Game 1 Round 1: Portland Trail Blazers (1-0) 104 - 99 Oklahoma City Thunder (0-1)

First published April 15th 2018

OKC wanted to trap Lillard and force the ball out of his hands, the Pelicans special of 2018. You can also see they'll also double any shooter (CJ, Curry...) that has the ball - Adams being the piece in charge of helping in the perimeter takes away the only option to stop Kanter grabbing boards. Portland, meanwhile, was treating Paul Georgewith no less care. Harkless, in particular, was relentless here but foul trouble would plague him for the bulk of the game. As the game went on, the need for such an aggressive cover of Paul George got more questionable. Kanter likely felt he had something to prove to OKC. That he was playable at the highest level. I don't know about that, but he sure impressed in the 1st with 8 points and 8 boards and solid defense on top.

McCollum started to score early, with Ferguson not being perfectly in tune with the defense, and would hit his first 3 attempts from deep. Smothering defense, drawing fouls and capitalizing on an unusual amount of defensive breakdowns by OKC - the second play shows also another Kanter offensive board - had Portland reach a 14 point lead and starting a red hot 7 out of 9 from deep and, excluding a couple of Lillard craziness, they were mostly the right shots to take.

The Thunder had Steven Adams (11 of OKC's 25 points in the first) getting inside at will, rolling for Westbrook. Kanter is limited and can't contain the drive and get back to contest Adams so some help would've been nice.

With the second units, they tried to use Hood/Turner for size mismatches over smaller guards but couldn't get to it as often as i think they'd like. Seth Curry displayed the family traits and I was curious to see if he'd be key for the bench units but they didn't run that much for him. OKC would probably force some switches to attack him on the other end but there were too many turnovers in the early second to see if that was the plan.

However, despite really good defense up to this point and almost no points from WB/PG, the home team started to have their share of wasted possessions. Offense turned really sloppy, forcing up some bad shots and they'd finish the second quarter with 15 points and 10 turnovers. When OKC show cohesion, the strategy they came in with does work to fluster the Blazers offense. Aligned with a more aggressive Westbrook started to impose his way to the rimthe lead was cut to single digits. If Paul George was able to hit a single shot (2-13 at one point), they'd surely have the lead by this point. Still, the Thunder had to be happy being down only by 6 at halftime after the early struggle.

To being the second half, Portland had multiple plays where they failed to help on the driver and Westbrook was making a living at the rim the entire quarter. And the Thunder were displaying the well oiled defense that was essential for their success this season and the game was pretty much even on the scoreboard. The final stretch saw the Blazers regain some breathing room by making a bunch of midrangers and a couple of keys plays by Lillard) which was immediately threatened by Collins getting back on the court, collecting fouls and being completely schooled by Noel.

The 4th was mostly an eyesore in my personal opinion so let's skip to the last minutes of the game where Russell said "fuck this" and at last started spamming the PnR with Adams that had worked so well early on to abuse Kanter's limitations, again to great success. Paul George would finally hit a 3 to get OKC to a one point game with 2:30 remaining. But how do you responde to this? And Kanter's rebounding was huge to ice the game. The time it took from the clock for OKC was decisive.

Overall, OKC's strategy wasn't bad IMO. But they failed executing on the first half, Paul George got a huge amount of great looks but can't buy a bucket and they were completely unable to deal with Kanter, which i'd find embarrassing if i was Billy Donovan. They did a good job forcing the guards to pass. Lillard is exceptional and for all the good looks OKC denied him, he was able to make stupid shot after stupid shot, particularly when the game most needed it. But OKC can take some good signs for the series: They won't have such a bad defensive quarter as the 1st that often and Kanter might not be so effective. But they need someone to make shots, and if George shoots like this again i don't know how they'll score enough.

Other Notes:

It's impossible to deny PG isn't 100% because of his shoulder but great defensive execution nonetheless throughout. And boy, they need George's shooting desperately. I can't imagine that he would pass up this mismatch if he was healthy.

Dennis tries hard but he shouldn't be defending CJ. And his outside shot gets no attention whatsoever so when they play him with another playmaker all it does is clog the offense for others. I really like Jerami Grant (Top 5 MIP). He had his usual dose of effort plays, defense and blocks but when he was meant to create on offense was rough and he couldn't really stop Kanter from getting those boards.

Harkless fouls here but you can see that once Russ releases the ball, he's completely ignored. His shot gets no respect, and statistically i get it. Once he became more aggressive pushing the ball up, the team's overall production improved as well.

Zach Collins was awful. Just awful.

(Reddit)