The first six minutes of the game and final six minutes of the first half was to Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Billy Donovan’s liking.
The 12 minutes in between, and the inability to slow down the Houston Rockets in the second half, led to the Thunder’s 123-108 defeat in Game 1 of the first round of the playoffs.
Over those first six minutes in the first and final six in the second, Donovan said, “Our pace was really good, and we had a good mixture of attacking paint, and post-ups, and some pick-and-roll penetration.
“And then we really had those lulls. And I think in those lulls that you’re talking about, our inability to really handle and guard the ball at the point of attack … some of it, to be honest with you, is just straight-up one-on-one, and it wasn’t always James (Harden).”
Harden had 37 points. He went 6-for-9 from inside the arc and 6-for-13 beyond the 3-point line. Eric Gordon complemented him in the starting lineup with 21 points.
Off the bench, Jeff Green had 22 points while posting a plus-28 and Ben McLemore had 14 points, four 3s and a plus-27 in 24 minutes.
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Oklahoma City guards and wings struggled to cut off their attacks, and with Houston playing all five guys outside the paint, help defense was very slow in arriving.
Steven Adams was forced to be in the corner with Rockets center P.J. Tucker instead of inside the paint against a normal big.
It’s not a complicated scheme, Adams said, but that’s not automatically a positive for the Thunder.
“It’s actually quite simple, but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean that it’s easy,” Adams said.
“It’s still a hard task. Because everyone’s spacing on their team. They just open up the lane. What it comes down to is actually being disciplined on when you should help.”
That was the whole point of the Rockets trading away Clint Capela. The lane is now wide open. If Adams crashes in, Tucker can hit his 3.
Tucker is more than adept at that. He’s a leading scorer along both sidelines, according to ESPN’s Kirk Goldsberry.
Leading Scorers By Zone, 2019-20 pic.twitter.com/HxkZ1DsDRi
— Kirk Goldsberry (@kirkgoldsberry) August 17, 2020
“The drive and kicks, and then we’re playing behind the ball,” Adams said. “That’s tough.”
Oklahoma City thinks the best way to fix that is by playing faster. That actually goes against their usual offensive scheme. This season, they played a more meticulous, pick-and-roll-heavy offense.
But that gave Houston too much time to get their defense set up in Game One. That clogged up lanes that didn’t allow guys like Dennis Schroder and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to score as they normally would.
Those two guards combined for 15 points on 5-for-20 shooting.
Then, in transition, Houston had the advantage. Adams referenced when Danuel House would streak out quickly after a play, resulting in quick Houston offense.
The Thunder only had two fast break points while Houston had 13.
Oklahoma City kept up at the beginning of the game and end of the first half. Outside those 12 minutes, there was little prolonged resistance.
“We got very slow. We didn’t play with any force. we weren’t playing downhill. We weren’t really getting out and running like we needed to,” Donovan said.
“Some of it was we were taking the ball out because they were scoring, but we’ve gotta play with a better tempo and a better pace. When we did that to close out that second quarter, we were a little bit better. We were trying to dig ourselves out of some holes … We’ve gotta play with a good pace and a good tempo and a good flow. When we don’t, we get a little bit bogged down.”
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After the first six minutes of the game, the score was tied at nine. In the final six minutes of the half, primarily with the three-guard lineup, the Thunder at one point went on a 9-0 run. After trailing by 21 with about four minutes to go, they cut the lead as low as 12.
But then the Rockets stormed back, eventually got the lead as high as 23, and with 20 3-pointers while limiting the Thunder to 44% shooting from the field, ran away with the win.
“The faster we play, the less that they set up in their defense, everyone’s going to be a lot more open. They have a bit more freedom. For most part, I think if we just stick to the offense, we should find more shots,” Adams said.
“Again, the volume of our shots isn’t necessarily, like, the goal. It’s more like the quality.”
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