Mark WiedmerTwo minutes and one second remained on the game clock Tuesday night when 40-year-old Tim Duncan caught the basketball two feet in front of the basket and prepared to shoot the closest thing to an automatic two points a player of the Big Fundamental's quality can shoot, other than a dunk.
It was a shot he'd hit thousands of times before. It was a shot that was going to break an 88-all tie between his San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder in the pivotal Game 5 of their Western Conference semifinal series.
It was exactly the shot the Spurs' white-maned coaching genius Gregg Popovich desired to assure his rickety team would regain yet another lost lead in a game his guys had led by six points moments earlier and by 13 in the second half.
Hit this shot before the hometown fans, and the Spurs might not only win this game but find a way to capture the series tonight or Sunday.
So Duncan went up as high as 40-year-old legs with more than 1,500 career games on them can, which isn't much. And because of that, the Thunder's 23-year-old Enes Kanter went a bit higher, swatting away Duncan's two-footer with remarkable ease. One-hundred and twenty-one seconds later, the Thunder swatted away the Spurs on their own court for the second straight playoff game after San Antonio had lost but once there during the regular season.
If a single moment ever signaled the end of one of the least appreciated dynasties in American professional sports history, that Kanter block of Duncan was it. After being crushed by the Spurs in the opener of their best-of-seven series, the Thunder now lead 3-2 and can wrap up a berth in the Western Conference finals with a home win tonight.
And if this is the end for Duncan and the Spurs as we've known them - which is quite simply and succinctly as perhaps the classiest championship organization ever - this unexpectedly quick goodbye is incredibly sweet sorrow.
This isn't to say the Spurs can't win tonight. They gutted out Game 3 in Oklahoma City. Let but one member of the Thunder's dynamic duo of guard Russell Westbrook or forward Kevin Durant deliver a clunker in the clutch, and Popovich might will his team to victory in a seventh game.
But Pop is also 2-10 as a coach in elimination road games, and the Thunder franchise - both in Oklahoma City and in Seattle as the SuperSonics - is 9-1 in playoff series when ahead 3-2.
None of the Spurs' stats to date speak of anything but an old team growing feeble before our eyes. Knowing they needed to out-rebound the Thunder, the Spurs were pummeled on the glass 54-36 in Game 5. Beyond that, the sputtering Spurs have been badly outplayed in the fourth quarter of the past two games, both losses, outscored by 25 stunning points total (60-35). Tuesday's collapse included being on the short end of a 13-3 run over the final four minutes.
That screams of a team short on energy, which often happens with older teams as a series drags on. Because while Duncan may be the oldest Spur, he's not exactly an anomaly on the roster - Manu Ginobili is 38, Tony Parker has 15 rugged NBA seasons on his 33-year-old body and reserve Boris Diaw is 34.
On the other side, Durant and Westbrook are both 27, Serge Ibaka is 26, Kanter is 23 and Steven Adams but 22. Experience helps at the start of a playoff series, but the longer a best-of-seven goes, the more young legs can prevail. After all, it was five years ago that a younger Spurs team went up 2-0 on a younger Thunder team, then lost the next four games.
Then, as now, the Thunder's outrageous athleticism took its toll as the series progressed.
The same is happening this time around.
Yet if it ends tonight, if Duncan never plays another game in San Antonio, if the Big Three of Duncan, Ginobili and Parker are finished, the legacy they'll leave behind may never again be matched. Assuming they all retire as Spurs, whenever those retirements come, all three will have played at least 14 seasons for one NBA team only, Duncan having logged the most with 19 seasons and five titles, while Parker and Ginobili own four rings each.
Then there's Popovich, who has produced a record 19 consecutive winning seasons and five titles in 20 years on the job as Spurs coach. Maybe he retires with Duncan - assuming the Big Fundamental chooses to call it quits on a certain Hall of Fame career - and maybe he doesn't, but you get the feeling that Duncan, Ginobili and Pop may all be gone when this season is done, choosing to exit as quietly and with as much dignity as they always won their championships.
"We always think we have a chance," Ginobili said late Tuesday night. "We know it's tough games. We are two very good teams. Whoever plays better, hustles more, gets more rebounds is going to win the next one. Hopefully, it's us."
No disrespect to the Thunder, but hopefully it will be, if only to give us a few more chances to watch this one-of-a-kind dynasty.
But it doesn't feel that way. It feels like we're about to watch the end of the Spurs as we know them when they take the floor at 8:30 tonight in Oklahoma City with ESPN televising the momentous game.
Father Time stops for no one, and the time of Duncan, Ginobili, Parker and Pop would appear to be done after an extraordinary 19-year run of continuity and consistency not likely to be seen again in American professional sports.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.