LaMarcus Aldridge had 38 points and the San Antonio Spurs dismantled the Oklahoma City Thunder 124-92 on Saturday night, never trailing in Game 1 of the second-round series.
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The San Antonio Spurs are looking to continue a demolition job tonight at the AT&T Center when they host the Oklahoma City Thunder again, for Game 2 of their second round series. They scored 43 points in the first half alone, which tied the all-time playoff record, and at one point, San Antonio led by 43 points.
Leonard and Aldridge combined for 45 points in the first half, outscoring Oklahoma City as a team by four.
Game 2 is at 8:30 p.m. Monday at the AT&T Center.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) – The Oklahoma City Thunder were still embarrassed, shocked, frustrated and angry the morning after a horrendous loss to the San Antonio Spurs in their series opener. But the Spurs don’t need to win the series by 30 points per game. Oklahoma City was hoping to set the tone the way it did in its last series (with a 108-70 victory over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 1) but ended up getting run off the court. “Not a big problem, just got to find ways to read the help a little bit better and make better decisions”.
There was a possession where LaMarcus Aldridge grabbed a defense rebound, outlet-passed to Manu Ginobili, who then turned and fired a 70-foot strike to Kawhi Leonard for a dunk.
The Thunder hardly fired a shot all night, toggling between pitiful pick-and-roll coverage, woeful transition defence and poor ball movement on offence as they let the Spurs dictate from the off with a disconcertingly dominant all-round display.
But, for the most part, San Antonio borrowed elements from the version of itself that dominated the National Basketball Association a decade ago – the suffocating defense, aggressive post play and glacial tempo of the Duncan-David Robinson era – and applied them with its new superstars. Durant was steaming postgame, answering questions tersely as you’d expect Westbrook to.
“It’s very clear. We’ve got to play better”, OKC coach Billy Donovan said in one of the bigger understatements of the postseason. In the end, this is just one loss.
When asked about what the players said in the locker room after the game, Durant snapped “I’m not tellin’ you” to a reporter. Neither flashed much of that in Game 1 as they were left spectators to the Spurs’ machine. We’ve got to try to figure it out though. While I believe the Spurs are better than the Thunder per my pick of Spurs in 6 prior to the series starting, I do not believe they are 32 points better.
Kevin Durant had 16 points, and Russell Westbrook added 14, but they were harassed into 11-for-34 shooting.
Thunder-Spurs III is no undercard, especially in the final year of Kevin Durant’s contract, with San Antonio quietly discussing what kind of cap gymnastics it would take to get into the Durant derby, per several league sources.
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If you can’t make the Spurs pay for loading up on Westbrook and Durant, you might as well start focusing on whatever PowerPoint presentation you’re going to show Durant in free agency.
