Last night's Thunder-Spurs game was one of the best regular season games I've ever sat through the entirety of. I had been greatly anticipating this game for several reasons. Last year's Thunder-Spurs matchup in the Western Conference Finals was one of the most competitive playoffs series from recent memory. It was The New Kids on the Block versus The Usual Suspects. The two best Western Conference regular season records were being pitted against one another. Both teams featured an exciting, uptempo style of basketball and both teams featured a "Big Three." Last night's game was a grudge match for the older San Antonio team that had been dethroned by the New Kids on the Block just 5 months earlier. And more importantly, both teams would be on equal footing as both teams would be playing without the third member of their Big Three--the Spurs' Manu Ginobili was injured and the Thunder's James Harden had recently been traded. Both of these players having shared similar roles in being playmakers brought off of the bench made the game even more serendipitous. Harden and Ginobili had been pivotal swing players that each team had to make special preparations for in last year's playoffs. How would the Spurs' defense adjust to the Thunder's secondary line-up now that they no longer had Harden? What different problems would Kevin Martin, Harden's replacement, present? And on the Thunder's end, would the Spurs compensate for Ginobili's absence and risk playing Tony Parker and Tim Duncan for longer minutes than usual? How well could they be expected to shoot after logging more than 34 minutes each the night before?
Admittedly, its only the beginning of the season, so the longterm importance of these early games are minimized. But each team knows they might see the other again in the playoffs. This makes every regular season matchup a learning opportunity. Here's what I learned: This Thunder team will live or die based on the mental errors of Russell Westbrook. Despite having a game-changing athleticism, despite having some of the best possible complimentary pieces in the entire league around him, Westbrook was still outplayed by Tony Parker for two reasons: discipline and patience. Parker did not shoot well for most of the game. He shot 6-for-13 on the night. However, for the entire game Parker let his shots come to him and didn't force anything. With the exception of one miraculous fade away 3 he had to throw up to tie the game, none of Parker's shots were unreasonable. Westbrook? There literally came a point last night when I was cringing everytime Westbrook touched the ball. I planned watching this game with the intention of heavily scrutinizing Kevin Martin and comparing how well he stacked up to James Harden within the Thunder's offense. I had low expectations, but Martin was actually pretty good! He was incredibly efficient (his hallmark) and shot 4-for-10--not a great percentage, but he didn't miss a free throw and finished the game with 15 points including a game-tieing 3-pointer with 3:32 left to go. Harden's most impressive skill--passing--was what critics said the Thunder would miss the most from him. Yet, Martin succeeded in getting other guys involved and finished with 5 assists. Considering it was their first game together, I expect for Scott Brooks to get Martin even more acclimated and productive within OKC's offense as the season advances. But back to Westbrook. With 28.3 seconds remaining all I thought was, "ok--Durant time. He's great at these late game shots. Hopefully, Westbrook doesn't shoot the ball." And he didn't--Kawhi Leonard's high-octane defense got San Antonio the ball back. But I still found myself blaming Westbrook. Probably because after the first quarter, he shot 3-FOR-15 FROM THE FLOOR. NBA.com blamed Westbrook for giving a "lazy pass," but if we're being fair and honest, he can't be blamed--the turnover resulted as a combination of good defense by Leonard and Durant doing a bad job of coming to the ball. You can see for yourself at the 3:15 mark of this highlight reel from last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaYOnYdyzKM. So that wasn't Westbrook's fault. The next play was. And the next play completely summed up for me the difference between a player like Westbrook and a player like Parker. Parker sticks to the game plan. Westbrook improvises whenever he feels like it. Parker trusts his teammates. Westbrook forgets he has teammates. Westbrook goes for the flashy play. Parker goes for the win. That play was 100% drawn up for Parker and it was executed perfectly because he ran off the 2-3 screens, got hit with the ball where he wanted it and then the probability of him making it (which probably was already higher after he hit a 3 falling out of bounds just seconds earlier) skyrocketed because no one was guarding him. Just humor me and WATCH what Westbrook does: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqu1sVzOvVs. It was vintage San Antonio and vintage Gregg Popovich. And Westbrook following the ball and gambling for a steal as opposed to, say, sticking to his man who had just tied the game on the previous play? Vintage Russell Westbrook. It's moments like these when I wonder if it might've been wiser to give the Harden that 5-year deal and trade Westbrook. First off, for what teams are willing to pay point guards these days, Oklahoma would've gotten more in return for trading Westbrook than they did for Harden. Second off, as was evident in the previous night when he had a career-high 12 assists, Harden LIKES getting his teammates involved. If Harden can notch 12 assists in playing starter's minutes when passing to the likes OMER ASIK and JEREMY LIN, imagine what he could do with Westbrook's minutes and the Thunder's roster.
