Kiwi Steve in the NBA – May 12
The last Kiwi Steve column came eight days ago as the Thunder rallied to take game two after that opening blowout against the Spurs. Adams had one of – if not – his finest games as a professional, certainly his best in a playoff game. Things took another twist in game three but the Thunder really came back strong in the two after that. A clinic from Durant, a clinic from Westbrook and some more superb Kiwi Steve have OKC now on the brink of a stunning upset win over the 67-win Spurs. Already they’ve won more times this series in San Antonio than the Spurs lost at home in the entire regular season. Yeah, mate, it’s been fun. And here’s how it went.
Box Scores
at SAS, G3 (L 100-96): 41 MINS, 2 PTS (0/1 FG, 2/2 FT), 11 REB, 1 AST, 1 BLK, 1 TO, 3 PF
vs SAS, G4 (W 111-97): 36 MINS, 16 PTS (6/8 FG, 0/1 3PT, 4/6 FT), 11 REB, 2 BLK, 1 TO, 5 PF
at SAS, G5 (W 95-91): 35 MINS, 12 PTS (5/8 FG, 2/6 FT), 11 REB, 1 AST, 1 STL, 1 TO, 4 PF
Shall we commence at the beginning? Very well.
GAME THREE
First of all, there would be no more touching of Adams after the muppet who tried to hold him back on the last play of game two. No siree, Bob.
Though he’d have traded a bit of hand time from a fan to have OKC in that position again with a late lead. Game three was a lot more like the first one than it was the second. An early block of Tim Duncan and an assist to Serge Ibaka all in the first minute made it look like Steve was in for a big night but that didn’t happen. Nor for most in a sloppy first quarter. However in the second (and the late stages of the first) the Spurs started to pull away. Durant pulled them within two at 22-20 with 3:38 left in 1Q. Their next points came from Russ at the free throw line for 35-21 with 8:10 to play in the second. Threes to David West and Patty Mills were the kickers.
The Thunder freaked out a little with a 15 point deficit but they came back in it with a 9-2 run. At the half it was only 47-42, though it looked much worse as Russ lingered with 6 of 17 shooting compared to the Spurs who were 7 of 11 as a team from three. Yeah, not great.
For OKC maybe the most promising thing was seeing LaMarcus Aldridge struggle. He was 33 of 44 in the first two games but here only had 24 points shooting 8 of 21. Russ kept shooting and mostly, but not always, missing. Durant made some hoops. Coming into the fourth they were only down 72-69.
Adams wasn’t getting hardly anything, he’d have only one field goal and his two points from the free throw line came in the final minute of the second quarter. However he still had a large defensive presence and hoovered in 11 rebounds.
Welcome to Loud City: “Steven Adams easily earns the Thunder Hustler award, contesting 15 shots and screening for three scores.”
OKC took the lead with a Serge triple with 7:54 left (after a crazy, off-balance three from Russ). Despite not having their usual rebounding dominance, the Thunder were finding ways to rally and a Russ jumper soon after meant they were four points up. But we know that this team hasn’t always had the best record holding late leads. Enter Kawhi Leonard. The eventual runner-up in the MVP voting checked back in with 7:11 left. It was he who levelled the game at the line and after back to back turnovers, one each to the Thunder superstars, the Spurs were up by seven late in the game. OKC fired a few more shots, Dion Waiters closed it to a two pointer but Leonard hauled in a massive rebound and made his free throws to put the win on ice. Leonard had 31 points, 9/17 FG.
From Yahoo Sports: “Had the Thunder been able to finish their defensive possession, they'd have had the ball and a chance to either tie the game or win it with the final shot of regulation. Instead, Leonard beat two men to the ball, somehow evaded Russell Westbrook's attempts to steal the ball from him, dribbled out of traffic and kicked it to Parker, who reset the offense, accepted the foul from Andre Roberson, stepped to the free-throw line and drained a pair to put the Spurs back up by four with 18.3 seconds remaining.”
A lot of this one came down to Westbrook and not in a good way. You can watch a decade of basketball and you won’t see many worse games where a player logs 31 PTS / 9 REB / 9 AST. But at 10/31 shooting he missed more field goals than Kevin Durant took and his defence, woah boy.
Anthony Slater of NewsOK: “This season, Westbrook -- the former Pac-12 defensive player of the year and arguably the most athletic point guard in NBA history -- has been bad on that end. It has nothing to do with ability and everything to do with spotty effort. Westbrook's three recurring issues are as follows: he jogs back, he gambles and fails to recover and he ignores opponents that aren't known as 3-point specialists. On Friday night, all three of those problems led to first quarter Spurs 3s.”
