Following a dominant defensive performance from the Spurs Sunday night to even the series at 2, that same intensity was nowhere to be found in game 5, resulting in a 127-114 loss that has the good guys on the brink of elimination.
With Ajay Mitchell and Jalen Williams still out, OKC started Jared McCain in their stead. It was a sloppy start for both teams, as they combined for seven turnovers in the first four minutes of the contest. The Thunder made it a priority to get Chet going offensively, leading
to him starting 4/4. On the other end, Julian Champagnie hit three consecutive threes — a welcome sight given that he’d been ice cold in the series up to that point. San Antonio’s defensive coverage was similar to that from game 4, gapping against Shai but throwing aggressive traps at certain times, while Wemby was mainly matched up against OKC’s bigs. The Spurs’ bench minutes were a mixed bag, as usual. Carter Bryant scored five quick points before giving five back from defensive mistakes against Shai, who was ice cold until then.
Unfortunately, the turnover issues continued for San Antonio. The young guards lost the ball multiple times by getting too loose around the Thunder’s perimeter hawks, and Castle’s hail-mary passes were picked off on a few occasions too. The Spurs’ offense became stagnant, forcing bad shots with no off-ball movement. Surprisingly, this all happened with Shai getting an extended rest on the bench, and San Antonio didn’t make a run until he checked back in. The Spurs started attacking Shai offensively and used Wemby as a screener to force switches, leading to good shots for the Black & White. However, they didn’t find the Alien on any of those possessions, resulting in him going into the half with just six total shot attempts. On the other end, OKC’s role players began hitting shots again while Shai attempted eight free throws in the second quarter alone, resulting in the Thunder building a 69-58 lead at halftime.
Unfortunately, the third quarter couldn’t have started any worse for the Spurs. OKC came out on fire, scoring nine unanswered points to go up by 20, while San Antonio looked lifeless at both ends. McCain, in particular, came alive, scoring nine points in just four minutes after being played off the court in the first. Still, San Antonio refused to go away. The Spurs started playing with more intention, involving everyone on offense and creating good looks. In just a few minutes, San Antonio had cut the lead down to just seven, forcing OKC to call a timeout.
The teams traded blows after that, with the game becoming surprisingly sloppy. Turnovers became an issue again, as both sides tried to outrun the other to no avail. Wemby still had trouble getting good positioning on the offensive end, and the Spurs’ shooting went ice cold. Meanwhile, the Thunder regained their footing and made threes, a number of which were created from offensive boards. With OKC already up double digits, the Spurs couldn’t muster up a final run, resulting in Mitch Johnson taking the starters out with two minutes left and waving the white flag.
Game notes
- The Spurs did a great job of hunting McCain and Jaylin Williams (the big), especially in the first quarter. They basically forced OKC to sub McCain out less than 10 minutes into the game, as he wasn’t able to provide the necessary secondary ballhandling on offense and was giving San Antonio easy drives to the rim. Unfortunately, this didn’t continue into the second half, as McCain got loose for nine quick points in the third. The Spurs will need to get back to what they did in the first if they want to take OKC’s role players out of the series again like they did in game 4.
- The Carter Bryant experience is something to behold right now. He scored five quick points at the end of the first with a dunk and a step-back three, before leaving Shai of all people to help on an OKC role player, giving the MVP an open three and his first points of the game. Right after that, he then fouled Shai with 20s left for no reason, sending him to the line for two more points. Unsurprisingly, Barnes checked in for him soon after. The rookie giveth and the rookie taketh, I guess.
- This was perhaps the worst playoff game of Wemby’s career so far. He finished with 20 points on 4-15 shooting and had just six rebounds, while registering a -8 — the first single-game negative for him in this series. The Alien looked completely gassed and barely got positioning around the rim offensively, even when OKC put wings and guards on him in the third. Let’s hope he can regain some juice in a do-or-die game 6 Thursday.
- The only players with average or better performances were Castle and KJ. The former led all Spurs scorers with 24 on 7-11 shooting, and was the only consistent player even though some of his turnover issues resurfaced (though he finished with “just” 3). Meanwhile, KJ was somehow the only rotation player with a positive plus/minus of +3, and he finished with 15 on 7-13 shooting. I’ve been very tough on Big Body throughout this playoff run, but he deserves his due for keeping the Spurs somewhat in this game and refusing to give up regardless of the score. We’ll need to see a similar (if not better) performance from both if this series is going back to OKC for game 7.
Play of the game
Even in a bad game (for him), Wemby never fails to amaze.
Next game: in San Antonio on Thursday
The Spurs will play game 6 in Frost Bank Center on Thursday at 7:30mst. This team has risen to the challenge every step of the way, and I’m confident they’ll do it again to force a game 7 back in OKC.
