The Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs will face each other in the NBA Western Conference Semifinals starting Saturday at the AT&T Center. Tim Duncan and the Spurs are favored to win at home, as they have done all season, but Timmy will have to pull some new tricks out of his bag if he wants an advantage over Thunder center Steven Adams.

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Adams told reporters that The Big Fundamental tricked him during his rookie year by being deceptively nice. The 19-year veteran doesn’t body up younger guys or use quickness like he used to. Now he plays mind games with them.

Steven Adams on Tim Duncan is predictably fantastic pic.twitter.com/POrzL9Y1c8

— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) April 28, 2016

“He’s a nice guy — that was my biggest mistake as a rookie. I was, like, hitting him all the time and he was having trouble with it. Then he came over and talked to me a bit, like, “Hey bud, how are you?” And I was like, “Oh what a nice guy.” And then he just dropped like 20 from there on.”

Now that Adams knows this, he might not take it so easy on Old Man Riverwalk.