OKC scored 38pts in 1st Q against us Twice in reg season

It's all that 1st Q. We come out lackadaisical and dig ourselves into big deficits. Thankfully OKC are not that good but better teams may not give us a sniff to get back

We need to come focussed and play a good 1st Q

 

Even if they can't keep this up, they would have drained our stamina for the 2nd or 3rd round.

 

Not a focus problem. Especially not in the playoffs. It's a match up problem w/ our starting lineup. Especially when Trevor can't hit the broad side of a barn.

 

We come out a bit bored and sloppy.

I think it's just a matter of playing hard from the beginning.

 

can't be giving up 60+ points to this OKC team by halftime in the playoffs, that's just unacceptable

The Rockets can get to around 115 points against this OKC defense even if they're not playing that good offensively and aren't making a lot of threes. If the Rockets hit 15+ threes, then they'll drop 130 on this team. The Rockets just need to lock in defensively for a full 48 minutes. Holding this OKC team to 100-105 points should be more than enough to beat them without much trouble.

OKC has scored over 30 points in each quarter of the 1st half in the last 2 games, but have failed to score 30+ points in any quarter in the 2nd half for this entire series. The Rockets need to bring that 2nd half defense for a full 48 minutes. Lock in, go up 3-1, and then close them out in game 5.

 

Yea IDGAF if Trevor goes 50-50 from 3 from here on out dude has to go or start warming up his seat for that bench brigade. We got rid of Brew bc he couldn't hit a 3 to save his life instead he sacrificed his goat and now we have Ariza who can't make them consitanlty so maybe his starting role will have to be sacrificed bc this is getting ridiculous. Can we get ONE 3 Ariza? Just ONE?

 

Ariza is no longer a starter material, need to get Paul George this off season and bench ariza's ass, make it happen Morey!!

 

I think it's both. We can't stop them in the 1st half, but defend them very well after halftime.

Game 1: 54 points in the 1st half, 33 points in the 2nd half

Game 2: 68 points in the 1st half, 43 points in the 2nd half

Game 3: 65 points in the 1st half, 50 points in the 2nd half

So what changes after halftime?

 

not gonna get PG this offseason, we don't have the assets to trade for him and he's not a free agent until 2018

Gordon Hayward should be our target this summer if we're looking for an immediate upgrade at the 3

 

Ariza is the most consistent reason why we start slow period. He is our weakest offensive weapon in addition, you combine him with the another inconsistent player in Anderson. Ariza is Corey Brewer 2.0.

 

we whining abut Ariza now?

#WhineAllDay.

 

Coaching staff kicks their asses i guess? That's...bad, i mean, OKC are just not a good offensive team, no excuses to let them score that much in EVERY single game.

 

Two things change. One, the Thunder get tired. You saw how they were pressing in the first quarters of Games 2 and 3. No team can keep that up for 48 minutes. Even the Payton-Kemp Sonics that gave Dream's Rockets fits could only do that in spurts. Two, the Rockets actually show up in the second half. They arrogantly believe they're so good offensively that they can just turn it on for a couple quarters and pull out wins. And sometimes(Game 2 for example), they can. But last night, they got burned. It's frustrating to think that if they hadn't coughed it up 8 times in the first quarter and spotted the Thunder an early double digit lead, we'd be looking at a 3-0 series right now.

 

Yeah, it's unacceptable. If we were playing GS and giving up 60+ points in the 1st half then I'd understand, but not being able to stop a team like OKC? They start 2 bigs and another non-shooter in Roberson. They should not be racking up points in the 1st half to this degree in the playoffs.

 

It was definitely a little frustrating. If we had gone up 3-0, then this series would've been over. Now OKC has a little bit of life and there's the possibility that this series could be tied at 2 heading into game 5 in Houston. At the point, the pressure would be on us to not choke away the series.

They need to come out ready to give 100% effort for all 4 quarters tomorrow. The defense doesn't even have to be suffocating. If they hold OKC to around just 105 points then that should be enough to win pretty comfortably. Stop spotting OKC almost 70 points by halftime.

 

In my opinion we are more evenly matched or even out matched than the series score

OKC is actually shutting down our main weapons while countering us on defense. They took away our PnR, look at how many times we cant stuff the ball to Capela and NeNe, they took away our threes, all of them were contested and not assisted.

We only had 10 assists last name, all the offense were individual drives to the basket. That's not sustainable either. We lost most of the last two games, only came back when OKC got tired imo. It's a worrying sign. Their bigs abuse ours, their PnR also get them a lot more easier baskets. When they start setting for bad midrange is how we came back.

We need to figure things out to do differently, I don't know what, but if we keep playing like this we are just going to lose the series. Can't hope for a comeback every game

 

We ended up 18th in defense and were trending down. And like the other article said, being a bad defense gets magnified in the playoffs.

Not sure what we can do at this point other than playing harder. Morey recognized the issue and tried to get Bogut twice.

We scored enough points. Giving up 110+ two games in a row to a mediocre offense (okc ranked 16th) isn't good