Clutchfans Game Thread: Rockets @ Thunder 8/24/2020 (Playoffs Round 1, Game 4)

[IKO] ‘A disaster on both ends’: The Rockets are making mistakes at the worst time

As the final buzzer sounded in AdventHealth Arena for the second game in a row in a span of three days, the Rockets left the floor and headed for the locker room with the heads down in silence.

James Harden knocked over a hand sanitizing station in frustration, but the damage had already been done. Houston had just committed one of the playoff deadly sins— giving a team momentum, which results in the playoff gray area.

The gray area refers to the unknown, a place devoid of confidence, and a rising sense of nervousness. This happens when a team expected to win a series doesn’t, or at worst extends it. When the job is completed in normal postseason instances, we refer to them as upsets. Only seven percent of teams that go up 2-0 have actually wound up losing the series altogether, but ironically enough, the Rockets have experienced that twice in the last 15 years.

This isn’t to say that the same situation will happen here, but four games into this hotly-contested matchup, the Thunder don’t look like the lower seed out of the two.

What will only add to the level of frustration the Rockets are experiencing is the minuscule margins of error that ultimately prove the difference between winning and losing. After four games, it would be an exaggeration to say that Houston should have swept the Thunder—they’re simply too good for that. But believing that the Rockets should be up by three games to one is far less dramatized. If Game 3 narrowly slipped through their fingers, Game 4 was a deafening drop of the whole damn thing.

For more than three and a half quarters on Monday afternoon, Houston looked to be in sole control of its destiny, with a 3-1 series lead firmly within reach. D’Antoni’s Rockets had made all of the necessary adjustments following Game 3 and looked like the obvious threat to the Thunder’s playoff hopes.

Danuel House’s 3-pointer with 6:19 left in the third quarter capped a stretch where the team had hit seven straight already. A 15-point lead looked insurmountable at that point. For starters, the Rockets had largely neutralized the threat that Luguentz Dort had presented for the first three games. Harden was in an offensive rhythm, resulting from the reemergence of high ball screens and inverted pick-and-rolls, designed to free Harden from Dort’s adhesive.

The combination of both, mixed in with some veteran savviness from Harden, had kept Dort in foul trouble which naturally made things easier on everyone else. Eric Gordon showed signs of a pulse, Robert Covington was utilized more, and the ball movement was once again excellent.

And then, the ceiling caved in.

“We just relaxed and they gained confidence,” Harden said following the Rockets’ 117-114 loss. “That’s what happened.”

Houston looked like it forgot everything that had gotten it to this point and that had made the team so successful. Again in the playoffs, the Rockets’ shooting abandoned them. Rambling about the fact that this team takes too many 3s has become tiresome the more it’s uttered in league circles, but this was more than just a cold stretch. If we can declare that the Rockets are married to this high-variance, death by 3s style, then the back end of Game 4 left them at the altar.

“We strayed away from what we do on both ends of the ball,” Harden said. “We don’t score the basketball, and then we don’t get back defensively. Obviously teams are going to make runs but it’s the way they made their run. We weren’t getting shots we wanted offensively, and defensively, we weren’t sticking to our principles. So it was a disaster on both ends.”

The Rockets missed the next six attempts from behind the arc. In the fourth quarter, they proceeded to shoot 4 of 19 from distance. But to make matters worse, everything else regressed. The passing. The energy. The execution.

In particular, and perhaps the most detrimental to Houston’s success given how important his play is, Harden’s efficiency plummeted. His stat line looks great (32 points, 15 assists, 8 rebounds,) but his play on the court suffered in key stretches. Where he had gotten success attacking downhill or in drive-and-kick situations, he settled for ill-advised long bombs. He never even allowed plays to develop, chucking shots from 28, 30, 31, and even 35 feet.

At the same time, the Thunder were taking control of the game. Again, most of what they do is centered around their three guards, but Paul and Dennis Schroder in particular were unstoppable. It was almost a basketball irony watching both teams trade attempts, with the Thunder doing damage from the midrange and the Rockets throwing up prayers from deep.

The brunt of their dominance must be attributed to Paul and his leadership, constantly keeping his team in the game and adding 26 points of his own, with a flurry of trash-talk-infused patented pull-ups down the stretch. But Oklahoma City doesn’t win this game without Schroder. “He always causes problems,” D’Antoni said. “He’s a good player. Crafty and scored a lot of points. We gotta do a better job. They got us.”

In the last two games now, he’s become a menace to society, once again showcasing why he’s historically seen as a thorn in the Rockets’ side. In Game 4, he had 30 but it was almost in a Harden-esque fashion, picking out mismatches and plotting his path against bigger wings. So far, Green and Covington have been the biggest benefactors of Schroder’s scoring, with 40 points coming in those two matchups (26 for Green, 14 for Covington).

“They’re quick guards,” Harden said. “Obviously, they’re really good at getting into the paint. They gained confidence in the third quarter when they went on that run. We just never really recovered after that.”

