San Antonio switches up defensive scheme as they even their series with the Thunder

Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O’Connor explains how the San Antonio Spurs’ defensive scheme change against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander helped even the Western Conference final with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Check out the full conversation on “The Kevin O’Connor Show” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

Starting with the Spurs and the Thunder.

San Antonio won Game 4, 103-82, tied up two to two.

And number one thought, San Antonio changed up their coverage against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

This was the key to this victory.

We saw in Games 1, 2, and 3, the Spurs sending two pretty frequently against SGA when he got a touch outside the three-point line.

This was to try to force the ball out of his hands, prevent him from penetrating, but that didn’t work.

It led to a lot of open catch-and-shoots, lobs for the Oklahoma City Thunder, and it was different in Game 4.

They played him more one-on-one.

They weren’t sending two as hard.

Sometimes they would late, but it worked to great effect in forcing him just to take some really tough, heavily contested pull-up jumpers, and sometimes, you know, Victor would even help over and get a hand on it.

But this was the key for San Antonio in this Game 4, in what is looking like a series of adjustments.

Because if you look at Game 1, Game 2, and Game 3 combined, of the catch-and-shoot three-point jumpers that Oklahoma City got, 75% of those were labeled as unguarded threes according to Synergy Sports.

So that means three-fourths of their catch-and-shoot threes were unguarded.

In Game 4, that dropped to 44%.

Fourteen of their three-pointers were guarded, 11 were unguarded, and that is as a result of the adjustment the Spurs made to their defense.

Now, San Antonio was able to do this in part because no Jalen Williams, he’s out with a hamstring, and no AJ Mitchell, he’s out with a calf strain.

And so Oklahoma City, they got SGA.

They don’t have their second ball handler.

They don’t have their third ball handler.

They’re down to Jared McCain, Chet Holmgren.

I mean, these other guys on this team that aren’t up to snuff to handle that responsibility next to SGA.

And this was really the story of those Spurs-Thunder games over the course of the regular season, too.

In the games AJ Mitchell played, Oklahoma City had a really hard time generating quality shot opportunities.

In the game that he did play, they looked a lot better.

Very similar result so far in the fir- in this series so far.

And I think for SGA, Games 1, 2, and 3, he generated 1.25 points per drive, and that’s in part because of the defense San Antonio was playing.

In Game 4, that fell to 0.94.

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