Oklahoma Thunders 98 San Antonio Spurs 101 (Western Conference Finals Game 1)

There is a reason why in the last post i wrote "Experience, overall matchups, coaching and bench... nuff said. Or you want more?" Today's result just further strengthen what i wrote. If you realize i also did mention "Or you want more?" It is because there are other factors which obviously i did not list them down. And one of them showed up in this game and that is Manu Ginobili. He had a great game, and put it in simple terms he got it going and score impact points as I would call it, basically points that impacted and mattered in the game.

In my previous post, I mentioned Russel Westbrook has to make at least 60 percent to 65 percent of his shots if not OKC will be in deep trouble because of the amount of shots he is taking. And guess what! he did not shoot at least 60 percent in fact he shot a miserable 7/21, and that is barely hitting 30 percent.

Well to be fair to Westbrook, James Harden himself did not shoot particularly well 6/16 that is is about 37 percent. If you realize i did not write 7/17 as what they do in the official stat sheet  and the reason for that is because that last shot Harden took came at 0.00 time in the fourth quarter and at that point in time it didn't really mattered anymore.

Kevin Durant has a fair game but they have to make more use of him, in terms of facilitating and making scoring situations for him. He was forced too far off today. Durant did not shoot what i expected him to do but it was acceptable. The only person who shot well for OKC is the good old Derrick Fisher who shot 6/8 and at one time came in 5/5 for shooting.

It seems that Serge Ibaka only played 28 minutes. Well good decision by OKC because unfortunately for Ibaka though he is a monster defensive machine, but offensively he has no game at all (no post up game etc).

Spurs bench came up BIG tonight partially fueled by Ginobili, they came up with 52 points in total. For the OKC bench... Well probably wouldn't be even worth mentioning it in comparison to the Spurs's bench.

Both teams traded baskets early, going back and forth in the first two quarters, OKC came up big in the third but when it mattered in the fourth Spurs went one gear higher and left OKC in the dust.

Before I would like to sign off, once again I would like to stress this point and because i need to stress it I am going to bold it. Kevin Durant, Russel Westbrook , James Harden have to be at their best if they are even going to stand a chance against the Spurs. And lastly, MAKE use of Kevin Durant more (not just in terms of scoring) and with his talent and scoring prowess, OKC would stand a good chance in the next game.