Oklahoma City • It certainly wasn’t what the Thunder envisioned last summer, when their “Big Three” was assembled.
Combined, Carmelo Anthony, Russell Westbrook and Paul George have played in 224 playoff games, which is more than the entire Jazz roster. And yet on Wednesday night, they couldn’t hit a shot when it mattered most.
It’s a startling statistic: 0 for 14. Do the Thunder have a crunch-time issue?
“I don’t know,” said Anthony, who was 0 for 4. “We missed them. We all missed. I don’t really have an answer to what happened or an excuse on why we didn’t make shots.”
While there’s only been one game in the playoffs that should concern Oklahoma City after the Jazz evened up the series in Game 2, but the question has dogged the Thunder for most of the season. They have trouble pulling away in “clutch” situations, defined by the NBA as games that are within five points in the final five minutes.
The Thunder played a lot of close games this season, going 24-22 in clutch games, which was middle of the pack in the league. On average, Oklahoma City scored fewer points per 100 possessions than its opponent (minus-1.6 net rating), and their clutch defense ranked No. 24 in the league.
The Jazz have just been moderately better, going 16-13 in clutch games, but they’re at least at a positive net rating (plus-3.9) despite lacking the bigger names and experience of the Thunder.
Coach Billy Donovan defended the shots his team took toward the end of the game, saying that the Thunder mostly got the looks they wanted, but could not convert.
“I think our main guys got pretty good looks, and I thought we moved the ball to the open man,” he said. “I thought we even had times where we rolled to the basket and had a presence at the basket. We had a hard time finishing there as well.”
The only player who credibly appeared to be finishing strong was Steven Adams, who benefited from Westbrook driving in, drawing Rudy Gobert out of the paint and giving Adams open looks at the rim. But when Adams fouled out, the offense had no kick left.
In a larger sense, it might be a sign of the shots the Jazz forced the Thunder into in Game 2. Westbrook is a bellwether: He’s shooting just 38.6 percent in the series so far, and just 16 of his 44 shots have come at the rim. That means more of his shots have come from midrange than his season average, and he’s shooting below average from several of those areas.
One of the most worrisome areas has come in the 6-foot to 12-foot range, where Westbrook is just 4 for 14, much of the time getting less-than-ideal looks against Ricky Rubio. Asked about his shot selection on Wednesday night, however, Westbrook acted as if there were no issue (though he was 0 for 4 and got to the line just once in the fourth quarter).
“Nah, I got what I wanted,” he said. “Picked it apart. Was able to get open shots. … I was fine.”
If that’s how Westbrook really feels, that might be the biggest Thunder worry of all.
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