2016 Western Conference Semifinals
San Antonio 99, Oklahoma City 113
Thunder win series 4-2

I didn’t expect this.

Late in the regular season, eyeing a potential 2nd round match-up against the Thunder, I was worried. The way the Spurs were playing at the time, I thought this series would be tougher than most assumed. Still, I trusted in the 67-win juggernaut to come through against a talented but underperforming Thunder squad that seemed to have new drama every week. I expected the ‘right’ team to win.

I didn’t expect all the Spurs shooters would suddenly turn cold, and that stalwart role players would become so detrimental.

I didn’t expect Steven Adams to be the best big in the series. (Yes, he was better and more impactful in winning than Aldridge.)

I didn’t expect Westbrook to suddenly become a good 3-point shooter and a good decision maker.

I didn’t expect Roberson to guard Kawhi as well as he did and outplay him in a critical Game 6.

I didn’t expect Dion Waiters to be the best bench player in the series.

I didn’t expect the Spurs veterans to press and look flustered and make really poor decisions with the ball.

I didn’t expect a rebound to become an impossible thing to get.

I didn’t expect the Spurs to be so afraid at the rim.

I didn’t expect the Thunder to suddenly start playing great defense and completely fluster the Spurs on offense.

I didn’t expect Pop to not have any answers, or to be unwilling to try different things until it was too late.

I didn’t expect the Spurs to lose twice as many homes games in one series as they did all season, nor lose 3 in a row.

I didn’t expect Duncan to become 40 so fast.

Yet here we are. Game 6 was the Thunder’s turn to get a blow out, only the Spurs were too stubborn and too proud to let it happen. It was hard not to get emotional during that 4th quarter, watching the team play so hard and come as close as they did to achieving the impossible. They fought behind the play of Duncan and Leonard, the two pillars of the team spanning 20 years and multiple generations.

There were chances late to cut it here and there and put real pressure on Oklahoma City. But when you get down that big on the road, you have to play perfect. The Spurs were anything but. A missed rebound leading to an easy layup, Kawhi getting the ball stolen by Westbrook from behind, converting only 1-point out of a possible 4-point play after the flagrant: these can all be covered up in a tight game, but when you’re clawing your way back, it’s too many miniature mistakes to overcome.

The game was lost at the end of the first quarter. The Spurs were up 6 with a few minutes remaining when the benches came in. The Thunder went on a  quick +12 run (in a game ultimately won by 14 points), and the Spurs were never close again. Pop struggled to find anything that would work, pulling Mills for Martin, plugging in Boban for size, making Manu a PG.

I think the killer decision was not having Green or Leonard on the floor when Durant was, and then not having Parker, Aldridge, or Leonard on the floor for a large stretch (a stretch in which the Spurs might have scored 3 points in about 6 minutes.) I know Pop was trying to find something useful from any role or bench player, but you can’t do that at the expense of your stars and starters.

Did Pop lose us the series? I don’t know. Ultimately, players play. Over an extended stretch, the Thunder outscored the Spurs 45-15 to end the first quarter all the way to halftime. It’s really hard to win in the NBA when you give up stretches like that. The Spurs just couldn’t score the ball. The offense–despite being ranked #3 in the NBA regular season–was the bugaboo all season, and it bit us in the ass at the worst possible time.

Watching the offense bog down into isolation with no player movement and no ball movement was depressing. Everything just moved so slowly and laboriously. Kawhi Leonard is a great player, but this offseason should be dedicated to figuring out the pick and roll and speeding up his decision-making. Roberson guarded him so well one-on-one, and Kawhi wasted so much time on offense trying to beat him or figure out what to do. By the time many sets finally got going, there was only 8 seconds left on the shot clock.

In the second half Pop went small, the offense started humming…and the defense completely disappeared. Go big to protect the boards, kill the offense. Go small to score points, kill the defense. It was a losing proposition either way.

That’s why this loss doesn’t sting me as much as it could. The Spurs completely maximized every edge and every ability in the regular season. They were amazing. But the holes and weaknesses were there, and the right team could easily beat it in the playoffs. We all thought that team would be the Warriors. (Honestly, another reason this loss doesn’t hurt that much is I don’t believe the Spurs had much chance against Golden State in a playoff series.) The Thunder always loomed, though, possessing the athleticism, talent, and physicality to beat the Spurs.

Once they got into a rhythm and figured out the Spurs, they were clearly the better team. The games were close, and the Spurs had leads in most of them, but it always felt like Oklahoma City was just a bit faster, a bit tougher, and a bit better. Their role players made shot; the deflections bounced their way; they played big and gobbled up rebounds without sacrificing speed; Durant played huge; Westbrook got out of his own way; Donovan made the right personnel decisions and was rewarded by his players for it.

It felt a lot like 2012, to be honest. Remember, after that series, the NBA world wrote the Spurs off for dead, claiming the future was here and it didn’t include San Antonio. 2 Finals appearance and one championship later, it feels like we’re at the same reckoning point.

Last offseason was huge for San Antonio, but in many ways, this upcoming one is a lot more interesting. The core of a great team is there with Aldridge and Leonard, but lots of things both big and small need to change for the Spurs to actually compete for a championship. And lots of decisions on most of the roster will be up in the air.

There will be plenty of time to discuss all of this in an offseason that feels a couple of weeks longer than it should. For now, though, we should celebrate the 2015-16 season and how remarkable it was. While this loss leaves a bitter taste, it shouldn’t spoil how wonderful it was to cheer for San Antonio night in and night out for almost 9 months.

Win or lose, we’re still the luckiest fans in the world.

Go Spurs Go, forever and always.

