Oklahoma City Thunder get a lift from the bench against San Antonio Spurs

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Dennis Schroder was mad at himself.

After a scoreless first half against the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday, looking out of sorts and showing signs of frustration, he was trying to find some spark, something to ignite him. He's an emotional, temperamental player, and it wasn't just the first half against the Spurs. It was the past few games, in which he wasn't shooting well, wasn't finishing at the rim and, in his mind, wasn't helping his team.

"I let my team down the last couple games," Schroder said. "I need to learn how to be angry every time."

Schroder scored 19 points in the Thunder's 122-112 win over the Spurs -- all in the second half -- and did so in the kind of flurry that takes over a game and swings it dramatically in one direction.

His first bucket came with 2:47 left in the third, a patented stutter-step floater in the paint over a leaping Spurs big. A minute later, he pulled confidently from the wing, splashing a 3. A minute after that, he knifed to the rim, took some contact and finished a tough layup. He slapped the floor in frustration, said something to the official and was dinged with a technical. It was just collateral damage to keep the motor running hot. He capped the quarter with a driving layup at the buzzer, helping turn a nine-point halftime deficit to a six-point lead heading to the fourth.

"I think a lot of times players can lose confidence," Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. "He doesn't -- at all. He almost gets irritated, he gets upset, he gets mad ... in a good way."

It was critical for the Thunder, on the heels of Thursday's double-overtime classic against the Spurs that featured more than 300 combined points, to get ancillary production. Paul George and Russell Westbrook weren't entirely on, and the threat of the Spurs catching fire loomed. The first half was choppy, and with a fourth straight loss looking more and more likely, there was a desperate need for a jolt.

Schroder has been a revelation this season coming off the bench, restoring some order to a tried-and-true Thunder method of having a dynamic second-unit scorer and creator to complement Westbrook. But the past few games were rough, with him hitting just 11-of-32 in a three-game losing streak and 19-of-73 (26 percent) in the previous six games. Schroder's 3-point percentage had been slipping, his shot selection had been growing more questionable, and not coincidentally, his scoring had been down. He felt like he was letting the team down.

"He wasn't letting nobody down," Westbrook said. "He'd missed shots -- that's normal, that's a part of the game. Tonight he played well, aggressive, made some shots and was big for us."

Schroder often plays the part of complementing the main course, but he has the ability to feature. He sets the table for the entire second unit, which, as a collective, produced on Saturday. Abdel Nader scored 15 on 6-of-6 shooting, and Patrick Patterson added 13, hitting 3-of-3 from 3.

"He did not have a great first half," Donovan said of Schroder. "He really came out in the second half and certainly played much closer to who he is as a player. I give him a lot of credit because that's a skill, a gift, to be able to shift after halftime and, to your point, play as well as he did offensively. Even at the end of the third and to start the fourth when we had our second unit in there, he did a great job leading that group."