Well I'm happy we won . I didn't think we played particularly well . What do you guys think will change in game 3 ? Will Lou and Eric be as productive ? Will Ryan find his shot ? These are not necessarily adjustments , but rather shooting performances . As far as actual adjustments , I didn't like how OKC manhandled us on the glass . We were able to keep them at bay game 1 . Why not this game ? For me , it has little to do with our C's against their C's . We did a good job with Adams and kanter and Gibson . Where we were destroyed on the glass was when Roberson and grant ... Two players that we struggle to match up with athletically .. Crashed the glass hard . We will have to find a way to put a body on them. Frankly , Capela needs more burn . He had 10 boards and 4 blocks compared to nene's 5 and 1 ... Nene played more minutes too . Clint had a bad +/- but that was an artifact of the rockets missing every shot they threw up in the first 5 minutes . A guy like Dekker I think would help keep grant and Roberson off the glass .. But he is hurt . Maybe we can give Troy or montrezl some burn . The energy just didn't look good outside of the first few minutes ( where we just missed shots) and the stretch we came back where WB was on the bench ... And then maybe a few more minutes down the stretch . While it's nice to see we can pull one out by sticking around and then getting hot for a stretch , it won't be enough to win games in OKC much less vs SA or GS. Hitting shots is always going to be a big factor , but we shot 38 percent from 3 last night. What else can be improved upon ?
lmao my theory about how the thunder are such a great rebounding team is because Russell Westbrook Chuck's up so many shots that if you play next to him the only thing you can do is sit there and play defense and rebound. And if you don't learn how to rebound nothing will show up on the box score. So you get really good at standing around and watching Russell Westbrook go 1 on 1 and you're like oh he is about to chuck it up and you just get good at timing the crash. if the only way you can get the ball is by rebounding then that's what you got to do. in all seriousness, it would've been nice to have Dekker to help with these bigger wings.
Starters: Roberson, Grant, Westbrook, Christon, and Adams - Let and trust Christon to run the offense (very unlikely, let WB play off the ball) Bench: Abrines, Gibson, Oladipo, McDermott, and Sabonis (let Oladipo, run the offense and post up with Gibson or Sabonis...) That being said..the Rockets are just a better team than the Thunder. It was very evident last night. They've had better cohesiveness offensively, while the Thunder dont know what to do when Russ is off. The goal of the bench shouldnt be to stop anyone...rather..their goal is to keep up with scoring. The goals of the starters are to trap and disrupt the offense, and allow WB to play off the ball.
It's pretty sad that Simmons can build a website, filled with insightful pieces, from the scraps of his dignity and broken dreams that rivals ESPN. Grantland 2.0. This time, hopefully Simmons doesn't sell out. I've been reading the ringer a lot lately.
Not bad, some interesting ideas in there . I agree that the thunder's most dangerous weapon ( outside of oladipo remembering how to play) is grant and Roberson using their athleticism vs us .
More about our adjustments we need to make to prevent us from being molested in the paint like they did last night. and just make our 3's. OKC probably wont change much outside of westbrook not ballhogging. OKC did good overall until the end of the 4th.
Thought this was an interesting tidbit from that Ringer article. Lou Williams is one of the rare elite shooters who becomes less efficient when he’s spotting up: Synergy has him shooting much better with a hand in his face (1.147 points per possession) than when he’s wide open (0.875).
I agree with the rebounding problem. Way too many 2nd chances for OKC. The Spurs would feast. Unfortunately I think it's simply a limitation of the personnel. I don't see how it can be fixed. Heart & hustle will get you far, like it did in game 1, but in a typical playoff game everyone almost always gives 100%.
Pay the refs? A lot of man handling in the paint..... Was because the refs swallowed their whistles Rocket River
silver will definitely need to make some adjustments. the obvious change would be to bring brothers in. but the unconventional out-of-the-box move would be to activate holtcamp for the playoffs and start her friday night. desperate times call for desperate measures
McDermott might play more minutes in Game 3 and I think we need to cover him a bit. He is their best shooting option. If he can get around 13 to 15 pts (3-4 threes?), it will be a tough game for us. Also, I think Oladipo will likely to shoot much better at their home court. For us, I think the most important thing is not getting killed on the board. Anyway, Game 3 will definitely be the toughest game in this series.
The Spurs may not get those two rebounds though . As far as athleticism goes they don't have a wing outside of kawhi that is gonna crash the glass ; and kawhi isn't as big as Roberson or grant . Their bigs haven't been killing us too much .
It will be great if the Rockets can get everyone playing well simultaneously... but I don't see that happening a lot with the Rockets, and they might as well save those games for later rounds! That said, you don't want any one player to be in a legit slump. So whatever the Rockets can do to get both Ryno and Ariza going offensively would be nice. I think Capela and Nene have been managed fine, almost perfectly. They obviously need to focus on rebounding again, but Game 1 was likely more of an outlier, OKC is a great rebounding team generally. Just want to keep that battle close. As far as the Thunder, they do need to get weird with lineups. I'm also constantly surprised by how little / bad they are at making it easier for Westbrook with PnRs. They don't seem to do it a lot, and half or more of the time they do, it's another guard setting the pick. And sure, Harden guarding Westbrook is a better matchup for Russ than Bev or Ariza on him, but you'd think they'd want Russ attacking Ryno or Capela or Nene much more frequently.
It's hard to imagine Donovan won't trot out some version of this: Adams and Kanter are mostly useless, and Gibson is only nice in brief spurts. And the Rockets don't really have "bigs" in the classic sense. That said, if they do, do that... Rockets do need to take advantage of their bigs as much as they can. Cause they still have the Capela roll alley-oop, and Nene charging down the lane with that clawlike grip on the ball. And whose gonna stop that in a super smallball lineup for the Thunder?
I think we could get blown out, but if we prevent OKC from getting a lead of more than 20 points, which is highly likely due to how amped the team/fans will be for this game, then we will win. If OKC balls out and takes game 3, they come back down to earth and we take game 4.
