NBA Playoff Schedule 2016: Thursday's Game Time, TV Info, Odds and More
Golden State booked a spot in the Western Conference Finals with a 125-121 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night. On Thursday, the Oklahoma City Thunder will look to match that effort with a win over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 6 of their series.
The Thunder are up three games to two courtesy of stellar outings from the two usual suspects—Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook—some questionable officiating, Serge Ibaka's three-point surge and two wins in San Antonio. That's right, two wins at the AT&T Center in the span of eight days. The Spurs dropped just one measly game at home during the entire regular season.
Thursday's contest should be a good one as the Spurs fight for playoff survival. Tipoff is at 8:30 p.m. ET. ESPN will be broadcasting the contest, with live streaming available at WatchESPN.
Despite being on the road, Odds Shark lists the Spurs as slight favorites (-1.5). The odds alone are a testament to their ability and this hard-fought, dramatic series which has often been won on razor-thin margins (though not quite as close as the consistent overtime battles waged between Toronto and Miami).
The over-under for the game is listed as 195.5.
Preview
As Bleacher Report's Howard Beck discusses in the video above, the Spurs' dynastic trio of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker have only been intermittently effective in this series.
Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge have done most of the heavy lifting, and it's a testament to the coaching ability of Gregg Popovich that this has been a rather seamless transition of power from the old guard to the new.
Duncan has looked especially ragged, with his eight points in Game 1 of the series representing his highest scoring total of the playoffs so far. Basketball scribe Josh Eberley noted it was only last year that Duncan was playing like a young man at this stage:
His diminished play has allowed Oklahoma City's Steven Adams and Enes Kanter to complement Ibaka in the frontcourt. Ibaka has been able to stretch the defense with his outside shooting (58.8 percent from three in the postseason) while the other two take care of duties in the paint.
Aldridge has been able to consistently get his shot off on offense, and Leonard has played his standard quietly ruthless brand of basketball, but the Spurs have still come up short more often than not. If there is a fault to Leonard's performances, it's that he's been too quiet in the fourth quarter, as ESPN.com's Royce Young noted:
The fact that the Thunder aren't the ones on the wrong end of the box score in three of these contests is surprising to say the least. They built an unwelcome reputation on tossing away winnable games this year in the fourth quarter, but NBA.com's Fran Blinebury notes that all of a sudden, that is no longer the case:
"The numbers actually said it was true. The Thunder had lost 15 games during the regular season in which they led entering the fourth quarter, a total exceeded only by the lowly 76ers.
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After the All-Star break, they were 3-12 in games that were within five points in the last five minutes. But now they're not only 4-2 in such playoff games (3-1 in this series), but they also boast the best fourth-quarter point differential in the entire playoffs.
For all his myriad talents, Westbrook can be a frustrating player with his penchant to take (and miss) so many shots. However, he's done well to temper the worst parts of his game while still delivering the box-score goods.
He's been flirting with a triple-double for almost the entire series, and in Game 5 he had 35 points on 12-of-27 shooting from the field with nine assists and 11 rebounds.
Durant has been a monster, of course, averaging 26.8 points per game this series on 50 percent shooting from the field. While it seems the Thunder would do better to make sure the offense runs through him more, Durant has been complimentary of his fellow superstar, per the Thunder's Twitter account:
As ESPN Stats & Info shows, the two-man game is all Oklahoma City needs to beat one of the best teams around:
The Spurs are a great defensive team, and all they need is a couple of extra stops on that end and more from the elder statesmen on the team in order to win Game 6.
The Thunder are an athletic team that has figured out how to play with level heads down the stretch. In this form, they look capable of challenging Golden State in the next round, despite being seeded lower than the Spurs.
