Spurs - Thunder Game Six Top 40 Takeaways

40) Not shockingly, the Spurs didn't exactly roll over and die, and built an 18-point lead that would have seemed insurmountable against any other team

39) The NBA Finals is going to be a letdown after these games

38) The Spurs were fine as long as they scored 63 points per half (as they did in the first)

37) Stephen Jackson was balls nasty tonight and ensured his employment in the Association for at least another two years, but he picked a bad time to finally miss from the arc

36) Tim Duncan's deference to shoot is starting to look more suspicious than moral

35) Seattle Fan doesn't want to hear this, and Boston Fan will pule even harder than usual, but the Thunder's home court advantage is better than any other team in the Association

34) For a big dude and a physical presence, Kendrick Perkins is surprisingly diffident around the cup

33) It's very hard for Boris Diaw to draw a charge, since he's so flabby that he never really looks stable at any moment

32) Gregg Popovich more or less deported Tiago Splitter after his third quarter foul

31) The Spurs Go Small hardly seems like a sentence you'd ever say, but it seemed to activate Duncan

30) Durant's block of Kawhi Leonard's dunk showed just how far he's come as a defender

30) Perkins led a 3-on-2 fast break that converted, and not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm not sure another center in the league does that

29) The Spurs have clear and loud complaint for the officiating, but as usual, the better team won

28) Jackson made his fifth three of the night, then got a technical that made Reggie Miller go nuts, since it was how he played his entire damned career

27) After Durant made like the best seven foot point guard ever to get a Sefalosha three, Jackson hit yet another three, because this game was just played at a flat out insane level

26) Durant for the go-ahead three with 1:35 left in the third redefined unfair, that a 7-footer is just that pure from 25 feet from the hoop

25) Parker's spin and make with a minute left in the third is a highlight clip in any other game, but in this one it was just another play

24) Durant actually missed a free throw tonight, just to prove he still can

23) The only thing that I would have changed about this series was the flopping, and the fact that Reggie Miller was paid to watch and talk about it

22) Duncan's going to make bank shots in the paint for five years after he dies

21) Derek Fisher's still got a big make or two left in him, but don't be surprised if he doesn't have any in the next round

20) Westbrook is the only man on the planet who can stop Durant

19) This Harden fellow does not seem at all worried about pressure

18) Any lesser team than the Spurs would have gotten on the bus in the third, let alone kept this a game until late

17) The only effective Spurs defense in the fourth was to give Perkins room and dare him to shoot

16) The Spurs missed multiple shots that could have made the last seconds very, very tense... but when you shoot FTs as well as OKC does, just playing is probably your best bet

15) The Thunder won this game, much more than the Spurs losing it, which is hard to say for a team losing an 18 point lead

14) Kevin Durant played all 48 minutes tonight, which is going to hurt him in, I don't know, a decade or so

13) I can't thank Paul Allen enough for keeping Durant out of his employment, since he'd have been on his third surgery and second drug addiction by now

12) As much as I'd love to see OKC roll the ECF champion, and will pick them to, life doesn't always follow logic

11) Please remember that Durant is 23 years old, and very likely to get, gulp, better for another couple of years

10) If you are looking for a Spurs goat tonight. it has to be Manu Ginobili, but blaming him after Game Five just seems patently unfair

9) The Spurs won 20 games in a row, then lost four in a row, which seems just all kinds of nuts

8) I'm really sorry to see TNT leave the playoff coverage for another year, because their coverage, with the exception of Miller, is just so much better than the Lemur's

7) I was expecting this series to be one of the best things ever, and it did not disappoint

6) If this series would have gone seven, I still think the Thunder might have won it, just by judging how the games were going, and how dominant Durant was becoming

5) This series was won by the Thunder in the third quarter, by erasing the lead and making everything that followed seem inevitable

4) You have to respect how Perkins rose from the dead after the first two games of this series

3) James Harden shot 14 of 22 from the arc in this series, which is to say, James Harden is nuts

2) Playing every other day might be the single biggest reason why the Thunder won this, and the single biggest reason why the Spurs will keep the team intact for next year, despite all of the obvious torch passing talk

1) If you didn't love this series, you just don't love hoop, sports or life... and yes, we have now entered a new era of NBA power