Thunder fails to ride the momentum, comes up short in Sacramento
(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
See, this is exactly what I was afraid of.
For some reason, something didn’t feel right heading into this game. Maybe it was because the Thunder was coming off a cakewalk against Orlando. Maybe it’s because it was on the road. Or maybe it was because the Kings have been playing better. Whatever it was, it just didn’t feel like a lock. Really, at this point, nothing does for this team.
Regardless of playing a pretty poo poo game, Oklahoma City had a shot to tie it in the end, with a Kevin Durant 3 falling short as the Thunder (3-4) lost 101-98 to Sacramento (4-4). It looks like a bad loss and in some ways it is. The Thunder was outrebounded by 15. At one point missed nine straight shots and went seven-plus minutes without a bucket. Shot under 40 percent. Missed a couple key free throws. And Tyreke Evans banked in a lucky jumper that basically broke OKC’s back. One of those nights.
Sure, they’re better. That much is clear. But we can’t forget this is a group with an average age of 24 and these nights are going to happen. If you expected a team that was going to be focused 82 nights and never lose to teams it shouldn’t, well, then you were expecting too much. The Thunder are a good team. They really are. But they aren’t ready to hit it every single night and win everything they should. Just aren’t.
Something just felt flat about this game. It could be that about 19 people showed up to see it in person. But I think in a backwards way, poor road turnouts hurt the Thunder’s energy. Hear me out. At home, OKC is used to playing in front of at least a semi-full house and pretty raucous fans. In situations like Tuesday night, the lower bowl was sparse and you could hear the players talking on the broadcast. And maybe that affects OKC’s energy. It shouldn’t, but the team looked flat, especially defensively in the first half.
One reason it may have been flat is because there was literally a whistle every time down the floor. Not that the officiating was bad, but there were 55 fouls called and 71 free throws shot. There was just absolutely no flow to this game. You weren’t going to see more than 30 seconds of continuous basketball in the second half. You just weren’t. I actually went back and counted – the Kings were fouled on 11 straight possessions in the fourth quarter. Seriously.
Not to be lost in this one was Durant’s solid game. He had a season-high 37 on 9-23 shooting, but hit 18-18 from the free throw line. He went 1-6 from 3 and it wasn’t a great shooting night for KD, but he did what great players do – when things aren’t falling for you, take it to the line and he took advantage of that in every way possible. He carried his team when it needed him and tried to get it done on his own. I thought he played a good, tough game.
Quick thoughts:
- I think my plea has been heard. I have called for black/dark shoes on the road with the blue unis. And so far, in three roadies, OKC has sported dark kicks in every one. I think they look fantastic. What, nobody cares about this?
- Jason Thompson abused OKC tonight. After being in foul trouble in the first meeting, the Sacto big man had 21 and 14 tonight. Oklahoma City didn’t have a single guy with double-digit rebounds. Nenad Krstic led OKC with eight.
- Another night where the Thunder couldn’t put it all together. Russell Westbrook was 3-13 and missed a bunch of open looks. Krstic was cold early but finished with 12 on 5-10 shooting. Thabo went 1-7 from the floor and 0-3 from deep. James Harden went 3-5 from 3, but those were his only makes as he was 3-7 overall.
- With that said, I thought Westbrook played pretty solid. He had six assists to only one turnover and if some open looks go down, he’s looking at another 10 assist game and a Thunder win. It’s easy to “What if” but it’s not Russ’s fault when guys miss the open shot that he set them up for. Sometimes he misses shots and you’ve just got to deal with it. I know it can make you want to punch a wall, but it’s just the good and bad that comes with Russell Westbrook.
- Jeff Green had a decent game – 19 points, five rebounds – but again, just didn’t get it done on the glass. In a game like this, Green should have had at least 10 boards.
- James Harden saw some crucial minutes in the fourth. He played OK tonight, but didn’t really take advantage of his key time late. He missed an open 3, but hey, HE HIT A HALFCOURTER!
