Thunder vs. Warriors: It’s Time For The Main Event
Everyone expected the San Antonio Spurs to reach the NBA’s Western Conference Finals, but Oklahoma City had other ideas.
All throughout the NBA regular season, the general consensus was that we, as fans, needed a San Antonio Spurs vs. Golden State Warriors match-up in the Western Conference Finals. Seasons with two historically great teams in the same conference are few and far between, and the basketball gods would be robbing us of the rarest of experiences if they did not deliver such an epic showdown.
That was supposed to be our de-facto NBA Finals.
The Oklahoma City Thunder, of course, couldn’t care less about that missed opportunity, and after the way they manhandled an overwhelmed Spurs team in the Conference semis, none of us should feel all that disappointed. The Thunder vs. the Warriors is going to be fun as hell.
The Spurs were undoubtedly a great regular season team, with a borderline-historic point differential, but the series against the Thunder was marked by San Antonio’s significant deficit in athleticism. Take away Kawhi Leonard, and the Thunder may have had the best five or six athletes in the entire series.
Gregg Popovich’s band of merry geezers couldn’t hang with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook off the dribble, and despite having the requisite size, they couldn’t keep the Thunder off the glass, either. And with the venerable Coach Pop being out-coached by NBA rookie head coach Billy Donovan, the outcome of the series was a study in Murphy’s Law. It may have been the final run for San Antonio’s big three, and if there’s any solace in that possibility, it’s that they lost to a better team.
Forget demise of the Spurs, though — they’ll be fine even if Duncan and Ginobili never put the black and silver back on — and focus instead on the resurrection of a team that has long made people feel They really should be better than they are. The Thunder left nothing on the table against San Antonio, proving after Game 1’s embarrassing loss that it is a team that can compete with any in the league.
Of course, the implications of the Thunder’s victory go beyond the Western Conference Finals berth. Many presumed that if OKC did not beat the Spurs — particularly if they weren’t competitive — we might never see Durant at Westbrook’s side again. Hell, some have suggested that Durant makes perfect sense in San Antonio, ensuring that the Western Conference once again hosts two laughably great teams (and well into the future).
In that same vein, remember when we all got hot and bothered around the All-Star break about the possibility of Durant joining the Warriors? No way that’s happening now. That was an idea that always seemed unlikely, even in this post-Heatle world where superstars conjoin to form a basketball Voltron.
Durant has always been wired differently than LeBron. LeBron has always needed to be liked; Durant has seemingly gone out of his way to be less popular than he used to be. He wants to be seen as the alpha dog. This is a guy who’s long talked about how being drafted second overall has motivated him. That dude is not heading to Silicon Valley to be Sidekick No. 3 to Stephen Curry — even if the Thunder were to get swept by the Warriors. He’s simply not an “If you can’t beat ’em, join ‘em” kind of guy.
Not that OKC is likely to be swept, of course. The Warriors will rightly be favored, but this Thunder team has a chance against the Dubs. Yes, the Warriors won the regular season series 3–0, but Donovan’s playoff adjustments have given his team a different look and it’ll be very interesting to see how that plays against Golden States up-and-down style.
The biggest change Donovan made against the Spurs was playing Enes Kanter and Steven Adams together regularly. That pairing totally beat up San Antonio, despite the Spurs, in theory, having had the size to contend with a more traditional two-big lineup. In the 66 minutes they shared on the court together during that series, lineups featuring Kanter and Adams outscored the Spurs by 21.8 points per 100 possessions (per NBA.com).
The most significant factor leading to that differential? Rebounding. The Thunder grabbed nearly two-thirds of all the available rebounds, including a crazy 45.1 percent offensive rebounding rate which led to 30 second-chance points.
But can what worked against the Spurs work against the Warriors? Color me skeptical. Golden State is the premier smallball team in NBA history. Kanter and Adams may feast on the offensive glass against the Warriors, but what good will that be if Oklahoma City is trading twos for threes every time the court.
Kanter, especially, will have trouble if he is asked to play against the so-called “Death Lineup” Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala, Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green lit up the Thunder in the two games they made an appearance together, outscoring OKC by 45 points per 100. And sure, SAMPLE SIZE, but that lineup puts up cartoonish numbers against almost everyone. Expect Steve Kerr to put Kanter in the pick-and-roll again and again until Donovan is forced to pull him out of the game. In fact, how Donovan adjusts to Golden State’s style of play will go a long way towards determining whether he simply lucked into the Adams-Kanter duo against Popovich’s Spurs.
Beyond Donovan, Serge Ibaka against the Warriors is maybe the series’ biggest question mark. You can rely on Westbrook and Durant to continue to be great, but to really challenge the team with the best regular season record of all-time, the Thunder will need much more out of its would-be third-best player.
Ibaka has shot very well during the 2016 postseason — he’s over 50 percent from three and the field overall — but he simply hasn’t looked like the two-way force that he’s been in year’s past. Part of that may just be Donovan riding the Kanter-Adams train, but anyone watching the Thunder knows Ibaka hasn’t been flying around like the superior athlete we’re used to seeing. It’s been especially noticeable on offense, where he’s mostly been resigned to standing in the corners and shooting long-range jumpers.
Those shots, and the spacing they provide, are undoubtedly valuable — especially when sharing the floor with Westbrook and Andre Roberson — but it’s tough to see the Thunder being competitive in this series if Ibaka remains a tertiary option. Whether it’s cutting off-ball, crashing the offensive glass, or screening for the two stars in high-pick-and-roll, OKC needs to get something out of him. They can’t beat this team playing two on five.
Ibaka will also need to shine on defense if the Thunder are to defeat the Warriors, especially if Kanter is genuinely unplayable against Golden State’s small lineups. Ibaka has the speed and versatility to switch, and Donovan will need him to do it a lot in this series. Golden State is going to throw the Death Lineup at OKC early and often, and the only way to hold serve against that lineup is by switching everything. Kanter can’t reasonably do that, but Ibaka can.
That said, it’s hard to imagine that smaller adjustments will swing this series in the way that Kanter-Adams did against the Spurs — the Warriors are just too talented. If Oklahoma City is really going to pull this off, it’s going to have to be the Durant and Westbrook show. One of those two, likely Durant, will have to be no less than the best player in the world over his team’s next seven (or less) games.
KD has that ceiling, but he’ll have to go through the deepest group of wings in the league. Iguodala, Barnes, Green and Thompson can all expect to spend time covering Durant, and it will be fascinating to see whether all that athleticism and versatility can slow down No. 35. Probably not, because Durant is a freak, but even still, the Warriors can win this series if Durant gets his.
A number of people have spoken about how the Warriors will have to adjust to this new version of Oklahoma City with it’s dual rebounding machines. It’s a fair point, and a problem that Golden State will likely have to address at some point. However, one of the greatest things about Golden State is that they force you to adjust to them, not the other way around, and that’s why the importance of Andrew Bogut (and whether he’s healthy) is overblown, in my opinion.
The question shouldn’t be whether Bogut can matchup with Kanter and Adams, but whether those two can play at such a high level when the Warriors take Bogut out and go small. As I’ve already said, I don’t believe they can.
Curry is back, and he’s looked much more spry since his return than most of us expected. Thompson has arguably been the MVP of the playoffs thus far. Draymond is playing some of the best basketball of his career, shooting the ball better than ever. The better coach roams Golden State’s half of the sideline. There’s a reason this team has a chance to go down as the best of all-time, and I think this is the series where they really show what a juggernaut they are.
It’s a testament to how well OKC played against San Antonio that so many of us feel tempted to pick the upset here, but I’m sticking with my gut. Warriors in five.
