The San Antonio Spurs lost on a winning buzzer-beater on Wednesday, and it wasn’t hard to see the soft spot in their defense.
With the game tied 99-99 and four seconds left, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Lu Dort received the ball just beyond the 3-point arc and with no defenders within 10 feet of him. Able to take his sweet time lining up the shot, Dort sank the buzzer-beater, fell to the ground and got mobbed by his teammates.
Upon further review, it’s not hard to see what happened.
The Spurs’ trouble began when center Jakob Poeltl attempted to deny the inbounds pass to Thunder big man Al Horford. Poeltl’s aggression left a clear path to the paint for Horford, leaving Patty Mills, who was guarding Dort, to help with no one in position to rotate over to Dort.
It was an unfortunate sequence of events, but one the Thunder were likely hoping to trigger by getting the ball to Horford up top and keeping the rest of their players away from Dort’s side of the court.
Dort finished with 16 points and four rebounds with 4-of-7 shooting from deep. The Thunder’s big star of the game was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who posted 42 points (13-of-20 shooting, 6-of-11 from deep), eight rebounds and four assists.
More from Yahoo Sports: