John Hollinger of ESPN.com: “Despite all those shortcomings, Oklahoma City still would have completed an impressive four-game sweep tonight were it not for the most glaring weakness of all: Poor offensive decision-making, particularly from point guard Russell Westbrook. Don’t get me wrong, Westbrook is a fantastic player, and at 22 he’s going to be one for a long time. But he’s a fantastic player with a Colorado-sized chip on his shoulder, and his quest to leave his imprint on every possession of every game often takes him racing past the nuances that could make him a better point guard and a better basketball player.”
ESPN Stats and Info: “Russell Westbrook took 30 shots in Game 4 and half of his shots came 15+ feet away from the basket. Westbrook made just 35.4 percent of his shots from 15+ feet in the regular season and this is not an area of strength for him. Westbrook’s jumper really struggled in the fourth quarter, as he went 0-5 from 15+ feet in the final frame.”
Berry Tramel on Westbrook: “Here is Westbrook usage by quarters: 36.3 percent, 26.3, 40 and 45.8. That’s right. After Westbrook entered the game with 10:16 left, almost half the Thunder possessions ended with a Westbrook shot or turnover. Here is Durant usage by quarters: 32 percent, 21.1, 23.1, 33.3. A couple of interesting thoughts. The quarter in which Durant and Westbrook did the least, was the Thunder’s best. And that goes right along with what we’ve seen in this series. The one rout in the series was Game 2, when Harden was the star and the Thunder role players asserted themselves.”
Darnell Mayberry: “As Thunder fans, you can only hope that Russell Westbrook learns from what he did wrong tonight. I want to believe he will. I want to believe his fourth-quarter performance became rock bottom on his occasional boneheaded displays of basketball. I want to believe he’ll be better for botching the game on such a big stage with the basketball world watching. I want to believe that the Thunder player with the biggest chip on his shoulder won’t try to silence his critics the next time around by attempting to prove he can make the same shots he missed in crunch time but by proving he can settle down and be satisfied delivering the smart play.”
I wrote just about Russell Westbrook for CBSSports.com.
KD was named the fifth most influential athlete on Twitter.
I really don’t normally like to rip on other writers, but this is just too much from Jenni Carlson of the Oklahoman: “The excuses that have been coming from the boys in baby blue have been as plentiful as crisp spring days in the Mile High City. They started in the opening game of the series, and they haven’t stopped since. The Nuggets’ excuses are like Fran Drescher’s voice in “The Nanny.” Annoying.” It’s like she said, “Oh yeah Mark Kiszla? I see your stupid column and raise you one.”
Bill Simmons with a good column on small market teams.
Jeffrey Morton of Denver Stiffs: “Westbrook also got into it with KD during a timeout, and also screamed at Serge Ibaka after running into Kenyon Martin. He complained on every offensive possession, every drive, every jumper, every defensive possession. Hell, Westbrook even complained walking from the huddle (seriously). I’m not going to draw some hackneyed equivalence to the Nuggets in order to make it seem like all things are equal. We all know they aren’t. Westbrook has been deemed a star and we know that if Nene or J.R. did that, and to that extent, they would have been given two quick technicals. Oh well.”
Charlie of Roundball Mining Company: “Let’s be honest, the Nuggets are not likely making NBA history by winning this series against all odds but they are playing for something. At best they are a balanced, physical team that can hang with OKC and challenge them at their own game. At worst they are a worthy opponent that will lose out to superior talent and execution. The best thing to take away from this game is the fact that Denver earns one more chance to lay it all on the line and compete in another game. One more game means this season won’t be remembered for a disappointing and uncompetitive ending. That is plenty to play for.”
In the playoffs so far, Harden has been fine with Durant and Westbrook overall but not the full starting lineup. How does this happen? It turns out he is far better than the bench bigs than Ibaka and Perkins. In the regular season he was good with Ibaka, just not as good as with Collison and Mohammed. He was again weaker with Perkins. Maybe Perkins clogs things in Harden view or mind or he isn't used to playing with him yet or something.
4 of the 10 lineups which yielded the most positive gain so far in the series were small ball lineups with only one true big (not counting Durant). Those 4 best small ball lineups won by 27 points. The team was only won by 21 total points for the entire series. Of course there are other small ball lineups and surely some are bad. I have not counted the net return from all of them.
DXL :@justin
Context: the Thunder scored more points than the Nuggets did when Russell Westbrook was on the basketball court. What’s so hard to understand?
Lineups. Small sample of one game makes it difficult to capture the individual contribution to the +/-, so it's pretty useless. Lineup data is more useful for single games.
koolcrud :Honey Badger doesn’t give a shit about what any of you think. Honey Badger was hungry.
