Russell Westbrook’s return to the track may have been the story of Houston’s first-round match 5 game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, but it was the Rockets’ defense that ultimately led the way with a 114-80 win. The Thunder fired a terrifying 31.5% from the field, hitting just seven of their 45 3-point attempts. Once Dennis Schroder was sent off in the third quarter, the Thunder had no consistent means of generating offense.
Now the Thunder are only one game away from elimination. Their Cinderella season is all about finding ways to score without compromising their defense. But if Game 5 was any indication, the Thunder are simply choosing their venom. They can space the floor or they can defend James Harden, but they probably can’t do both. The type of lineup they come out with for Game 6 will tell a good deal about their priorities as they fight for their post-season lives.
Here are three tips from Game 5.
1. The Dort problem
The Rockets didn’t exactly treat Lu Dort like Klay Thompson in his first three games of this series, but they were blatant enough to ignore him offensively in this one. On mostly open eyes, Dort shot 3 of 16 from the field and 0 of 9 with 3 points. Without having to worry about him, the Rockets packed the paint on the defensive and took away most of the rest of the Thunder offense. Danilo Gallinari and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander combined by just five points. The basket, as far as a centerless team can, has been completely taken away.
The issue at stake here was that Dort is the only Thunder defender capable of hindering Harden. This has been the case with all series, and by the time Billy Donovan pulled the plug on Dort in the third quarter, Houston backed off with their offense. The Thunder need to find a way to make Dort playable on offense, because they are absolutely unable to survive defensively without him. Andre Roberson was a strong cutter even when he couldn’t shoot at his peak. Dort can dribble more than he deserves. It was far from the only problem in attack in this match, but it can’t be a total zero on that side of the pitch. No defender can ever justify it in 2020.
2. Westbrook influenced the game without putting the numbers
Westbrook’s individual numbers were disappointing. Nobody will write at home about seven points out of three of 13 shots. But the speed with which Houston played offensively in Game 5 was remarkable. The attention Oklahoma City paid to Westbrook led Eric Gordon to the basket a bit, and his presence made it much more difficult for the Thunder to cross Dort with Harden in transition. When Harden got matchups besides Dort for it, he took advantage of it and was aggressive. Harden went 11 of 15 off the pitch in this game. Most of those blows happened on rare occasions without Dort haunting him.
Eventually, Westbrook will revert to something akin to his star form. They will get tangible production from him before the playoffs are over. But tonight they took advantage of the intangible benefits it provides on the road to a win.
3. Defense of Oklahoma City also needs a lot of work
The Thunder had the number 7 defense of the regular season, but you wouldn’t know that by watching Houston kick some of their defenders in the exchanges. Gilgeous-Alexander played a decent defense during the season, but in this series he was a complete and absolute responsibility. The same can be said of Gallinari, even though his struggles in this regard have been a career-long issue.
The Thunder don’t have much offensive firepower. This is not a team designed to score 120 or 130 points. It is built to win slowly, it grinds wins that have not been easy to achieve in this series. If two players who have worked within a winning defense all season can’t survive the first round, this team has never had much of a chance to progress in the playoffs anyway.
