Tip-off: Wednesday, 9:30 p.m. ET
Line: San Antonio -5.5, Total: 215

What adjustments will Gregg Popovich make after an embarrassing Game 1 loss?

Things went about as bad as they possibly could have for the San Antonio Spurs on Monday night, as the No. 2 seed fell 126-99 at home to the No. 3 seed Houston Rockets in Game 1 of their Western Conference Semifinals series. The Spurs entered the contest as six-point favorites, and they’ll be favored again on Wednesday night for Game 2. But for them to cover the spread—or lose by less than 20 points, for that matter—they’ll have to make some serious adjustments. The game was over at halftime, and the 30-point deficit that Gregg Popovich’s team faced at the half was the largest it’s ever been while he’s been head coach. Houston made a ridiculous 22-of-50 three-pointers. Some of those, admittedly, were hard shots, but the Spurs need to defend the perimeter, better. They also need to run their own offense better on the perimeter: A Rockets team not exactly known for its defense shut down all of the Spurs’ scoring options. Since 1996, home favorites of 3.5 to 9.5 points revenging a loss against their opponent (SAS) are 52-21 ATS against an opponent coming off a win of at least 20 points against a division rival. In the same timeframe, second-round playoff games are 78-36 Over against totals of at least 210.

Rockets SG James Harden (31.0 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 8.2 APG, 2.0 SPG; all player stats in playoffs) looked out of sorts towards the end of Houston’s first-round series with the Thunder, clearly struggling to make his usual movements on a bum ankle. After five games off between rounds, Harden looked fully recovered in Game 1 against the Spurs. He scored 20 points, dished out 14 assists and nabbed four steals, and it surely further helped his recovery that he only had to play 31 minutes in the blowout. SF Trevor Ariza (9.0 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 1.3 SPG) busted out with his biggest game of the playoffs, scoring a game-high 23 points on 5-of-10 three-point shooting. Charged with stopping Spurs SF Kawhi Leonard in this series, anything Ariza can provide on offense is gravy. PF Ryan Anderson (8.5 PPG, 5.3 RPG), SG Eric Gordon (13.2 PPG, 4.3 RPG) and SG Lou Williams (17.8 PPG, 4.0 RPG) added to the three-point barrage, combining to go 14-of-20 from outside. Anderson added six rebounds, three assists and two steals to go with his 14 points. Perhaps the Rockets’ most dominant player was C Clint Capela (9.7 PPG, 7.7 RPG, 2.5 BPG), who was monstrous in putting up 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting and 13 rebounds in only 25 minutes. He had seemingly taken a backseat to C Nene (12.5 PPG, 6.3 RPG) in the Thunder series, but will obviously see plenty of time if he can keep up this level of play. For his part, Nene was ejected in Game 1.

For the Spurs, Leonard (29.7 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 4.1 APG, 1.7 SPG) wasn’t the problem in their brutal Game 1 loss. He certainly wasn’t his best self in terms of scoring, putting up 21 points on 5-of-14 shooting. But he also added in 11 rebounds and six assists, and any blame for the blowout has to go to his ostensibly supporting cast. Starting with the Spurs’ mediocre first-round performance against the Memphis Grizzlies, the largest point of criticism for this team has been the play of PF LaMarcus Aldridge (13.3 PPG, 7.1 RPG). If Aldridge was subpar in the first round, then he was invisible in Game 1 against the Rockets, scoring four points on seven shots and pulling down six rebounds. He had a dismal +/- of -36 for the night, with no one else on his team doing worse than -22. He needs to figure out how to make an impact on offense, and it would help if he could guard Anderson or Capela. PG Tony Parker (15.6 PPG, 3.0 APG) was equally as absent, scoring 11 points on 3-of-9 shooting; along with SG Jonathon Simmons (4.8 PPG), he was the Spurs’ second-leading scorer. SG Danny Green (6.1 PPG) was kind of the anti-Ariza, in that he was neither able to successfully guard the opposing team’s star (Harden) nor hit three-pointers (2-of-9). He needs to be able to do at least one of those things for his team to win any given game. C Pau Gasol (6.4 PPG, 5.7 RPG) did very little in 22 minutes, scoring six points and pulling down six rebounds.