I laughed my @$$ off reading this .....thanks!
Convention wisdom might make one think that a shot in the lane is a good shot. It is if you get all the way to the rim or get fouled; but if you take anything else, it has just a 40% chance of going in (based on tens of thousands of such shots around the league each season), making it equally as weak as a long 2. Smart teams would avoid fouling drivers and only really worry about defending the last 3 feet right under the basket.
Yes Collison seems to bring good things out of the team generally. Even with weak individual stats last playoffs he had the best team +/- when on the court. I'd say anytime things start to slip, putting Nick in, regardless of the usual rotation, would be worth considering.
lost*
I like collison in there. He is shooting better. And hardly ever loses his responsibility. Perk and Ibaka get last often.
Raw team +/- for 4 games is not that meaningful. But it gives clues for some things to watch and think about more. In the playoffs little things can ultimately make a big difference.
Another boxscore watcher. Watch the game instead its more telling
DXL :
Certainly not Russ’s worst game ever. That’s hyperbole. Have you seen some of the duds he’s put up?
Despite all the bad shots he took Westbrook was a team-leading +4. Consider blaming some of the role players who came up small, especially Eric Maynor, who was an ugly -7 in only 9 minutes.
hahahaha, exactly
The worst lineup in the series by cumulative team +/- is the the other starters with Harden.
The average pace got even a little faster last night. Denver continued to get tons of FTAs and enough inside shots.
Westbrook's 30 shots ties Carmelo for most shots taken by a player in this playoffs. Of the few who took more than 25, they all lost.
In the playoffs so far:
Perkins best team +/- partner is Collison and his worst is Ibaka.
Collison is in all the top 7 trios. Westbrook's one and only appearance in that group is with Nick. Perkins is not in any of the top 10 trios.
Maynor has the worst cumulative +/-. Westbrook the best.
And yet Maynor has in 3 of the best 7 trios. Some of it is random but got to watch Maynor and do something when it starts to go south.
You might want to test Robinson in the next game, as research for the next series where he might be needed.
Durant in only 2 of the top 10 quads. Westbrook just one.
This team so far in the playoffs gets more edge from the bench. Only 2 of the top 5 on team +/- are starters. Harden and Collison are pushing Durant for second best +/-. Regardless of the past rotation do you really want to have many or any minutes in a close game without at least one of them on the floor?
Gather than focus on shots for Harden with Westbrook and Durant which so far seems pretty hopeless, I'd try to get better shots for Ibaka. He is taking plenty. just not hitting quite enough right now.
Westbrook-Harden-Durant are in all 5 of the top 5 five man lineups on cumulative +/-. Perkins 1, Collison 3, Mohammed 1. Ibaka 3, Thabo 1, Cook 1. But they all dink minute lineups.
Starting lineup is just +2 for the series. Nothing was worked for big minutes.
@DavyTheWise
I absolutly do NOT want them to rip him in the media. I just want to make sure someone besides the media handles this internally.
@justin
Context: the Thunder scored more points than the Nuggets did when Russell Westbrook was on the basketball court. What's so hard to understand?
@DXL
Individual +/- for single games is pretty useless without context.
Like most Thunder fans, I was dumbfounded and irate while witnessing Russ's shot selections, but his hustle was profound in those last minutes as he scored several offensive boards on pure effort and blocked an easy lay up/duck by Anderson
Certainly not Russ's worst game ever. That's hyperbole. Have you seen some of the duds he's put up?
Despite all the bad shots he took Westbrook was a team-leading +4. Consider blaming some of the role players who came up small, especially Eric Maynor, who was an ugly -7 in only 9 minutes.
The problem is that oftentimes when the ball does move the offense stinks. In Game 3, Russ moved the ball well for most of the game but his passes were rarely paid off. Perkins and Thabo are useless mostly on offense that way, and Ibaka's jump shot hasn't been falling all that much. Our offense in game four was much better than our offense in game three, when I felt Russ moved the ball a lot more effectively.
@Thunder405
They aren't going to rip him in the media, thats not how the thunder roll (pun intended). I'm sure they are having discussion about it in private, as a team, like they should be.
@kfmsooner
Agreed, they have shown the ability to bounce back from games like this before, and i think they will this time too. Its just all magnified because the playoffs are brutal.
The whole team started off the game settling for outside shots, and it continued for most of the game. I have a hard time putting this all on RW, and I seriously doubt that his teammates blame only him as well. Could he have made some different decisions towards then end? Yeah. Of course. certianly. Moving the ball into a position to score is very much RW's responsibility, but I still think he is trying to do what is best for the team during the game. Sometimes that does mean taking over, but clearly last night was not one of those times. He'll do better, he has always done a nice job recovering from bad games.
