The Thunder chipped away. They were …

The Thunder chipped away. They were losing the arithmetic, trading 2s for 3s, but they also weren’t panicking. Paul continued to hit slap singles, calmly knocking down midrange pull-ups in response to each Houston artillery shell. As the Rockets poured in eight 3s, Paul quietly scored 11 points. “That was crazy, to tell you the truth,” Paul said. “We came in at halftime and coach was like, ‘First quarter we gave up eight 3s, second quarter we gave up two,’ and it was trending in a positive direction. “Then they came out — wham, wham, wham.”