The Oklahoma City Thunder finished off the San Antonio Spurs last night, advancing to the NBA Finals.
The Spurs had won 20 straight games - a streak that ran from mid-April through game two of the Western Conference Finals. But OKC ran off four straight victories in games three through six to advance.
What turned things around for the Thunder? Their youth may have been a big factor. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich did an excellent job of managing the minutes of his key players during the regular season, which helped keep Tim Duncan and Tony Parker healthy for the playoff run. But the Spur stars played big minutes in the postseason - Duncan and Parker were both on the floor for 40-plus last night.
The extended play may have caught up with them, as San Antonio really faded in the second half. The Spurs led by as many as 18 points in Game Six, but were out-scored by 23 in the third and fourth quarters.
But let's not take anything away from the Thunder. They're young, they're deep and they're remarkably talented. And the disadvantages we expected would hurt OKC in this series - most notably, Russell Westbrook's inconsistency as a floor general and the matchup of much-maligned coach Scott Brooks against future hall-of-famer Gregg Popovich - never became problems. Brooks actually deserves a lot of credit for some key adjustments, shifting his offense from dribble-drives to more pass-oriented plays and putting defensive specialist Thabo Sefolosha on Tony Parker to disrupt San Antonio's attack.
OKC returns to the Finals for the first time since 1996. The team - then known as the Seattle SuperSonics - lost that series to Michael Jordan's 72-10 Chicago Bulls, 4-2.
- Western Conference Finals San Antonio Spurs vs. Oklahoma City Thunder.
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