Waiters opposed to double-teaming Aldridge: '1 man can't beat you'

Dion Waiters doesn't believe the Oklahoma City Thunder need to start sending extra defenders at LaMarcus Aldridge, even though the San Antonio Spurs forward has drowned out the Thunder with 79 points through two Western Conference semifinal games.

"One man can't beat you," Waiters told reporters Wednesday. "We're fine with that. If they want to continue to get out of their offense and throw the ball down there to him, we're fine with that. One man can't beat you."

Strictly speaking, that's true, and the Thunder proved as much by overcoming Aldridge's 41 points to steal Game 2 in San Antonio. It makes sense that they'd prefer to take their chances with Aldridge in isolation, shooting 2-point jump shots, rather than get themselves into defensive rotations while the Spurs get into their deadly tic-tac-toe passing sequences.

Still, Aldridge has shot 33-of-44 from the field in the series and is scoring an incredible 1.32 points per post touch in the playoffs, so it's clear dumping the ball in to Aldridge has been a very fruitful offensive proposition for the Spurs, particularly when he's being defended straight up.

"He's a great player in this league, an All-Star, he's playing tremendous right now," Waiters said, "but we're fine with one guy trying to beat us."

Waiters suggested he's still confident that Serge Ibaka and Steven Adams - two great defenders who've had minimal success trying to slow Aldridge down thus far - can do enough to allow the rest of the Thunder to stay home against the Spurs guards and wings on the perimeter.

"At the end of that Serge and Steven gotta do what they continue to do," he said. "As long as (the Spurs) are not running their offense and just dumping it down to him, we're fine with that."