The Oklahoma City Thunder Must Eliminate The Spurs In Game 6

In order to avoid a potential nightmare scenario in Game 7, the Oklahoma City Thunder must eliminate the San Antonio Spurs in Game 6

The Oklahoma City Thunder are one win away from booking a date with the two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry and the rest of the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals.

Back in their Game 5 victory against the fading San Antonio Spurs, the dynamic duo of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook did what not everybody in the NBA is capable of doing, beating the Spurs on their home court.

Yes, only the Thunder (which they’ve now done twice in this series), aside from the league-leading Warriors, beat the Spurs at AT&T Center. The question is: how did they do it?

Simple. Defense and rebounding. Irony of it? These are the basic fundamentals of basketball that Spurs head coach Greg Poppovich has been preaching for his wards ever since he came aboard.

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We can probably say that the Thunder gave the Spurs a taste of their own medicine. During their critical Game 5 victory, the Thunder forced the Spurs shoot roughly 40 percent from the field. That’s a far cry for a team that was one of the league leaders in field goal percentage. Was.

Rebounding? 63-44 in favour of the Thunder.

Take note: the Thunder had five more offensive rebounds compared to the Spurs and that was critical considering how close the final score was.

As a result, the Spurs are one bad game away from the end of their season, which included a franchise-best 67-win regular season.

The question is: do the Thunder have the will to close out the series in front of their home crowd?

If we are to look back at the head-to-had matchups between the Spurs and the Thunder in the recent years, it appears that the Spurs have the number against Oklahoma specifically during the playoffs: 19-14. That’s in favour of the Spurs.

Both teams have faced each other 33 times in the playoffs and most of those games, it was the Spurs who came out victorious. However, we have take in consideration that this is the first time since 2011 that the Thunder are actually competing and healthy. Yes. Competing and healthy.

There were years where the Thunder were without Kevin Durant and/or Russell Westbrook and yet, they were competing. That wasn’t enough. There were also a few times when they had both Durant and Westbrook in the lineup and yet, they were losing. This season? They entered the postseason as the 3rd seeded team in the Western Conference.

This is the Thunder team that we all wanted to see in the first place. A Thunder team that has Durant and Westbrook running the offense, a team that has an improving Steven Adams manning the paint, a team that has Dion Waiters shooting threes and a team that has a Serge Ibaka playing great D.

Game 6 is up next and the Oklahoma City Thunder have the opportunity to close out the series and give them the chance to rest up and prepare for another battle against the defending champions.

We can be sure that Gregg Poppovich and his veterans will not go down without a fight. As we know it, the Spurs are still very capable of turning a series around towards their favour and that’s what the Thunder will have to watch out for. Why?

Let’s say the Thunder are leading by 10 points in the game and if they lower their guard, the Spurs have shooters like Danny Green, Patty Mills and yes, Kevin Martin who can erase a double-digit deficit in a matter of minutes.

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Will Kevin Durant and company allow their Spur-ry nightmare to ruin this postseason run that they are on? Close out the series at home and they won’t. Allow San Antonio to force a Game 7? They might be in trouble.