His quirky, slow release and low center of gravity allow him to get to spots that Houston’s wings simply can’t account for, no matter how long or strong they are. With three minutes gone in the fourth quarter, The Thunder were in the midst of a blistering 25-8 run, spanning from Houston’s third-quarter three-point barrage and leading into their screeching halt, with Schroder and Paul pulling the bulk of the strings.

“We strayed away from what we do on both ends of the ball,” Harden said. “We don’t score the basketball, and then we don’t get back defensively. Obviously teams are going to make runs but it’s the way they made their run. We weren’t getting shots we wanted offensively, and defensively, we weren’t sticking to our principles. So it was a disaster on both ends.”

Still, with five minutes to go, Houston only trailed by one. The Thunder never got that much separation and the Rockets still could have somehow stolen this one and ran back to the hotel. Houston had a great chance to tie it late on a wide-open Tucker corner three, a place where he’s head and shoulders above his peers over the last three seasons. But considering the team they were up against, the chasm was deeper than just a single point.

Much ado has been made of the Thunder’s clutch-time brilliance, with 30 wins to their name, led by Paul’s 150 points leading the league in the final five minutes this season. In two wins this series, Oklahoma City is +28.6 with a stingy defensive rating of 89.3, much in line with their regular-season output.

But as much as we gloss over sexy net ratings and points scored or allowed per 100 possessions, the truth is the Thunder are just better when it matters. They run harder—a 106.99 pace rating compared to a 101 during the game, and more importantly just show a heightened level of mental toughness. Yes, winning in the clutch boils down to efficiency battles, but they’re also about IQ. About chemistry. About focus. And guts. In all facets, the Thunder held an advantage.

 

But as much as we gloss over sexy net ratings and points scored or allowed per 100 possessions, the truth is the Thunder are just better when it matters. They run harder—a 106.99 pace rating compared to a 101 during the game, and more importantly just show a heightened level of mental toughness. Yes, winning in the clutch boils down to efficiency battles, but they’re also about IQ. About chemistry. About focus. And guts. In all facets, the Thunder held an advantage.

“They played a little bit better than we did down the stretch,” D’Antoni said. “We had our looks, we didn’t make them. We turned the ball over a couple of times. That hurt us, but I thought both teams had a chance to win, we just didn’t do it.”

If we must take a step back (no pun), it should be noted that a 2-2 tie in a best-of-seven with a 4-5 matchup isn’t a cause for the ending of the world. These are two teams that were expected to go the distance. But how Houston is losing is concerning.

The Rockets are playing without Russell Westbrook, as we all know, and the more these games are lost in this fashion, the more you begin to see why he’s been so crucial to their sustenance. He’s the best Plan B they have, not only from a stylistic standpoint but from an emotional one. You’d have to think Westbrook would have done his absolute best to rally the troops when the game was in the balance in Games 3 and 4, and certainly brings a different angle once the threes dry up. Harden came into Game 4 ranked second in points scored on drives (18.0) and an eye-popping efficiency (68%) but there’s the burning question of workload and overall tiredness.

Harden put in an insane amount of work on his body during the hiatus to prepare him for these games, but what he didn’t expect was Westbrook to be dressed in street clothes. In the last three games, he’s logged 43, 38, and 36 minutes. With games every other day, there’s not a whole lot of time for recovery.

Harden was noticeably huffing and puffing bringing the ball up the floor in the fourth quarter, having to set up the offense just to get Dort away from him and that constant dribbling and driving takes its toll. Passes were off target, resulting in confused looks heading down the court after turnovers. Having Westbrook available gives you a security blanket of sorts to catch your breath in larger spots, where you might not have that luxury without him, especially seeing how Houston fared without Harden in Game 3.

As we wait on Westbrook’s arrival in this series—which might come sooner than planned if the Rockets continue to slide—D’Antoni and his group have some work to do. It’s different than the midseason slump this team went through where the air was stale, looks were stern, and fingers were pointed, but Game 4 just felt like a gut punch to their spirit and swagger. The Thunder punched them in the mouth, point-blank, and sucked all the air out of the room before they left. We’ve seen this from this team in the playoffs past, notably during last season’s showdown with Golden State. If you recall, no game had a difference of 6 points or more. They were all close contests, ones Houston can claim they should have fared better in, but didn’t.

For one, D’Antoni still needs to tweak his rotations. In Game 4, Austin Rivers and Ben McLemore were used sparingly (15 and 8 minutes, combined). With such a large number of threes missed (35), you’d have to wonder why McLemore hasn’t been used well, taking just five shots in two games. But Rivers without a doubt needs to be on the floor more, specifically for his defense. It’s clear that the Rockets’ wings can’t slow Schroder down effectively, but Rivers has had success against him so far, holding him to 1-4 shooting in 26 partial possessions and 6:43 in total. He’s also been part of some successful lineups four games in.

