It's 0-2, not 0-3. All the Thunder did was hold serve at home(barely). The key for the Rockets is to just focus on Game 3. If they can limit Durant's effectiveness and take that game, the rest of the Thunder players will start to feel the pressure. Remember, they don't have Harden this time. Who's gonna step up on that team and make plays?
We can take this series to 7 games but to win the series we have to be able to win 1 road game. Parsons needs to be on Durant all game without getting into foul trouble, and we need to find a way to prevent other players from stepping up. Honestly, I don't want us to make many more adjustments just because Westbrook is out. DO NOT double Durant. More 2-3 zone is a good idea, but we have to pray they keep missing their threes and that we can rebound.
In a hole, but it is possible, though not likely. More likely than before. Feel for the Thunder, but nobody cried tears over Yao and TMac except us.
This is a good thread people. Two game hole without their point guard now we can actually beat them playing our game.
but you have to remember, we're playing against a world championship caliber team. they've been in sticky situations where they know they have to win, we haven't at all. I think this is where experience will override our drive and talent. Its possible like i said and i hope we can at least even the series, but in a best of 7 i cant see us winning it overall.
teams rally after player injuries. the lakers did it when kobe went down and did well enough to prompt people to believe that they're better without kobe (which is ridiculous btw). the same thing happened when either yao or tmac went down. thoughts of "trade yao" or "trade tmac" would always populate these boards after their injuries. I see OKC running the stuff they go over in practice more, you know, the stuff they run when westbrook doesn't take it to the basket. These offensive, btw, happen to feature the second best scorer in the nba. in order to win, we would either have to: -win the next 4 or -win 4 of the next 5 the above scenarios are kind of a stretch, IMO, for the rockets to accomplish. I think there's only a handful of teams that the rockets could do this against, let alone a Westbrook-less OKC Thunder
Anyway Gm 3 is a must win. I hope the team is ready to play desperately. And for Jackson and Fisher, don't give them open looks. Very often through the season, the PGs were over helping to double the big man, I think it's the coach's decision.
I'm not saying the Thunder aren't still the favorites given the Rockets do have to win 4 out of 5 against them, but this reminds me a little of the Suns-Spurs series from 2000 where Duncan was out with a knee injury and a young, inexperienced Phoenix team(that was back when they had Jason Kidd) just demolished San Antonio who were the defending (half)champs. I think the Rockets are now capable of winning every game from this point on if they simply come out and play their style of ball and limit the turnovers and missed 3s. I don't think that was necessarily the case before the Westbrook injury.
It'll be tough. All those bricks that Westbrook would chuck up will now go to more efficient shooters like Durant and Martin. But then again, they won't score as many transition baskets.
