The three-game win streak of the Oklahoma City Thunder came to a close with a 112-102 loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday.
It may have been a double-digit loss, but the Thunder actually had chances not only in the third quarter when they tied the game at 54 but in the final few minutes of the fourth quarter. If one or two shots had fallen, the late-game fouling could have looked different. For example:
Trailing 98-92 with 4:20 to play, guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander drove to the rim and passed the ball to guard Lu Dort near the middle of the floor. As defenders closed in, Dort quickly tapped it to center Al Horford, who was wide open in the corner. He couldn’t hit the 3.
Horford attempted another 3 with the Thunder down 104-100 with 1:54 to go. It wasn’t a great look, but he had a little space; it would have made it a one-point game. Instead, he missed, Patty Mills made a layup on the other end and the Spurs went up six.
With 41 seconds to go, Gilgeous-Alexander made a layup that cut the deficit to six. The Thunder forced a turnover in the backcourt, and forward Darius Bazley got a wide open 3. Nobody around him as he pulled up in an attempt to cut the deficit to 3. No good.
“We certainly had our chances but obviously wasn’t enough tonight to get over the top against a team like that, the way they played, especially,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said.
That turnover forced with about 40 seconds was a rare one. It was one of only four the Spurs committed the entire evening.
That’s low, even against the Spurs, who average a league-low 10.2 turnovers a game.
While Daigneault credited San Antonio’s style of play for that, guard Hamidou Diallo said he expected better of the Thunder.
“I feel like that’s on us. We’re long, we’re athletic. We make teams turn the ball over. We make teams make quick decisions,” Diallo said. “Tonight, we weren’t in their bodies enough, we weren’t the aggressors, and it showed.”
Perhaps the biggest difference from Oklahoma City’s recent wins compared to this loss was the bench unit not putting together a surge in the second quarter.
Over the last three games, the starters began the game slowly, but the bench came through in the second to pull them back in. Tuesday was opposite – at the end of the first quarter, the game was tied, but the Thunder only scored 17 in the second points.
San Antonio outscored the Thunder by eight that quarter. Over the other three quarters, the Spurs outscored OKC by a total of two points.
Diallo was once again excellent off the bench, scoring 16 points in 21 minutes. He was 5-for-9 from the field and 6-for-6 from the free throw line. The rest of the bench, though, only combined for 20 points.
This isn’t an attempt to place the blame on them. If a team’s hopes of winning rest upon the shoulders of the second unit making a run, it’s tough to pull out victories.
But in Oklahoma City’s recent wins, the bench has put together runs in the second quarter that get the Thunder back in. They were unable to Tuesday.
The starters were good tonight, with all five scoring double-digit points and Gilgeous-Alexander leading the way with 20, but outside a run in the third quarter, they couldn’t put together a big push that the Thunder have had over the past week.
On Tuesday, they got consistent solid play from the starters. Some games that’s good enough. Some games, it isn’t.
Offensively, the Thunder starters were close to equal to the Spurs. Oklahoma City starters shot 44.23% from the field while the San Antonio starters shot 44.26%. The Thunder were 5-for-18 from 3 while the Spurs were 5-for-17. Bazley was the only Thunder starter with a negative plus-minus.
But the minute differential played a big factor, as three OKC starters played fewer than 30 minutes while only one Spur starter did. Due to that and the turnovers (seven for the Thunder starters, four from the Spurs), OKC starters attempted 52 shots while San Antonio’s took 61.
The Spurs made their push in the second quarter and then countered a Thunder run in the third. The closest thing to a sustained run after that was when guard George Hill scored six points between the 3:46 and 2:25 mark in the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to four.
Against the Spurs on Tuesday, it wasn’t enough. Oklahoma City couldn’t extend its win streak.
“When you play a team like that, you have to be clicking on all cylinders,” said Hill, who finished with 12 points.
“We had points in the game where we weren’t communicating very well, weren’t doing the extra effort, the extra thing and covering for each other. When you’re playing a team as good, a systemized team like San Antonio, you have to really be dialed in together.”