SAN ANTONIO – Danny Green learned Monday morning of a decision his opponents had suspected and his coach had mulled in these playoffs.Manu Ginobili, not Green, would start at guard for theSan Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder. Green had been struggling for the entire series (8-for-28 shooting), and the Thunder had rebounded from down 2-0 after losses in San Antonio to tie it at 2-2 with consecutive home victories.
The formula that San Antonio used to take an 18-game winning streak into the conference finals had gone flat, and the Spurs needed offense in a bad way.
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"I tried to take it in stride, but naturally, we're all human," Green said. "We haven't changed the lineup in a while so I definitely was a little off."
The switch, announced at the last minute, fell short for San Antonio, as the Thunder became the first road team to win in the conference finals, 108-103 Monday night. The Spurs' loss came only after Ginobili had 34 points and a shot to tie it with less than five seconds remaining hit iron.
Popovich has started Ginobili numerous times in the perennial sixth man's 10-year career, three times in nearly this precise playoff scenario, following a loss. In the second round of the 2005 playoffs, the Spurs took a 2-0 lead over the Seattle SuperSonics, who then tied the series with consecutive home wins. Enter Ginobili, then in his sixth season, who scored a team-high 39 points, and started every subsequent game on the way to San Antonio's third NBA championship.
That championship banner hang high at the AT&T Center, next to banners from 1999, 2003, and 2007. In the time since the Spurs' last title, the Sonics drafted Kevin Durant, relocated to Oklahoma City in 2008, changed their name to the Thunder and now find themselves on the brink of the city's first NBA Finals berth.
Popovich's ultimately unsuccessful curveball prompted no adjustments from Thunder coach Scott Brooks. The Thunder had expected the move to come sooner or later. Point guard Russell Westbrook had been checking Green, whose ineptitude on offense kept Westbrook's legs fresh for Thunder possessions.
As Popovich put it, the Ginobili decision was made, in part, so "Westbrook has somebody he has to guard."
"It's an energy boost for the team," Popovich said. "He's a great player, he's going to make plays, winning plays, and it might be a steal or an offensive board, a three, whatever. He's a great player, so we wanted to get him more time."
Brooks said his staff thought Ginobili would start and had no issue letting Westbrook check him, despite the point guard's offensive resurgence while covering Green. Somebody else would have to step up.
That somebody ended up being Thunder sixth man James Harden, who scored 20, including a contested three-pointer with 28 seconds remaining to cut short a San Antonio run.
Ginobili has been on the winning and losing sides of these plays, the kind that transcend X's and O's and decide championships.
"In every season we won the championship, we had situations like that, and every season we lost it, we had those two," he said.
Harden's 20 points, Russell Westbrook's 23 and Durant's 27 exemplified the biggest difference between those 2005 Sonics and today's Thunder. No NBA trio has been this good, this quickly. "These guys are hard to guard — talented, hungry and athletic," Popovich said.
Veteran Thunder guard Derek Fisher said his Lakers teams of the early 2000s share little in common with this group.
"It's a rare occurrence," Fisher says. "Even with the success we had early in the decade, we weren't 22 and 23 years old, having these types of expectations and having a chance to win a championship. We were still learning how to win."
Yet the differences between the 2005 Spurs and the 2012 Spurs aren't as easy to explain. Ginobili is older, sure, but his effort helped the Spurs rally to within two points in the fourth after trailing by as many as 14 on Monday. His attempt to tie was off balance, but he had been 5-for-9 on three-pointers.
"It wasn't my best shot, of course, but I didn't have options," Ginobili said. "They played good D."
The Spurs led late and had the capacity crowd on its feet for a 1-minute, 30-second third-quarter stretch in which San Antonio scored 11 unanswered. Ginobili hit two three-pointers in a row and the Spurs led by four, harkening to images of their Game 1 comeback. But Oklahoma City stormed back. Westbrook drove the lane, made a layup, was fouled and made a free throw; Durant hit a stone-faced 24-footer; and soon the Thunder were back on top.
"We're just playing together, man, playing hard," Durant said. "Once you leave everything out on the floor, you give yourself a good chance. We've just got to keep going."
In a losing effort, San Antonio's star trio —Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Ginobili — each contributed as much or more than they did in 2005 against the Sonics, which featured one current Thunder player, reserve center Nick Collison. The Spurs played their unselfish brand of basketball, dishing out 23 assists and hitting 42% of their threes.
The Spurs did the little things and came up just short in a defeat Duncan said was heartbreaking. And now, the Thunder are poised to clinch a title berth denied the franchise in 2005 and every other year since 1996. When an NBA playoff series is tied 2-2, the winner of Game 5 goes on to win the series 83.5% of the time.
"They've proven they're a championship caliber team," Popovich said. "If we can't win on Wednesday, we're not a championship-caliber team."
What a difference seven years makes.
