NBA PLAYOFFS WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS

Popovich stirs Spurs with talk

San Antonio shooting guard Manu Ginobili scored 26 points to lead the Spurs to a 101-98 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday to take a 1-0 series lead in the Western Conference finals in San Antonio.
San Antonio shooting guard Manu Ginobili scored 26 points to lead the Spurs to a 101-98 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday to take a 1-0 series lead in the Western Conference finals in San Antonio.

— San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich might have unwittingly started a new phenomenon.

“I want some nasty!”

Popovich didn’t just coin it. He snarled it, and the way his San Antonio Spurs obliged has the Western Conference finals off to a thrilling start.

Manu Ginobili scored 26 points and the Spurs won their 19th in a row - tying the NBA record for longest winning streak kept alive in the playoffs - by rallying in the fourth quarter on the orders of their furious coach to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 101-98 in Game 1 on Sunday night.

It was a tantalizing near upset for the young Thunder, who came as close as any-body to beating the Spurs for the first time in 46 days. But a nine-point lead didn’t last after Popovich, 63, the NBA’s Coach of the Year, huddled his lagging team together in the fourth and told them to “get nasty.”

“I said that?” Popovich said afterward.

A nationally television audience heard it.

“The heat of the game, stuff comes up,” Popovich said. “So I talked to them about they’ve got to get a little bit uglier, get a little more nasty, play with more fiber and take it to these guys. Meaning you have to drive it, you have to shoot it.”

And when they did, the Thunder couldn’t keep up.

Kevin Durant led the Thunder with 27 points. Russell Westbrook had 17, and insisted he was OK after taking a spill that was nasty in its own right - face first, bracing his fall with his hands and sitting under the basket for more than a minute while the entire Thunder bench walked across the court to check on their All-Star point guard.

“I shot good shots, made good passes,” Durant said. “Unfortunately, we lost.”

San Antonio scored 39 in the fourth after being held to just 16 third-quarter points. Westbrook chalked it up to a defensive breakdown that “got out of hand” but it still left the Thunder in search of the road victory they’ll need to in this series to reach the NBA finals for the first time since the franchise moved to Oklahoma City in 2009.

Game 2 is Tuesday night.

“How it happened is irrelevant,” Thunder guard Derek Fisher said. “Whether we lose by 20 or lose by 1, we lost.”

That’s something the Spurs haven’t been able to say since April 11. They joined the 2001 Lakers as the only other team to carry a winning streak this long in the playoffs - and that Los Angeles team did so on its way to a championship.

The Spurs matched the fourth-longest streak in NBA history, and with one more will become just the fourth team to surpass 20. Tim Duncan had 16 points and 11 rebounds, and Tony Parker shook off a dismal start to finish with 18 points.

And of getting “nasty”?

“Pop’s always trying to motivate us,” Parker said.

But it was Ginobili who steered the Spurs to strike first in a highly anticipated matchup of the West’s top two teams for practically the entire regular season. In his first game against the Thunder this year - he was sidelined by injury in the three regular-season meetings - Ginobili put up a playoff high after sputtering through the first two series.

“It just happened,” Ginobili said. “I don’t know how exactly because I haven’t scored like this all season long, but it happened and I am very happy about it.”

On the other end, Oklahoma City’s own Big Three struggled to find its shot early before awakening in the second half. Durant, Westbrook and James Harden at one point through the second quarter were 5 of 21 - a typically ominous stat line for three players who had been responsible for nearly 70 percent of Oklahoma City’s points through the playoffs so far.

The Thunder didn’t even need their own Big Three to keep things close.

They leaned on none more so than Fisher (Little Rock Parkview, UALR), whose famous game-winner for the Lakers on this same court in the 2004 playoffs has made “0.4 seconds” a phrase that needs no further explanation to the Spurs. Eight years later, and the oldest player in this series at 37, Fisher already met his playoff average at halftime and finished with 13 points.

Gary Neal added 12 points and was the only other Spurs player in double figures.

At a glance

SUNDAY’S GAME

San Antonio 101, Oklahoma City 98

San Antonio leads series 1-0

TODAY’S GAME - All times Central Boston at Miami, 7:30 p.m.

Sports, Pages 17 on 05/28/2012

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