NBA Playoffs 2012: Game 3 Blowout Fool's Gold for Doomed OKC Thunder

The Oklahoma City Thunder brought the San Antonio Spurs' 20-game winning streak to a crashing stop on Thursday night, but rather than a series-changing win to get the Thunder back into the Western Conference Finals, the game likely only served to delay the Spurs' inevitable ascension to the NBA Finals.

The Thunder dominated San Antonio 102-82—behind 22 points from Kevin Durant and a career night from Thabo Sefolosha—leading the game from wire to wire while holding the Spurs to their lowest point total of the season and remaining unbeaten at home in the playoffs.

However, while it may seem we're looking at an entirely different series with the Thunder now trailing San Antonio two games to one, that's no less silly a suggestion than was the belief that even the Spurs could run the table this postseason.

The Spurs hadn't lost a game since April 11, and even the best of teams are eventually going to lay an egg after a streak such as that. The Spurs were flatter than a two-day-old can of soda, turning the ball over four times early and jumping headfirst into a hole the team was never fully able to dig out of.

The Thunder played with more energy on both ends of the floor, and by the beginning of the fourth quarter, San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich had seen enough, pulling his starters and telling the Associated Press after the game via ESPN that his squad was thoroughly outclassed on both ends of the floor.

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"They played like it was a closeout game, both offensively and defensively," he said. "They were very active, physical; they moved the ball well on offense. They did all those things better than we did. They beat us good."

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With that said, the Spurs are as veteran as teams get, and you can rest assured that both the players and their coach are spending Friday's off-day preparing to open Saturday's Game 4 in a much different fashion.

Some will also likely point to Sefolosha's increased playing time in Game 3 as a potential turning point in the series, and given the way the fifth-year pro played Thursday, that may seem a hard point to argue. Sefolosha scored a career playoff high, while playing stifling defense on Spurs point guard Tony Parker, racking up four steals in the game's first three minutes on his way to six for the game.

However, the 6'7" shooting guard also played the game of his life. It's unlikely that Sefolosha can maintain that level of energy or production over the course of an entire series, just as it's unlikely that Parker would continue to struggle like he did Thursday or that Popovich won't find ways to open things up for his point guard with picks and screens.

At the end of the day, it's just as important not to read too much into the Thunder's big win in Game 3 as it was not to read too much into the first two games of the series, when it looked like they'd be swept with barely a nudge of resistance.

The San Antonio Spurs aren't invincible, and the Oklahoma City Thunder aren't pushovers.

We already knew that.

Spurs in six.

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