After stealing home court advantage with a thrilling victory in Game One, the San Antonio Spurs had it taken away from them in a Game Three loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Now the stakes are even higher in Game Four, as the Spurs try to avoid going down 3-1 in the Western Conference Finals.<\/p>\n
So far, the Thunder have made the most impactful adjustments in the series. They\u2019ve put a big man on Victor Wembanyama to keep him from dominating the paint, played with a lot of physicality on both ends, and relied on their bench scorers to hit open shots when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander faced double teams. Now, after losing two games in a row, the Spurs will need to counter OKC\u2019s counters to even up the series.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll try to do it at seemingly full health. De\u2019Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper avoided the injury report for Game Four, but remain hobbled as they both deal with lower-body injuries. Meanwhile, the Thunder will be without Ajay Mitchell and potentially Jalen Williams, removing two important ball-handlers who support SGA.<\/p>\n
Only 15 teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Playoffs (including two this year). Tying the series at 2-2 significantly increases the Spurs\u2019 odds of making the NBA Finals. They\u2019ll need all hands on deck to do that in front of their home crowd.<\/p>\n
Watch: NBC \/ Peacock | Listen: WOAI (1200 AM)<\/p>\n
Spurs Injuries: No injuries to report.<\/p>\n
Thunder Injuries: Thomas Sorber \u2013 Out (knee), Ajay Mitchell \u2013 Out (calf), Jalen Williams \u2013 Questionable (hamstring)<\/p>\n
The Thunder\u2019s bench outscored the Spurs\u2019 bench by 53 points in Game Three. San Antonio\u2019s bench unit has been largely ineffective in the series so far. Keldon Johnson has struggled to score for the majority of the playoffs. Harper is dealing with an injury. Luke Kornet is constantly attacked at the rim. No one else has stepped up to provide a spark when the starters sit. For most of the season, the Spurs were seen as a deep team. Their depth is getting exposed against OKC. The Spurs\u2019 bench doesn\u2019t have to outscore the Thunder\u2019s backups to win the series, but they can\u2019t be completely played off the floor. Just a slight improvement in their play would go a long way toward tying the series.<\/p>\n
So far, the Spurs\u2019 strategy for guarding the Thunder\u2019s star guard has been to get the ball out of his hands and make someone else beat them. That strategy backfired in Game Three, as Gilgeous-Alexander made the Spurs pay by swinging the ball to shooters for open threes. The Thunder shot 17-38 (45%) from three in Game Three, and most of those were lightly contested. Perhaps the adjustment for Game Four is making SGA beat the Spurs with one-on-one scoring. San Antonio can use multiple defenders to guard him one-on-one to avoid foul trouble, but they don\u2019t need to send multiple bodies at him every time he crosses half-court. It\u2019s a simple adjustment, but it could help them avoid the three-point barrage they saw in Game Three.<\/p>\n
San Antonio has been at its best this postseason when they are getting out in transition or pushing the ball ahead after a miss. Their offense has slowed down majorly against the Thunder. They aren\u2019t turning OKC. over, and are getting bogged down in a half-court game that better suits the Thunder. Even if they aren\u2019t able to get steals to get easy buckets in transition, the Spurs have to speed up the game to give themselves a better chance. That means pushing the ball quickly after misses and makes, looking to attack the rim before the Thunder get set.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After stealing home court advantage with a thrilling victory in Game One, the San Antonio Spurs had it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83,3001],"class_list":["post-306788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-spurs-game-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}