue it was too little too late in terms of changing the outcome of this series, it played big dividends in Game 3. Sefolosha put up impressive numbers (19 points, 6 rebounds, 6 steals, 4 threes, and a block), but more importantly he significantly hampered the offense of Tony Parker with his length and pesky defense. Parker shot the ball well, but only totaled 16 points (as opposed to the 34 he had scored in Game 2), and turned the ball over 5 times. And more importantly, he didn't have his way with the Thunder defense as he had done to this point in the series, particularly on the Spurs patented screen-and-roll plays. Sefolosha, an incredibly active defender, constantly jumped over screens and stuck his hands in the play, frustrating Parker and the Spurs.
No doubt, the screen-and-roll is the Spurs bread and butter, and the Thunder were significantly improved over previous games in terms of defending it, which leads to the second notable adjustment made by Coach Brooks: the Thunder switched everything on screens. This is opposed to hedging on those screens as had been their previous strategy. And it worked fabulously. It put a lot of pressure on the Thunder defenders, particularly the bigs, to show and recover, but they responded well, perhaps spurred on by the relentless energy of their home crowd. This lack of success in the pick-and-roll game led to a lot of isolation plays outside the paint for the Spurs, something which is not their strength, and it showed. Big men Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins also did a fine job turning the Spurs away by blocking their shots (3 apiece) when they did manage to come into the paint. One presumed upside of all this switching is the mismatches that the Spurs should see in the post, but alas, post scoring has been and remains a weakness of the Spurs since the days when the Admiral David Robinson sailed the seas of the SBC Center, and the Spurs bigs were unable to respond. Tim Duncan, who has not shot well in this series, missed 10 of 15 shots, and Tiago Splitter was similarly ineffective, scoring no points and attempting no fields in 12 quiet minutes. In addition to all this scoring that the Spurs were failing to do, they also managed to turn the ball over 21 times, never a good sign.
Offensively, the Thunder did what they have been doing all series. They scored often and easily, garnering an impressive offensive rating of 115.7. In fact, throughout this series, The Thunder have scored 108.6 points per 100 possessions, a very good number. The dirty little secret of this series has been that the Spurs have not guarded particularly effectively, instead preferring to outscore their opponent, and in this game, with the Spurs finally able to contain the Spurs free-flowing offense, that strategy finally caught up with the silver and black. On the plus side, Lil Wayne now apparently a Spurs fan.
So what to take away from all this? Well, the sky is fortunately not falling (not yet anyway). The Thunder did what a good team should do, they made adjustments and played with pride. The Spurs have long been considered a great team, and thus should be equipped to do the same. It helps that they have one of the great coaches in the league in Gregg Popovich. Coach Pop and his staff had most of the meaningless 4th quarter to ruminate on why they lost and how to respond, something I expect them to do in an effective fashion. This is the first time the Spurs have found themselves against a wall in nearly two whole months, and it's time for Coach Pop to earn that Coach of the Year Trophy. Similarly, Tony Parker has received nothing but praise over the last few weeks, and anointed as the Spurs' best player. He must rise to the challenge as well. Hopefully the Spurs will respond to this challenge with renewed vigor and focus, something that has never been much of a problem for then, anyway.
In closing, congratulations to Tim Duncan for taking over the all-time lead in playoff blocks. Duncan couldn't do much of anything else in Game 3, but he did manage to block 5 shots, and now has blocked 478 shots during his career in the playoffs. What an incredible career. And no signs of stopping.
#GoSpursGo
No comments:
Post a Comment