- Serge Ibaka saw a little burn with two minutes left in the first half. He registered one rebound and got tagged with a three-second violation. I like that Brooks hasn’t given up on him and is giving him a chance to come along.
- Durant did his best to take over in the second half. He wanted the ball and for the most part, got it done. The Kings absolutely bracketed him in the fourth and KD’s teammates just didn’t get the job done in his steed.
I know the perception is that this is a bad Kings team without its best player, but these guys have now won three in a row and are .500. It’s not like they are the suck. Sure it’s a bad loss and a game I think we all expected to win, but life goes on. Everything is not lost just because OKC dropped a game on the road against Sacto. I’d expect the Thunder to come out with solid energy and effort tomorrow night in L.A. Granted, it’s the first back-to-back of the season, so you never know, but I’m sure OKC has a little bit of a bad taste after this one.
Next up is the Clippers Wednesday night at the Staples Center.
After a good last game, though in season low minutes, the starters got a season high 25 minutes this game(about the same as last time against the Kings) but pulled a -6. So far that is the more common raw result.
Update for Tapdog72
By the stats thru 6 games this season about 22.5% of Westbrook’s turnovers were offensive fouls, 55% were bad passes and 22.5% were ball-handling errors.
As a reminder by the stats last season about 13% of Westbrook’s turnovers were offensive fouls, 35% were bad passes and 52% were ball-handling errors.
So he is making more bad passes and more offensive fouls so far. Rather than being more focused on trying to be a PG and less like a reckless scorer you could say Russell is better described as a combo of both right now.
Less simple ball-handling errors is the positive so far, in this group (along with the assists and shots made).
Defensive Details
Defensive MVP Jeff Green (+10)
Jeff Green is coming along nicely. Last year, I recorded mistake after mistake. Today: only one mistake. He is much more active this year. Against the Kings, he had a variety of loose balls (picked up), deflections, and blocks. I didn’t see any mistakes in rotation. He didn’t lag back on transition defense. Keep it up Jeff!
Thabo Sefolosha (+10)
Thabo had his usual excellent grab bag of steals, blocks, and deflections, but he had six mistakes, which is uncharacteristic of him.
Kevin Durant (+3)
James Harden (+2)
The good: a block, a drawn charge, a deflection, and a great hustle play off a Nick Collison deflection.
The bad: bad transition defense when Donte Greene got a dunk (Harden shot and didn’t get back after Greene released), and an overhelp in transition allowing Cassipi to get an easy three.
Nick Collison (+2)
Nenad Krstic (+1)
Etan Thomas (+1)
Kevin Ollie (+0)
Russell Westbrook (-3)
He was the main reason why Scott Brooks was forced to call a timeout less than three minutes into the contest. He gave up penetration to Udrih twice, and he had transition defense issues another two times. To be fair, he tightened up after the commercial break. He (and the rest of the Thunder) needs to bring it from the opening tip.
We wasted a great game from Durant . . . nice call in your notes Royce . . .
I did notice the shoes tonight. They were slick.
Also, I’m impressed with Westbrook’s lack of turnovers in this messy game.
I’m not going to lie. I fell asleep at halftime. I’m going to have to take a pre-game nap just to watch all of the Clippers game tonight.
I had a hard time staying into the game in the first half. Easily the most boring game I’ve watched so far this season. Harden’s 3 woke me up and got me on my feet.
Hopefully they turn it around tonight.
Like Royce pointed out and we all need to keep telling ourselves, this team is very young and this will happen from time to time.
@Kev
I’m not sure if I can say a “great game” from Durant, but a good enough one to pull out the “W.” 9-23 and 1-6 shooting doesn’t scream greatness to me, especially since on five occasions Durant forced a REALLY bad shot when he had Thabo, Harden or Green spotted up and wide open behind the arc because, as all defense should, Durant was double and triple teamed once he penetrated into the lane but failed to deliver the kick-out pass.
