i don't know if i would say they choked. the probably underperformed a little, but i don't think they got scared and forgot how to play basketball because of the pressure or anything. the thunder had the point differential of a 59 win team and you could probably argue that the spurs depth helps their regular season record because they can pretty much always play hard / play with energy and get wins that a star-heavy team may not get because their stars have to rest. now you get in a series where the thunder can play durant 41 minutes per game and they are probably better than their 59 wins. so the actual talent difference in the two teams probably isn't enormous. the only real advantage the spurs had was the fact that the thunder had the disadvantage of being hot garbage in the 4th quarter this year. i always thought they were almost flukishly bad (and their opponents flukishly good) so basically the spurs were just relying on a factor not in their control to help them (in this case, okc basically choking). once that didn't materialize, okc could win. and even though i wanted okc to win, it didn't hurt that okc got some really nice calls at the end of game 5 (everyone got a few calls on the dion waiters inbounds play so i won't count that), which is huge in such a close series.
but the spurs aren't small ball. they've been playing duncan and aldridge all year. the thunder could use two bigs because they knew they weren't going to get 3's rained on them all day or have to guard curry on switches. their strategy will be tested against gsw. history says gsw will prevail because you just can't guard their small lineup as well as they can guard your big lineup. but i'm sure they'll try to see if they can dominate the glass the way cleveland did last year. but unlike cleveland, they won't have just lebron and low-level offensive talent. they'll have 2 superstars and other capable offensive options and their bigs even have good hands and touch near the basket.
i don't think the spurs were worn down or anything. they play very light minutes in the regular season and basically rested everyone in the memphis series. they should have been as fresh as absolutely possible.
Why did OKC not elevate their game in the last 3, 4 years? Well, lost Harden, coaching change, injuries to WB(not just one major (Beverley)) Kendrick Perkins over the hill, overrated Jeremy Lamb not good enough, Kevin Martin and Reg Jax not the best fits Durant probably had some up and downs and so on Well, mostly injuries and all mental
I don't know if they choked but I do find it interesting that nobody is criticizing Kawhi Leonard. Aldridge is getting his share but for the second straight year, Kawhi is getting a pass on playoff failure. He had little impact on an elimination game while Durant ran wild and he was clearly bothered by Andre Roberson. Yet silence. Can't be a superstar when you don't get ANY blame for failure.
I do. The main reason SAS lost is they couldn't play their patented motion offense due to OKC"S defense really picking up steam, thus pressuring Kawhi and LMA to go to ISO mode aginst OKC, the team that has two of the most effective players in that same category (Durant & WB). It was game over from that point on. The thing with Kawhi is he's just not a good individual scorer. I know people point to his FG% and so forth to argue that he is, but look at what happened when the defense on him got much tighter in the playoffs. André Roberson cleaned his clock basically. Kawhi still managed to put up decent numbers, but when SAS couldn't play the team ball anymore, there was no one to pick up the slack and single-handedly carry the team's offense. That's what seperates a true superstar form an all-star player, and we don't give Harden enough credit for what he is doing on this team offensively. Kawhi needs to be able to score 35~40 points on the big stage. 20 points on 50% shooting looks nice, but if you are the main go-to-guy on a championship contending team, you gotta do better than that.
Hell yes, they choked. They won a ton of games this year, only lost once at home I think, had the home court advantage and got beaten in 6. They choked! I don't want to take anything away from OKC. They played great and Donovan is doing an excellent job there. The excuses for SA are the most bothersome. Yes, the big three are old, but they rest a ton during the season and now they also have Aldridge and Leonard. Pops is probably the best coach ever. SA had a shot and blew it.
Exactly, two long footers. I love reading about Duncan being a "PF"... He hasn't been a PF in AGES. PF my balls... He is about as much a PF as Hakeem was. Hakeem who was far quicker on the perimeter on offense and defense.
It's funny because I thought from reading the posts here that all you needed was a 'system' to carry you to championships. What happened to Pop's amazing 'system', CF? How did a team with no system beat a team WITH a 'system'? I guess we'll see how amazing the system looks when TD is finally gone. Past 2 years combined playoff series wins - McHale 2, Pop 1.
67 win team. Full squad healthy so no excuses. Almost no one had OKC winning. 2nd year in a row they've choked.
Kwahi scored over his regular season averages in this series, so anybody pointing that he chocked is not looking right. He just had a terrible job, having to guard westbrook on one side and then go against robertson on the other side. By the way westbrook averaged during the regular season 22 dribble penetration per 100 possesion. Agasint Leonards only 3 per 100. He did a good job on him and still scored 23 ppg himselft on 48% shooting. I think the main problem for the spurs was the spacing. Playing a lineup with 3 non 3 point shooters like parker, duncan and aldrige, and having danny green not shooting really well killed them. They should have probably played kwahi as a 4 and aldrige as the 5 and give more minutes to patty mills. Also diaw in the rotation would have probably helped. They where pretty even teams in the end, the spurs wins a lot in the regular season because of depth, but they where outclassed here by more star power. Kwahi cant create in the offensive like harden, durant or westbrook. He i a good scorrer but not that kind of scorer, he can iso some times, but dosent have the handless to penetrate at will like others.
I personally think it's because he already has his ring and a finals mvp while Aldridge is still looking for his first. Kind of like how people criticized Bron that first year in Miami after losing to Dallas but said nothing about wade.
Kawhi never gets criticism for anything. Folks will criticize Popovich, Duncan and Parker before they say word one about this guy. At the same time they want to put him in the same sentence with LeBron and Durant. The Finals MVP means little since the NBA has watered it down, how in the world was Igodoula MVP over Curry last year? James Harden lost to a 73 win powerhouse and EVERYONE killed this guy. LeBron has taken his lumps, and Westbrook has been criticized but Kawhi gets a pass. You can't be considered a superstar when you're MVP when you win and everyone hugs you when you lose.
Good post. In the end, I really think this is on Popovich getting out coached. Historically, he's not at his best when they need serious in-series adjustments.
When you lose THREE games in a row that's not choking!!!! That's the other team just being better then you.
How many games did Spurs win this year, 67? A lot of analysts even said they had the best 5 at any point in time with TD, LMA, Kawhi, Parker and Manu. Spurs had won more games against OKC and the last couple of years they have more playoff victories against OKC, and that's before they had LMA, West and a host other guys in the team. Yes, that's very similar with Houston Rockets rolling out with Dikembe (Yao Ming was injured almost every playoff run), Juwon Howard, Battier, Tmac and Rafer Alston going up against Utah Jazz with prime Boozer, D-will and Kirilenko. Rox just choked that's all.
