2016 Western Conference Semifinals
San Antonio 97, Oklahoma City 111
Series tied 2-2

That is the Oklahoma City Thunder team I feared would eventually show up in this series.

It’s fair to say that OKC’s ceiling as a team is higher than San Antonio’s, but that San Antonio is more consistent. A lot more consistent. But when peak OKC shows up, the Spurs are in big trouble.

We know about the Thunder’s two best players and what they can do. The problem with the team lies in all of their surrounding pieces. They have the ability to be the best bench in the league… or to get run off the floor in any one game. They also suffer from having too many one dimensional players, players that either excel at offense or defense, and really hurt you in the other.

In Game 4, the Thunder’s “others” showed up in a big way. Steven Adams was the best big man in the game for either team, and his ability to roll to the rim stretched and destroyed the Spurs’ interior defense. Enes Kanter showed why he averaged 15 and 15 against the Spurs in the regular season, and even showed off some 3-point range. Dion Waiters looked like a prototypical 3-and-D guy out there, hitting huge shots and playing stout defense. (Reminds me of what we miss from Danny Green in these losses.)

If the Thunder can get consistent offense from Adams, and consistent defense from Waiters and Kanter, they’ve found their rotation. And it might be better than what the Spurs can throw out there.

After a great 1st quarter, the Spurs defense checked out of the game, giving up 28, 32, and 34 points in consecutive quarters. That is bad. Some of it was incredible shot-making by Durant, who had his best game of the series, but it was also the Thunder being more consistently able to play 5 good offensive players and the Spurs having no counter for them.

Now it’s time to officially talk about Duncan. Without him, the defense struggles. It’s telling that his only consistent minutes came in that 1st quarter. But he can no longer be reliable on offense. In fact, his presence in the offense allows the Thunder to do to the Spurs what the Spurs love to do to other teams: slag off and crowd the paint.

With Duncan out, the rim is wide open. The Thunder were able to attack and score. When they missed, they collected offensive rebounds. I counted 5 big offensive rebounds in the 4th quarter alone. West isn’t big enough to contend inside with Kanter and Adams. With Westbrook often crashing the boards, the fight on the glass turns hectic, often favoring the more athletic Thunder.

(It also didn’t help that the Spurs had at least three to four deflections almost turn into steals that miraculously bounced back to the Thunder for easy points. Those are killers, but that’s the way the ball bounces, quite literally.)

The fundamental riddle is this: without Duncan, the Thunder might be too big for the Spurs; with Duncan, the Spurs offense might not be good enough to win.

While the Spurs defense was shaky in this game, the other end of the court was no better. The offense has resorted to isolation and stagnation. (Remind you of the Thunder?) There is no movement by ball or player. Most offense doesn’t even begin until the shot clock has ticked below 10, and in most cases, it’s just a player attempting to create a sliver of space.

We have great shot makers in Leonard, Aldridge, and Parker, but that’s not how the Spurs win games, let alone series. Particularly with Aldridge and Leonard struggling with their shot. (Parker was great again, but gone are the days when he can win games alone.) There was nowhere to go on offense, and it felt like any points scored late were more out of luck than anything else.

If the Spurs can’t hit 3-pointers to loosen up the defense, it’s too hard to score points and puts too much pressure on the defense to be perfect. The Spurs only hit 2 3-pointers in the game, but coming in the span of about 20 seconds at the end of the 3rd quarter. Only one was actually a good shot.

More telling, they only took 12 all game, 2 of which were in the final minute by Kawhi Leonard when the game was mostly out of reach and the team desperately needed to hit some 3s.

We all know how much better the offense functions when the team is hitting 3s, but sometimes just taking them can be enough. The Thunder kept shooting them, and eventually it paid off as they hit several big 3s in the 4th quarter. They finished with 9 makes, putting them a whopping +21 over the Spurs from deep.

When the Thunder get rolling and playing downhill, they are nearly unbeatable. This has been the overwhelming frustration with them for years: how do they not play like this more often?

The flip side: the Spurs entered the 4th quarter with a lead, on the road, playing a pretty poor game. The Thunder absolutely had to win this game, and that desperation carried the day. But the final margin will not indicate how close this game actually was.

The Spurs have the ability to hang around and hang around, and you have to beat them. The Thunder, on any given night, are happy to be beaten or even beat themselves.

Which takes us back to the beginning: the Thunder have a higher ceiling, but the Spurs are more consistently great. Which is better?

That’s what this series will determine, and essentially what these two teams have been fighting out over the last 4 seasons.

If this series (and 2014, and 2012) has taught us anything, it’s that each game is its own story with its own rhythm and progression. Two years ago, these two teams were in the same position, tied 2-2 in a series headed back to San Antonio. We all know how that one ended.

Game 5 is Tuesday night in San Antonio.

Go Spurs Go.