The Prof takes his lumps a bit here, in respect to Thunder-Spurs.
The best explanation I saw for the Celtics' success was a one-word tweet last night: TEEEBBBOOOOOWWWW
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Welcome to the West finals, where up is down, left is right and white is black. Everything we thought coming in has been turned completely upside-down, and now Oklahoma City stands on the brink of the Western Conference title.
The signature moment of how everything in the Thunder-Spurs series has been flipped on its head came in the second quarter of Game 5, when Oklahoma City put in little-used Daequan Cook to steal a few minutes of rest for the starters and he promptly made three straight jumpers, two of them 3-pointers.
Here were the Thunder, using precision passing and shooting to get wide-open shots for their role players, and the role players were knocking them down.
You know, just like the Spurs were supposed to do to the Thunder.
Western Conference Playoffs
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The facts of this series are that every advantage for San Antonio has instead become a disadvantage, and the things that were supposed to be Oklahoma City's advantages haven't really worked out that way.
Take turnovers, for instance. The Thunder had the league's worst percentage in the regular season, with turnovers on 17 percent of their possessions, while the Spurs were at the other end of the spectrum, ranking second with miscues on only 14.2 percent of possessions. Both teams were near the bottom in forcing turnovers, so the turnover battle figured to favor the Spurs by about three possessions per game.
In reality, the Spurs are flinging the ball all over the gym, with 83 turnovers in the five games compared to just 59 for the supposedly younger and wilder Thunder. On a per-game basis, this is a massive swing -- we expected San Antonio to be plus-3, and instead the Thunder are plus-5. Eight possessions per game, especially the way these teams are shooting, is death -- a nearly nine-point swing. It's the difference between Oklahoma City and Toronto, basically, or between Miami and Golden State.
The other end of the spectrum shows similar results. The pass-happy Spurs were supposed to dissect the undisciplined Thunder with ball movement; San Antonio assisted on 58.5 percent of its regular-season baskets, putting it above the league average, while the Thunder were dead last at 49.7 percent. Moreover, the Spurs led the league defensively by permitting assists on just 51.4 percent of opponent makes.
With the worst assist team playing the best assist defense, you'd figure the Thunder would be iso-ing themselves to oblivion. Instead, they have more assists than the Spurs in the series, with a robust 55.6 percent of their field goals coming with a dime.
Or consider the pace. I wrote after Game 3 that the Thunder needed to play slower in order to beat San Antonio, since the Spurs were basically invincible in up-tempo games. Not in Game 5 they weren't. That game was crazy fast (102 possessions per side, with virtually no pace-fattening intentional fouls) and the Thunder won anyway. Not supposed to happen.
Look deeper and you'll see the Thunder have swallowed up the Spurs' running game; San Antonio averaged 13.1 fast-break points per game in the regular season but are getting only 8.6 this series, while the Thunder have been unaffected, sitting right at their season average of 16.1 per game. Their advantage is nearly double -- 83 to 43.
But let's get back to Cook again, because the signature difference between expectations and reality in this series is the fact that the Thunder's role players are just destroying San Antonio's. Roster spots 4 through 13 were supposed to be the Spurs' domain, offsetting the star power of the Thunder's young guns, but it hasn't worked out that way.
For the Thunder, Derek Fisher is the only reserve to play poorly, shooting 33.3 percent for the series. Otherwise? Check it out:
Serge Ibaka is blocking shots, to nobody's surprise, but also knocking down midrange jumpers left and right -- most notably when he went 11-of-11 in Game 4.
Kendrick Perkins, though still obscenely turnover-prone, has largely shut down Tim Duncan's post game and has been just enough of an offensive threat (8.9 points per 40 minutes) to command attention.
Nick Collison is shooting 75 percent, averaging nearly a steal every 12 minutes, and has taken an estimated 483 charges.
Thabo Sefolosha owned Game 3, and for the series is averaging 12.4 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.4 steals per 40 minutes -- all major improvements on his regular season output.
And Cook, obviously, went nuts in his Game 5 cameo.
This wasn't supposed to happen. Fisher, Cook, Sefolosha and Perkins all had single-digit PERs in the regular season, with Fisher's a ghastly 5.9 in 20 games with the Thunder; Collision hit a more respectable 12.1, but only Ibaka was above the league average.
Meanwhile, it's been the exact opposite for San Antonio. While Manu Ginobili has been mostly brilliant and Tony Parker has outplayed Russell Westbrook, the Spurs' bench hasn't delivered. In particular, San Antonio's second unit has been completely eviscerated on defense, mostly by the players mentioned above.
Just look at the team's defensive efficiency, using the NBA.com advanced stats tool. When Duncan, Parker, Boris Diaw or Danny Green are on the court, the Spurs' defensive efficiency is in the low 100s, which is more than enough to win. But the subs? Yuck. With Matt Bonner, it's 114.9. With Stephen Jackson, it's 117.7. With Gary Neal, it's 124.8. And with Tiago Splitter, it's an unspeakable 129.4.
The Spurs might be able to overcome this if they could make the Thunder pay at the other end, but they mostly haven't. The only San Antonio role players to score effectively have been Jackson and Kawhi Leonard.
Otherwise:
Gary Neal is showing the downside to Bill Simmons's "irrational confidence guy," helping shoot the Spurs to a Game 1 win but raining bricks since; Neal is at 37.5 percent for the series.
Danny Green is at 26.7 percent and is just 4-of-22 on his trademark 3-pointers.
Matt Bonner has made one shot the entire series. One.
Splitter's otherwise effective play has been neutralized by his inability to make foul shots and the Thunder's resulting zest for fouling him. He's just 9-of-23 at the line for the series.
This isn't the lone reason the Spurs trail, of course; there's also the fact that Kevin Durant has been brilliant, and Duncan largely hasn't (42.6 percent from the floor), and that Harden has matched Ginobili shot for shot without the turnovers.
But mostly, the reason the Thunder are up 3-2 is because they've had the advantage in areas that figured to be a huge edge for the Spurs. San Antonio has to take better care of the ball, find shots for its role players, and have those players perform. For a 40-game stretch, the Spurs did all those things as well as any team in history. But for the past three games, the Thunder have done them far more effectively.
