Thunder Must Be More Than Just Big 3 to Play Ultimate Spoiler to Spurs

To beat the San Antonio Spurs, reach the Western Conference Finals and genuinely contend for an NBA title during a season in which the championship chase has been diluted down to exclude them, the Oklahoma City Thunder have to be more than Kevin Durant, Serge Ibaka and Russell Westbrook.

So, basically, their postseason hopes won't survive another loss like Game 3.

The Thunder fell to the Spurs on Friday night 100-96, forfeiting the home-court advantage they worked so hard to steal in Game 2. Their 2-1 series hole is by no means insurmountable, but despite almost scraping together another victory against the league's second-best team, Game 3 was hardly teeming with silver linings.

Indeed, for a few fleeting moments it looked as if they might continue turning the tables on San Antonio. They erased an early 15-point deficit to grab a four-point edge in the fourth quarter, cracking the Spurs with pesky defense and timely hoops.

Then, quite abruptly, their lead was gone.

Oklahoma City buried itself amid a haze of defensive breakdowns, poor jump shots, crunch-time indecision and unbecoming turnovers. San Antonio was a plus-eight during the last seven minutes of the final frame, showing no remorse for an opponent that suddenly couldn't do anything right.

And that means anything. As Bleacher Report's Adam Fromal put it:

At the heart of the Thunder's undoing? Durant, Ibaka and Westbrook.

They were also the main reasons why Oklahoma City stayed within striking distance at all.

Hence the dilemma.

Durant finished with 26 points, three assists, one steal and one block on a tidy 10-of-18 shooting. But he committed five turnovers and didn't do nearly enough to capitalize on mismatches.

There was a stretch of possessions where Durant, despite being covered by the slower and inexperienced Kyle Anderson, did absolutely nothing to get open off the ball. He just watched. In the fourth quarter. Of a playoff game. That his team was trailing.

Westbrook delivered his usual dose of supernatural exploits, flirting with yet another triple-double. He ended the night with 31 points, nine rebounds, eight assists, a handful of impressive made treys and a monstrous, momentum-massacring putback jam inside 90 seconds to play:

But Oklahoma City's extraterrestrial floor general also coughed up five turnovers, three of which came in the fourth quarter. It took 10 three-point attempts for him to get his outside share, four of which were launched during the final period, most of them ill-advised.

And then there's the simple fact that he kept shooting—chucking, really—when he should have focused more on setting up his teammates and probing San Antonio's defense. 

Sure, Oklahoma City needs Westbrook to be Westbrook. But within reason. Even now, with the dynamic of the Durant-Westbrook dyad etched in marble, certain shot disparities remain unsettling, as Matt Moore of CBS Sports pointed out: 

To his credit, Westbrook didn't try to evade blame. He copped to it. Embraced it. Owned it, per ESPN.com's Royce Young:

Ibaka, meanwhile, assumed the part of quiet assassin. He shot 5-of-6 from beyond the arc for all 15 of his points. But he attempted just one shot and grabbed no rebounds during the fourth quarter.

These uneven performances won't be enough for the Thunder in the long run. The Spurs will swallow them hole if they cannot execute when it matters most. And Oklahoma City won't be able to improve its clutch composure when the offense is so predictable. 

Letting Durant and Westbrook try to make something of nothing can only work for so long. A championship-worthy model cannot rest on their ability to succeed while settling—consuming 60 percent of the Thunder's fourth-quarter shot attempts, even when their looks aren't going down.

Layne Murdoch/Getty Images

Some of this is on Oklahoma City's Big Three, specifically Durant and Westbrook. They don't always do enough to get teammates involved down the stretch. In Game 3, when they tried to change course at the very end, with 18.3 seconds left on game clock and the deficit at four, they deferred too much, fully complying with a possession that wasted nearly 14 seconds.

This, to be absolutely clear, isn't the noose by which we will hang the Thunder's offensive model. That would be ignorant.

The Spurs are an amazing defensive team. They thrive in displacing potent offenses from their comfort zone. The Thunder felt the swipes of Danny Green, the ubiquity of Kawhi Leonard and the unimaginable speed and precision with which San Antonio rotates to the ball.  

And it's not like San Antonio didn't borrow a page from Oklahoma City's playbook. For every play like this:

There were another five like this, wherein they banked on LaMarcus Aldridge or Leonard to be their Durant or Westbrook:

Had a few things gone differently in the waning minutes, we're talking about something entirely different—about how the assumed Western Conference Finals matchup between the Golden State Warriors and Spurs isn't so much of a formality. Oklahoma City's late-game warts become an ancillary afterthought—a meaningless footnote. 

As even Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich admitted, per CBS Sports' James Herbert, a lot of weird things had to happen for San Antonio to get here, ahead of Oklahoma City: 

Those things could have easily not happened. But they did. And some equally important things happened earlier. 

Enes Kanter held his own on defense. Same for Dion Waiters. Andre Roberson pressed and pressed himself.

And the Thunder squandered it, all because, when it mattered most, they couldn't, or wouldn't, find their offensive identity outside the Big Three—a recurring fault that will end up costing them a chance of upsetting the Spurs if it isn't soon remedied.

Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @danfavale.