In the firt half Brooks came out with Maynor, Harden, Thabo, Collison,Nazr. Nuff said. Jump off and quit making excuses
Wednesday's game will be interesting. Brooks and company are earning their paychecks today and tomorrow. There is a lot of backlash against Russ in the media. This loss, right or wrong, is being laid at his feet. How he answers the criticism will be big as far as what kind of character RW really has. Hopefully, he rises up, runs the offense, shares the ball and balances his usage better from last night.
I just don't understand the logic behind the shot by Westbrook with under a minute to play. Actually, it blows my mind. Ok, so your 0-6 from 3 point range for the game, for the season your an under 30% 3 point shooter and KD is going off with 5-6 from 3 point land who's open if memory serves me correctly. You stop on a dime and jack up another 3 pointer and what comes down you ask? A big fat airball. Really? Did you really think he was going to make that? When the shot went up, I was like, WTF?? I know he's made a few here lately but dude your 0-6 this game. Mabey he was thinking he was due. LOL. Is it just arrogance? What the hell? Somebody tell me please what he was thinking and has the coaching staff ripped him for his 30 shots and late game play?
@Thunderman
I do remember him saying something like that. LOL! Kristic just needs to worry about getting in the game this post season.
PLAYER GP GS MIN PPG OFFR DEFR RPG APG SPG BPG TPG FPG A/TO
Green F 4 0 16.8 6.0 1.0 2.5 3.5 0.0 0.25 0.50 1.0 3.5 0.0
Krstic C 4 0 5.8 1.0 1.0 1.0 2.0 0.5 0.00 0.50 0.8 0.8 0.7
Honestly, I'm surprised that this game took as long to manifest itself as it did. This is the type of Russell game I feared once it became clear in Feb/March that Russ was gaining more confidence in his 3p shot. Despite Russ hitting his threes with accuracy, he only raised his 3p/g up a tick (1.56 per 36 after the AS break, as opposed to 1.27 before). A perfect number, really, and I was super impressed with the restraint Russ was showing. I was sure we'd have a disaster like last night and I had expected it much sooner.
Russ just lost his damn mind last night. It's always a possibility with him, especially when the whole team seems out of sync and low on energy. I have confidence he'll redeem himself multiple times over by the time these playoffs are over, and I wouldn't be surprised if he starts in Game 5.
@Jax Raging Bile Duct
This is a good thing man. Praise them in public, punish in private. :)
@dragonbug82
He wanted just ONE. MORE. COBRA.
Does anyone remember when Kristic was asked what he thought about the Celtic offense?
He said something like: "I love it! You actually get the ball here"
Makes sense
@koolcrud
lol. honey badger was a little TOOOOOO hungry last night, honey badger needs to learn to share :P
The article by Simmons on small markets is pretty good.
Honey Badger doesn't give a shit about what any of you think. Honey Badger was hungry.
Just like last year when RW was told not to shoot the 3 ball anymore. I think he needs to be told not to shoot any shots outside of 15 ft the rest of the playoffs. We have a legitimate chance of going to the WCF and even the NBA Finals, and I don't want Russ screwing it up
I've never seen Brooks even come close to calling out a poor performance by any of his players. I think that's good though.
@justin
http://www.nba.com/video/channels/playoffs/2011/04/26/20110425_brooks_game_recap.nba
@justin
i was also impressed with collisons contributes too. He didnt do MUCH per say but taking the jumper, and going to the rim was nice to see. Hes a smart player.
i still believe nene should of been tech'd for that perk arm bar :P if it was perk taking him down you can bet your ass the refs would of swarmed over and tech'd him. bah.
At least Ibaka is playing well.
@justin
i saw the after video of game 4 where he talked to the media. and KD's too. you could tell the frustration in KD's voice when asked stuff like, what did denver do differently to beat you guys, he just stared and was like..."nah, nothing different" basically saying, we beat ourselves lol. Brooks said, we had to many turnovers, they didnt expect to sweep them, the fans were loud, yada yada yada, all the bs you'd expect to hear from a coach whos screaming inside WTF RUSS, lol.
Has Brooks commented on the game at all?
It's been too easy on KD to play defense this series. Last night you could tell he wasn't used to trying while defending Gallo. I hope he tries tomorrow.
I was probably too hard on Russ after the game. Alcohol + anger will do that :)
You don't want to take Russ' intensity/energy/confidence away but at the same time sometimes it gets him completely out of control and gets him into trouble or gets him playing extremely stupid ball.
