The San Antonio Spurs' Machine Is Officially Off and Running
It started with a bang.
On the first possession of the first game of the San Antonio Spurs' third NBA playoff go-around with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Kawhi Leonard drove past Kevin Durant, Steven Adams and every other blue jersey on the floor for a one-handed slam.
San Antonio never let up—not at 21-8 early on, not at 73-40 at the half (the sixth-largest halftime lead in playoff history), not even after Gregg Popovich emptied his bench during the fourth quarter with the Spurs up 105-66.
Not until the final buzzer sounded on a 124-92 annihilation of OKC at the AT&T Center on Saturday night.
If the Spurs' Borg keeps rolling like this, there may be no stopping it.
Leonard kept going all night after that opening dunk. He hit his first six shots, including a dunk off a full-court fling from a 40-year-old Tim Duncan, en route to a 25-point night on 10-of-13 shooting. The NBA highlighted Leonard's stats:
The rest of the Spurs were just as hot. They nailed 10 of their first 11 looks against a porous Thunder defense and finished the opening frame with 43 points on 81.8 percent shooting, tying the franchise playoff record for a quarter. Danny Green set aside his season-long shooting slump to drain five of six from three on the night.
The hottest of all? LaMarcus Aldridge.
San Antonio's biggest acquisition picked and popped the Thunder to death, nailing one mid-range jumper after another (13 of 15, to be exact, per Matt Moore of CBSSports.com) until he tallied 38 points on 18-of-23 shooting from the field—his highest output as a Spur. He and Leonard combined to outscore the entire OKC team in the first half, 45-40.
"The ball went in the basket a lot," Popovich noted so astutely when speaking of Aldridge's outing at his postgame press conference, aired on ESPN.
"He got wherever he wanted," said Thunder guard Dion Waiters, per the Oklahoman's Anthony Slater:
The same went for all of Pop's players. Every Spur who stepped on the court scored at least once, building a 60.7 percent shooting night. They moved the ball beautifully, turning quick passes into open shots and notching 39 assists on 51 makes.
But offensive artistry like this is nothing new for San Antonio. According to NBA.com, the Spurs finished the 2015-16 season ranked third in offensive efficiency, second in effective field-goal percentage and fourth in passes per game.
Additionally, San Antonio's stellar defensive effort against OKC doesn't look at all like an outlier. The Spurs sported the league's stingiest defense, surrendering 96.6 points per 100 possessions during the 82-game campaign and a measly 89.3 to the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round, according to NBA.com.
"They really do a great job of using their size and their length, and they try to get you to take a lot of non-paint twos," Thunder coach Billy Donovan told the Norman Transcript's Fred Katz.
He continued:
"So, you could have this mentality of, we’re going to force our way to the basket. We’re just going to force our way. Well, a lot of times there’s a wall there. And sometimes, that wall is not there, and all of a sudden, that wall appears when there’s penetration. Now, what kind of decision can you make from there to get it to the next guy?
"
OKC's decisions were less than stellar. The Thunder, who ranked second in the Association in offensive efficiency, found few spaces to exploit and even fewer open shots against a defense that packed the paint and seemingly contested every look.
With Leonard's length, strength and quick feet on his hip, Russell Westbrook (14 points on 5-of-19 shooting) couldn't pound his way through the post. And with the Spurs' bigs lurking at the rim, he rarely found a clean look there to conclude his drives anyway.
Durant (16 points on 6-of-15 shooting) faced just as much harassment from every angle. The Spurs threw a bevy of bodies his way, with Green, Leonard and Kyle Anderson handling the bulk of the duties.
Beyond OKC's two superstars, only Serge Ibaka (19 points on 8-of-15 shooting from the field), Waiters (11 points, 5-of-7 on free throws) and Adams (nine points, 10 rebounds) made much of a dent on the scoreboard.
Enes Kanter (six points on 3-of-7 shooting) felt the full effect of San Antonio's interior crowding. Rookie Cameron Payne hit just one of his six shots off the bench.
If not for a fourth quarter that saw OKC's reserves outscore their Spurs counterparts, 26-19, the Thunder would've shot a shade under 40 percent as a team—something they did just seven times (in seven defeats) during the regular season.
Either way, Oklahoma City has yet to win a Game 1 on the road with Durant and Westbrook.
The Duncan-era Spurs, on the other hand, have yet to lose a Game 1 at home during the conference semifinals (10-0) or after completing a sweep (8-0).
Chances are, this series won't end in another broom job for San Antonio. The Thunder will study Pop's game plan and find other ways to get Durant and Westbrook open. Those two will hit more shots, just as OKC as a whole will shoot better than 6-of-23 from three. Perhaps that turn will come when the series shifts away from "the Alamo City," where the Spurs are now 43-1 since late October, to the Sooner State, where the Thunder are 34-10 over the same span.
But that change in locales won't come until Game 3. Before then will come another game in San Antonio on Monday, which represents another opportunity for the Spurs to land a crushing blow early and dominate until late.
Stats per NBA.com and Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise cited and accurate as of games played on April 30, 2016.
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