Cry Me a River

Lineup | Minutes | Offensive Rating | Defensive Rating | Net Rating
Tucker-Gordon-Harden-Covington-House | 42 | 108.3 | 98.9 | 9.5
Green-Gordon-Tucker-Rivers-House | 14 | 130.8 | 85.2 | 45.6
Tucker-Green-Harden-Rivers-McLemore | 12 | 125.9 | 77.8 | 48.1
Tucker-Green-Gordon-Harden-House | 28 | 104.5 | 103.1 | 1.4

Elsewhere, more fight to secure defensive possessions would be welcome. Houston has done well in the first three games in this aspect (only losing 46-40 overall in rebounds), but the Thunder turned 9 offensive rebounds into 17 second-chance points. That is brutal and in a game this tight, it really shows over the course of a game. The Rockets’ struggles in the clutch so far are puzzling given how they performed during the regular season and simply need to be better moving forward.

“Again, there’s things we’ll adjust and things we’ll look and get better at,” D’Antoni said. “It’s a two out of three series right now. Nothing’s lost, nothing’s gained and we’ll go to work.”

 

A shot in the first quarter counts the same as one in the fourth quarter, and Tucker and Covington both shot well yesterday. Being upset with their offensive performance yesterday is directing your anger in the wrong place.

Also, Tucker did miss the open three from the corner with the score 111-108, but that doesn’t mean he laid bricks yesterday. You are correct that Tucker didn’t step up in the fourth quarter, but he only took two shots. Harden (3), Gordon (4) and House (3) took 10 threes combined before the Thunder built a five-point lead in the final minute and made none. Eric Gordon was scoreless in the fourth quarter, and James Harden was scoreless for the first eight minutes of the quarter (his first basket came with 4:01 remaining in regulation).

Robert Covington was 2-4 from the three-point line and 2-5 from the field in the fourth quarter. He did his job.

Want to know who really killed the Rockets from the three-point line in the fourth quarter? Gordon was 0-4; House was 1-4 (only make came on a half-court heave with the game over); Harden was 1-4 (the one make came when the Rockets were down 113-108 and 17 seconds left).

 

People remember the Rockets shot poorly when it counted, but if they would have played the first half with the same defensive intensity they gave in games 1 and 2, they would have won this game easily. They let the Thunder match them point for point in the first half and wasted a really good shooting performance.

 

missing 14 of the final 17 shots will hurt a ton though, especially when mistakes are magnified at the end of games when there's less and less time to make up for it or correct

 

Imagine what happens when the Rockets actually go cold from 3 and shoot less than 30%. OKC will blow us out. I predict that will happen next game.

 

I don't think they were saying it is acceptable as much as it is a reflection of reality.

 

They've already been cold from 3 and still kept it close.

 

This jumped out to me - did we "plan" on Russ missing the series altogether?

 

Settled on the 3 pointer line. So they were 2 for 14 or something like that minus the desperate makes. Yet, they refuse to attack the rim. Drive, suck, and kick. I see that's the game plan, but at that point, clearly that was not working. You just gotta change a little bit. None. This is on coach and to some extent Harden.

 

I’m just so tired of this gimmick small ball chucking 3s. Passing up layups for 3s literally just blew my mind last night. What were there like 5-6 open layups in the 3rd and 4th that we passed on? That essentially sums up why we are not championship contenders.

 

The turning point was at the middle of the 3rd quarter after getting a 15 points lead. They lost focus and let CP and Schroeder score at will. If they stayed focused, it wouldn't have mattered if the shooting turned cold. They would have a large enough lead entering the 4th quarter to keep the opponent from coming back.

It's a given that the shooting will be hot and cold. As long as the overall percentage remains high, it should be okay. The one thing they can control is defensive focus.

 

Cancer when the games are CLOSE as he forces things and makes the WORST decisions /turnovers that ends up KILLING the Rockets.

 

Look at the other team... Who is Chris Paul playing with? A bunch of barely legals and high schoolers. Surely G-leaguers are better than them?

 

Dumb, dumb, dumb.
I blame the coaching this game.
The series shouldve been over in a sweep. We shouldve won the last 2 games EASILY!

Harden played 23 of the final 24 minutes. No wonder he was gassed and mostly settled for 3s.

We didnt get to the line much. Why? It wasn't the ref's fault, its because we didn't drive and instead settled for 3s when we had a comfortable lead allowing OKC back in.
Coaching should've fixed that ingame!

 

same culprits as in game 7 vs gsw....
these 2 need to accept they not godly 3pt shooters and should drive instead

 

What bugs me about Harden is I rarely ever hear him take the blame by saying "I" instead of "we". That's not what good leaders do. They take the blame even if it's not the complete truth. We see this type of behavior on the court too when he's puts his hands up and yells at his teammates when the other team scores, or when he passes the ball to a teammate with 2 seconds left on the shot clock.

 

OKC got no stars other than declining Paul but good players.

The Rockets are favorites because of those 2 superstars and a high variance Offense and switch defense.

Doesn't mean they are invincible, on the contrary, enough holes to exploit.

 

You can't have it all.

Chris Paul with Harden's height at 6'5, he would do wonders, Finals galore.

He could defend tons of more positions in Today's game.

Leadership can't be learned in lessons, at least not great leadership.