Mitch Johnson admits San Antonio was out of sorts in the loss to the Thunder

After three consecutive defeats San Antonio Spursthe Oklahoma City Thunder brought their South Texas rivals back to earth a bit. And Mitch Johnson gives all credit to the defending NBA champions.

“We were out of place a lot,” the Spurs head coach admitted.

Although San Antonio played relatively well in the first half, outscoring him the team with the league’s best record by three in the second quarter trailing by three at halftime, the third quarter was a different story. The Thunder hit a team that was sitting second in the Western Conference by 16 points.

“There was a part where it was hard to even figure out what we were doing wrong because when you’re not in the right starting spot, it’s hard to then go to the next part of executing any scheme and coverage because there’s already been a breakdown and now guys aren’t connected,” Johnson said of the defensive breakdowns that allowed the 40C breakdown.

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“We had a lot of holes in the scheme of coverage execution in all aspects,” the first-year head coach added.

Mitch Johnson goes into detail about the Spurs’ struggles

Spurs star Stephon Castle played well with team highs in points (20), assists (8) and rebounds (7 with Victor Vembanyama). But Oklahoma City kept him at bay in some key moments. Fellow guard Dylan Harper got off to a good start but fumbled, scoring most of his 12 points in the first half. San Antonio’s second leading scorer on the season, De’Aaron Fox, finished six points below his average with 14.

“We want to empower guys and there’s no quick fix. You have to learn where your shots are coming from and I think the anticipation of the shot is sometimes more important than the quality of the shot,” Johnson continued. “Everybody talks about shot quality. A lot of times when you see the best teams making shots, they know exactly where their shots are coming from and their teammates’ shots are coming from and it really eases your mind and gives you a lot of confidence when you know where your shots are coming from. That’s something we’re going to continue to try to improve.”

The Spurs shot 35% from three-point range, 40% from the field.

“The third quarter is what got away from us, but even the first half, whether it felt like there were moments that were controllable and then they obviously took advantage of them, they just make you pay, or just some uncharacteristic lack of execution of the game plan,” Johnson added. “In the third quarter, obviously, when they jumped on it and got some separation.

Offensively on their end, the Thunder put Wemby in difficult places.

“I think they probably wanted to take him off the ball and then make him make decisions about when to help close and attack and what’s more, that seemed to happen a few times,” the Western Conference’s December Coach of the Month revealed.

“But I don’t think we were very sharp,” Johnson concluded.

That has now been the case for the Spurs since their third win against the Thunder on Christmas Day. They are lost four of six games since then.