The Thunder struck; NBA Finals are Next

Somewhere in San Antonio, be it in somebody’s basement or in some large warehouse, are thousands upon thousands of “I Want Some Nasty” t-shirts with bleak futures as dishrags.

Turns out the signature phrase of the 2012 NBA Western Conference finals was uttered by Gregg Popovich once again, but this one doesn’t have much of a future as a fashion statement.

“We’re in trouble” was what Pop told point guard Tony Parker at the beginning of the fourth quarter, imploring his playmaker to score some points and get his teammates involved in the same manner he had done in the first half — a first half that had ended with the San Antonio Spurs holding a 15-point lead that had shrunk to 1 after the third quarter.

They were indeed in trouble.

And now their summer has begun.

Kevin Durant was a machine, Russell Westbrook was a beast, Derek Fisher was Derek Fisher (need we say more?) and Scott Brooks legitimized his Coach of the Year pedigree as the Oklahoma City Thunder rallied with for a 107-99 victory over the Spurs in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals (boxscore here) to complete their fourth consecutive victory and make it to the NBA Finals, where they’ll host Games 1 and 2, and 6 and 7 if the series lasts that long.

And after we just watched them take apart a machine of a Spurs team, who is to say that they can’t take the next step and win it all?

No matter who they play in the NBA Finals, be it the Boston Celtics or Miami Heat, there is going to be nobody who can defend Kevin Durant. Steve Kerr of the TNT broadcast crew kept referring to him during the series as the 6-foot-9 Durant. Well, if that guy is 6-foot-9 then I am 7-feet-6. Dude is about an inch shy of 7-feet, and when he uses his high release to shoot the ball, the three-time defending NBA scoring champion is unguardable.

And then there is Westbrook, a raging bull of a point guard whose style of play is the antithesis of that of Rajon Rondo, who easily has been the MVP of the Eastern Conference finals portion of the NBA playoffs. He runs a little hot and cold, as most 23-year-olds do, but in Game 6 against the Spurs he played under control and with brutal efficiency. The Sixth Man of the Year, James Harden, knocked down another back-breaking 3-pointer in the final 90 seconds, much like he had done two nights earlier when the Thunder stunned the Spurs on their home court, and Fisher drilled two key jumpers — a dagger 3 from the corner and a bank shot from 18 feet — as Brooks put his one and only old warrior with a Spur-killing resume on the floor for the fourth quarter to help close this one out.

As we have been saying ad nauseum, history tells us that young teams do not win championships.

But history also tells us that teams that fall into 0-2 deficits lose the series more than 80 percent of the time, and if the Boston Celtics are able to finish off the Miami Heat tonight at the TD Garden in Boston, we can take that slice of history and dice it into irrelevancy.

Mad props have to go out to the Thunder for what they just pulled off. They found two weaknesses that they could exploit– San Antonio’s lack of a big man to protect the rim, and the Spurs’s propensity to commit turnovers against a packed-in defense — and turned those tactical advantages to their benefit over the course of Games 3-6.

The RiverWalk will be silent and muggy for the rest of the spring and summer, and if there is a title celebration there is a good chance it’ll be held in the section of Oklahoma City known as Bricktown.

“It’s happening before our eyes,” Fisher said. “We’re just playing and doing it for each other. Great things happen when you do it for each other.”

From Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman: Kevin Durant wanted to celebrate with his team. Not the team in home white.Oh, the Thunder superstar celebrated plenty with his teammates on Wednesday night. But in the waning seconds of game like no other Oklahoma City has ever seen, Durant wanted a moment with his other team. Team Durant. On a night that will leave Oklahoma City with plenty of memorable moments, none was more special than his family’s group hug. Durant walked over to his mom and his brother and wrapped them in a big ol’ bear hug. Everyone was crying. “Then I thought, ‘I hope we didn’t celebrate too soon,’” Durant’s mom, Wanda Pratt, said. … Those final seconds punctuated an earsplitting comeback in Game 6 and an unbelievable rally in the Western Conference Finals. The Thunder is headed to the NBA Finals. Yet for Team Durant, it could’ve just as easily been a state title back in Kevin’s high school days at Montrose Christian. The family has celebrated together many times before. But nothing was quite like this. What did it mean to be there to see her son lead his team to the NBA Finals? Pratt nearly cried at the question. “After watching the guys work so hard, it’s not just about Kevin,” she said. “I know I cheer him on, but after watching the guys work so hard … I’m so happy for them all.” Remember, Pratt has been there all along. She was there for the contentious 20-win season in Seattle. She was there for the 3-29 start in Oklahoma City. She was there when the struggles and the doubts would hit her son like a Kendrick Perkins screen. Seeing your kid hurt is tough for any mama. Pratt was no different. Remember, these two are especially tight. Pratt was a single mom for much of sons Tony and Kevin’s childhood. She worked multiple jobs. She struggled to make ends meet. It wasn’t easy. That shared struggle knit them together. And now, it makes this shared success all the sweeter. Pratt attends virtually every home game and has become a fixture in her courtside seat across the home hardwood from the Thunder bench. She dances. She cheers. And after every game, she gets a kiss and a hug from her baby. She got those again Wednesday night, and this time around, the hug was longer than normal. And the tears? Those were a rarity.”

This is a Thunder team that took a collective look at itself in the mirror after they fell behind 0-2 and asked themselves: “Is this all we are? Are we a team that is going to flame out in the same manner as we did a year ago when the Mavericks bounced us in 5 games? Or are we going to show we’re worthy of taking the next step.”

And that’s what they did.

