I'll be honest the Spurs scare me.

[Devilanche]

For those who do watch soccer/football, here's an article about the Spurs and probably why i find them so interesting.

There's a reference here to the total football concept, where every position are interchangable and constant movement into empty space is encouraged.

Simplified on offence it sort of like give you an extra man so that you can probe your opponent to find gaps while on defence it doesn't give up any easy route to your goal/basket (although your player might not be in an ideal position). Of course your players need to be versatile and have a high skill level.

http://www.hickory-high.com/?p=4403
Another article.
A more traditional basketball stats look at PPP. The top 2 offence are Spurs and ours but it's very different from one another.

[Mykhyn]

Spurs in 4.

OKC can't stop the Spurs with the way they have been playing. Not to mention the Spurs dwarf OKC in coaching and experience.

[Jihad]

No Thunder will not get sweeped!

The Spurs have to stay healthy all the time, if Tony, Manu or Tim get injured, then OKC will win the series easily.
The perimeter defense has to be very very good for OKC.
Everything else has been said in this thread. Take Game 1 or 2 and you have all the chances! Lose the first two and you will lose.

My Orlando Magic were in the same spot 2010, sweep over the Bobcats and the Hawks (+29 Points each game), but they did lose the first two home games and everything was screwed up.

WCF are the Finals for me this year, the team that advances to the finals in the west, will be the next NBA Champion!

[twinthunder3]

I want OKC to win, but their flaw is that Spurs have a better bench (in this case, I don't refer to Harden as a bench, although he is).

[dopeismarcus]

LETS GO!!!!

[Mykhyn]

No Thunder will not get sweeped!

The Spurs have to stay healthy all the time, if Tony, Manu or Tim get injured, then OKC will win the series easily.
The perimeter defense has to be very very good for OKC.
Everything else has been said in this thread. Take Game 1 or 2 and you have all the chances! Lose the first two and you will lose.

My Orlando Magic were in the same spot 2010, sweep over the Bobcats and the Hawks (+29 Points each game), but they did lose the first two home games and everything was screwed up.

WCF are the Finals for me this year, the team that advances to the finals in the west, will be the next NBA Champion!

..
How can you not agree with the sweep incoming after that first game? Only Ginobli played well and they still won. AND they got away with goaltending. Reality check incoming for OKC fans.

[jwilliamson23]

My Observation:
I think our biggest problem we are facing is defending the pick and roll. Lots of times in Game 1 when the Spurs put a little kink in the way they ran the screen (Duncan hand-off, etc) Russ and Thabo tried to trail the screen. This was aided by a poor hedge by Perk or Serge. Smart basketball players know you can't trail with a good penetrator/Short range scorer,and Parker and Manu are two of the best at that particular thing. There are many other little things we can fix on our end but we won't win this series if we can't defend the pick and roll. We can either heavy hedge, have the D rotate. Trap the screen force the Duncan mid-range. Or go under, force them to shoot outside jumpers, possibly using the screener to contest the shot (little shove). Though they are solid jump shooters, i'll take those over what we give up now:
easy lane penetration
collecting and-1's on our defense
horrible rotations leading to easy lay-ups and three's
frustation with each other.

Which all it does is fuel their team more. The big 3 don't have quite the same ability to create independently as years ago. Though it isn't slacking by any means, so they use the pick and roll to create those opportunities for themselves to be in position to make plays. (Think about how dangerous the Thunder would be with an effective pick and roll system.) So only if we defend this can we have a realistic shot in this series.

[bbms]

No Thunder will not get sweeped!

The Spurs have to stay healthy all the time, if Tony, Manu or Tim get injured, then OKC will win the series easily.
The perimeter defense has to be very very good for OKC.
Everything else has been said in this thread. Take Game 1 or 2 and you have all the chances! Lose the first two and you will lose.

My Orlando Magic were in the same spot 2010, sweep over the Bobcats and the Hawks (+29 Points each game), but they did lose the first two home games and everything was screwed up.

WCF are the Finals for me this year, the team that advances to the finals in the west, will be the next NBA Champion!

..
How can you not agree with the sweep incoming after that first game? Only Ginobli played well and they still won. AND they got away with goaltending. Reality check incoming for OKC fans.

And which Thunder played well offensively? Derek Fisher?