Russell Westbrook: “Too many shots. I think honestly I got do a better job, like I said before, of getting guys good shots. Steven [Adams] got one shot. I gotta get other guys involved to beat this team. Even though I had some shots I are, I gotta read and find way to get guys good shots. I’ll take the blame,”
GAME FOUR
With the possibility of going down 3-1 in the series, the whispers began that perhaps this would be Kevin Durant’s final home game for the Thunder. If that is to be the case – and it probably isn’t – then he left the faithful with one of the best nights they’ve ever witnessed from him.
The first half didn’t indicate what was to follow. It was modest from KD and modest from Westbrook too, who wouldn’t have a great shooting night but is more measured tactical approach led to 15 assists. Not a huge amount of offence there, in fact carrying a lot of the weight there was Kiwi Steve. He scored 12 points in the first half, he was definitely a whoooole lot more involved this game. Credit to Steve for making plays and also credit to Russ for getting him the ball.
But a 9-2 run gave the Spurs a ten points 1Q lead. That lead got up to 11 points early in the second. Yet Tim Duncan was really struggling, he had four fouls in the first 16 minutes of the game. Pretty soon he was out of the game’s rotation altogether. The bench did some nice things for them but as it went on the Spurs seemed to be more and more reliant on Tony Parker, LaMarcus Aldridge and Kawhi Leonard. Even the ball movement dried up and they found themselves playing more of an isolation game – remember that Russ had 15 assists? The Spurs had 12 as a team. Very un-Spursy.
Late in the half, Durant sunk a three pointer like a champ for the lead. The San Antonio then scored the last nine points of the half to regain that lead. And then it was Durant’s time. After shooting 4 of 12 in the first half, he just exploded. Man, what a game. Incredible. He was 10 of 13 in the second half but he saved the very best of that for the fourth quarter.
Dion Waiters also had a blinder. He put OKC in the lead late in the third but they couldn’t hold it into the break, Boris Diaw with a cold-blooded three to pad that thing out. It was he and Kanter that got the game tied before Durant had them in front from the line. Then he made a three. He did not let up from there. Frankly, it was almost intimidating to watch, this was almost up there with Steph Curry’s return the other day (but not quite because that’ll soon be legendary). After the Spurs had hit back regularly with each Thunder combo, they just ran out of it in the fourth. The Thunder ran away with it. The Thunder tied the game up. Durant scored 41 to tie his career playoff high, 17 of them in the 4Q which was enough to outscore the Spurs in that frame all by himself.
And the crowd… wow.
Steven Adams: “Couldn't hear a thing, man. Couldn't hear myself think or nothing. Just constant screaming. It was definitely the loudest. Especially after those big plays from those two. I almost fainted, bro.”
As for Adams had one of those career-high playoff scoring nights for himself too with 16 points. 6 of 8 field goals and even that was misleading. You notice that missed three pointer on Adams’ stat-line? Nothing crazy, just a 78 foot heave in the dying seconds of the third quarter, shouldn’t really count, even. Enes Kanter may be developing a three ball but Stevie’s got some work to do if he’s gonna add that range. The rest of what he did, though, was superb.
Daily Thunder: “Steven Adams was massive again. Basically: He’s influential, the Thunder win. He’s not, they don’t. He had 16 on 6-8 shooting.”
Thunder Digest: “Adams was excellent for OKC. After just getting one shot attempt in Game 3, the Thunder made an effort to get their young center involved early. He had a team high 12 points in the first half on 4-of-4 shooting while adding six rebounds. He finished the game with 16 points and 11 rebounds.”
Tim Duncan was held scoreless for the first time in his 249 game playoff career. Without a field goal attempt for the only time in his 1641 career games. Incredible, that. Now he only played 12 minutes and was in foul trouble but that only adds to how ineffective he was here. Against the younger, physical Adams, it wasn’t even a contest… although the least Steve could have done for a future Hall of Famer here would’ve been to help an old man up. Come on, dude.
Zach Lowe of ESPN went into clinical detail about the way in which Steven Adams has helped turn this series in his team’s direction (showing off his major value to the Thunder in the process, which they are absolutely aware of). Basically, the Thunder have started guarding the perimeter way better, pushing the Spurs inside to where they’re forced to work post-up and iso play:
“That's where Adams has been living for an astonishing 38 minutes per game over the past three battles, a full 13 minutes more than he logged on average during the season. Adams wouldn't be able to play that much had he not found ways to make himself an offensive threat -- methods that would translate into any team context, and little skills-within-skills that mesh snugly on a team with two uber stars who are going to have the ball almost all the time.”
