The San Antonio Spurs won their sixteenth consecutive game Thursday night, while obliterating Blake Griffin and the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 2 of their second round series in the NBA Playoffs. It wasn't exactly compelling for those that like the Lob City style of basketball, but it showed just how well the Spurs have been playing this season.
Clippers Vs. Spurs: San Antonio’s Offense Has Been Simply Astonishing In NBA Playoffs
It seems like it might be impossible to beat the Spurs at this point, honestly, because they have so many weapons and seem to always be running on all cylinders. As our friends at SB Nation's Pounding The Rock noted in their recap following Game 2, the execution is near-flawless in Gregg Popovich's system right now.
Systematically, the Spurs are operating to near perfection right now. In any efficient system, a glitch here or minor failure there can always be corrected or at least compensated for while the issue is solved. And while the Spurs’ offensive efficiency has been the catalyst that has driven this group to a near-untouchable level, it’s been the defense that has allowed all the kinks to work themselves out.
Not that there are many kinks to be found, but the defense has remained steady as teams continue to throw the kitchen sink at San Antonio to get stops on their own end. The Spurs might go through shooting lulls or brief periods of sloppy ball-movement, but with a 10-man rotation (even in the playoffs) full of skilled, high-I.Q. players these stretches of time are nothing more than temporary.
The Spurs aren’t quite robots, but there have been very few times in recent basketball history that a team has been able to put together a stretch of games like this without relying on standout performances from superstars.
The Clippers' fan base has noticed how great San Antonio's been running, too, as Steve Perrin over at Clips Nation offered his amazement at the Spurs offense in his recap of the Game 2 drubbing -- paying particularly close attention to the resurgence of Tim Duncan.
But it won’t really matter if they don’t figure out a way to stop the Spurs. Unlike the Memphis series, the Clippers have been unable to sustain any sort of a defensive effort to slow down the San Antonio attack. There’s a pretty simple reason for that -- the Spurs are pretty freaking good on offense, much, much better than Memphis, and it’s hard to stop them. But if the Clippers don’t find a solution, this series will be over quickly.
The Spurs shot 53.2 percent from the field Thursday night and made 10 more three pointers. Their effective field goal percentage in the game was 59.5%. Their effective field goal percentage in the two games of the series is 58.2 percent. That’s smoking hot -- white hot -- super-model hot. And you can’t win allowing that kind of shooting.
It doesn’t help matters that 35-year-old-supposedly-in-decline Tim Duncan suddenly looks like 25-year-old-MVP Tim Duncan. Timmay is averaging 22 points and shooting 62% in the series so far. He scored 18 on 9-14 shooting in Game 2, with 14 in the first half, and has been more or less unguardable.
It's not going to be easy for the Clippers to make it a competitive series if the Spurs are able to continue their offensive ways. However, and unfortunately for Chris Paul's team, it looks as though San Antonio is in it for the long haul.
For more on the Spurs, be sure to visit Pounding the Rock. The best Clippers coverage on the web can be found at Clips Nation. And, if you’re looking for news, analysis and everything else revolving around the NBA Playoffs, be sure to visit SB Nation’s NBA page.
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