Sports Remix

Ginobili’s Block on Durant and 26 points Lead Spurs Past Thunder

By: Waseem Barazi

San Antonio fans couldn’t believe it. Manu blocking the NBA’s lead scorer? Apparently, Manu couldn’t even believe it himself.

“I was more expecting to be dunked on, to tell you the truth,” Ginobili said.

+1 to Manu for being humble, but maybe a display of more confidence would be appropriate for an NBA player. Manu’s block saved the San Antonio Spurs from what could have been a fast break play to lead the Oklahoma City Thunder to a win. Instead, Manu’s “underdog” block helped to lead the Spurs to a 95-87 win over the Thunder last night.

Spurs fans figured that the 6-foot-9 all star forward would dunk it in to put up an easy two points. Instead, Manu leaped up, smothered the ball with his hand, and denied Durant the points.

Even Durant had to give Ginobili credit:

“All clean, I can’t take credit away from him,” said Durant. “He made a great block. When I was at the rim, he just met me there, his hand was inside the rim and he got it.”

This block also had other implications. It ended Durant’s 29 game streak of games with 25 or more points scored. This was the longest streak since Michael Jordan’s 40 game streak in the 86-87 season.


In addition to the block, Ginobili managed an impressive 26 points. The Spurs entered this game with the seventh best record in the west. Not incredible impressive. Ginobili took note of this during an interview after the game and mentioned that the Spurs need to keep working hard and stay humble if they want to get back to the era of championship. If the Spurs don’t make the playoffs, it will be the first time since the 96-97 season, before Tim Duncan was drafted.