That offensive threat? Stuff like this. Here’s Zachy Boy once again:
“Adams' discovery of a reliable path to points via one simple-looking cut changed the game, and maybe the series. The Thunder over the first three games had often used Roberson to set that same screen for Durant, and it didn't work; the Spurs just abandoned Roberson and doubled Durant. Adams short-circuited that idea, and the Spurs responded by switching that Adams/Durant pin-down for much of the second half.”
And as he wisely notes, the way that Adams has played allows Billy Donovan to plug him in with Enes Kanter in a ‘Stache Bros combination for extended minutes this series. They only played 127 minutes together all season and while they absolutely monstered the boards in those rare minutes, it wasn’t nearly so successful in terms of points production. That was always blamed on Kanter’s defence but Adams struggled at times against quick guards too, as many bigs do. With two rebounders there around the boards, there will be space elsewhere on the court. That they’re playing together now says two things. One is that Adams has surpassed Ibaka (for this series anyway) as their lynchpin defender. In the past Kanter was usually handcuffed to Ibaka for defensive reasons but now Donovan is comfortable with Adams holding that fort. The other thing is that it is made possible by Duncan’s troubles and also the way that Adams has commendably guarded LaMarcus Aldridge, getting significantly better on him from game three onwards. They played significant late minutes together in this one.
Here’s a bit on how they’ve defended LMA from Thunderous Intentions.
Of course, there’s only so well one can play on defence and every now and then something like this happens:
Following that belter, Steve saw even saw himself rise to fourth on Daily Thunder’s series player rankings. Up two spots and ahead of LaMarcus Aldridge, no joke there:
“Neither Westbrook nor Adams have had an individually better Round 2 than Aldridge thus far, but their strength as a duo is—aside from Durant’s lethal scoring–the most crucial factor in the Thunder turning the tables on the series. They’re now overwhelming Tim Duncan in the pick-and-roll game so badly that he pretty much just fouled and sat in Game 4. And once Duncan hits the bench, Westbrook feasts as both a distributor and rim attacker, since the other Spurs bigs can’t put up much resistance in the paint.”
WTLC also had a feature including a bit of Adams analysis. Do yourself a favour and give it a perusing through.
Ooh and not only all that, but there was a sighting of a legendary act as well. No, not KD getting all fired up, look behind him and you’ll see Steven Adams and Nick Collison’s famous stoic handshake.
GAME FIVE
OKC started on fire with the chance to go up in the series… defensively at least. After Durant was able to get his own rebound to open the scoring, the Spurs went and missed eight of their first nine field goals with three turnovers in there too. It was another game in which they’d started too slowly and while the Thunder weren’t exactly rolling yet themselves, they still led 9-2 nice and early. Adams with two early free throws.
However a couple threes and the game was right back within a bucket. A Boris Diaw layup briefly had SAS in front before the Thunder scored the last seven of the quarter to lead 22-16 – the highlight a swishing triple from the top of the key from Durant.
Adams looked really good once again. At some point he figured out his defensive coverages and with that he’s flourished, playing the best sustained ball of his young career – and it’s easy to forget how young he is. With Westbrook out there trying to get teammates involved, Adams was always going to get his looks on offence too. Having said that, how in the hell he got this to drop, we may never know.
The Spurs outscored the Thunder by 11 in the second to take the lead into half time. When Ibaka made a three with 3:08 left in 2Q, that didn’t look so likely but Tim Duncan got involved with a dunk for his first (of 5 total) points and from there the home team got hot. Kawhi Leonard put them in front and then Danny Green pushed it out with a triple.
Westbrook had six turnovers in the first half, the Thunder with 13 in total. He was scoring but he wasn’t dishing like he wanted to, like he was trying to. So after the break, probably at the request of his coach, he came out super aggressive looking to get his own shots. It was a brilliant move, eventually. In the short term it looked like more of the same with the Spurs up by double figures for long periods. Adams could have cut that but missed four straight free throws – luckily he got away with the second pair as David West fouled Enes Kanter on the rebound and the Turk nailed both. Then a bit of Russ, some KD and a late Randy Foye 3pter and suddenly OKC were down only three with a quarter to play.
Durant hit a three to tie it at 78-all. The Spurs got back on top, nursing a five point lead. Adams made a layup and a driving dunk. Kawhi did some things. Spurs lead 86-82. Kanter ties it at 88-all. Then Kanter puts the Thunder in the lead before Tony Parker ties it at 90-all. 95 seconds remain in the game.
