Mar 11, 2015 5 min read Featured

Thunder stumble against the Clippers, 120-108

IF THE SEASON ENDED TODAY, the Thunder would miss the postseason. But good news! The season does not end today. There are still 18 games left.

No question Wednesday’s loss to the Clippers was ugly. Disappointing. Frustrating. Especially if you thought the Thunder were going to finish out the season on a 19-game win streak. Then you’re probably really mad about this.

The general summary of the game is simple: The Thunder’s played crap defense, Russell Westbrook looked moderately human, and Chris Paul was sensational.

“We were all over the floor defensively,” Scott Brooks said. “We were chasing the basketball around tonight. When we’re good, locked in, the ball’s controlled in certain areas of the floor, but they weren’t controlled tonight.”

The Thunder made impressive runs, overcoming a 28-11 early hole to get it to 36-30 by the end of the first quarter, and tied it up 47-47 midway through the second. But they slipped to finish the half, and fell into a hole early in the third. Down 73-59, the Thunder took a timeout, and Brooks clearly lit into his team. Serge Ibaka hit a jumper, and OKC came out and played their best defensive possessions of the night, forcing a shot clock violation as the Clippers couldn’t find any space. It looked like a potential turning point.

That good defense last for only that single possession. Paul hit another jumper, then made two free throws, then Matt Barnes hit a 3, then another 3, then Paul hit one, then Paul finished a layup. Six straight scores for the Clippers, and a 88-67 deficit for the Thunder. Game basically over. There was a light push to finish the third that had it at 15, and some Hack-A-Jordan potentially opened the door to make it interesting, but the Thunder were never coming back in this one. Not with that kind of defensive effort.

So. Where does that leave us?

The overreaction is unavoidable because of current circumstances, but this kind of loss really doesn’t faze me much. This isn’t the kind of game that is going to kill the Thunder. The Clippers are good, Chris Paul sometimes has these kind of nights, and you don’t always play well. This is a game that over an 82-game schedule, you sometimes lose. You played a good team with a great player and he went off.

But what this kind of loss reinforces, is how bad some of those other losses were. You don’t have much mercy with these kinds of games because you lost to the Knicks, or by 20 to the Kings. Those are the games that could cost you. Those are the ones that are still hard to get past.

Still: The Thunder falling out of the eight-seed has less to do with them and more with how the Pelicans have refused to go away. The Thunder were always going to lose a few games. But the expectation was the Pelicans would stumble a little, creating a bit more forgiveness. Instead, the Pelicans have won eight of 10, beating some very good teams. The Thunder haven’t played poorly at all — they’ve won 12 of 17, with four one-possession losses — but the Pelicans haven’t let up.

What’s become obvious is that this eight-seed isn’t going to be handed to the Thunder. They aren’t about to backdoor their way into the postseason. They don’t have to finish 18-0 (I don’t think), but they certainly can’t drop too many more duds.

NOTES:

That game felt a bit like Game 1 against the Clippers, didn’t it?

The Clippers shredded the Thunder’s defensive scheme pretty effortlessly. They ran a high screen-and-roll and if the roll man wasn’t there, Chris Paul (most of the time) pulled the hedging big man to a wing. Spencer Hawes (or whatever 4 was in the game) flashed to the high post, causing OKC’s weakside perimeter guy to show on that. Paul would either drop it to the roll man who would kick to a now open shooter, or just find him himself. The Thunder tried to adjust by going smaller and switching screens, but that created mismatches inside and DeAndre Jordan killed them on the glass.

So, how do you counter that? It’s pretty simple, really: It’s about multiple defensive efforts, and the Thunder didn’t make many of them. You know how Brooks will talk about playing harder, and it gets really old? Well, the reason why is because OKC’s defensive scheme relies quite a bit on that. The Thunder showed hard on the ball, but didn’t help, recover and close out after that.

Here’s the other adjustment: Play your best pick-and-roll defensive big more than seven minutes. (Nick Collison was a +11 in those seven minutes, by the way.)

The running narrative is the Thunder don’t defend the 3. Before tonight, they allowed 33.9 percent from 3, eighth-best in the league. They do allow 8.3 makes, though, which is eighth-worst. They let teams attempt 24.5 a game, so basically, their defensive scheme allows opponents to get a lot of 3s. It’s just a matter of how well they recover and contest them. Which is why you see so much inconsistency.

A lot of people said things like the Thunder needed to go 7-1 during this run of home games. Well, here’s the one, I guess.

Westbrook picked up his 14th technical foul of the season (leads the league now), two away from a one-game suspension. And no, it doesn’t not carry over to the postseason.

OKC’s big guys were thororoughly dominated by DeAndre Jordan, specifically on the glass. Jordan had 17 boards; Ibaka, Kanter and Adams had 13 combined. Jordan had nine on the offensive end alone.

Why did Westbrook only shoot 14 times? Because he turned it over 10 times. Hard to put up shots when you don’t have the ball anymore.

There are certainly things to criticize Scott Brooks about, but without question the dumbest is that he’s not “defending his team” by getting techs called on him.

Perry Singler didn’t not do much in this one: 15 minutes, two points, three rebounds and an assists.

Man, I expected Kyle Singler to be a lot more effective than he has been.

Kanter and Adams played a handful of minute together. In the first half, it was pretty successful, too. Created a difficult mismatch for the Clippers. Worth trying some more.

Gotta be pretty weird for Matt Barnes to play the Thunder and not watch someone drop 35 in his face.

Brooks threw Mitch McGary on the floor in the third quarter hunting for a spark.

Anthony Morrow is instant offense. In 36 minutes, he had 26 points, hitting 6-9 from 3. His defense seems to have become noticeably worse, but man, he can fill it up.