The Bounce: Can the Spurs stave off elimination? Here’s what they need to do
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On this date in 1986, Larry Bird won his third consecutive MVP award. He’s the last person to win three straight. Only Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain have done it. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will have a chance to become the fourth next season. Steve Nash was the closest to winning a third straight since Bird, but he finished nearly 40 first-place votes behind Dirk Nowitzki in 2007. History says it’s unlikely for SGA.
On the brink
Here’s how the Spurs can force a Game 7
The San Antonio Spurs have their backs against the wall for the first time this postseason. They didn’t face this — a loss away from their season being over — at any point in the first two rounds. Nobody has been surprised that the Spurs are good this season, but nobody expected 62 wins and a conference finals berth with a real shot at making the NBA Finals.
However, the Thunder have reminded everybody that this era of basketball goes through OKC. Even with Victor Wembanyama letting them know his league ownership is nigh. And it might even be now. The Spurs will have to figure out how to win two straight games against OKC, and that has to start tonight when the Spurs try to protect home court and keep their season alive in Game 6 (8:30 p.m. ET on NBC/Peacock).
There are three ways to make sure that happens in tonight’s game.
Get the big fella quality touches around the rim: Wembanyama definitely needs to put more pressure on the rim. He is having a phenomenal series, but his Game 5 performance could not have come at a worse time. He was 4-of-15 from the field and 0 of 5 from deep, and he needed 12 free throws to make the stat line look a lot better. This is not the Wembanyama we’ve seen converting in the paint for most of this series.
Even in the losses in Games 2 and 3, we saw him either have an even distribution of shots at the rim versus 3-pointers made, or we saw him putting pressure on the paint. Once he’s able to rule around the rim, it forces the OKC defense to cheat toward the hoop and gives ample shooting room for the perimeter guys.
Check out Wemby’s shot chart from all five games in this series:
It’s worth noting that the 12 free-throw attempts often take away a shot attempt from the total. But Wemby still needs to put more pressure on the rim. Some of that is on him. In Game 5, it felt like he was troubleshooting his lack of makes by putting up 3-pointers to see if those would go down. He has to be more intentional in attacking the paint with balance and through contact.
Some of that has to be the Spurs knowing where it’s best to get him the ball. Pick-and-rolls. Put him in the dunker spot and put pressure on the paint as a driver. Run some quick post-ups in transition when he has smaller players on him. And remember, his touch around the basket is elite. So even when he misses inside, we’re often seeing him with a great opportunity to tip in the miss. He has to establish his dominance in the paint before he ventures out to 3-point land.
Get the guards going downhill: We saw rough performances from De’Aaron Fox, Dylan Harper and Devin Vassell in Game 5. Vassell needs to knock down jump shots to stretch the defense, and he didn’t. He went from hitting 50 percent of his open and wide-open 3-pointers in the first four games to going 1 of 5 on those shots in Game 5.
The guards’ attack has to be better and more efficient, though. Fox drove the ball a lot in Game 5 (in comparison to the first four games), but he was horrifically inefficient in making shots and converting to points. Stephon Castle had a small dropoff, but he needs to be more aggressive in how he gets those looks. And Harper had a miserable game, showing almost zero impact on drives: he barely drove and only got two free throws out of it.
It isn’t just on Wemby to put pressure on the paint. These guys have to do it too.
Be tough and physical with the Thunder: I know, I know. This is just opening up a chance to complain about officiating. However, the Spurs are a very aggressive, physical defensive team, and they have to remain that way in Game 6. We saw some messages sent by Mason Plumlee and maybe Bismack Biyombo with Jared McCain at the end of Game 5. Although, I didn’t think the Biyombo foul was very hard. McCain just landed roughly. That didn’t stop words from being exchanged by these teams.
If you’re the Spurs, you have to set the tone at home in Game 6. You have to be physical in an intelligent and strategic way. Castle and Harper often do that with great success. Julian Champagnie and Vassell are good at it too on the perimeter. Everything has to funnel into eliminating space on shots, and they have to execute this style even when Wemby isn’t on the floor.
The last 24
📺 Must-see TV. NBC is trying to balance nostalgia and a nod to the future with its return to broadcasting the NBA. Wemby could be the network’s new Michael Jordan.
🤫 Shhh. Leon Rose is the man who built the Knicks into title contenders. But you’ll never hear him talk about it.
