San Antonio Spurs rally to register a 101-98 win in Game-1 against the Oklahoma City Thunder: Fourth Quarter Breakdown
On Sunday night, the San Antonio Spurs continued on their winning ways and extended their winning streak to 19 games after they defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder 101-98 in Game 1 at the AT&T Center.
After trailing in the first three quarters, the Spurs got down to execution in the fourth quarter of the game.
Manu Ginobili erupted for 11 points of his 26 points in that frame. The Spurs were trailing by 9 points, 72-61, to start of the fourth quarter but a telling of from head coach; Gregg Popovich brought out a side in the Spurs players
which had been missing on the entire night.
"I talked to them about they've got to get a little bit uglier, get a little more nasty, play with more fibre and take it to these guys," Popovich said. "Meaning you have to drive it, you have to shoot it."
Along with Ginobili, the rest of the Spurs were also extremely resourceful the fourth quarter. They outscored the Thunder 39-27 in the fourth quarter making 13 of their 17 field goal attempts in that period.
Something that was expected from the Spurs was their ability to hold their own on the defensive end in the fourth quarter. Stephen Jackson was instrumental with his defence on Durant and amped it up especially in the second half.
Jackson played a big part in reducing KD to only six points in the second half, all of them coming in the form of free throws.
OKC dug themselves into a hole. They were leading by a respectable difference to start the period; however they were unable to close the Spurs offence that erupted with 15-3 run to get ahead in the game.
Thunder were not able to find their shooting rhythm at all in this quarter. They attempted a total of 17 shots in the period and only managed to knock down 7 of them. To go along with the poor shooting, they also had 4 turnovers
which led to their downfall.
After taking their final lead at the 6:19 mark of the fourth, the Spurs team never allowed OKC to make their way back into the game. They went onto lead by as much as 10 points till there were about just 1 minute left in the game.
In the first 36 minutes, the Spurs had not been that dominant with their drives to the basket, but in the fourth it was a completely different story. They attempted 18 free throws in this period and knocked down 13 of them.
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