The San Antonio Spurs persevered without the injured Kawhi Leonard down the stretch to defeat the Houston Rockets 110-107 in overtime and take a 3-2 series lead. Leonard led the Spurs with 22 points and a game-high 15 rebounds but he sprained his left ankle in the second half. Leonard already was struggling with a right knee injury and he tried to play through the sprained ankle as well but he could not put weight on his left leg, forcing Coach Gregg Popovich to leave him on the bench for most of the fourth quarter and during the entire overtime. Patty Mills scored 20 points as the starting point guard in place of the injured Tony Parker and LaMarcus Aldridge had 18 points and 14 rebounds but the overtime stars were Danny Green and Manu Ginobili. Green finished with 16 points, including seven of the Spurs' nine overtime points. Ginobili had 12 points, seven rebounds and five assists in addition to making perhaps the biggest play of the game by blocking James Harden's game-tying three point attempt as time expired.
Harden finished with 33 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. That looks like a great line, but he also had nine turnovers and shot just 4-15 from three point range. Those numbers help explain why the Rockets outscored the Spurs by three points when Harden was on the bench but were outscored by six points when he was on the court. Harden was awful down the stretch when the game was up for grabs: he committed an offensive foul on Houston's last possession in regulation and then he shot 0-3 from the field with three turnovers in overtime.
It is fitting that Ginobili made the big play against Harden, because Ginobili is in many ways the anti-Harden. Ginobili made a decision early in his career to sacrifice individual glory for team success, while Harden has spent the past few years running away from and/or running off every one of his star teammates, including Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Dwight Howard. Almost four years ago to the day, I wrote an article titled The Difference Between Being the Third Option and Being the First Option and I compared Harden to Ginobili:
Ginobili has won three NBA championships so far and he has earned two All-Star selections, two All-NBA selections and the 2008 Sixth Man Award; combined with his stellar FIBA career, those honors and accomplishments may be enough for Ginobili to be inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Harden won the Sixth Man Award in 2012 and if he had stayed in Oklahoma City he likely would have earned at least one All-Star nod. Even if he and the Thunder would not have beaten Miami this season or next season, time would have been on their side; the young Thunder would have peaked just as the Heat's core players entered their 30s and started to decline.
Is getting eliminated in the first round of the playoffs every year as "The Man" better than being the third option on a perennial championship contender? Ginobili has no reason to regret his answer to that question; five years from now it will be interesting to reevaluate Harden's answer.
Unlike Harden, Ginobili can make game-winning plays at either end of the court. Ginobili's role at 39 years old is obviously vastly diminished from his role during his prime but he never whines or complains; he wants to be part of a winning team and he is not concerned about individual glory.
Houston seized home court advantage by winning game one in San Antonio and caught two huge breaks with Parker's season-ending injury and Leonard's game five injuries but now the Rockets must win at home in game six and on the road in game seven in order to advance. Game five winners in 2-2 series prevail more than 80% of the time, so when the wheels fell off for Harden down the stretch the outcome of the series was likely decided. You cannot feel too badly for Harden, though, because he has exactly what he wanted when he rejected Oklahoma City's contract offer five years ago: big money, big stats and everything revolves around him. Winning a championship is a tangential concern for Harden. LeBron James and Kevin Durant can be rightfully criticized for their free agency decisions but no one can doubt that each player thought at the time that he was making a move that maximized his chance of winning a title, whether or not one believes that each player could have won a title by remaining with his original team. Harden fled from a team with two MVP caliber players so that he could receive all of the shine in Houston and that was most assuredly not a choice that maximized his chance to win a championship.
Game five versus the Spurs was a quintessential Harden performance and a prime example of what I have been writing about him for years: he is a talented player who is not well-suited to being the best player on a championship team. Harden's supporters will tout his points, assists and alleged "efficiency," but the real story is that with the game and the series hanging in the balance he fell apart. The lasting image of this series will either be Ginobili's block or perhaps Harden blaming one of his late-game turnovers on Clint Capela while the Spurs headed downcourt for a fast break basket. That play reminded me of two very different situations involving two all-time greats: (1) Rookie of the Year David Thompson cried after a game in the 1976 ABA Finals when he felt that the officials should have called a foul on one of his missed shots but Julius Erving was incredulous at that reaction, stating that when he missed a shot as a rookie he would just go get the ball and then score; (2) when Michael Jordan, near the end of his career and basically playing on one leg, thought that he had been fouled by Ron Mercer, Jordan raced downcourt, blocked Mercer's layup from behind, pinned it to the glass, caught the ball and barked something at Mercer.
With the game on the line, do you make it happen or do you watch it happen?