Ten years ago, the Spurs battled déjà vu and the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals

The Spurs had theirs eyes set on getting revenge on the Heat in the Finals, but they had to fight off another demon first.

After easily dispatching the Portland Trail Blazers in Round Two of the 2014 NBA Playoffs, the Spurs faced a rematch of the 2012 Western Conference Finals against a strong Oklahoma City Thunder squad. That series ended exactly ten years ago — May 31, 2014. In order to get a flavor for what people were thinking at the time, this summary includes some contemporary writings from the 2014 Pounding the Rock writers, and just like that series, their emotions were a true roller coaster.

In a repeat from 2012, that roller coaster was flying up, up, up for for the first two games with the Spurs passengers holding their hands up high as their dominant play from the second round carried over. A good first half and a dominant fourth quarter keyed a 122-105 runaway win over OKC in Game One:

As with any decisive win, a bunch of Spurs players had excellent games. DannyGreen! was a plus-30 in his 27 minutes, making 6-7 overall and 4-5 from three. The Great Tim Duncan took advantage of Serge Ibaka’s injury absence with 21 points in the first half and 27 for the game. Manu Ginobili took over for TD in the second half with 18 points in his 14 second-half minutes, including 3-3 from three. The third member of the Big Three, Tony Parker had 12 assists. As a team, the Spurs shot 57% overall, 53% from three, with only 9 turnovers.

The Game One win was highlighted by this Kawhi Leonard move which put the Spurs up 13 early in the fourth:

J.R. Wilco’s description of the play, with sound effects, is classic:

“Leonard began his drive on Durant to the right, then angled to his left, took a couple of dribbles with his left hand along the left side of the paint. As Reggie Jackson helped off Green and swiped at the ball, Kawhi picked up his dribble and spun to his right. Now back-to-back with Durant, Kawhi avoided Steven Adams, completed his spin with the ball in his right hand and his momentum carrying him past the basket.

As he crossed the paint, he brought the ball down, then right back up, extended his arm and spun the ball off the backboard and through the hoop as the crowd made one of those weird two-stage, “OOOHHHHhhhhh, WWWWWOOOOOOOAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” sounds.”

Game Two was more of the same. The PtR headline for a Mark Barrington post says it all:

Final Score: Spurs rout Thunder 112-77, take 2-0 series lead

The Thunder started the game with energy and rushed out to an early lead in the first quarter, but the Spurs put on a clinic of beautiful passing and three point shooting that chased OKC out of the building by the end of the third quarter. Tony Parker led the scoring for the Spurs with 22 points and Danny Green had 21, but everyone got into the act.

The Thunder went 2-20 from three. Part of that stat, and their miserable 77 total points for the game, happened because only two of the Thunder starters were a threat — Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. The other three starters (Thabo Sefolosha, Kendrick Perkins and Ibaka’s replacement Nick Collison) simply were not offensive threats, combining for five points in 54 total minutes.

Despite being up 2-0 on the Thunder for the second time in three years, the Spurs could not be too confident considering what happened in 2012, when Thunder ended up winning the next four games to steal a trip to the Finals. Sure enough, that seemed to be in the back of their heads, and the roller coaster started heading back down as the Thunder easily won Games Three and Four.

The Game Three boxscore makes the game appear closer than it actually was:

OKC’s win was keyed by two line-up changes. First, Reggie Jackson started in place of Sefolosha. Second, Ibaka — who had been ruled out for the rest of playoffs before the series — started Game Three. Jackson played more minutes than every other Thunder player, and Ibaka blocked 4 shots to go with 15 points and 7 boards. The Spurs finished the game on a 13-2 garbage time run that masked how badly they had been beaten.

This is from the Game Three summary by Jeje Gomez:

The fourth quarter started with a 12-2 run for OKC and that was the game.

As tempting as it is to blame the refs right now, the officiating wasn’t even close to being the sole or even the main reason for the loss. It was just a terrible, terrible game for pretty much anyone but Ginobili. The energy was down and San Antonio allowed a lot of offensive rebounds, which salvaged bad possessions for the Thunder. Parker had an abysmal game, Leonard wasn’t much better, the shooters were off and the key players all responded for OKC.

Game Four was equally as bad. The Spurs went down 15 at halftime and never threatened after that:

The Spurs had a dismal offensive game, with only two starters in double figures — Parker with 14, Kawhi with 10. Ironically, the Thunder also only had two starters in double figures, but KD and Westbrook combined for 71. Put simply, they had 47 more points than the 24 points by the Spurs two “stars”.

