3-on-3: Tense and tight
If you wanted to call Game 4 must-win, I sure wouldn’t argue with you. Because in NBA Finals history, a team up 3-1 is 30-0 in finishing the series.
Scared? Worried? Freaked?
Yeah, me too. Game 4 is big. Lose it, and you’re facing elimination on the road. Lose it, and there’s a strong possibility the last home game in Oklahoma City this season featured the bad taste of a no-call that might’ve forced overtime. Lose it, and the door is closing.
1. True or False: Panic time.
Royce Young, Daily Thunder: False. But I will say, it’s close to that. It’s hard not to watch the way the last two games slipped away and think of major missed opportunities. The script has flipped. In the first three rounds, OKC’s opponents were playing the what-if game thinking of how they should maybe be up 3-1 or something. And now the Thunder are doing that. It’s never good to be playing the what-if game.
Patrick James, Daily Thunder: False. The Thunder recovered from being down 2-0 to the Spurs without home court. Being down 2-1 against Miami without home court isn’t easy, but it’s not harder than what OKC did in the last round. Panic would come if the Thunder lose on Tuesday. But the Thunder are only 48 minutes away from a win that changes the complexion of the entire series. They’re not far off. The series remains very much in doubt.
Clark Matthews, The Lost Ogle: False. If they lose Game 4, though, then freakout mode should commence.
2. Attribute blame for Game 3.
A. Scott Brooks
B. Officiating
C. Free throw shooting
D. James Harden
E. Something else
Young: E. All of the above, and more. Scott Brooks blew it with the way he handled the end of the third quarter. Sitting Durant with four fouls and OKC up six can be justified, but not sitting Westbrook alongside him. That was just an awful choice. Complaining about officiating is a sign of weakness, but there’s no way to ignore that Durant was handed two of the cheapest fouls of the postseason, which is what ended up forcing Brooks hand to sit him in the first place. Missing nine free throws when you’re a team that shoots 80 percent and leads the league is simply unacceptable and should be punishable by taser today at practice. James Harden can go 2-10, score nine points and look generally lost in the game. And the Thunder can’t score 21 points the last 16 minutes of Game 3 of the NBA Finals and expect to win. When you lose, there’s a lot of blame to be passed around. And there’s a lot of hands with blood on them.
James: C. Lots of things have added up to put the Thunder in a 2-1 hole. But give OKC just half of the missed free throws from Game 2 and Game 3 and we are talking about a completely different series. Sometimes it really is that simple.
Matthews: C. Harden was awful, the officiating was worse, but if the team makes free throws at a normal clip, the iffy calls don’t even come into play.3. What absolutely has to change in Game 4?Young: The Thunder need to look like themselves again. There’s a certain tightness it seems, just where they don’t look completely comfortable in what they’re doing. The Heat have a lot to do with it because they’re such a terrific defensive team, but the Thunder aren’t really flying around, attacking, getting to the line and running the floor. They’re bogging down into a lot of grind out halfcourt sets, which seems to favor the Heat. The Thunder could very well be completely fine. They lost Games 2 and 3 by a razor thin margin, and did it largely by shooting themselves in the foot. OKC’s best is better than Miami’s. It’s just about getting back to that level. James: Free throw shooting and Shane Battier’s shooting percentage. It can’t be overstated that if Shane Battier was having even an above-average shooting series as opposed to an unbelievable one, the Thunder might be up 3-0 or 2-1. Same goes for the Thunder’s free throw shooting — substitute an average Thunder performance at the stripe for three games and the game count does not remain the same. This could turn into a very painful loss if OKC continues to lose close games when they aren’t shooting well from the line and Battier keeps draining 3-pointers, because that would be tough to swallow. But if things progress to the mean (free throws) and regress to the mean (Battier) for a couple of games in a row, it’s not unthinkable to imagine the Thunder returning to OKC with a chance to close out Miami in Game 6 just like people have wanted since the beginning of the series.
Matthews: The adjustment they made in the second half to keep the Heat out of the lane was a good one, and that needs to continue early in game 4. Also, OKC has to keep Kevin Durant out of foul trouble. That has killed them in the past two games. When he was assigned to Mario Chalmers, good things happened in Game 3. KD was able to save some energy for his offense, he could play the passing lanes, and the treat of fouling was low.
