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Murphy’s Law went into full effect when the OKC Thunder was destroyed in Game 5 and found themselves in territory where they had to win.
The bad news was that this game was arguably the OKC Thunder’s worst loss this season. To arrive in Game 5 of the playoffs to the Houston Rockets, who claimed the 3-2 series lead, was a terrible moment. The good news is that this iteration of the Thunder is used to fighting and working their way to respectability and never gives up.
For some teams, losing by 34 points in a pivotal playoff game would gut them. Those teams would raise the white flag and just turn around. But this Thunder team is used to being underrated, like the two percent chance they were given to make the playoffs in preseason predictions.
We typically post three takeaways to highlight something specific to the game, positive or negative, but this game presented a unique set of circumstances.
OKC Thunder brought down by Murphy’s Law
The old adage – Murphy’s Law applies “anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. There were the typical mistakes this club has made all season of starting the game and coming out of the half-time break seemingly looking five minutes after their opponent. However, there were a number of unusual events that were uniquely overcome, but not when they all happened on the same night.
For example, in 62 appearances this season, Danilo Gallinari failed to record two double-digit goals. The first time against the Nuggets in mid-December when he scored seven and in the final game of the seeded games when he played less than nine minutes against the Clippers.
In Game 5, Gallo scored ONE point and took only five shots!
Dennis Schroder briefly gave the Thunder hope of accumulating 19 points in the first half, nearly triple the production of the entire Rockets bench (7). But, he was barely substituted in the second quarter when he was hit by an illegal screen and PJ Tucker was hit below the belt. Both were expelled.
Lu Dort, who has won more one-on-one games against the league’s top scorer than he lost, but had a bad night. At least when she’s having a bad night, she goes with everything.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t come close to looking like the player Thunder fans know him to be and he looked shocked. Chris Paul was talking to him during a game interruption and SGA looked at Paul, but you could see in his eyes that his mind was spinning as he showed his age for perhaps the first time all season.
Note that, in unusual ways, he was having defensive issues that seeped into his offense as he threw wild passes not even close to his intended goal, something that would be hard to have witnessed more than once all season long and long. least four times in a game.
Even Donovan made unusual mistakes. It became very clear that the Rockets were purposely leaving Lu Dort open on the perimeter. Dort made 12 shot attempts in the first half, eight of them from the perimeter (he missed all eight).
Too many for his role and definitely something that Donovan should have ended long before he did. In fact, there were hints this would come in Game 4, so why weren’t the Thunder ready?
Watching everyone stand up and look at Dort, who was wide open, was paralyzing. There was no player movement, no one came to set up a screen or allow Dort to do a DHO; no, they just stood there looking at him, which confirmed that this move was not expected.
There were enough moments to tell him during free throws or tell CP3 to direct him to drive the paint instead of making 3s that clearly weren’t falling tonight. By the time he finally replaced him, he had made eight of the nine 3-point attempts he would make in the game.
From a general statistical point of view, once again, Murphy’s Law, everything that could go wrong, went wrong!
The 80 points the Thunder scored were the fewest any team has recorded on the bubble. Otherwise, the offense that OKC showed was abysmal. Unlike the Rockets, the Thunder don’t usually make many 3s. They averaged 35.5 attempts per game in the regular season (ranked 27th) and were in the middle of the road to reach a 35.5 percent efficiency.
However, in Game 5, OKC took 46 perimeter shots, two fewer than the Rockets, and hit seven or 15.2 percent (YIKES).
Even though the Rockets are the small ball team (the keyword is SMALL) they only lost the rebounding battle by three (55-58) and won the points in the paint scoring by 10 (44-34).
Then consider the 18 turnovers that often occurred in live turnovers. The OKC Thunder aren’t a heavy passing team, but some of the movement of the ball on Saturday was unnerving. Three of the starters (SGA, CPE and Gallo) had four turnovers each and the majority were due to careless passing.
For the second time in this series the Rockets complained of a wandering elbow, which is somewhat comical given how physically and aggressive they are personally. Let’s start with Schroder’s low blow. In the first place, the only reason PJ Tucker was hit is that he ran out and set up an illegal screen.
Forgetting that fact, if you recall Steven Adam’s much more egregious kick to the lower limbs by Draymond Green (the second in the same series) he got a Flagrant 1 (so he stayed in the game). But the Rockets are pushing for Schroder to receive more punishment and this follows his screaming for something between Paul and a Rockets player earlier in the series.
Also, why are the Rockets continually planting this narrative?
There are only a few options:
- Houston is trying to deflect the opposition so the umpires ignore his indiscretions
- The Rockets hope to eliminate a main player via suspension (first with Paul, now with Schroder)
It sure seems like a big effort unless the Rockets have a specific goal in mind. You just beat a team by 34 points with the lowest game score in the bubble, but still, you’re pushing for one of the opponents to be suspended on a play for which they shouldn’t have missed a game in the first place. Why?
Well, like the adage of Murphy’s Law, another appropriate maxim is to let sleeping dogs lie. OKC is not a team you want to incentivize to come out excited, which is precisely what the Rockets are doing with these actions.
More of Thunderous intentions
In Game 5, the Thunder essentially lost any chance to come back once Schroder was sent off. Some might say, well, they weren’t coming back, but remember that is precisely what this team has done this season over and over again.
The Rockets were up 2-0 in the series and led in Game 3, but lost the game in overtime. And just as the Thunder scored the fewest points in their loss on Saturday, the margin of victory in overtime was the largest on record. In Game 4, the club played with its identity by winning again in the clutch.
Ultimately, annoying OKC with this nonsense will only accomplish one thing and that’s all it is doing is infuriating the Thunder, which will be compounded by the implication that they play dirty or deserve additional punishment for what was an illegal play. to get started. All this is going to do is fuel your fire to bring you into Game 6. As if they needed some extra motivation.
Some will take time to reflect on the 34-point loss, but that big spread should work to hopefully end these slow starts to the first and third quarters once and for all. It’s all energy, it’s like the Thunder starting five minutes into those quarters, so a beating like Game 5 is the perfect lesson in why they can’t afford to do that.
Other than that, Chris Paul was right: it’s a game. Given that Murphy’s Law is usually a rarity, hopefully it won’t appear again for long (like next season).
To that end, on five occasions the Thunder scored fewer than 90 points this season and three of those games occurred in the 20 games to start the season when the team was still discovering their chemistry. One happened against the Bucks and the game last night. .
Moving forward, the OKC Thunder will be back in action on Monday playing to stay in the bubble.
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