Gregg Popovich saw the writing on the wall (and the score) early, benching four of the Spurs’ starters for the entire fourth quarter — and fifth starter Danny Green played only the first 49 seconds of the quarter. Ginobili did not play in the second half at all. The only good news from the game is that no Spur played more than 26 minutes, while OKC played Westbrook 45 minutes, KD 41 minutes and Ibaka 36 minutes. As it turned out, OKC may have erred playing the OKC stars so many minutes even after the game was out of reach.

This is the Game Four summary from Michael Erler:

Eventually you just run out of words. When a team gets humbled, humiliated and just thoroughly mentally, physically and emotionally dominated to the degree that the Spurs were at the hands of the Thunder, don’t you just have to throw your hands in the air and just walk away from it all?

It’s not just that the return of Serge Ibaka has restored the ferocity to their entire defense and allowed the rest of their squad to slide back into their comfort zones, free to gamble and hunt on the perimeter, knowing there’s cover in the paint. It’s that the Thunder’s overall advantage in athleticism over the Spurs is so large that it’s overwhelming the advantages the Spurs have in shooting, passing and a cohesive offensive system.

They are, to put it bluntly, scaring the hell out of the Spurs.

In a seven-game series tied after four games, Game Five often proves decisive. Suspecting he needed to make an adjustment after two bad blow-outs, Pop decided to do something he hadn’t done all year: start Matt Bonner, the Red Rocket. Pop’s goal was to force one of the Thunder bigs away from the paint, and it worked. Either Bonner or Boris Diaw was on the floor for the first 46 minutes. That move, plus the extra rest the Spurs starters got by sitting the fourth quarter of Game Four (while KD and Westbrook each played over 40 minutes) resulted in a 117-89 Spurs win, breaking the 2012 curse. After a tied first quarter, the Spurs outscored the Thunder by 10, 10 and 8 points in the next three quarters.

The Spurs shot 51% overall, 50% from three (13-26) and had six players in double figures. My Man Manu had a 19 point, 4 rebound, six assist line in just 21 minutes.

This is the Game Five summary from Fred Silva:

For the fifth time in this series, we witnessed a blowout. As if the last two games in OKC had never taken place, the Spurs picked up right where they left off in Game 2 and beat OKC in every facet of the game. Funny enough, that’s exactly the same thing I wrote when describing what OKC did to the Spurs in Game 4: winning in every facet of the game.

This series is unlike any I’ve ever watched. After the first two games, it was difficult to imagine OKC winning a game in this series. After the next two, heading into tonight’s contest, it was difficult to imagine the Spurs staying close. At least after the first two games, Ibaka’s miraculous return from injury gave us something to help explain the dramatic change in outcomes. Tonight, even with Ibaka on the floor, the Spurs seemed unbeatable.

After the game, Tim Duncan said, “It’s the craziest series I’ve ever been involved in. The back and forth, the changes, the leads and the wins. I don’t know how to explain it. Both coaches have made great adjustments and their teams have responded.”

Finally came the decisive Game Six, and if anyone wasn’t enjoying all the blowouts in the first five games, this one more than made up for it. I love the sub-header to Chris Itz’ summary:

Final Score: Spurs back to NBA Finals, beat Thunder 112-107

What a great win! Are you happy? I’m really happy! SPURS SPURS SPURS SPURS SPURS SPURS”

In the first and only close game of Round Three, the Spurs prevailed in overtime despite giving up a 10 point lead in the fourth quarter. That 11-6 overtime score had several fascinating components. The Great Duncan scored 7 of the 11 Spurs points, while OKC was 1 for 11 in overtime, with Westbrook going 1 for 7.

With the Spurs up only one point in OT, Kawhi made this block/strip/steal on Westbrook with 45 seconds left.

OKC never scored after that play, while Duncan made a tough turn-around to put the Spurs up 3, followed by Diaw making 2 of 4 free throws for the final margin. It’s easy to forget that even making the Finals was in serious doubt with 45 seconds left until Kawhi made the play of the playoffs, but the Spurs had finally overcame their 2012 demons.

From my first post starting this recap of the 2014 Playoffs:

In hindsight, the Spurs ‘Beautiful Game’ championship seems inevitable. But when the playoffs began on April 20, 2014, a Spurs victory parade was far from certain, or even likely.

With that win, the Spurs were going back to the Finals to face the Miami Heat, which beat the Pacers 4-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals, and ready to slay their 2013 demons next. Stay tuned.