Threes, overtimes and comebacks: the Spurs-Warriors series has been all anybody could ask and more.
We've seen absurd individual performances from Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Manu Ginobili, and whoever else has felt like showing up. We've seen an upstart Warriors team that hasn't won two games in the second round since 1977, putting some serious fear into a team that's won four NBA titles since 1999. And we've seen that no lead is safe: the Warriors blew a 16-point lead with minutes to go in Game 1 and the Spurs lost after holding an eight-point late in Game 4.
It's been thrilling, to say the least, and after all four Conference Semifinals started out at 1-1, this is the only one where both sides split Games 3 and 4 to turn the series into a best-of-three series.
Time: 9:30 p.m. ET
TV: TNT
Odds: San Antonio is favored by eight points.
How do Klay and Curry do?
Thompson and Curry's postseason shooting performances have been out of this world. Curry's ankle is still nagging, but he still managed to hit 5-of-10 from beyond the arc in Game 4, part of a 22-point performance that helped tie the series up at two. He's averaging 26 points per game this series, including a 44-point effort in Game 1's loss. Thompson is 11-for-20 from beyond the arc on the series, shooting 8-for-9 from deep in a career-high 34-point effort Game 2.
It's the type of thing that seemed unsustainable when it happened against the Denver Nuggets, but it's held up. Through 10 playoff games, Curry is shooting 42.9 percent from deep while Thompson is shooting 41.8 percent. It's one of the most impressive postseason shooting performances in recent memory. The Spurs normally figure out what to do defensively, but this time around it seems its more up to whether two tremendously talented shooters hit shots we've seen them hit over and over again so far in May or whether they just clang of their own accord.
Can the Spurs snap out of their shooting slump?
The games have been competitive, but the Spurs haven't been up to snuff in a simple department: throwing the ball into the hoop.
The Spurs were fourth in three-point shooting percentage in the regular season -- first was the Warriors, naturally -- and third in free-throw shooting. But they've miscued against the Warriors this season. Since a 13-for-26 performance from deep in Game 1, the Spurs are 18-for-68 from three, a dismal 26.5 percent. And in those three games, they're 46-for-73 from the free throw line, 63 percent. It's uncharacteristic, and it's costing them -- they missed 11 free throws Sunday in a game that ended up going into overtime.
The Warriors haven't looked like they've done anything to cause the missed shots, and missed free throws are just missed free throws. Can the Spurs fix their woes in unison?
Can anybody grab defensive rebounds?
In four games this series, one of the teams has ended up with 10 offensive boards seven times. Some of that is influenced by overtimes, obviously, but it pans out percentage-wise: only twice, the Warriors in Games 1 and 2, has a team grabbed less than 25 percent of their offensive rebounds, about the league average.
It's really surprising. The Warriors, with Andrew Bogut and a then-healthy David Lee, posted the best defensive rebound rate in the league, grabbing 75.5 percent of opposing misses, and the Spurs were third, grabbing 74.9 percent of misses. Meanwhile, neither was an above-average offensive rebounding team, the Warriors finishing 21st in the league and the Spurs finishing second-to-last.
But with a lot of threes leading to long rebounds, the Warriors with big man depth issues and the Spurs opting to play smaller than usual to keep up, there's been a lot of opportunities on the offensive glass. Can either side keep the other from grabbing their own misses and getting second-chance opportunities?
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