Spurs collar Game 4, tie series
San Antonio Spurs 103, Oklahoma City 82
Western finals tied, 2-2
The Thunder will play Oklahoma City's 200th combined game of the 2024-25/2025-26 seasons on Tuesday night.
The Spurs look like they're good for about 200 games on Tuesday, total, if you'll let them. No injuries, no foul trouble, all ball? To this lineup, 200 looks easy.
The series is even through four games, but has it really been? Technically not, Spurs outscored Thunder by four points so far. Clapping back at the champs is injury caveat: De'Aaron Fox's deadened play through the first three contests of this series paired with Dylan Harper's adductor injury to double-decimate San Antonio's attack. Twenty percent of San Antonio's burst was lost in Game 3 while Fox teetered, Harper sat.
They stood straight up in Game 4, combined for 19 points and 15 break-beginning boards and six assists. Thunder counterparts Jalen Williams (hamstring) and Ajay Mitchell (calf) did not suit.
Different dynamics, similar merits: Williams and Mitchell aren't rolling to the goal as often as Harper and Fox, but the OKC pair's here, I'll take that-abilities late in broken possessions expels pressure and responsibility away from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (19 points on 15 shots in Game 4).
Shai, who cannot score 104 points per game, missed his first two shots and then sat and watched for a minute with his Thunder down double-digits in the first quarter. This sort of simmering rest is colloquially known as "shoppin' for raincoats."
Cason Wallace (five points on 2-8 from the floor, one assist in 20 minutes) started for Ajay Mitchell who used to start for Jalen Williams. This meant Oklahoma City's thinning herd of role players defined their full worth on finding and freeing themselves for spot-up opportunities (the entire battle) then connecting on looks (all that counts).
In the first quarter of Friday's Game 3, four Spurs turnovers led to 10 three-point attempts for OKC. The champs took half as many threes in Game 4's first quarter, making one, the Spurs only turning it over once. The visitors desperately called for new outlook to step into a scoring and/or playmaking role and in tripped Jared McCain, 1-10 shooting and four points in Game 4, zero assists in 24 minutes.
Jared is not what we'd call, at this moment in his career, a "passer."
