In 2012, SAS arrived at the third game of the WCF having won 20 games in a row and being up 2-0 over OKC as the series moved to Oklahoma City. OKC won four games in a row and won the series 4-2. After three games in its 2016 Playoff series against the 67 win SAS, OKC was behind 1-2 having eked out a one-point victory in game 2. OKC won three games in a row and won the series 4-2.

Interestingly, the reasons for these two OKC turnarounds strongly resembled each other although their most common descriptions might seem different. These were in 2012, "OKC made the extra pass," and in 2016, "Westbrook quit shooting OKC out of games." In each of these series, the OKC players had an epiphany – to do things their coaches had undoubtedly been telling them all season (although maybe more by Donavon), variations on, "Play intelligent basketball."

The two epiphanies occurred after SAS wins that exemplified OKC misbehaviors. The table below shows the scores for each series with the post-epiphany games in bold. Both series had three close final scores and were closer than they are remembered to be (see ANNEX), but this does not negate the importance of the OKC players’ epiphanies. "Hey maybe coach was right. Winning against good teams is different from winning against poor ones. It requires a lack of selfishness and doing what works not repeating what is not working."

As Popovich said during a 2013 WCF timeout, the Spurs players needed to play smarter than OKC players to offset OKC’s superior athleticism. When the gap in smartness of play became smaller the gap in athleticism became dominate.

Going into the series, the 2016 OKC team was a worse defensive team than in 2012, and SAS was a worse offensive team than in 2012. However, after their epiphanies, both OKC teams mainly played better on offense, but they also played good defense.

Maybe the second key thing is OKC players forgot their epiphany sometime after 2012 WCF. Will they do this again in WCF or next season as they continue to easily beat non-elite teams? I am sure Donovan hopes not.

ANNEX

To further show how close the 2016 SAS-OKC series was and the importance of OKC players playing intelligently in fourth quarter, here are the scores after three quarters (SAS plus in plus-minus-.) After three quarters, games 2-5 were close with SAS ahead in three of four, but OKC won three of four. However, this does not negate the importance of the OKC players’ epiphany that included playing intelligently at end of games, something they had been relatively poor at previously.

2016 SAS-OKC after 3 Quarters