This year’s Western Conference Finals for pure
basketball fans is one of the most anticipated series in some time. It features undoubtedly the two best teams in
the Western Conference and in my opinion the two best teams in basketball with
San Antonio matching up against Oklahoma City.
The series consists of two high scoring efficient teams that should
provide great drama for the entire length of the series.
This series will
come down to a few key matchups:
1.
The Point Guards
The point guard matchup in this series
places two premier players against one another.
While Tony Parker will almost definitely not be guarding Westbrook, that
duty should be handled by Danny Green, there is a good chance Westbrook will be
guarding Parker. For OKC to win in this
series, Westbrook will need to decisively win this matchup, he will need to
force Parker into tough shots constantly and get many easy shots himself while
also shooting well. Westbrook probably
needs to shoot above 45% from the field while holding Parker to under that
percentage. For the Spurs Parker just
needs to hold his own and have one or two games where he elevates his game and
ends up with a 30-7 or 22-13 performance.
2.
The 6th Men
Ginobili
vs new Ginobili with an awesome beard one of the more compelling matchups in
these playoffs. Manu has shown time and
time again the ability to raise his game to the level necessary, and while
Harden has seemed to do it in these playoffs he doesn’t have the track
record. Overall though Harden has had a
better season and has become seemingly the closer for this Oklahoma City
team. For Oklahoma City to win Harden needs
to shoot well and in the end of close games take over. He has to become the teams point guard and
get into the lane to get to the free throw line and set up open looks for
Durant and Westbrook. While Manu has to
be the player he always is scoring at an efficient clip, and really leading the
team’s extremely dangerous 2nd unit.
3.
The Stars
Duncan vs Durant, while these two
players will not be matched up against each other, their importance to their
team is the greatest. Durant in this
series for Oklahoma City to win is going to have to make the leap from
superstar to transcendent player. He is
going to have to be the team’s leader and truly dominant scorer. Considering there should be large stretches
of the series where OKC is playing small it means Durant will have to pick up
the slack in the rebounding area as well.
Durant probably needs to finish the series averaging 35 point and 10
rebounds per game while shooting over 55% from the field and 40% from 3.
Duncan needs to be the player he has
been these entire playoffs for the Spurs to win. He needs to really take advantage down low
when Perkins isn’t on the floor for OKC, and hit the midrange shot when he is
on the floor. The most important thing
Duncan will provide will be his defensive contributions. He needs to patrol the paint and prevent
Durant, Westbrook and Harden from getting into the lane. This shows the problem with Perkins, while he
can best matchup with Duncan defensively for OKC, he allows Duncan to stay in
the paint and only worry about protecting the rim when OKC is on offense. If Duncan averages his 20-10 while patrolling
the paint then the Spurs will be in good shape.
4.
Role Players
The
reason OKC has to win the other matchups decisively to win the series and their
star players need to elevate themselves is that the Spurs role players are
significantly better than OKC. The Spurs
can rely on the contributions of Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, Boris Diaw, Tiago
Splitter, Gary Neal, Stephen Jackson, Matt Bonner and possibly even DeJuan
Blair to play well for them. OKC on the
other hand can rely on Thabo Sefolosha, Kendrick Perkins, Nick Collision and
Serge Ibaka to play good defense, while providing vary little else in regards
to their role players. Ibaka will be the
key for OKC, he is going to have to hit his jump shot consistently to give OKC another
offensive threat and play good defense when matchup with Duncan.
5.
Coaching
Legendary
Greg Popovich vs the still young Scott Brooks, is another area where the Spurs
figure to have a significant advantage.
While Brooks has down an admirable job in getting OKC to their current
position, he is nowhere near the in-game or in-series tactician that Popovich
has proven to be. Coach Pop has pushed
all the right buttons for this all season and doesn’t look to stop now. For OKC to have a chance Brooks will have to
hold up admirably and make sure he doesn’t play into Popovich’s hand too much
as Popovich utilizes his deep bench.
Prediction:
Spurs in 5 games. While I expect the entire series to be
competitive I do not see it lasting very long.
I believe that when it comes to late game execution the Spurs will be
more equipped to excel with their multiple options, as the Spurs proved against
the Clippers teams they can shutdown teams with limited options at the end of
games.
Stay Hungry My Friends
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