OKLAHOMA CITY -- Tony Parker drove right on Russell Westbrook with just over two minutes left in Game 4. He had dominated the matchup in that game, scoring efficiently with pirouetting jump shots and layups that took advantage of angles others don't even imagine.
The Thunder fixed one of their biggest problems to save their season
The Thunder have faltered in the fourth quarter all season. They made sure not to let that happen again with their season hanging in the balance.
On this play, though, Westbrook got the better of him. After poking the ball away, Westbrook won a fight for the ball, took off down court and saw Kevin Durant ahead. Westbrook's pass to him was flawless -- perfectly placed over Kawhi Leonard's outstretched arms, arms that so frequently disrupt plays just like this one. Durant scored with his left hand and Thunder went up 105-97. The play itself was the crown on a spectacular fourth quarter for Oklahoma City that won them the game.
The fourth quarter performance excised demons that had followed them all year. Oklahoma City lost a whopping 14 times in the regular season when leading entering the fourth quarter. The Thunder's only loss in their first-round series against the Mavericks came in Game 2, where they entered the final frame up three before losing. In Game 3 against San Antonio on Friday, the Thunder led by four halfway through the period before collapsing in a 100-96 loss.
But on Sunday, the final 12 minutes saved their season.
“Our guys came back,” Billy Donovan said. “It wasn’t an easy game. We were playing from behind obviously most of the three quarters, but our guys just kept battling.”
Kevin Durant led the way, scoring 41 points. Eighteen of them came in the final frame, where he shot a perfect 6-of-6 from the field. There was an alternate timeline where Sunday was his last home game ever as a Thunder player, with his free agency looming large this summer. But Durant wouldn’t let that happen. He played the entire fourth quarter until the game was out of hand, and vocally protested his one brief substitution in the third.
Durant has been a reason for the Thunder’s late-game struggles this season. Too often, Oklahoma City’s star-oriented offense devolved into isolations and stagnant possessions, something that frequently costed them. On Sunday, though, Durant talked about the importance of moving off the ball and using screens set for him. Twice, he beat his man backdoor for alley-oop passes. The game-clinching shot, one possession after Westbrook’s pass over Leonard’s head, came when Durant circled around and popped straight to the corner for a dagger three.
The Thunder couldn't have won without Dion Waiters and Enes Kanter, either. The two rotation cogs have been vilified for their sometimes inconsistent one-way play, but both performed huge in the fourth, closing down the stretch.
“We’re not focused on what happened in the regular season,” Waiters said, asked about the team’s fourth quarter struggles. “We know what we have to do to close games.”
San Antonio is a team steeped with veterans with the NBA’s most stable coach. When they enter the fourth quarter with a lead, like the four-point one they had, it’s usually a death blow. But Oklahoma City’s 34-16 quarter left no room for uncertainty. They owned it. They avoided the collapses that had plagued their season and sidestepped a 3-1 series deficit that would have likely been the end of them.
“I don’t think we are a team that is always perfect,” Donovan said. “But I think we have gotten better and we have improved and we have grown.”
Strangely, it was the Spurs who assumed the role of a team whose late-game offense relied too much on individual players. San Antonio had only one assist in its 16-point fourth quarter and just 12 overall for the game. Even against a Thunder lineup tilted more towards offense, they turned the ball over three times in the final 4:20 of the game. Perhaps the Spurs' two-star setup has its consequence.
As the Thunder momentum built, the fans in the Chesapeake Energy Arena only got louder. Durant said it was as loud as he has ever heard the arena, while Steven Adams said it got to the point where he "couldn't hear (himself) think." Fueled by the crowd, Oklahoma City didn't falter, pressuring San Antonio in all the right ways.
"We were not comfortable at all the whole game," Manu Ginobili said.
Presumably, the Thunder didn’t envision their season resting on a fourth-quarter comeback against a 67-win team in Game 4. There are better positions to be in after their struggles late in games this year.
But Oklahoma City kept those disguised for 12 minutes on Sunday, playing their way to a tied series and to a hope that everything will still work out alright for them. The Thunder have a lot to prove wrong to actually win this series, but one of them was their fourth-quarter offense.
In that sense, Sunday was a big step in the right direction.
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Literally everyone messed up at the end of Game 2
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