Questions of Continuity Remain in Wake of Spurs Blowout
The NBA can be a funny place at times, especially in the throes of Western Conference battles. San Antonio humiliated Oklahoma City, 130-91, last night, just 24 hours removed from a clunky loss in Dallas, and only days after pounding the Hawks into a puddle in a Sunday afternoon tilt in Atlanta. Some of that is matchup-related — the Mavs, despite their struggles, give the Spurs fits in this capacity. Some of it is timing. Some of it is just mental and immeasurable. Whatever the reason(s) may be, the result has been a roller-coaster ride that’s kept fans of this team guessing from night to night. That’s an unfamiliar feeling.
You can’t write about this game without acknowledging the absences of Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka. It’s not necessary to dive too deep into the numbers in order to say, “Ya know, Oklahoma City isn’t quite as good without those guys on the floor.” Still, the Spurs thwarted the Russell Westbrook show — only 16 points, seven assists, and four rebounds — and bombarded the Thunder defense with what was likely their most impressive victory of the season.
Without Ibaka, OKC really struggles to defend. We saw this during the early part of the Western Conference Finals last season, when the Thunder were unable to stop penetration and the subsequent 3-point attack. Last night’s blowout was reminiscent of Games 1 and 2, as the Spurs, and Tony Parker in particular, ¹ran circles around Westbrook and whichever big was defending in pick-and-roll situations. We’ve seen these Spurs before, and since the end of the Rodeo Road Trip they’ve played easily their best stretch of basketball. Still, it’s not these games that trigger the most visceral response. It’s the Knicks game and the Mavs game that cause a giant “WHAT THE F***?” in San Antonio with playoffs only 11 games away.
¹It’s jarring how awful Westbrook can be on the defensive end. Parker killed him in pick-and-rolls all night, and his off-ball awareness is borderline laughable at times. He constantly trails plays rather than attack the screen, he drifts off shooters into no-man’s land, and while his gambles can produce electrifying highlights, they cost his team dearly in most cases against a team that moves the ball like San Antonio. It must be said, though: He IS the Thunder offense right now without Durant on the floor. Despite people fairly questioning whether or not he’s actually human, he still has to conserve energy at some point. It’s just that, without Ibaka behind him erasing any offense within a 10-foot radius, Westbrook’s defensive errors are much more glaring. The complete version of OKC isn’t nearly as affected by his freelancing.
There was something reassuring about last night, though, beyond the ridiculous margin of victory. I wrote yesterday about the lack of production from San Antonio’s most important bench cogs. The four-man Foreign Legion (Manu Ginobili, Marco Belinelli, Boris Diaw, and Patty Mills) has been miserable offensively this season, scoring nearly 28 points fewer per 100 possessions this year than they did as a group last year. A major reason for that has been injuries, but it’s been a problem, nonetheless.
The bench scored 60 points in the blowout, up significantly from its 40.3 average. But that’s going to happen when the team as a whole goes for a season-high 130 points. What stuck out to me, and what looked most like the Spurs of last season, was that the scoring never stopped. San Antonio has been plagued all year by offensive droughts, most notably when that starting group hits the bench. That’s due in large part to the fact that the aforementioned Foreign Legion has really struggled to score. The bench looked great last night, but it wasn’t because of that four-man unit.
As this team has struggled along the way, there have been a ton of Gregg Popovich critics. I’ll never understand the mentality of criticizing a coach (who clearly knows what he’s doing) from game to game, when you really have no concept of the team’s long- or short-term strategies behind the scenes. Last night, Pop pulled all the right strings.
Parsing through the play-by-play and lineup data reveals some interesting changes in strategy between Tuesday’s loss in Dallas and Wednesday’s win in San Antonio. With that typical four-man bench unit clearly struggling, Pop’s rotations were altered fairly significantly against Oklahoma City. To be clear, this likely had quite a bit to do with the fact that it was the second night of a back-to-back and a blowout, but it seemed to me — and, again, I’m not one to pretend I know what the hell Pop is doing, so this is just speculation based on observation — that there was a concerted effort to blend starters in with reserves in an effort to maintain offensive production.
Unlike the bench, the Spurs’ starting group has been on a rampage. Since Splitter returned to his starting center spot, that five-man opening unit is outscoring opponents by 35.1 points per 100 possessions, scoring 123.7 points per 100 possessions during that span. Pair that with the fact that the Foreign Legion had an offensive rating of 92 heading into last night, and it makes a bit of sense that you’d try and remedy that situation.
In Dallas on Tuesday, the starters played 12 minutes together, with much of the fourth quarter being a lost cause, and the Foreign Legion shared the floor for nine minutes. Fast-forward to Wednesday night, where the starters shared the floor for only nine minutes and that bench group ran for just four minutes together. The funny thing is, Diaw, Mills, and Belinelli all played well as individuals (Manu didn’t have a great game), but when they were together for those four minutes, with Ginobili included, the offense was completely pedestrian, scoring just 101 points per 100 possessions. A small sample, sure, but a stark difference from what the rest of the team was doing in that massacre.
Another issue — and I never would’ve believed these words would ever exit my mouth-hole — has been blending the bench lineups in the absence of Aron Baynes. Against the Mavs, the pairing of Diaw and Matt Bonner got throttled in 11 gut-wrenching minutes together. They spent just four minutes on the court together against the Thunder. Pop mixed and matched last night, and man, it looked good.
So, where do we go from here? I have no idea. That sort of wire-to-wire domination was great to see, but should there be concern over the fact there’s still tinkering going on? Perhaps. Or, perhaps this really was more of a result of this being the second night of a back-to-back with quicker rotations. Who knows? But really, I’m not sure it matters. The Spurs have the depth to do this and the personnel familiarity to pull it off without skipping a beat. This kind of thing is a good sign when thinking ahead to those postseason moments that require situational strategy changes outside of the normal rotation.
But the question still remains: Was last night’s win the kind of performance that inspires the sort of confidence you had in this team last postseason, or is there still danger that the Spurs who recently played in New York and Dallas will pop up and spoil the party.
It feels sort of strange, but for some reason, I’m enjoying the guessing game.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com
