After being dismantled at home by the OKC Thunder and losing their first consecutive games in the playoffs, the San Antonio Spurs held OKC to 82 points in a dominant win. The game could be summed up accurately with one moment that didn’t involve any players. After sweeping their opponents in the first two series of the playoffs, the Thunder were completely stuffed in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals.
How The San Antonio Spurs Flipped The Script Against The Thunder
Reclaiming Their Defensive Identity
San Antonio held the Thunder to their lowest point total of the playoffs. The second-ranked offensive team in the league looked completely helpless against San Antonio’s defense, which has the highest defensive rating in the playoffs. As much could be said about the defensive talent of San Antonio, it was the coaching decisions that saved the Spurs from going down three to one.
In the previous two losses to the Thunder, San Antonio struggled with managing to guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander without leaving his teammates open. The team throughout the series has employed early double-teams near half-court. But with the experience that SGA has, he was easily able to beat the double team with quick passes to open players. After Game 3, the Spurs organization read the writing on the wall after Gilgeous-Alexander dropped a casual 12 assists.
The team quickly went back to its bread and butter: man defense. With almost no weak links in the starting lineup, San Antonio can easily keep up with other teams while playing man-to-man. Stephon Castle was the primary defender on SGA and handled his assignment well, holding SGA to 40% shooting. It should also be mentioned that lots of help defense was used to slow down SGA with occasional doubles in the paint.
Guard Ajay Mitchell and forward Jalen Williams did not play for the Thunder. This placed the ball in the hands of SGA more than ever and allowed San Antonio to ramp up the pressure on him. It also caused a huge shift in the bench scoring for OKC after they set a franchise record for bench scoring against the Spurs in Game 3. Without another star to help spread the floor when SGA is off, and without Mitchell on the bench, creating offense did not come easily for Oklahoma.
San Antonio also had much-improved defensive rotations on the perimeter. In the first three games of the series, centers Victor Wembanyama and Luke Kornet would stay in the paint, and San Antonio’s 2-3 zone would collapse whenever the Thunder drove in, allowing for wide-open threes in the corner. In this game, San Antonio rotated everyone closer to the ball, leaving open players as far away as possible. This strategy led to multiple steals, as the athletic and tall Spurs yanked multiple cross-court passes out of the sky.
Wembanyama And Company Assert Their Offense Early
In Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals, San Antonio took more than half of their shots from three. This uncharacteristic strategy did not bode well for them as they lost by the biggest margin of the series so far. Watching fans leave early at Frost Bank Center was a jarring image for fans expecting a bounce-back game.
The way San Antonio played didn’t just bother fans, either. Spurs legend and former coach Gregg Popovich took a trip to the locker room to voice his disapproval. Although there is limited knowledge on what he said, it isn’t too hard to imagine one thing that made him angry.
Gregg Popovich does not love the modern games’ reliance on three-pointers, to say the least. The Spurs took 36.6% of their shots from three in the next game. The numbers from the free-throw line responded to this aggression. The team attempted 32 free throws in the game.
Wembanyama took a different approach. Often criticized for not being “dominant” enough in the paint, Wembanyama quickly got to work with shooting from beyond the arc. His early shots set up the biggest moment of the game, when he took a half-court shot that beat the buzzer to go into halftime. His shot deflated the Thunder further and set up the Spurs with a dominant 12-point lead.
That is not to say that Wembanyama was not aggressive in the paint either. He was a prevalent lob threat throughout the game and gave the Thunder a tough time on the offensive glass.
Last Word On Game 4 Of The Spurs-Thunder Series
Although San Antonio bounced back, they still have to be better. The Thunder were severely limited when it came to ball handlers. OKC also shot poorly from three, something that may not happen again, even with defensive adjustments. Worst of all, the team still did not have a great game on offense, shooting under 40%. The Spurs will have to build upon their improvements from this game if they want to make a finals run for the history books.
Featured Image: Daniel Dunn-Imagn Images
