Lowe: What to watch for in Spurs-Thunder, Game 3

12:00 AM ET

Have you memory-charmed that Raptors-Heat overtime debacle out of your brains yet? Good. Let’s get back to some real basketball, as the headline series of the second round resumes tonight after what feels like a two-week layoff since one unprecedented Dion Waiters shove opened a whirlpool of chaos.

(Seriously, though: Do the Raptors and Heat know you are allowed to start doing things on offense with more than 12 seconds on the shot clock? God, that was awful).

As things tend to go, those final frantic, comedy-of-errors 13.5 seconds of Game 2 have overshadowed the 47-plus minutes of interesting basketball that came before. And, man, those 13.5 seconds were nuts. One note that perhaps hasn’t gotten enough attention: it was not a coincidence the Spurs assigned Manu Ginobili to defend Waiters on that fateful inbounds pass. The Spurs have long believed Ginobili is one of the best inbound defenders in league history, perhaps the very best ever, and their choice for that role in crunch-time usually comes down to: Manu or a big guy?

But those 13.5 seconds didn’t decide the game, and plenty of forgotten bizarro stuff happened earlier. Remember when Russell Westbrook flung a lob to Kevin Durant, hit the backboard by accident, and the ball bounced to Steven Adams for a layup? Whoops. Or when Westbrook got stuffed at the rim, poked the rebound away from an unsuspecting Tim Duncan, and rose up for a “what the hell?” triple that went in?

So many nutty things happen in a 48-minute game. All you can do is control the process so more of the things you can’t completely control go your way in the end.

With that in mind, here are things to watch as this heavyweight clash resumes.

Can Oklahoma City bring their best defense again?

After embarrassing themselves in Game 1 with an inattentive effort unworthy of a lottery team, the Thunder focused, tweaked their schemes, and bottled up the Spurs pick-and-roll attack that had destroyed them. Westbrook was cleaner on the ball. Ibaka often took a step or two higher on the floor against those Tony Parker/Patty Mills-LaMarcus Aldridge pick-and-rolls, corralling Parker before he could penetrate into the paint — allowing Westbrook to catch up sooner, so that Ibaka could scuttle back to Aldridge before pick-and-pop death rained down.

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The Thunder sometimes forced Parker away from the pick, making every rotation a bit shorter. Even when Parker attacked that defense with his cagey wit, the Thunder used their length and athleticism to run San Antonio off its preferred shots:

Sometimes they had Ibaka lunge out at Parker to wall off any driving lane, and stick closer to Aldridge — the anti-Dirk defense. Aldridge countered by slipping hard to the rim, but with Tim Duncan nearby, it was tough sledding for him in there:

It’s dumb to say, but this is the Thunder, so we have to say it: Oklahoma City has to play like this every game.

More Diaw, please

Unless something is really wrong with Diaw — and I don’t think there is — he needs to play more than the eight minutes Gregg Popovich allowed in Game 2. The Diaw-Aldridge combination was deadly for the Spurs all season, but Popovich has only used it for eight combined minutes in this series so far.

Look at that Aldridge miss in the lane again. If Diaw is on the floor instead of Duncan, he’s probably behind the 3-point arc, and his defender has much further to go to bother Aldridge. The Diaw-Aldridge combo is so good because they can flip-flop between the inside-outside roles, keeping the defense off-balance and opening up breathing space for each other.

Diaw can also work any Thunder big man other than Steven Adams in the post, and plow his big butt right through Durant if they cross-paths during Oklahoma City’s small-ball minutes.

Diaw has only received two post touches all series, per SportVU data provided to ESPN.com, and both came in garbage time of Game 1.

Look: Diaw is not some world-beater. But Duncan and West struggled to finish anything in Game 2, and the Spurs cannot ask Aldridge to play 43 minutes, carry the offense, and protect the rim when paired with West.

I’ll be very surprised if Diaw doesn’t see more time tonight.

Too much Aldridge?

The Thunder “let” …

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