Oklahoma City Thunder's road win in San Antonio a step closer to championship ... - SportingNews.com

They just kept coming, and after doing so, it’s now fair to wonder just how far the Thunder can go.

Every time it looked like the top-seeded Spurs were set to do the expected and use their vast well of experience to subdue the up-and-coming Thunder over the course of 48 minutes, Oklahoma City just responded and responded and responded. And in doing so, they managed to pull out a 108-105 Game 5 win on the Spurs’ home turf, the kind of victory that shows that not only do the Thunder keep coming, but they might well have already arrived.

“We never just thought that we are supposed to wait our turn,” star forward Kevin Durant said. “We thought we could go and take everything. Coach emphasizes that every time we have the opportunity to step on the floor, it is a great opportunity to get better and grow and fight toward our dream. We all do that and we been together so long, we got to keep pressing. We got a long way to go still, we’ve just got to take it a day at a time.”

The series is not over, of course. The win gives the Thunder a 3-2 lead, with Game 6 scheduled for Wednesday in Oklahoma City. But the Thunder have now completely turned this series on its head, dating back to the Spurs’ Game 2 blowout victory, which was San Antonio’s 20th in a rowâ€"a win that left most with the feeling that the Spurs just might be unstoppable as they took a 2-0 advantage after sweeping their first two playoff rounds. That was six days ago, however. Much has changed.

Consider that the Thunder came out in Game 5 looking every bit as young as their leading trio’s birth certificates stateâ€"Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are 23 and James Harden is 22. Game 4 hero Serge Ibaka, himself only 22, was yanked after 44 seconds for picking up two ridiculously quick fouls. OKC’s first 10 possessions went as follows: miss, miss, miss, turnover, miss, turnover, miss, miss, miss and miss.

At the end of the first quarter, Durant, Westbrook and Harden combined for 13 points on 3-for-12 shooting. But the Thunder were winning, clinging to a 26-21 lead.

In the second quarter, things didn’t go much better for Oklahoma City’s triumvirate, and at halftime, they were languishing with just 22 points on 7-for-23 shooting. Durant didn’t even take a shot. Quite out of the blue, though, the Thunder got eight second-quarter points in four minutes of play from reserve shooter Daequan Cook, who had scored all of two points in the entire series. Combine that with the seven points Ibaka scored when he checked back into the game after the early hook, and the outstanding first half defense (39.5 percent shooting for the Spurs) and, yes, the Thunder were winning, 52-44.

Oklahoma City Thunder guard James Harden hit three clutch 3-pointers in the fourth quarter of his team's 108-103 Game 5 win over the Spurs. (AP Photo)

From the outset of the third quarter, it looked like the Spurs were prepared to level a knockout blow, prepared to remind the Thunder why they had not won in San Antonio since November 2009. The Spurs came out of the locker room, as they had done in Game 1, with a big run. This time it was 18-4, enough to give the Spurs a 62-56 lead and every bit of momentum. But then Westbrook drove to the basket, drew a hip check from Tim Duncan and hit the deck. He also hit the layup, and then the free throw, sparking the Westbrook-Durant combination to a 10-for-15, 24-point third-quarter performance, which was punctuated by a Durant shot at the buzzer. When the third quarter was over, the Thunder still were winning, 81-72.

There was more in the fourth. With 5:17 to play, Harden made a 3-pointer and drew a foul to put the Thunder up, 101-88. But by 1:54, the Spurs had gone on an 11-0 run, pulled within two points and forced the Thunder into the kind of mistakes you’d expect from youngsters in such a high-pressure situation: not getting the ball to Durant, a silly backcourt violation on an inbound pass from Harden to Westbrook, an offensive foul on Westbrook, a turnover on an inbound play after Durant was trapped in the corner.

But on the Spurs’ final possession, with a 106-103 lead, the Thunder did what they’ve been able to do while delivering San Antonio its first three-game loss streak of the seasonâ€"clamp down defensively. The best San Antonio could do with the game on the line was a well-contested, off-balance jumper for Ginobili. He missed. Durant was fouled. He sank the game-sealing free throws for his game-high 27 points.

As far as youth, talent and athleticism, the Thunder clearly had the edge in this series from the beginning. The only question would be the mental fortitude the Spurs have developed over the last decade. In Game 5, the Thunder showed they’ve got a little toughness of their own.

“There’s physical effort and there’s mental effort,” coach Scott Brooks said. “We all have enough in our tanks to be physical for 48 minutes, that’s easy to do. You can play back-to-back and this year, we played back-to-back-to-back, and we played five in six nights. But the mental effort is what gets you to win games against this team, because they keep coming at you. They’ve got great experience, one of the best coaches of all sports. And we know we have to play every possession and every position. Our guys have done a good job with that.”

There are still, potentially, two games left in this series. At this point, the Thunder are no better than they were last year, when they also reached the Western Conference finals. In Game 6, they’re facing the team that, including the playoffs, has been the best road team in the NBA this year. This series is not over, and ultimately, Oklahoma City’s goal lies in winning four games in mid-to-late June.

Still, after this one, there is a sense that, by going on the road and getting a game they absolutely had to have, the Thunder made some level of progress that shows they are close, very close, to being championship worthy.