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The San Antonio Spurs’ Machine Is Officially off and Running
- Updated: May 1, 2016
It started with a bang.
On the first possession of the first game of the San Antonio Spurs’ third NBA playoff go-around with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Kawhi Leonard drove past Kevin Durant, Steven Adams and every other blue jersey on the floor for a one-handed slam.
San Antonio never let up—not at 21-8 early on, not at 73-40 at the half (the sixth-largest halftime lead in playoff history), not even after Gregg Popovich emptied his bench during the fourth quarter with the Spurs up 105-66.
Not until the final buzzer sounded on a 124-92 annihilation of OKC at the AT&T Center on Saturday night.
If the Spurs’ Borg keeps rolling like this, there may be no stopping it.
Leonard kept going all night after that opening dunk. He hit his first six shots, including a dunk off a full-court fling from a 40-year-old Tim Duncan, en route to a 25-point night on 10-of-13 shooting.
Kawhi up high! That’s 12 points on 6-6 FG for the DPOY! #NBAScratchReel #SPURSvTHUNDER pic.twitter.com/k0FcNCOxrc
— NBA (@NBA) May 1, 2016
The rest of the Spurs were just as hot. They nailed 10 of their first 11 looks against a porous Thunder defense and finished the opening frame with 43 points on 81.8 percent shooting, tying the franchise playoff record for a quarter. Danny Green set aside his season-long shooting slump to drain 5-of-6 from three on the night.
The hottest of all? LaMarcus Aldridge.
San Antonio’s biggest acquisition picked and popped the Thunder to death, nailing one mid-range jumper after another (13-of-15, to be exact) until he tallied 38 points on 18-of-23 shooting from the field—his highest output as a Spur. He and Leonard combined to outscore the entire OKC team in the first half, 45-40.
“The ball went in the basket a lot,” Popovich noted so astutely when speaking of Aldridge’s outing at his postgame press conference, aired on ESPN.
“He got wherever he wanted,” said Thunder guard Dion Waiters, per the Oklahoman’s Anthony Slater:
Dion Waiters said the Thunder weren’t nearly physical enough …
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