Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

i'm with zoyd and svtzr: i actually thought we played pretty well and were just thoroughly outclassed. not a whole lot to be done.

highlight of the game for me was seeing SGA officiated almost like a normal player, which a) makes him look like a ho-hum allstar and b) highlights how good the rest of that team is. and though holmgren is getting the press, i view him like shawn marion in phx--if he's scoring, it means the defense is breaking down elsewhere. when holmgren tried to iso, he did basically nothing. he got everything off our perimeter d getting broken down basically at will. this isn't houston, and our inability to move feet on ballhandlers is going to be a MAJOR problem against this team (would be against SA, too).

downside to SGA not getting bs calls is that reaves also did not get his whistle last night. i think on maybe 3-4 separate plays he got contact that put him on the line in the regular season but didn't in this game, and it made his line even uglier than his missing three point shot. speaking of--someone else mentioned this, but i don't know why he drifts so far off the line out top after he gives up the ball. when it comes back for a three, he ends up way out instead of right near the line, making the shot unnecessarily difficult. i don't think anything is gained in the passing angle, but it's happened several times lately, so it almost feels intentional. luka does it sometimes, but he can hit from out there about as well as right at the line (still don't like it, though). harden used to do it all the time, but i chalked that up to laziness, lol. anyway, i actually thought reaves was one of our better defenders (again!), and he did a great job getting penetration against okc's guards--particularly wallace, whom he torched several times. he just could finish past the second line or make passes for easy scores. okc is the league's best defense. it happens.

thought ayton was really good, actually, and if you knew nothing of back stories, you might think he was the 30m center and hartenstein was the 10m (though he was also solid). hayes struggled a bit, but i thought the refs were mad at him or something. seems like all questionable plays involving him went the other way.

lebron came to play and set the tone early, but i thought he faded as the game went on (whole team did, except maybe rui, who ironically had the worst +/-, which might be related...).

people are saying this series is a referendum on reaves, but i disagree. he's still going to get a very large payday. fully healthy supermax devin booker shot 25% from three with a 1/1 A/TO ratio in a sweep against this team for a reason. i do agree with tada that both reaves and luka being hurt for the second consecutive postseason is incredibly worrisome, though. my hope is that adding regular season depth can mitigate that, as you're not trading for or signing someone better than reaves, imo.

and if any player is losing money by the minute, it's kennard. okc went after him relentlessly on defense and didn't let him get anywhere on offense.

in all, after a weird matchup with houston, i'd say the regular season warts are on full display again here. we can play a little better, but tbh, they can play substantially better than they did last night, too. we'll be lucky to get a game--it will take a crazy shooting night AND the refs not giving SGA his FTAs on the same night.

 

They are simply a much better team.
They don’t lose a thing when any of their bench players come in. Our bench is trash.
We obviously need to get younger and more athletic.
Austin was bad, but also isn’t 100%.
We don’t have an answer for Chet.
Luka would have helped and maybe could have made it a series, but we still would have problems defending their athletic superiority.

 

Tough matchup. LBJ was the best player on the floor, IMO. I like some of the scheme and the processing from JJ. I thought we were competitive and had a chance if somebody else stepped up. All good. OKC will make adjustments and Jaylin Williams (their second best player) is still out, so that isn't good when they won this game by 18, LOL.

Either way, we knew this was going to be a tough series. Probably short, too.

 

the answer is not getting scrambled. he's athletic, tall, and has a high hoop iq. you can't be looking for him when the shot goes up; the body has to be on him already. if it is, he's pretty well neutralized, tbh. on the other end, you need to have shooters that pull him away from the basket as a helper. we do not.

 

When your starting backcourt shoots 7-31,
2-13 from deep, you probably aren't going to win.