It's not supposed to be as easy as the Spurs are making it look

We knew the Thunder faced an uphill task against the Spurs without Serge Ibaka, especially with San Antonio having home court advantage. But the Spurs’ two-game destruction of OKC has still been jarring, particularly in Game 2.

After a big 17-point Spurs win in Game 1, most expected the Thunder to make more of a game of it on Wednesday. And midway through the second quarter, with Oklahoma City clinging to a small lead, they at least looked capable of making Game 2 interesting.

Then the Spurs went on a 25-9 run to close the first half, and while there was still plenty of time remaining for a Thunder rally in theory, everyone knew this one was done. San Antonio's 14-point halftime lead might as well have been 34.

Sure enough, after another dominant half to follow, the Spurs did end up winning by 35, meaning they’ve now won the first two games of the series by an average of 26 points.

Basketball is a game of runs, we know, and both good teams and bad teams will make runs of their own in any given game. But that aforementioned second quarter Spurs run in Game 2 - the one that seemed to put the game away - was just how dominant it looked, and just how deflating it seemed for the Thunder.

This wasn’t just one conference finalist making a run against the other. This looked like the kind of run an elite team goes on in the middle of a February game against a 60-loss tanker – the kind of run that reminds the inferior team that while staying close was cute and all, they have no business actually competing.

Without Ibaka and his paint/rim protection, the Thunder are more exposed to Spurs drives. But he’s one player, and it’s hard to envision any other team punishing another for one absence like the Spurs can. We’re talking about completely eviscerating a 59-win team – in late May!

But that’s the Spurs. Even when we should and do expect the world of them, they usually find a way to make the expected result even better than we imagined.

Midst Wednesday’s demolition of the Thunder, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili became the NBA’s all-time winningest playoff trio, passing the legendary Lakers trifecta of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Cooper by winning their 111th playoff game together.

In typical Spurs fashion, however, San Antonio got a big win with solid yet unspectacular numbers from their Big Three because of limited playing time. Duncan had 14 points, 12 rebounds, two blocks and an assist in 29 minutes. Parker had 22 points in 28 minutes, and Ginobili 11 points in 21 minutes. Neither of those three legends, or Kawhi Leonard for that matter, played a single minute of the fourth quarter.

The Spurs still won the quarter 21-15.

Coincidentally, Gregg Popovich talked about his stars playing less minutes in conversation with reporters recently, saying:

“I always think about our guys sometimes, and their stats. They really get screwed sometimes, playing for me. If you win 62 games, and some of them are by a decent margin, I bet our guys play fewer fourth quarter minutes than most good players on any team.”

Here’s the thing with that honest Pop quote: It’s supposed to be in reference to the regular season - winning 62 games, some of them by a decent margin, not playing your stars in the fourth quarter. Those are traits of a dominant regular season team. You’re not supposed to still be able to do that in May – in the conference finals – and yet the quartet of Duncan, Parker, Ginobili and Leonard have combined for less than nine total fourth quarter minutes through the first two games of a Western Conference Final against a 59-win team (albeit one missing their third-best player).

You're not supposed to cake walk through the playoffs in what was one of the most competitive conferences the NBA has ever seen, and yet since Game 7 against the Mavs, the Spurs are 7-1 against Dallas, Portland and Oklahoma City, with an average point differential of +17.75. 

Of course, you’re also not supposed to make 10 conference finals appearances in 20 seasons in a 30-team league, and you’re surely not supposed to make six NBA Finals appearances over a 15-year span with the same franchise player and same head coach in a 30-team league.

But after surviving a seven-game scare from the Mavericks in the first round, after trouncing the Trail Blazers in five games in the second round, and after humbling the Thunder in the opening two games of the third round, that’s exactly what the Spurs are on the cusp of accomplishing, provided they don’t lose four out of five games for the first time in four months.

In addition, with the Heat and Pacers looking pretty evenly matched again, if the Spurs can take two more games from the Thunder with anything close to the same ease that they took the first two, their already well rested stars should get even more rest before The Finals. To them, though, they’ll just be rehearsing for the fourth quarters.