Its great that he has confidence in his ability but he needs to accept the #2 role and understand that its his job to get everyone else involved. He's gotta realize that he can get his shot at anytime, there is no reason to jack up shots early in the shot clock, which also means he needs to be in play-maker mode early.
Obviously, he's only 22 and still learning the position, but the fear is that we're going to be saying "He's close to getting it" and then he'll be 30 and we'll still be saying it. This is where KD and Perkins need to get in his ear and get him back on the right track. This is also where during the offseason they need to sit him down and have him watch hours and hours of his play compared to CP3's play.
Also, don't agree with Tramel's take that Westbrook is good right around 24 shots. Unless he's feeling it thats ridiculous as well. ANYONE shooting 24 shots is ridiculous IMO, unless you are really feeling it, there are only a few guys where its considered OK for them to shoot 24+ times: KD, Kobe, Melo, Lebron, Wade. Really you'd like KD at 20 and Russ at 15-17.
@dragonbug82
oh doesnt help either that 6 yes 6! denver players were in double digits to our oh... 3. yep just 3. durant, westbrook and serge. Whom by the way was overshadowed in his game play. He hit some pretty good jumpers in this game.
justin :@walrusmuse
James Harden does not get the ball when he is on the court with Westbrook and Durant. It’s not his fault.
@justin
thats exactly WHY i dont want him starting. hes better off the bench being a fresh man and scorer.
I'm more disappointed in Russ's no show on defense than anything else that happened last night. I've been so pumped about how great Russ was on defense in games 1-3 that last night's throwaway is that much more frustrating.
First off a few things here this bs " We all know they aren’t. Westbrook has been deemed a star and we know that if Nene or J.R. did that, and to that extent, they would have been given two quick technicals. Oh well.”"
didnt jr smith basically cuss out the refs last game when he missed? and nene should quit basketball and go into MMA cause he likes to take people down with armbars and shit. So denver you can suck it.
also this. OKC free throws: 24-31. Denver: 31-44. They made as many as we attempted. Denver sucks at free throws for sure, but theres 7 points right there we could of made (that would of won), plus maynors 3 (easy 10 point victory). I know all thats what ifs, but im just pointing out that we played like spoiled children and crappy last night and we lost by 3.
If we dont win Wednesday im going to flip out lol.
But Jenni Carlson said it would be a sweep? Guaranteed!
Apparently Denver didn't get the memo. Or maybe they did and used stupid articles like that for motivation
@lafowler255
I agree with you that Cook had a bad game. But I can excuse two turnovers for Cook in his few minutes. Everyone has bad games, and Cook had a bad game, but his minutes are so few they won't kill us.
Going 0-7 from 3 and just refusing to pass the ball, while stopping to whine and complain to the ref, is more than a bad game - it's a selfish game.
The rest of the team had to bring their A games to make up for Russell's D game, and they nearly did despite all the sabotage.
If it weren't so easy for Lawson and Felton to drive past Maynor, I'd be up for playing him more. But Eric just can't stay in front of those two guys to save his life.
But really, letting Lawson have such a great game, while also having your worst, and just insisting that it happen that way in spite of your teammates hard work and best efforts is just selfish and petulant. Russ needs an attitude adjustment. It's not about him.
I feel like our team has always been very media conscious. Obviously twitter and blogs and commercials, but it seemed like once a couple people wrote about Beard's constant leg kicking and flopping on 3 point attempts, he kind of responded and cleaned that up. Maybe the backlash from a Hero Mode game in a big spot will be what it takes to finally get through to Russ. At least he picked a good time to freak out. Love that guy tho.
@justin
sorry I meant that any conversations at Russ about passing to Kevin need to include passing to James also.
We sort of forget that Russ is a young guy. basically he is immature at this point. I think if you paired him on one of the young, bad teams like Sacto his reputation could well be similar to DeMarcus Cousins. I know we used to be bad but he was much less irritable in his rookie year when we were so bad. Now that he has tasted some success it seems to be feeding his worst, base instincts.
@justin
Oh i know, I think thats problem no. 1 (at least on offense for us-and it is a corollary of Thabo being on the floor too). But problem no. 2 is what it seems to have done to Harden in the playoff series thus far-his timidity puts him right back pre all star.
I hope the coaching staff (a tall order i know) is tying conversations with Russ Re: passing the ball to KD with passing to Harden ever as well. But who knows.
@walrusmuse
Yeah I'm trying to avoid being too much of a cheerleader type but this game doesn't make me too nervous about Wed. I just don't see the slow start or lack a daisical attitude coming up in front of the home crowd. These boys take too much pride in what they're doing.