Spurs stomp the Thunder, 130-91
SAN ANTONIO — Spurs good. Thunder bad. The end.
OK, I can’t help myself.
In the past year, I’ve been to the AT&T Center now seven times. Four of them they’ve ripped apart the Thunder, two of them, it was the Heat. Between those two teams, I’ve seen this exact game happen six times. The Spurs shred the Thunder’s defense, starting by getting to the rim at will, then expand out to hit seemingly every shot they take.
The four Thunder games have followed the same trajectory. A decent-ish first quarter that revealed obvious defensive issues, then a second quarter Spurs spurt, and then a full-on third quarter onslaught.
This wasn’t a butt-kicking. This was a curb-stomping. This was Rick Grimes biting that dudes throat out. This was humiliation unlike the Thunder have really ever experienced.
“They just played harder than us,” Russell Westbrook said. “We just weren’t ready to play. Simple as that.”
I know a lot of people won’t accept that kind of explanation, because these guys are multi-million dollar professional athletes that are paid to be ready to play. At the same time, have you ever shown up to work a little hungover and just watched YouTube videos all day? I’m just sayin’…
Still, losing by 39 is downright embarrassing. Especially when there’s so much to play for right now, and on top of it, all the underlying issues were put on full blast.
“We did not do a good job of keeping within the game plan,” Scott Brooks said. “We got [frustrated]. We have to do a better job and we have the opportunity to play them again in a few weeks.”
The Thunder have always been a sound defensive team, albeit a sometimes inconsistent one, but this has just been poor. They don’t stop the ball, the don’t protect the rim, they don’t defend the 3-point line. Brooks preaches defense first, so this has to be frustrating, right?
“I don’t think of my [frustration] level,” Brooks said. “We were 9-3 for the month going into this game. We have been playing great basketball and have had a lot of great games, more so on the offensive end. We have to get better defensively, but I don’t think [frustration] is the right word. We need improvement and we need it quickly.”
But… it is only a loss in the end. And it was always going to be a difficult game to win. Both teams were playing the second night of a back-to-back, but obviously the Spurs held an advantage playing at home. The Thunder already have beaten them once this season in San Antonio, but without defensive anchor Serge Ibaka to allow the Thunder to deploy a coherent scheme against the pace-and-space attack, there was no answer to be had.
I kind of looked at this road trip this way: Win three out of three, and you can punch the ticket to the postseason. Win two out of three, and that’s mission accomplished. Win one out of three and that’s not good but not horrible. Win zero out of three and that could make things uncomfortable. We know how this one went. So let’s see how the next two go.
NOTES:
- This was a recap suggestion. I should’ve done that.
- I think the main hot take I saw tonight was if the Spurs can do this, just imagine what the Warriors are going to do. Not a crazy point, but at the same time, remember how the Thunder just beat the Hawks less than a week ago?
- Obligatory: That’s Enes Kanter’s 10th double-double with the Thunder.
- Quick reminder: The Thunder went 4-0 against the Spurs last regular season. That wasn’t by accident.
- Scott Brooks makes an adjustment, using Perry Jones to play some early smallball against the Spurs, and the response on Twitter is, “Brooks just randomly throwing Jones out there smh.” If Brooks hadn’t tried that, there would’ve inevitably been a squadron of fans saying, “Brooks is too stubborn, why not try Jones?”
- 71 is the most points the Thunder have allowed in any half this season.
- I’m so torn. Is it a good thing when Dion Waiters makes an 18-footer, or a bad thing?
- Enes Kanter really hobbles around after games. Guy is banged up big time.
- Westbrook asked pregame about Larry Bird’s comments and if he’s sort of gotten immune to the praise: “You can never get immune to it, man. It’s an honor. I don’t know what he said, but just an honor to have someone like that to give you praise, with whatever it is that he was praising me on, because I don’t know. But it’s an honor to be able to hear something like that, especially from guys that have done so many great things in this league, such as himself.”
- I want to write more things, but I can’t think of more things to write.
- Oh! There was this lady behind me tonight that yelled “GET THE BALL GET THE BALL GET THE BALL” almost every Spurs defensive possession, which was just super.
- Steven Adams took a hard fall and was flexing his broken right hand. Though the word from the team is that it was an elbow thing. Adams stayed in and is said to be OK.
- Boris Diaw took Mitch McGary to school didn’t he?
- Watching McGary’s head spin around as he tried to figure out the Spurs’ movement and spacing was pretty funny. It was like watching a dog try to understand how those two people are throwing that ball over his head.
Next up: At the Jazz on Saturday
