You're kidding right? The Spurs just won it all a few years ago against the star-studded Heat, while also getting past the Thunder who haven't won a championship yet, haha.
Partly a choke, though that's not really unexpected when one of your best players is Aldridge--he's a star, but probably the one most likely to go invisible for a game or series of games. More, though, the Thunder have been a bad match-up for the Spurs for the last few years. The Spurs have never really had the athleticism to handle the Thunder. The Thunder beat them in the 2012 playoffs, might have beaten them in the 2014 playoffs with a healthy Ibaka and now beat them this year. That's probably why Popovich actually tried to win down the stretch...get the #1 seed and not have to face both the Thunder and the Warriors.
They just wore out. You can see it coming that the deeper into playoff it gets, the more tiring legs the Spurs showed.
They are still the best 'old' team I have seen so far yeah still old though, it is either a fabulous regular season or resting the players to go far in the postseason Nothing much in between
The Spurs let OKC win because they're nice. We also let GSW win so the nba could have better ratings. All about the bigger picture.
Is every upset considered a choke? I don't think so. I'd say choking is wilting under the pressure. I don't think that happened here.
It was both the Thunder won, but the Spurs still choked. If you win game one by 30 and proceed to get your ass handed to you 4 of the next 5 its a big time choke job.
Yea, they choked away 2 games they could've easily won. They need more young legs and energy in their rotation. But honestly, they could come back with the same team next season and they're still going to win 60+ and make it to the second round, at least.
Took Billy Donovan all year to figure out that going BIG is a great counter to small ball, about damned time someone figured it out, as a lot of folks on this board have been saying. Gonna be a fun series in WC finals. DD
Going big only works if you have an advantage. In the thunder's case they are both more athletic and better rebounders than the spurs' small 4's. In the next series, the Warriors will have the athleticism advantage. Also, the size will just be less of an advantage as Steven Adams will be spending plenty of time out at the three point line guarding shooters.
Just like how Pelicans always beat the Spurs. It's rebounding. They are allowing athletic bigs such as Ibaka, Adams and Kanter kill them on the boards. TD and Diaw at center - FAIL.
That's funny why weren't OKC able to "elevate their level" the last couple of years? The Spurs choked, plain and simple, and OKC played way better than they normally do with guys like Steven Adams blowing up and WB's shots falling like chocolate rain. Nobody is perfect, there will always be opportunities where you don't perform to the best of your abilities and just **** things up, look at how Rox got a lower seed than the Mavs and Portland, two teams they would just destroy on paper. If they played 1000 games against each other then maybe the Spurs would win but unfortunately they just had a best of 7. This is why its always important to keep your eyes on the ball and never go all in, because you don't know what will happen in the playoffs so you always need to maximize your chances of playoff appearances. This playoff run could mean the difference between OKC keeping WB and KD and both of them leaving in FA, it was wise of them to keep Adams instead of trading him away just to make a stronger push for the short term.
I think of it like the old JAZZ back in the day They going at 100% all year. . . .that was the best the Spurs could be when it came Playoff time .. . they simply had no extra gear to goto OKC did. Most teams step up in the playoffs The Spurs had nothing left to give And it showed and they choked Rocket River
This isn't the first time OKC has ran away from SAS in a series. This time it was 3 games in a row. Last time it was 4 games in a row. That's called a major mismatch at systemic levels. It also says Pops had no counter twice now against OKC, and really no plan at all. I guess is only plan was believing his team planning their regular season ball could not be beat by OKC, so he had no counter.