⚾ Mirroring? Major League Baseball franchises want to be similar to the NBA and NFL. They’re looking for soaring team values and a salary cap.
📈 Time to grow. The Pelicans and Jamahl Mosley need to create success together. That happens with both evolving.
👐 Simple decision. Tony Jones has some advice for the Jazz at No. 2 in the draft. It’s only AJ Dybantsa or Darryn Peterson.
Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass.
OK Computer?
AI — not that one — to help with replays
NBA commissioner Adam Silver was on “The Pat McAfee Show” yesterday in some weird “State of Sports” edition that had all of the major sports commissioners on at various points in the show. Cool idea? Maybe. Just another example of the NBA moving toward “influencers” or sports influencer culture to try to wrangle younger fans? Likely. Does it work? We have no idea. Is McAfee the guy to help ask the tough questions especially when it comes to the NBA? I’m dubious. He was a punter before he was a pundit.
Regardless, Silver was there. He wanted to make a point about embellishing contact versus deceiving the officials. This is a major topic in the rise of prominent scorers like Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Brunson, Luka Dončić and many others. The commish said:
“Even as I sit in the stands at games, players may be falling down, players may be reacting to a call. But to me, if they’re not fooling the referees, it’s OK. Players are taught to sell calls these days.”
He also made a point to say on this massive platform that the NBA officiating is “incredible,” which is certainly one way to describe it. However, he also mentioned a change coming to certain replays that will be fueled by AI to help automate for quicker decisions.
He does, however, see a future where, in terms of out-of-bounds calls, the league moves to a system like tennis’ Hawk-Eye system, in which objective calls can be quickly replayed and decided by an automated AI system powered by cameras around the court. So-called objective calls, Silver said, currently handled by referees, will eventually become instantaneous.
AI is coming for a lot of jobs, and the automation can both be bad for the consumer, bad for the environment and bad for the workforce in general. Often, when I try to double-check something on a search engine while I’m writing about the NBA, I see so many mistakes within the AI-generated answer at the top of the search. This would likely be different, and there shouldn’t be any threat to the actual officials’ jobs.
Silver mentioned this will help them focus on the more important stuff. I’m not sure if that’s true, but we’ve seen great results in both tennis and soccer with some of this stuff. Hopefully, the NBA gets it right and works hard to improve officiating and rules that incentivize flopping.
On this day
Remembering the legend of Game 6 Klay
On this date 10 years ago, the legend of “Game 6 Klay” was born. The Golden State Warriors were in peril. They went 73-9 in the regular season, breaking the 1996 Chicago Bulls’ record of 72-10. And yet, they were down 3-2 in the West finals to the Thunder and faced a Game 6 on the road in OKC. (They’d actually been down 3-1 in the series, but Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook couldn’t close out in Oakland at Oracle Arena.)
Thompson had 16 points at halftime, but the Warriors were shooting horrifically (36.4 percent) from the field. Steph Curry got going in the third quarter with 14 of his 31 points, but Golden State entered the fourth quarter down by eight.
That’s when Thompson became a legend. He hit a 3 over Anthony Morrow on the right wing. Then he made one over a closing Durant in the right corner. Then an offensive rebound by Andrew Bogut set up a 3 from the left wing over Dion Waiters. Thompson had been percolating all game — a tea kettle heating up to the proper temperature. Now he was on fire.
He got a layup against Durant. Then he took a flat-footed 30-footer with Westbrook in his grill. Knocked it down like a free throw with five minutes left. With a little over a minute left in the game, he fired a 3 over Durant in transition. Splash. The Warriors had a three-point lead now. Thompson finished with 19 points in the quarter, 41 points in the game and set a then-playoff record with 11 made 3-pointers.
You were probably thinking, “No way Zach makes another shot chart graph but this time uses tea kettles for the 3-point makes from the first three quarters and then fire emojis for the fourth-quarter hits.” Wrong! I did exactly that.
Starting with that Game 6 against OKC, Klay averaged 28.1 points on 48.9 percent from the field and 54.4 percent from deep in seven Game 6s.
The Warriors went on to win the series against OKC in seven, completing the 3-1 comeback. Then they gave up their own 3-1 comeback in the NBA Finals against Cleveland. But Game 6 Klay is eternal.