Going into the 3rd game, I was nervous. Why? Because Denver knows how to protect their home court. Also, the scoring from their team is so random that maybe OKC could be overwhelmed in the hostile environment. Plus, I know the Denver fans were going to yell their loudest with the home team winless in the playoffs.
The Thunder got out to a decent start which is a good thing especially playing away from home. If OKC started like they did in Game 1, it would have been over after the 1st quarter. Then all of the national viewers would mercilessly hound the Thunder about being a young team not ready to make the next step, which of course if winning road playoff games.
George Karl hit the nail on the head when he said Durant and Westbrook wouldn't combine for 72 points a game. I knew that, Scott Brooks knew that, heck everyone knew that. Unfortunately they haven't played up to their potential since Game 1. Little does that matter though since OKC has yet to lose to Denver in the last 5 meetings now.
Let's get into the action. Durant started off slowly missing a few jumpers and didn't seem to catch his for the whole game. Westbrook started OKC off on the offensive end by hitting a few pull-ups and controlling the offense. But Serge Ibaka was the main reason OKC had a shot a victory in this one.
Air Congo amassed 22 points, 16 boards, and 4 rejections. Folks that is downright filthy. You could put that line alongside any elite power forward in the league and it would be a great game. Nice sign of what are hopefully things to come for the young Congolese player.
For Denver, they scored collectively, again, with no name really jumping off of the stat sheet. Nene and K-Mart had almost the same line which would be a good thing if one of the two was really good. Unfortunately, Denver is missing the star that has the ability to take over the scoring load, and sometimes entire games altogether.
The end of the game was a complete disaster for both sides consisting of sloppy play and bad passes/shots. OKC escaped with a win and look to sweep with a win tonight.
On a side note, an obviously upset Denver Post writer posted a pretty entertaining read. Go to Daily Thunder for the link.
Here is the box score courtesy of ESPN.
Next up: Game 4 in Denver, 9:30 pm CT.
No comments:
Post a Comment