Spurs - Thunder Game Two: Can We End This In Less Than Four Games?

Spurs = Tanks, Thunder = Grass

Tonight in San Antonio, the Spurs did something more than beat the Thunder. They more or less ended their will to compete as a team.

Oh, the Thunder still tried; they didn't just flat out quit on this one. But they stopped setting crisp screens, closing out on three point shooters, making multiple passes on offensive possessions, and doing all of the little things that show you that a team is really into the contest, trusting in their teammates to do the right thing, or doing much other than padding their own numbers.

By the end of the third quarter, OKC was running hero drives to nowhere, barking at the refs, spiking the basketball, and more or less doing everything possible to get a technical to show they cared. Their play wasn't doing it, and neither was their coaching.

How bad was it? Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook shot a combined 13 for 40, with 7 assists and 5 turnovers. They couldn't buy a make from the three point arc, or do anything but keep belching them up. It was a 14 point game at the half, and then the Spurs shot something like 80% from the floor in the third, all while actually running plays and clock. It was, in short, an evisceration, and like any of those in hoop, it was work to watch. Hard work. That I'm not terribly interested in doing again, and I picked the Spurs to win this series. And I wrote and filed all of this while the game was going on. With a lot of time on the clock.

This is the second straight series in which the Spurs have made watching basketball about as dramatic as watching tanks against corn stalks. TNT's analysts were reduced to discussing the Eastern Conference Finals; you know, the one that isn't on their network. And it's hard not to start to resent the Spurs, even though they are playing beautiful, back-cutting, unselfish and optimal basketball, just because it looks so elemental and inevitable.

It's rare that you get to the Final Four stage of the NBA playoffs and look as hopeless as the Thunder have so far in this series. Remember, they were 4-0 against the Spurs this year, and it's not as if this is their first trip to the post-season; the best parts of this team tested the Heat in the Finals a couple of years ago. Garbage time started with 14 minutes left, and the Spurs up 27. And it didn't even look like the Spurs were trying all that hard.

At this point, despite the fact that we're only going to get 9 to 14 more NBA games before Halloween, I'm ready to just root for the Spurs to sweep and get this bad ball off my television. There's just not much in the way of fun in blowouts, and talented players who aren't playing as a team.

Game Three is on Sunday. It'll be closer than this, because, well, math. But if you'd rather skip it and mow the grass, or clean the gutters, or check out the first round games on your DVR, I won't argue with your priorities.