SAN ANTONIO, Sporting Alert – San Antonio Spurs used a stunning first quarter to rout the Oklahoma City Thunder 124-92 and take a 1-0 lead in their Western Conference semi-final on Saturday night. Box Scores
The Spurs scored a remarkable 43 points in the opening quarter to set a record for most points scored in a quarter during the playoffs en route to taking a 73-40 lead at half time.
The Texas-based club jumped all over OKC from the opening whistle and outscored the Thunder 43-20 in the first quarter, with LaMarcus Aldridge and Kawhi Leonard, who made all six of his shots from the field in the opening minutes, leading the way with double digit scores.
“Obviously, it kind of got away from them,” San Antonio veteran forward Tim Duncan, who played 22-minutes and went 4-for-7 from the field, said.
“We didn’t expect that, but we’ll take it at the start of a series.”
At the end of the game, Aldridge finished with 38 points on 18-for-23 shooting while Leonard shot 10-for-13 to collect 25 points, five rebounds and five assists for the home side.
“It was just one of those nights,” Aldridge said. “I can’t take credit for it.
“I was just trying to play confident and ended up making some plays that I probably won’t make the next game. It was enough for me tonight.”
Danny Green, putting together his best performance in the playoffs thus far, made five 3-pointers to end with 18 points and three blocks for San Antonio, which shot 60-percent from 3-point range after going 9-for-15 from long distance.
Serge Ibaka led the way for Oklahoma City with 19 points, with Kevin Durant adding 16 points, eight rebounds and six assists and Russell Westbrook, who missed his opening five shots, chipping in with 14 points and nine assists for the Thunder, who made just 6 of their 23 attempts from 3-pointers.
“They do a good job of helping,” Westbrook said. “Most of the time it’s help-side defender. Me personally, I never look at the guy in front of me.
“I look at the help see what’s the next move. Not a big problem, just got to find ways to read the help a little bit better, and make better decisions.”
During his press conference, Durant was asked about the feeling in the camp after the blowout loss, but the All-Star forward wanted to move on.
“It’s over with,” Durant said. “Move on. We’ll just move past it and figure out what we need to do better.
“No crazy emotions. It’s not like we’re upset, screaming at each other in the locker room after the game. That’s not going to make things better.”
San Antonio made 51 shots and 39 of those were assisted.
