



SAN ANTONIO – Manu Ginobili watched his 3-pointer skip off the back of the rim, and the frustration began to build within him. He'd carried the San Antonio Spurs through the night, twice raising them from the dead, and now the game had finally caromed out of his reach.

A timeout followed, and Ginobili walked over to the scorer's table and slammed his hand hard against the foam padding. Deep down, he knew what this meant. These opportunities don't come along often, and now the Spurs are dangerously close to squandering one of their best. Up 2-0 in the Western Conference finals, riding the wave of a 20-game winning streak, they're now one loss from vacation, the Thunder's thrilling 108-103 victory pushing the Spurs toward the edge of their season.

The Spurs aren't fighting only the Thunder in these West finals. They're fighting the clock. Their championship core doesn't have long together, two seasons at the most. If they go on to lose this series, they'll look back on Monday and wonder: Will they ever get another chance like this again? Healthy and whole, two victories from the NBA Finals?

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The Spurs now head to Oklahoma City needing to make a final stand, needing to beat the Thunder in a building where the Thunder have yet to lose in these playoffs, with Ginobili, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker needing to summon their greatness once more. They've put off their demise through all these battle-torn years, contending season after season. But if this improbable championship chase is going to continue, they'll need to dig deeper still.

"I'm not submitting to nothing," Stephen Jackson said. "We are going to win this game. We have to."

Forever full of defiance, Jackson refuses to relent. The Spurs will need his cocksure attitude, but one bold proclamation can't erase the simple truth hanging over them: The Thunder have been the better team in this series.

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Oklahoma City's long, athletic defenders forced the Spurs into 21 more turnovers, once again collapsing San Antonio's beautiful offense under a pile of mistakes and hesitance. The Thunder's confidence has grown throughout the series. Even after the Spurs won the first two games, these young Thunder never bought into the belief they were supposed to bow to the conference's elder statesmen. They're built for the future, but they're also built to win now.

"We never just thought we were supposed to wait our turn," Kevin Durant said. "We always wanted to go and take everything."

The Thunder seized control of this series in Oklahoma City, and that's why an air of desperation seemed to hang over the Spurs for much of Monday. Gregg Popovich pushed Ginobili into the starting lineup for the first time since March, and Ginobili nearly saved the Spurs with his brilliance, delivering 34 points in 38 minutes, four more than he's played in any other game this season.

Popovich has often called this his deepest team ever, and yet the box score hardly showed that. Danny Green, the Spurs' usual starting shooting guard, was benched in deference to Ginobili and played less than four minutes. Gary Neal, the Spurs' sharpshooter, missed each of his six shots. Matt Bonner left the bench for all of 50 seconds. Looking for a spark, Popovich called on DeJuan Blair early in the first half, but never went back to him.

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