This team is going to be frustratingly inconsistent and lose games they shouldn’t, and in turn surprise better teams and win games they shouldn’t. It’s all a part of the maturation process and will, at the very least, give us something to discuss!
But there is an issue here that has still not been addressed: the Thunder’s road woes.
I can agree with Royce and say that the Thunder are a good team overall…at home. On the road, this team is consistently flat, doesn’t come prepared to play and are entirely too reactive and tentative until it is too late. I don’t know what that ultimately comes down to, but it needs to get fixed and fast or else they will continue to lose to inferior opponents and waste the great victories they achieve over elite teams.
All in all, though, there were positives from this game, it’s just that after an almost perfect game against the defending Eastern Conference champs, a sub-par performance against the league’s defending worst record team leaves much to be desired.
Urgency, I hope, is the word of the night against the Clips this evening.
This one hurt. That’s the bad thing about playing good teams the way we have for the first stretch of the season… losing to average or bad teams stings all the more.
With everyone knowing we’re going to KD late with the game on the line why aren’t we taking advantage of that to set up a shot for someone else?
Is it common to see that many empty seats in visiting stadiums? Every time I watch a road game I’m thankful for the crowd in the Ford Center all the more.
I remain frustrated with the offense. It’s just, well, offensive. I have a hard time even seeing that we run plays. Every trip, especially in a game like last night, looks like Russ just brings the ball up and tries to find someone on the perimeter to shoot. I realize the Kings are big, but there is no inside game at all and just no sense to the offense. And when is someone going to step up and make a last second shot? Maybe Harden should have been the guy at the end instead of Durant? He was having the better shooting night from the field….
I love the focus on D and it is keeping us in every game (except apparently Houston, which I didn’t see), but I just want to see something that looks like a real offense. Even if we don’t score, show some organization and commitment to picking a play that has a chance against the defense thrown at you and then running it with some degree of precision.
Three things stood out to me in this game. First, our guards (including Thabo) were allowing way to much penetration from Evans and even Udrih. Second, our rebounding was terrible (I really hate to whine about boxing out, but there was very little of it going on for the Thunder). Thompson tore them up on the boards. And third, the Thunder were pressing too much which, I think, led to much of the sloppiness. You could almost see them thinking, “Wait, we’re better than these guys. We beat them just a few games back…handily. They don’t even have their best player tonight…” Because of this, they weren’t as patient, and fell into Sacto’s game plan of running chaotic.
I think I had started getting caught up in the hype, we still are coming off a 23 win season, and last year we were 3-29, so we should still improve on that this year. We still are a bad road team, and a team reliant on the jump shot. We need somebody that can score in the post when the jump shots are not falling, there are rumors of a sign and trade for Bosh, and he does average 29 point and 11 rebs per game but only 1.5 assists, we need a big man that can pass out of the double team to get durant and green open shots, and bosh might not be that guy.
good post . . .
agree about them being “reactive” instead of “proactive” . . . someone needs to be a leader and say “Let’s go!!” from the opening tip . . .
you’re right also about the difference between road and home . . .
@ Crow
“By the stats thru 6 games this season about 22.5% of Westbrook’s turnovers were offensive fouls, 55% were bad passes and 22.5% were ball-handling errors.
As a reminder by the stats last season about 13% of Westbrook’s turnovers were offensive fouls, 35% were bad passes and 52% were ball-handling errors.
So he is making more bad passes and more offensive fouls so far. Rather than being more focused on trying to be a PG and less like a reckless scorer you could say Russell is better described as a combo of both right now.”
