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Thunder not ready
- Updated: May 1, 2016
PLAYOFF SCHEDULE | EXPERT BRACKETS
SAN ANTONIO — All year long the Thunder have tried to convince the world, if not themselves, that the West wasn’t a two-team race, that they belonged in the championship conversation along with the Warriors and Spurs. Their opportunity to make that statement definitively came in Game 1 on Saturday night in San Antonio, and instead, the Thunder said something else quite clearly.
They’re not ready.
That doesn’t mean they can’t get ready over the next 48 hours. But right now, they’re not ready. OKC has been in the title conversation for five years now, since their Cinderella 2011 run was turned back by the unstoppable Mavericks. So to say they’re not ready, when they’ve been knocking on the door for half a decade, sounds counterintuitive. But the truth is that this is a new Thunder core, untested in the postseason. It’s a new system on both ends under Billy Donovan. It’s a new roster with younger, inexperienced players who had never walked into AT&T Center for a big playoff game. It’s a new universe the Thunder are operating in, with Kevin Durant’s free agency overshadowing everything the Thunder do.
And they just weren’t ready. Not for the Spurs, who thrashed them 124-92. Not for the moment when they needed to bring the intensity. Not for the Spurs’ triple-layer defense that held Russell Westbrook to 5-of-19 shooting and 3-of-11 in the restricted area. Not for the swarming tracking of multiple defenders on Durant to get the ball out of his hands. Not for the moment, not for the environment, not for the opportunity.
Not for the Spurs.
After the game, both Donovan and Westbrook maintained that Westbrook had “gotten to his spots” offensively, but that he just missed shots.
“A lot of my shots I missed at the basket against the bigs,” Westbrook said. “I was able to get to my spots, just missed some layups.”
“I think he did get to the rim and …
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