Spurs-Thunder prediction

In the 1st round the Thunder beat the Mavs in 5 games and only the game they lost was really even close. The Thunder were easily the better team but that didn't stop them from picking fights, committing technical fouls and working just as hard on their bulletin board material as their defensive game plan. Some may like their fire, their playoff intensity but I do not agree. I think they gave their opponent a chance instead of just playing ball. Will this intensity beat the Spurs? Nope. Going out and playing smart basketball might but chest thumping and yelling at the fans won't get it done. OKC is playing the hell out of 7 guys: Durant (38MPG), Westbrook (35MPG), Ibaka (32MPG), Adams (27MPG), Waiters (26MPG), Roberson (23MPG), Kanter (20.5MPG). The Thunder never did figure out how to work Cameron Payne into the lineup and now he seems useless, Randy Foye has been getting some time but hard to imagine he helps out much going forward, Kyle Singler was overused during the season but now seems underused, Anthony Morrow and Nick Collison have totally fallen out of the rotation. Oh well. The Thunder will rely heavily on Durant and Westbrook no matter who else is on the team.

The Spurs rolled through the Grizzlies, playing four games that were more like hard practices than playoff games. Kawhi Leonard is arguably the best player in the game right now (and the only Spurs averaging more than 30MPG so far in these playoffs) and Lamarcus Aldridge fits in nicely in the new look Spurs, but while the rest of the cast is nice, these are the only two unimpeachably awesome Spurs right now. The Spurs are solid and consistent but not necessarily overwhelming right now and what the Popvich game plan is most susceptible to is the wildly unpredictable statistical freak performance, which OKC is quite capable of doling out. Tony Parker is only shooting 40% from the floor with a 19:8 (asst:to), these are not the most inspiring numbers from a floor leader in the playoffs. Duncan and Ginobli used to be rocks but now they're just hard and slow. David West gave up a lot of money to play with the Spurs but he's getting so little playing time now, its hard to imagine he makes a serious difference. Boris Diaw and Patty Mills are each going to play a major role, are they ready for it?

Though I wondered about the Spurs depth, the Thunder depth is not nearly as good. No one thinks Billy Donovan is as strong a coach as Greg Popovich. The Spurs hold home court advantage. Normally Durant and Westbrook are the two best players on the court but in this series Kawhi and Aldridge trump that edge. The Spurs are generally well rested after breezing through the 1st round, the Thunder are agitated and seems sucked into their own mind games rather than playing their best basketball.

So how do the Thunder win this series? As I said, the one chink in the Spur armor is a single player having a outlier performance creating an unforeseen imbalance. That player for the Thunder is Serge Ibaka. Kawhi will counter Durant's awesomeness, the interior D of Duncan, West and Diaw will counter Westbrook and Kanter. Serge Ibaka, on the other hand, kinda has a free reign in this series to knock down big shots and make defensive stops. The Spurs are the Spurs: they don't worry about 'adjustments', they just play their game without hesitation and it tends to win more often than not. But the Thunder will need to score points sneaking through the cracks and being flawless on the break. Ibaka is the one with outlier potential.

The Thunder will play hard and win games but I like the Spurs in 7. I think the home team takes each game and while I like OKC to win 3 games, I think the Spurs dominate their 4 homes games.