Correction: a higher percentage of his turnovers are bad passes and offensive fouls so far. This is not the same as “more”. Makes me wonder, “What is the ideal % mix of turnovers between these 3 categories?” Ideal would probably be 100% offensive fouls–but that’s never going to happen. A lower percentage ball handling errors is probably a huge positive–but only if it come through fewer ball handling errors rather than more bad passes and o fouls. Only raw numbers can tell us that… I would expect Russ’ progression to be 1st, better ball handling (thus fewer b.h. errors), second, better passing (thus fewer bad passes). The percentages hint at that, but the more I think about it, the more important raw numbers become. The % doesn’t matter much if the numbers are low! I suppose the %ages help identify weaknesses.
westbrook is 2nd in the league in turnovers behind gilbert arenas.
I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that Harden was the only player that didn’t seem to celebrate his half-courter. Just kept running off the court like “what?”
excellent point about the penetration . . . I brought that up in the game thread – It looked like it was by design. If it was, then the design gave up a lot of easy scores . . .
humility – an excellent character trait . . .
He’s improving then. He was leading the league.
KD is now shooting 18% on 3′s this year. Interestingly enough Kobe and D. Wade are only shooting 20% on 3′s and Chris Paul is shooting 68% on 3′s.
classic . . .
Baby steps…haha!
And to second Elegy, yes, Harden’s non-chalant reaction to his half-court buzzer beater made it all the more impressive.
yikes! I knew he was struggling, but I didn’t know it was that low . . .
I dont know how you come up with the + 3 on Durant but the kid was really lazy in the first half. I mean he was literally jogging on defense. 2nd half he turned it up a bit, but still not a great effort by him.
The effort and intensity was just weak. WEEEAAAKK. Weak.
We got our butts handed to us on the boards. We allowed way to much penetration. If I weren’t so disgusted with the effort, I’d look up the Kings shot chart. It seemed in the first half all we gave them were layups and 5 foot jumpers. I realize the way the rules are now, that penetration is much harder to stop, but our rotating help was poor.
It really hurts us when Jeff Green gets in foul trouble and has to sit. Everyone was a foul machine last night, but Nick continues to draw more whistles in a shorter time than anyone.
So frustrated with Russell last night. He hit that early three and gave me hope, then he missed shots at point blank range the rest of the night. I don’t know what happened to Thabo’s shot, but it must be at a picnic with Russell’s shot, because neither of them showed for the game.
It was just flat out weak.
Of course the actual number of Westbrook’s turnovers matters a lot and by “more” I meant more by percentage. There isn’t an ideal percentage breakdown but I computed the average for a quick 5 player sample of PGs last season:
about 8% of turnovers were offensive fouls, 48% were bad passes and 44% were ball-handling errors.
So by comparison this season Russell has a much “higher percentage” of offensive fouls and a much lower percentage of ball-handling errors.
It might not be a “very” helpful split but I checked it for what it might show / be worth.
Kev, in your system does failing to contest a shot or a shot that goes in count as a negative? Ideally it would to some degree.
yes – failing to contest a shot that goes counts as a negative (assuming that person had responsibility) . . .
Remember, he started out the game with a steal (and a subsequent dunk). Durant is not in the same planet as Thabo, but he is playing the passing lanes a lot letter than last year . . . I don’t have the specifics now – but I will breakdown his scoring later . . . I will give you one quick example of how I score – if Durant is lazy and doesn’t close out , BUT the opponent misses – it doesnt count against him . . .
by the way, as an additon to that, +3 is an average grade (at best) . . . for a guy in the rgular rotation (28-30 minutes), +6 or higher would probably be above average . . .
thanks, looking at other scores it looks like Russell Westbrook isn’t really a good defender even though people think he is.
FOr Durant, I have two steals, a block, a deflection, a loose ball (picked up).
On the minus side, I counted five mistakes. One of Durant’s issues is transition. When he’s back, he often has to pick up Krstic’s man when Krstic gors to the glass. Twice alst night he picked up a man and was covering him. BEFORE Krstic (or whoever) recovered, he LEFT the man to get his own – this led to two easy buckets . . . his decision to leave made no sense . . .