Projected line: 207 points | San Antonio by 8 points
The Game 1 of this series was brutal, with the tremendous comeback from the Spurs, who quickly came from being down by 9 points to be up by 10 points in a very short span. I think that it will be extremely hard for Oklahoma City to have a new opportunity to win on the road in this series. The key moment of that game was in a timeout in the 4th quarter where coach Popovich asked his players to show some nastiness and they responded pretty well by attacking unmercifully the paint.
In the 1st half and until the 3rd quarter, the Spurs didn't perform at their normal level offensively, as they were hesitating a lot, they overdribbled in some occasions and on others, they simply held the ball too much, with the fatal outcome of that lack of confidence being not only the fact that they couldn't get good looks on the basket, but especially their lack of turnovers! At the break, San Antonio had already committed 14 turnovers that were transformed in 15 points to the Thunder. Still, the Spurs shot 47% FG while Oklahoma City shot 41% FG, with that being the reason why they were just trailing at halftime by one point.
Part of the problem was due to a small adjustment of Oklahoma City in their pick-and-roll defense, as the Thunder would immediately go into a zone formation when the Spurs hinted they were about to run the pick-and-roll. Perkins or Ibaka would slide to the angle where Parker or Ginobili were looking to go, then this allowed Westbrook enough time to go around the screener and get back on Parker quick enough to block his shot or force either of the the guards to make a difficult pass.
In fact, that's one of the main reasons why Parker had a terrible first half, as he failed to adapt to this new look from the Thunder defense. Suddenly, the red hot Spurs offense was stagnant! According to mysynergy, San Antonio shot 1-7 FG in ISO plays, with the surprise in here not being their poor shooting, but the fact that they had 8 ISO plays in a game! Not coincidentally, all those ISO plays occurred in first three quarters of the game, with 7 of them happening during the 1st half.
Ginobili was the only Spurs player that performed at his standards on the offensive end, but still San Antonio survived despite a subpar game from their spot up shooters! San Antonio shot just 9-23 FG on spot up plays, with Leonard 3-9 FG, Green 0-6 FG and Bonner 0-2 FG! Only Neal stepped up his game by shooting 5-9 FG!
Onto today's game, with the P&R defense from the Thunder figured out, San Antonio will be "nasty" since the start of this game and so, I don't believe that Oklahoma City will be able to hold the Spurs offense through the first quarters of the game like they did in Game 1! Note that in that fourth quarter, San Antonio attempted a total of 18 free throws, while prior to that they managed a meager seven attempts at the charity stripe.
On the other side, Oklahoma City went small as expected by playing Durant in the PF position for most of the second half. Coach Brooks decided to rotate the center position between Ibaka, Perkins and Collison. Ibaka didn't play a single minute in the last quarter and Brooks recognized that he should play more minutes, so we can expect Ibaka to be on the floor late in the game today. But Popovich will easily counter this move, as he can play Duncan who torched Ibaka in Game 1 when the two players went head to head or if Brooks decides to play Perkins and Ibaka together, then Diaw will be on the floor ready to torch the Thunder defense, as note that despite all the struggles from the Spurs in Game 1, Diaw had 4-6 FG and 4 assists in 22 minutes of play.
Like the Spurs, I expect Oklahoma City to be more aggressive tonight, especially from Harden, who played an uncharacteristic game, as he struggled from the floor and couldn't get to the line. For the first time this season he didn't a free throw! The pace of Game 1 was fast with a pace factor of 94.14 and with both teams using small lineups once again, I don't expect the pace to change dramatically for tonight. Both teams will shoot better from the field, especially the Spurs, while the Thunder should get some more trips to the FT line.
Still, I believe San Antonio will improve more from Game 1 than Oklahoma City will, especially with coach Popovich being more than ready to counter any kind of move the Thunder try to perform. Therefore, I expect a comfortable win for San Antonio for today and so, I'll take them in here. As I expect an offensive improvement for both teams, I'll also take the Over in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 705/706 Over 202 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 706 San Antonio Spurs (-4,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on 5Dimes
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