Durant: A different SA-OKC series

SAN ANTONIO — The Thunder and Spurs know one another well. The two franchises are from the same tree, with GM Sam Presti having come from San Antonio and modeled the Thunder approach from practice to media relations in great strides after the the Spurs. The two teams have faced each other twice in the playoffs over the past five years. They play annually in big, nationally televised matchups, and have both been among the top six teams in the league every season (outside of last year’s OKC dip due to injury) for half-a-decade.

However, that familiarity isn’t going to help either side when they go into Game 1 Saturday night of their Western Conference semifinals series.

“It was two years ago,” Kevin Durant said Saturday morning of the last time these two teams met in the postsesaon. “You can’t really. It’s hard to scout throughout the regular season, [let alone the playoffs]. You’re going to use stats and watch films like you did in the regular season, but if coach pulled up film from two years ago, I’m sure everyone in the room would ask them what the hell they were doing. We watched them in their last series and we watched them in the regular season, and we’ve tracked their …

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