Durant was indefensible (or is it undefendable?). Westbrook channeled his energy into positive play after positive play. Harden was the dagger-thrower. Brooks was the sage who figured out a way to draw the spurs out of the paint on defense and open up the lane for the drive-and-kick game. The rock-and-rolls that he ran with limited success in Games 1 and 2 with Durant and Kendrick Perkins turned into pick-and-rolls featuring Durant and Westbrook.

The body language of the Spurs said it all as their big halftime lead quickly evaporated. They looked scared, unsure of themselves. When Popovich inserted Tiago Splitter for Boris Diaw early in the third quarter, he flipped out when Collison missed a defensive close-out and quickly yanked him from the game.

They were the older team, but they were panicking the way you’d expect a young team to panic.

The Thunder? They were the ones who were cool as a cucumber.

From Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News: “The final horn sounded on a disappointing end to an unexpected season, and Tim Duncan began scanning the floor of Chesapeake Energy Arena, a man still on a mission. The vanquished Spurs forward gave a laudatory hug to every Oklahoma City player he could find, to Thunder coach Scott Brooks, to half the coaching staff. OKC had just banked a come-from-behind 107-99 victory in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals Wednesday, closing out the Spurs to punch its ahead-of-schedule ticket to the NBA Finals. Congratulations complete, Duncan began the long, slow walk toward the losing locker room and into a future more uncertain. “I thought this was definitely our time, our time to get back to the Finals, our time to push for another championship,” Duncan said later in a quiet dressing room. “That was our singular goal, and obviously it ends here.” For the young and still-rising Thunder, it is only the beginning. Kevin Durant poured in 34 points to go with 14 rebounds, Russell Westbrook added 25 while Spurs killers new (James Harden) and old (Derek Fisher) hit big 3-pointers down the stretch, lifting the OKC franchise to its first NBA Finals since 1996, when it was based in Seattle. To get here, all the Thunder had to do was get through Dallas, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Spurs, winners of 10 of the past 13 NBA titles. “As sad and as disappointed as we are,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said, “it’s like a Hollywood script for Oklahoma City.” In the span of seven days, the Spurs’ 20-game winning streak gave way to a playoff ouster, and Game 6 was a microcosm of that. The Spurs led by 18 in the first quarter, putting together the kind of first half that had to have Popovich wondering why he didn’t see more like it earlier. Tony Parker was whizzing en route to 21 points and 10 assists in the first half, Stephen Jackson was doing unspeakable things to pressure, hitting 4 of 4 from 3-point range, and the Spurs were playing with the energy of a team unprepared for the ride to end. For the Spurs, who became the first team in NBA history to win its first 10 playoff games and not make the Finals, the first half was a final gasp. After his hot start, Parker finished with 29 points and 12 assists. Duncan went out hard with 25 points and 14 rebounds. The pressure-loving Jackson ended with 23 points and made 6 of 7 on 3-pointers. An 11-2 run to start the second half got the Thunder back in the game, igniting a 32-18 quarter that doomed the Spurs. “We changed our body language, our spirit (after halftime),” Brooks said. “We weren’t going to win the game playing the same way.”

There is a lot folks don’t know about the Thunder, and we will be filling that void on this site with insight from columnist Chris Silva, who spent two and a half seasons as the Thunder’s in-house beat writer before leaving for a job with Playboy.com (who wouldn’t?).

Silva will be writing a column on 10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Thunder that’ll be up on the site tomorrow, and it is a guaranteed must-read.

But for now, we’ll close with an excerpt from Johnny Ludden of YahooSports, who spent a small eternity as the Spurs beat writer for the Express-News and who knew many of the key Thunder personnel back when they were still working in the shadow of the Alamo (which once upon a time was the site of another crushing defeat).

“The Thunder speak often of their “family,” and it’s true. So many of them are so young, they’ve all grown up together,” Ludden wrote. “All these team-is-one mantras can get a little nauseating to outsiders, but the Thunder believe them. You won’t find Durant alone on billboards in Oklahoma City. It’s all team shots or pictures of the Thunder flag. The photos lining the walls of the Thunder’s arena and practice facility are the same: players’ hands clasped in a huddle; a snapshot of the team’s logo on a player’s shorts. No one individual is greater than the whole, conventional marketing plans be damned. This is all by design, of course. The Thunder’s general manager, Sam Presti, learned under Spurs GM R.C. Buford and patriarch Gregg Popovich. He’s built these Thunder using the Spurs as a blueprint. In Durant, Presti has his Duncan: a humble superstar who has embraced small-market comfort and convenience. He’s given Durant co-stars in Westbrook and Harden and surrounded them all with pieces that have never fit so snugly. Derek Fisher, the notorious Spurs killer who was signed in late March, buoyed the Thunder with a late 3-pointer and a running bank shot. Kendrick Perkins, all grit and grime, blocked a layup attempt by Duncan to preserve the victory. Asked afterward what sustained the Thunder, Westbrook chose a single word: “Togetherness.” For all the “band-of-brothers” drivel Erik Spoelstra likes to recite from Pat Riley’s self-help books, the Miami Heat will never have a bond as thick as these Thunder. They can’t. The Heat were brought together by the flourish of a pen stroke, a creation of free agency. The Thunder have grown together, and they’ve been hardened by those lost seasons, by the experience of failure. They’ve been protected by the embrace of a community that believes they can do no wrong. “I think as a group and as an organization, we’ve seen some light and we’ve seen that one day we’d be at this moment,” Westbrook said, “and one day we’d have an opportunity to win a championship.”

Now they do.