OKLAHOMA CITY - Ever since they staggered out of Miami last June, after the roof fell in on them in Game 6 and then after they watched the Heat celebrate after another close win in Game 7, the San Antonio Spurs have been on a mission.
It's not just good enough to return to the Finals, where they will find the Heat waiting for them again. No, the Spurs need to win it all this time.
Gregg Popovich's challenge to his players the whole season reflected that: 'Last team standing.'
They weren't the last team standing after Ray Allen hit his miracle three-pointer in Game 6, arguably one of the top five shots in the history of the sport. But rather remarkably, they're still on course to be the last team standing after closing out the Thunder to win the West, 112-107, in overtime on Saturday night.
The remarkable thing about this win was that the Spurs didn't have Tony Parker for the entire second half, not a second, and still managed to break their nine-game losing streak on the Thunder's court.
The most overused phrase in the NBA is 'next man up,' when a player gets hurt. Everybody talks about it, but there are maybe two or three teams that actually can do it.
The Bulls are one of them, as they've shown whenever Derrick Rose goes down. But the Spurs proved they're the best team at doing it, as they banded together to overcome the loss of the one player who makes them go. What other team can survive the loss of a player of Parker's magnitude on the road, against an elite opponent?
Try nobody.
It ranks as one of the Spurs' greatest wins. Here was Parker out with a foot injury, so he was not on the floor to create for their shooters with his crafty drives to the basket and kick-out passes. You didn't give them much of a chance to get the clincher. You figured they'd take the loss, then have to go home and try to keep their season alive with a win on Monday in Game 7.
Instead, they carved up the Thunder's defense, the same defense that had made the Spurs look like a lottery team in two losses here in Games 3 and 4. From late in the third quarter, the Spurs used a 15-2 run to take a 12-point lead. They were caught at the end of regulation, but are back in the Finals because Tim Duncan came up with the biggest basket of the night with 19 seconds to play in overtime.
So it's the Heat, in their fourth straight Finals, against Duncan and the Spurs, making consecutive Finals for the first time in their history.
For Kevin Durant, this will be a hard loss to live down. As the reigning MVP, he needed to find a way to get his team past the Spurs. But he missed a three-pointer with a chance to tie with 15 seconds left in overtime.
Durant needed to at least get his team to a Game 7, with a shot to get back to the Finals for a repeat of the 2012 series when LeBron first tasted champagne. Not on this night. He gets his MVP trophy this season and that's all.
You know the Spurs. The only trophy they care about bears Larry O'Brien's name. They almost had their hands on it and then Allen buried his shot and everything in the '13 Finals turned on a dime. But they picked themselves up, won more games than anybody in the regular-season and cruised through the first two rounds of the playoffs before meeting up with a team that sometimes seems to have all the answers for Parker, Duncan and Manu Ginobili.
'We know what we have to do,' Parker said beforehand. 'Now we have to do it. They're going to play with a lot more energy. And they're going to play with nothing to lose. We've got to match that.'
They did even better than that, somehow without Parker. They always have a lot of practice at winning with their 'next man up,' because they always treat the regular-season as a big warm-up for the playoffs. Earlier in the day, Popovich even joked that he had messed up Duncan's career stats by limiting his minutes and sitting him out of games, just to make sure he's rested and ready for May and June.
Now they'll need to figure out what Parker can do in the Finals, four days from now.
At least the Spurs will be there, with a shot at being the last team standing.
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