2016 Western Conference Semifinals
San Antonio 91, Oklahoma City 95
Thunder lead series 3-2

Grab. The. Damn. Ball.

There’s a nice bit of irony at work here that in a season when the Spurs zagged against prevailing trends by doubling down on post play and a more traditional style, it’s the Thunder’s ability to go extra big that might run them out of the playoffs. One might think that the Spurs’ emphasis this season would lead to an increased rebounding ability. And yet every time the ball clanks off of the rim in this series, I just assume it’ll end up in the hands of Oklahoma City.

The Spurs’ defense has mostly been excellent…except for that whole ‘finishing the possession’ thing. Here’s a fun fact: in the last 6 minutes of the game, the Spurs collected a grand total of two rebounds. You read that right: two. Even when they stopped the Thunder’s initial action, it almost inevitably led to an easy putback layup for an OKC big man.

If you look at the numbers, the Thunder only had 5 more offensive rebounds than the Spurs did. That’s not bad, right? It’s just that the Thunder maximized each of those rebounds, and completely dominated the Spurs in the final minutes of the game, with the result still very much in doubt.

Truthfully, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the Spurs look worse in end of game situations. (I’m sure I have, but let me have my hyperbole.) We can grouse all we want about a lot of things that seem unfair (really bizarre officiating that has hurt the Spurs at crucial times), but the truth is that the Spurs are coming up small when the Thunder are coming up big.

I’ve seen Pop take some criticism in the wake of Games 4 and 5, and I’m sure there are decisions he’d like to have back. But he can’t make Parker, West, Duncan, Aldridge, or Mills magically find their shots or their confidence. He can’t force Diaw and West to play big in the paint and actually secure defensive rebounds. He can’t magically make Duncan 28 again. He can’t control when Westbrook’s irrationally confident shots suddenly start falling at an alarming clip.

There’s been chatter that Boban should get some playing time. Clearly, though, Pop doesn’t trust him with the moment, rightly or wrongly. Keep in mind, that while Boban is huge, he is slow of foot and actually isn’t a wonderful defensive rebounder. Adams and Kanter in particular would probably be able to still grab offensive rebounds with him in. Either way, he’s an end-of-the-bench rookie and those rarely swing playoff series between two great teams.

Playoff series usually come down to who can control the 5 feet in front of the rim and who can win the 3-point line. Right now, the Spurs are losing both. Badly. The team is afraid of Adams, Ibaka, and Kanter in the paint on one end, and can’t control them on the other. Take away Danny’s 6-of-9 shooting from 3, and the rest of the team is 2-of-8. Neither of those numbers is big enough.

The beautiful game is gone, may it live on in our hearts and minds forever. The offense is rather basic, slow, and predictable. We have excellent offensive talents, but it still hasn’t congealed into a complete offensive game. When Aldridge’s shot is off and players like Mills are gun-shy and/or missing most of their shots, the offense is really bad.

Despite his monumental gains, Kawhi is still a work in progress on offense. Because he has improved so much, we take for granted that he still has so far to go. He is a great offensive talent, but he is not a natural offensive player. Durant is a natural offensive player. Kawhi still feels rote, trained. This is not a knock. But in the crunch time of close games, he often lacks the pure offensive ability to get an easy shot.

His goal this offseason should be to master the pick-and-roll (he and Aldridge could be deadly) and to speed up. Too often, the offense doesn’t even start until about 12 seconds into the possession, and it’s a lot of one-on-one jockeying. If that action goes nowhere, it’s up to players that aren’t suited to the task to create good looks late in the shot clock.

Perhaps this was just a bad shooting night. Though most of the shots are midrange jumpers, many of them were wide open and the Spurs just missed them. But if you watch the team night in and night out, you just know intuitively that the offense isn’t right. The defense can only carry the team so far. (Which is a very short distance without rebounding.)

Maybe the Spurs are just an excellent regular season team that still need to figure out how they fit in the postseason. Remember, the ‘legend’ of the Spurs is built mostly on players that are on their way out of the league and are no longer nightly contributors. The Spurs maximize advantages and talent in the regular season, but seem to lack another gear to get to in the post-season, a gear the Thunder seem to find on a somewhat consistent basis.

This series reminds of the Clippers series from last season. Too many players coming up small at the wrong moment while the opposing team seems to be clicking in a way they haven’t all season. The Thunder are getting positive contributions from everywhere, even from players that are often viewed as laughing stocks. The Clippers won a game because of Austin freaking Rivers. I look around at the Spurs’ roster and wonder who I trust in the big moments. The number seems to get smaller each game.

But the Clippers’ series also provides a path out of this. Because as dispiriting as these last two games have been, the margin in this series is still razor thin, and the Spurs still have the ability to beat the Thunder on any given night or any given two nights. Remember, the Spurs were coming home for Game 6 last year up 3-2 and feeling great. Most in the national media had already given them the series. There’s no way the Spurs would lose twice at home in one series.

So now the Spurs have to channel their inner-Clippers (chalk that up to something I thought I’d never write). It’s frustrating to lose two home games in a row after losing only one all season. It’s frustrating to watch this Thunder team that in many ways has been the Spurs’ greatest foil over the last few seasons seem to get the best of them again. It’s frustrating to be on the verge of elimination after such an impressive season. It’s frustrating to do so playing a brand of basketball you hardly recognize. It’s frustrating to know that these might be the final games of the original Big 3 as we know them.

But it’s not over. There’s a game Thursday night, and for 48 minutes we’ll watch the Spurs play the Thunder. Everything that has come before and everything that is to come after will have little bearing. The players will play, and we’ll cheer.

And hopefully we’ll get to do it all again on Sunday.

Go Spurs Go.