Thursday Bolts – 5.2.13
Ben Golliver of SI.com: “Those crying cowardice in response to Brooks’ move need to exit the basketball freeway. The Thunder’s strategy was unsightly, sure, but it was both legal and logical given their lack of momentum and Houston’s hot shooting (40 percent from deep on the night). Did anyone expect it would come to this? One of the league’s premier teams, at home, trying to gimmick out a game-changing advantage? Absolutely not. Does that make the Thunder bad people, bad basketball citizens, or stupid? Of course not. The move wasn’t totally effective. It also wasn’t totally ineffective. Asik out-shot expectations, slightly, but not devastatingly so. Was the alternative reality in which the Thunder simply played it straight guaranteed to be better or worse? We can’t ever know for sure, but the two teams played the final three minutes essentially even, too, making a major hypothetical swing unlikely. In the end, credit goes to Asik for delivering in a pressure situation, on the road, and with his team’s playoff lives in his hands.”
Tom Ziller of SB Nation: “In some ways, drawing out a winnable series now is good for the Thunder. KD’s the guy who matters most, and he has impossibly young legs. He’ll survive a seven-game series. So will Serge Ibaka, Jackson, Martin and Thabo Sefolosha. These losses give the Thunder more time to figure out what to do without Russ. The only major concern is that they’ll get stunned by James Harden, the other guy they are missing. The Rockets don’t see themselves as practice dummies for the Thunder, and the Houston fans are going to crank the difficulty level up for the Thunder on Friday.”
Royce White is taking shots at the Thunder and KD on Twitter.
Darnell Mayberry: “If we learned anything about this team this season it’s that the Thunder needs more offensive-minded players. AND A SYSTEM, but that’s a story for another day. What the Thunder has tried to do is flank two of the league’s best scorers with a ton of defensive-minded players. That, AND THE LACK OF A SYSTEM, has proven to work great in the regular season. But in the playoffs, it’s quickly, if not having long been, evident that it’s not enough. The Thunder needs shooters to make opposing defenses pay. Look at Miami. The Heat surrounds Bron, Wade and Bosh with shooters. Sag off them and you’ll be sorry. Sag off against the Thunder at the right time and there’s limited options for making you pay.”
Eddie Maisonet: “My bigger problem with Brooks going to the “Hack-an-Asik” in the game was that it just felt like a cheap move, a move that reeked of desperation and lacked overall creativity. As Houston kept railroading OKC with phenomenal screen-and-rolls to Asik, long bombs from three and playing OKC with physicality (staying in Durant’s kitchen, running OKC shooters off the three-point line) and craftiness (that Harden three with the ball rolling past halfcourt was epic), it became evident that the Thunder had no answer. Then Hack-an-Asik happened, and to me … it just felt like Brooks had no cards left to play. Which is absurd. There has to be SOMETHING else you can do besides going to a hacking strategy; throw a zone out there, find a better lineup to play or something … but that? As a Thunder fan, that was embarrassing to watch.”
Andrew Gilman of Fox Sports Southwest: “Later in the quarter, with the Thunder flailing, Durant once again went solo – a mission into the lane. A one-on-three crusade where he crashed into a wall of red and yellow, missed the shot wildly and then threw his hands to the ceiling again. This time, palms up. Help, please. Maybe he was looking for some refuge from the referees, but what he really needed was something, anything from his teammates. Didn’t happen.”
ESPN Stats and Info: “Kevin Durant was the primary ball handler on 14 of his 19 4th-quarter touches in Game 5, but failed to score. Durant is averaging 24 more touches, mostly in the backcourt as the team’s primary ball handler, since Russell Westbrook’s injury.”
The Dream Shake: “Scott Brooks committed an early candidate for “2013 WTF Playoff Moment” when he reverted to Hack-an-Omer with six minutes left in the game. The strategy failed to drive Asik from the game. The Turk rose to the occasion by going 9 – 14 during the ploy. The strategy seemed to backfire on the Thunder. By killing the run-of-play the Thunder allowed the Rockets to set up an effective half-court defense that had been pestering Durant and forcing other members of the Thunder to step up.”
Marc Stein of ESPN.com: “The Rockets can’t help themselves for feeling confident after controlling proceedings throughout and ushering Durant to the first fourth quarter of KD’s playoff life in which he played at least 10 minutes and failed to score a point. Whether it was fatigue or Houston’s smother tactics or all the rhythm that got sucked out of the game by Brooks’ ill-fated decision to repeatedly send Asik to the line, Durant missed three 3-pointers and all five of his shots in the final period to finish with 36 points and copious amounts of frustration.”
Zach Lowe tweets: “Bad news for OKC: If I were coach or fan, I’d almost as concerned about their defense as I am about their offense. Really basic mistakes.”
Berry Tramel: “The Thunder-Rocket series is proving two things, at least on the Oklahoma City side. How good Kevin Durant is. And how good Russell Westbrook is. The Rockets clubbed the Thunder 107-100 — it wasn’t that close — in Game 5 Wednesday night, and everyone in Thunder blue is thinking the same thing. Uh-oh. History could be in the making. No NBA team ever has won a playoff series after trailing three games to none, but the Rockets are halfway there. And headed home to Houston.”
