Top free agents like Kevin Durant, DeMar DeRozan and Al Horford will most likely demand maximum contracts and the Spurs’ budget may not be enough to land them but San Antonio management can still target role players with hopes to replace the aging Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.
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Kevin Durant scored 37 points, Russell Westbrook added 28, and the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the San Antonio Spurs, 113-99, on Thursday night to win the Western Conference semifinal series 4-2. “I said I always want to play”.
Ginobili said he plans to “take my time as always”.
“Of course, it’s been an incredible run”, said teammate Ginobili, 38. Oklahoma, the lower seed, like the Portland Trailblazers, who are playing the Golden State Warriors in the other Western Conference matchup, and the Miami Heat against the Toronto Raptors, the remaining Eastern Conference series, have made these games thrilling, exciting, run-run basketball.
“If there’s a reason why you always want to come back and keep being part of this, (it’s) because of the incredible chemistry, the good times and the good people that you play with and spend time with”. But the Thunder have already done the unthinkable by beating the Spurs twice in San Antonio, so who’s to say they can’t steal a game or two in Oakland? Once the playoffs hit, you can see that your best players are the most important. We can’t rely too much on our crowd.
Duncan, Parker and Ginobili are the first set of three or more teammates to win four titles together since Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Cooper and Kurt Rambis, according to ESPN.
“Really? You think I’m going to share what I spoke to Tim about?”
Thunder players other than Durant and Westbrook have been effective during the playoffs, making the Thunder potentially more risky than they were in the regular season. In the third game, the Thunder led after 3 quarters, but once again, poor execution in quarter 4 led to a 15 point win by the Warriors. In a way, however, leaving everything on the floor and paying ultimate respect to the game would be a fitting way for a legend like Duncan to finally go.
With Duncan, 40, having just completed his 19th season with the Spurs, only Kobe Bryant (20 seasons) has played more seasons with a single franchise.
That’s why Popovich went back to Duncan and let him finish the game. San Antonio shot 31.1 percent from the field before the break and missed all nine of its three-pointers. How they couldn’t close out big games and big series? Fournette is betting against his future earnings at $8,000 per 1 million in coverage – only two players have ever collected on insurance policies in the last 20 odd years. They haven’t made it to the NBA Finals in back-to-back seasons since 1946-47 and 1947-48, when they were the Philadelphia Warriors (in the first two seasons of the BAA, which counts for NBA history).
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Oklahoma City is headed to the Western Conference finals for the fourth time in six years. Russell Westbrook was bad against the Warriors in the regular season, shooting in the mid-30s, and just 17% from deep.
