How the Spurs beat the Thunder in Game 5, and how OKC can counter
With another blowout in the books in the Western Conference Final between the Spurs and Thunder, a few different theories can be drawn after Game 5.
Those theories include that we'll see routs in favor of the home team until at least a Game 7, meaning Oklahoma City should trounce San Antonio in Game 6 on Saturday night. That the first team to win on the road will win the series, literally. And that the Spurs should be championship favorites right now based on the fact that they have homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs and have won eight straight home games by an average of 21.5 points.
We'll have to wait for Saturday's Game 6, Monday's potential Game 7 and beyond for those theories to be tested, but one thing we found out in Game 5 is that the Spurs can, in fact, beat the Thunder with Serge Ibaka in the lineup.
In typical Spurs fashion, when they looked most vulnerable, in a crucial swing-game in the Western Conference Final, Gregg Popovich dug deep into his bag of tricks and pulled out...Matt Bonner? Well, more like Boris Diaw, but you get the point. Bonner started the game at power forward in a small Spurs lineup, and Diaw quickly followed before replacing Bonner in the starting five for the second half.
After Games 3 and 4, we discussed how disruptive Ibaka's presence in the paint was for San Antonio's offense, so Pop and the Spurs countered by breaking up the Tim Duncan/Tiago Splitter tandem and going small with one of Bonner or Diaw on the floor.
This had two effects - First and foremost, having a floor stretching big on the court pulled Ibaka out of the paint more often than not and forced OKC's most valuable rim protector to guard a three-point shooter. Second, it allowed more offensive space in the middle for Duncan to operate (usually against Kendrick Perkins or Steven Adams), which he did to the tune of 22 points on 8-of-13 shooting in 30 minutes of action. Duncan also added 12 rebounds, two assists and a block in another vintage performance.
Diaw finished with 13 points, six rebounds, three assists, a steal and a block in 28 minutes. He knocked down his only two three-point attempts and shot 4-of-7 overall. For the nearly 19 minutes that Diaw and Duncan shared the floor, the Spurs shot over 60 percent as a team and posted an offensive rating of 132.8 (plus a net rating of +23.7).
The plan clearly worked wonders for the Spurs, but Scott Brooks' and the Thunder's rigidity when it comes to their lineups certainly helped. The perfect counter to San Antonio's small lineup would figure to be a small Thunder lineup of their own, with Ibaka guarding Duncan at the five. Instead, Brooks stubbornly stuck with a traditional two-big lineup that featured Ibaka at the four for most of the night.
In fact, OKC's starting five of Reggie Jackson, Russell Westbrook, Durant, Ibaka and Perkins logged over 16 minutes of floor time together in Game 5 while no other lineup - from either team - logged more than 11.5. And other than a garbage time lineup of bench players that played eight minutes together, the Thunder's next most used lineup (at five minutes) was one that featured Ibaka sharing the floor with Steven Adams.
If Brooks was set on keeping two bigs on the floor, even trying Perkins or Adams on the Spurs' stretch-four would have been worth a gamble to keep Ibaka in the paint and on Duncan.
The Thunder were even worse on Thursday with Adams replacing Perkins in a lineup with the other four starters (albeit in a small sample size), but again, the right move to be made wasn't simply shuffling through traditional two-big lineups - It was eliminating a big all together and having Ibaka at the five. How none of this registered with Brooks over the course of 48 minutes is yet another question to be asked of his oft-criticized coaching.
If the Thunder come out small themselves in Game 6, with Ibaka guarding Duncan, and a bigger wing like Caron Butler chasing the perimeter-roaming Diaw/Bonner around (I assume Brooks won't want Durant using up that kind of energy on the defensive end), then Oklahoma City can probably be counted on to keep the home teams perfect in this series.
But if Brooks sticks with a big lineup against this new Spurs attack and Ibaka continues to be pulled away from the rim, San Antonio should notch that elusive first road victory of the series - and another Western Conference title.