A lot has been made of the Spurs and their old players. They’re the oldest team in the NBA and also definitively one of the best, and while every year there are suggestions that they’ll take a backwards step, that hasn’t happened yet. But it will eventually. This may have been Tim Duncan’s final home playoff game for all we know. Here’s Berry Tramel of NewsOK:
“The Thunder-Spurs cotillion hits the homestretch with Game 5 Tuesday night, and the series is just what we thought it would be. The fresh legs of the young Thunder, a team that counts 27-year-old Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook as the old guys, against the wile and guile of the old Spurs, a team that counts the 30-year-old Aldridge as the pup. The Spurs have won the two games in which both teams have had at least three days rest. The Thunder has won the two games in which both teams had just one day of rest. Can OKC wear down the ancient Spurs?”
At 33 years old, Tony Parker is hardly over the hill. There’s a tendency to see older players when they have a bad game and think that this is the new normal for them, that this is what they’ve declined into. In actual fact, they just had bad games. Tony Parker may well have 25 & 12 next game but in the clutch of #5 he really bricked. After tying the game, he missed a 17-footer for the lead. He then drew a foul on Adams with the score at 92-90 but he rimmed his second free throw to leave his side in deficit. With 11 seconds left he missed a 20-footer for the lead. Hardly ideal. After that first miss, there had been a moment of real controversy. Danny Green fouled Durant to send him to the line, where he made it 92-91, making both his shots. Yet on closer inspection it really looked like Kiwi Steve had pushed Green into KD. After what followed, it proved a pretty valuable call.
But this was Westbrook’s game and he deserves the spotlight. Russ turned up wearing some questionable denim but he progressed to score 35 points with 11 rebounds and 9 assists. A shade under ten secs on the clock, he gets the inbounds and takes a sharp cut to dodge Kawhi Leonard’s reach-in. Up he goes for the layup, and-one. Down by four the Spurs couldn’t get a quick shot to go down and the Thunder go up 3-2 in the series with the chance to close at home on Friday NZ Time.
To be fair, Kawhi probably had fouled him but as this series has shown – and as Gregg Popovich himself said – not every call gets made. The Thunder closed this one out with a superb second half performance and put themselves in a position to win, which they dutifully did. Durant also scored 23, Steve with 12 & 12 and Kanter scored 8 with 13 rebounds. For the Spurs it was Kawhi that lead the assault with 26 points. Aldridge and Green both scored 20.
The major difference was in how the Thunder just slaughtered in rebounds. But compared to the dominance of the first couple games, LaMarcus Aldridge’s down turn has been a factor as well, he’s scored 64 points on his last 60 shots. On the other hand, this was a KD/Russ game for the ages. Between them they scored or assisted on 80 of the 95 points that OKC scored.
Daily Thunder: “Let’s talk about this Adams-Kanter thing. People act like this is some new revelation. They actually started a number of games together last season when the Thunder were hit with a rash of injury. And Billy Donovan played the duo on opening night against the Spurs, to very solid success. It’s not something new. It’s a strategic deployment of resources, and one the Spurs can’t sort out.”
And again: “I kind of like this discussion right now: Who’s the Thunder’s third best player? It’s Steven Adams, right?”
OTHER STUFF
The day of game five was also the day Stephen Curry was unveiled as the NBA’s first ever unanimous MVP. We all knew it was coming, hence it was unanimous, but the Thunder acquitted themselves well there with both Russ and KD finishing in the top five. That’s pretty solid there, lads.
Plus if it were up to Steven Adams they may have finished even higher…
Next year, bro. Next year.
Oh, and about those fans:
And before we finish, you know in the playoffs the media attention really ramps up. Yet there are fewer teams and players to talk about as they progress so what we get is these more in focus looks at the guys that hang around. When you are as well spoken and funny as Steven Adams is you can bet that a lot of that is coming your way. First of all was a rags-to-riches profile on ESPN which is well worth a read (although the bingo story got mentioned here when it actually happened, #HumbleBrag).
There are a bunch of NZ angle things that we could source too but who wants to read some joker of a newspaper talking about how much money he might make and whether or not it’ll be more than Russell Coutts gets? There is real live basketball to write about instead. Although on the subject of cash money, Matt Moore of CBS Sports had this to say:
“Adams has proven he's going to be worth just as much or more than Kanter when he's a restricted free agent next summer.”
Or this thing from Jenni Carlson and NewsOK, about the adjustments that Steve has made to playing Tim Duncan:
He walked over to Adams during a lull in play — and struck up a conversation.
"Hey, man," Adams remembers Duncan saying. "How are you?"
"Oh," Adams thought, "what a nice guy!"
Adams eased up on Duncan — and promptly got destroyed.
Lesson learned.
"What I'm doing now is obviously ignoring him," Adams said, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes steeled. "Don't listen to him."
Another example would be this curious tidbit. For the record, who in the hell considers cake to be bread anyway? Of course it ain’t. 100% with the boy Steve here.
