3/7 | G65: Oklahoma City Thunder at Portland Trail Blazers - 9:30PM CST

[Pillendreher]

The numbers are much better than what it looked like live, but I'm just glad they finally were engaged defensively. Credit where credit is due: Noel and Schröder played their butts off defensively.

[Osirus89]

That’s the type of fight I love to see. That was a playoff game.
Ugly, physical, but a fun roller coaster ride the whole game.
PG shot was off but he’s found the FT secret scrolls. That’s a huge development this season compared to last.
Russ had a few rough TOS, but he was overall incredible.
Pretty much a good job by everyone. Everyone looked engaged from the jump.
Great win.

[Pillendreher]

Russ is averaging 31 a game on 58 TS% over his last 9. Feels like he is in between airballing FTs and being his former self right onw.

[Dn4sty]

I am an sense Kanter fan, yet there is ZERO reason he should play over Collins in that situation

[RalphSampsonJr]

I am an sense Kanter fan, yet there is ZERO reason he should play over Collins in that situation

Yep. So glad hes not in thunder blue anymore. He cant defend a lamp post

[Pillendreher]

We can't keep defending the PnR this way unless these two execute the defense properly. We're basically surrendering a straight line drive from the 3pt line all the way to the basket:

[ThunderBolt]

That lane violation was a joke. You could call a lane violation more often than not. It's the equivalent of a player not fully positioning himself on an inbounds play and stepping in bounds too early. If they want to call it consistently that's fine but that's not the time to start enforcing the rule.

[hardenASG13]

We can't keep defending the PnR this way unless these two execute the defense properly. We're basically surrendering a straight line drive from the 3pt line all the way to the basket:

That's what I'm talking about.....happened alot last night (or lillard would just split it), happens alot most nights. Westbrook has his part, but it almost seems by design and adams is too slow for this. They were attacking him all night last night, and he struggled big-time.

As an aside, do people see why having Schroeder, instead of literally nobody (melos dead money) will be A plus in the playoffs (which this game was played like)? He's not perfect, but he is the one other guy who can create and since OKC runs quick hitters or Iso in the half court usually, it's really nice to have him. He can take over for stretches (usually in the 3rd to early 4th), allowing Russ and PG to close games with more energy, and he will compete on defense.

[Pillendreher]

We can't keep defending the PnR this way unless these two execute the defense properly. We're basically surrendering a straight line drive from the 3pt line all the way to the basket:

That's what I'm talking about.....happened alot last night (or lillard would just split it), happens alot most nights. Westbrook has his part, but it almost seems by design and adams is too slow for this. They were attacking him all night last night, and he struggled big-time.

The idea is to take the ballhandler's space away I think, but when Westbrook just trails the play and Adams doesn't come all the way out because he knows that his guy is wide open behind him, all this does is give the opposing team a wide open space to work with.

As an aside, do people see why having Schroeder, instead of literally nobody (melos dead money) will be A plus in the playoffs (which this game was played like)? He's not perfect, but he is the one other guy who can create and since OKC runs quick hitters or Iso in the half court usually, it's really nice to have him. He can take over for stretches (usually in the 3rd to early 4th), allowing Russ and PG to close games with more energy, and he will compete on defense.

He's had his first good game in weeks, hell basically a month. He "takes over" once in two weeks. That doesn't make up for all his terrible play. When Schröder doesn't make shots, he's a massive liability for this team. if he makes them in a Playoffs, he's a big help. If he doesn't, we're going to be in trouble.

[sleestak33]

OKC seems to have Portland's number. PG goes sub 30% shooting (7-23 including 1-9 on 3s) and the Thunder still beats them on the road. Hopefully this little bad stretch was just not having PG and a post all star break hangover. Still want to see Burton getting minutes and I have no idea what's going on with him. All I know is that when the playoffs start we had better have a starting shooting guard that can get 12-14 per game or they have no chance of doing anything. Ferguson looked like he was there but now I don't know. Burton already had a game with 18 against Portland earlier this year and this game he's not even with the team. I don't understand that at all.

[Pillendreher]

Vs Portland this season. Paul George, you guys.

[JustOneFix]

As i said numerous times, we are far better team then Portland and i am not concerned about them one bit. We barely got this one but i can't really blame our guys. The refs were just murdering us. It seems like every Portland player got the Harden treatment. You couldn't even fart on them without them getting a FT. And specially that last one on Morris was just a complete joke that almost costed us the game...

[Old Man Game]

Dude, I really figured we'd lose this game. I quit watching at halftime and went to bed. Couldn't sleep so I start scrolling twitter. Saw we were winning but didn't want to jinx it by getting out of bed to go back to the TV. So I just followed it on twitter until the end. Great win. **** you Jusuf you cheap bastard.

[JustOneFix]

btw I voted for Dennis as the player of the game!

[thekaoswithin]

We basically only won bc Russ was shooting well from deep, on a normal night that would be rough. It's not like he had great shot selection either.

[Dn4sty]

I am an sense Kanter fan, yet there is ZERO reason he should play over Collins in that situation

My bad on the typing of this one. It’s like my toddler tried to convey this.

Basically I just wanted to say I like Kanter, yet his defense sucks

[RalphSampsonJr]

We can't keep defending the PnR this way unless these two execute the defense properly. We're basically surrendering a straight line drive from the 3pt line all the way to the basket:

Remember when Russ and Adams did this to the other teams defense?! Those were good times..

[Dadouv47]

That’s the type of fight I love to see. That was a playoff game.
Ugly, physical, but a fun roller coaster ride the whole game.
PG shot was off but he’s found the FT secret scrolls. That’s a huge development this season compared to last.
Russ had a few rough TOS, but he was overall incredible.
Pretty much a good job by everyone. Everyone looked engaged from the jump.
Great win.

Exactly.He wasn't able to handle so well with the basketball so he was running very fast to the basket after getting rebounds for the first time since he's a Thunder.
Clearly not the ideal PG13 that we need comes playoff time but nice adjustment.

[Thunder Up]

We basically only won bc Russ was shooting well from deep, on a normal night that would be rough. It's not like he had great shot selection either.

but he did have great shot selection on 90% of his attempts though

[Bergmaniac]

We basically only won bc Russ was shooting well from deep, on a normal night that would be rough. It's not like he had great shot selection either.

The rest of your team shot 3/19 from 3, on a normal night that percentage would be a lot higher. Normal variance over the long season.

PG getting to the line time and time again to make up for his subpar shooting was the decisive factor in this one IMO. Plus you played better D than the usual lately. Westbrook shot well, but he got carried away with trying to oneup Dame a bit too much at times, only 3 assists is not good.