Tuesday Bolts – 5.6.14
: “Before Kevin Durant, this was Chris Paul’s town. With the New Orleans Hornets displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Paul spent part of his first two NBA seasons here. He wore OKC on his chest, and he won over the fans with his passion and relentlessness. This was football country, Sooner Nation, but Paul gave them a reason to believe in the NBA. On Monday night, Oklahoma City once again belonged to him. Paul buried Durant and he buried the NBA franchise he helped deliver here, making eight 3-pointers in a stunning 32-point, 10-assist performance that had many of those same fans who once cheered for him now trudging toward the exits in frustration.”
Berry Tramel: “Paul is some kind of player. Heck, he was a great offensive player back in his Oklahoma City days, when he couldn’t shoot. Remember what we figured out a month into that maiden Hornet season in OKC. The kid rookie needs to shoot more. Now that Paul is an old man (he turned 29 Tuesday), a perennial all-star, it’s still solid advice. The Clippers rode his shooting to an easy victory and now lead the series.”
Eric Freeman of BDL: “The problem is the Thunder will clearly need more at both ends to top the Clippers. Durant and Westbrook can’t just put in average performances — they have to dominate. Reggie Jackson and other bench scorers can’t be non-factors. The defense can’t allow so many open shots, even if they fell victim to a presumably irreproducible shooting performance. Against the Grizzlies, the Thunder could keep things close with subpar offensive numbers and iffy defense simply because their opponents have so much trouble scoring. That will not be the case against the Clippers, who appear to have figured out how to marry their highlight-intensive style with the intensity of the postseason.”
Playing seven games in the opening round isn’t a good sign.
James Herbert of CBSSports.com: “The positive for the Thunder is they’ll get a chance to adjust and make up for this on Wednesday. No one expects this to be a short series, and they’ve already fought back from a deficit in these playoffs. They can’t just expect they’ll be fine if Paul cools off, though. They’re going to have to get better.”
Jeff Caplan of NBA.com: “No one could have predicted what would happen Monday night: 32 points that stacked up with eight rapid-fire, rub-your-eyes 3-pointers raining from every angle on the floor. Paul hit all five of his attempts in the first quarter. That tied his career high. His sixth came after teasing Derek Fisher at the left arc, tip-toeing, spinning and firing. No. 7 was an impossible heave from the corner as 270-pound Thunder center Kendrick Perkins body bumped him to the floor without a call. No. 8 in a row came on a step-back against Caron Butler, caught in no man’s land trying to protect against Paul slicing-and-dicing him to the paint.”
A breakdown of the Thunder’s, uh, breakdowns.
Jenni Carlson: “Maybe you and your staff devised a great plan on defense and the players failed miserably to execute it. That’s entirely possible. But still, something needs to change. The plan. The matchups. The message. Something. If not, this is going to be a really short series for your team. I mean, by the fourth quarter, things were so out of hand that you had raised the white flag and sent in the scrubs, Coach. Jeremy Lamb and Perry Jones got the playoff minutes that some fans have been crowing for, but they came under circumstances that no one wanted.”