Thunder’s defense still searching for solutions

HOUSTON — For Billy Donovan and the Thunder, the objectives are set when defending the Rockets in their Western Conference firstround series.

What’s given up in pursuit of those objectives is the problem.

Enes Kanter sat and grimaced as he was getting stitches in his right elbow after practice Monday at the University of Houston. The cut periodically reopened in the last week of the regular season for the Thunder, and presumably had its limits tested

Hollis Price scurried through the Guy Lewis Facility practice gym Monday at the University of Houston, headed for the backdoor. He wanted to catch Nick Collison, who had been practicing with the Thunder on the UofH campus. Collison and Price were contemporaries, Collison at Kansas and Price at OU, both from 1999-03. Each made a Final Four and was among the best players in Big 12 basketball history.

Now Price is director of player development for Houston men’s basketball, under Kelvin Sampson, his coach at OU. The Oklahoman caught up with Price after the Thunder practice.

A: “That’s crazy. Nick was one of my good boys, one of my good friends in college. We got to know each other on the Playboy AllAmerican photo shoot and also at the Jordan Camp. But playing against him, Nick’s been a professional since when he was in college. He’s always had the same demeanor and work ethic that he has now. And it shows, because he’s been in the league so long, what value he has to the team.” and can do the things he can do, and for him to be such a great person off the court, it’s easy to see that he’s still playing. Because NBA, if you’re good in the locker room, you can have a job for a long time.”

“It’s great. For instance, the Thunder’s here. Throughout the year, I think Memphis came. The Clippers have been here as well. Teams that don’t want to practice at the Rockets’ facility, they come over here and come to our gym. Coach Sampson did a great job raising money to get this built. Just helps us from the standpoint of recruiting. Because if we don’t have this facility, it’s going to be hard for us to get the kids that we want.”

“Man, it’s great. Brings back memories from when we started out playing against each other in middle school and then playing with each other in high school and him coming to join us at Oklahoma, and now here at Houston. Hopefully, we can have the same kind of run that we had, and we can bring that same passion and everything to Houston.” against the Rockets in a 118-87 loss Sunday night.

OKC’s defense had its limits tested ... and broken.

The Thunder is still trying to pinpoint how to slow down one of most prolific offenses in NBA history. If OKC is going to do so in Game 2, it’ll have to figure out how to better battle the Rockets exploiting mismatches when the Thunder switches defensively.

“We got caught in some situations where we were in some late switches, and we got caught with guards on their bigs and they did a good job,” Donovan said Monday. “Some of the stuff, I felt like we could do a better job of executing.”

The Rockets scored 114.7 points per 100 possessions in the regular season, the 10th highest mark in NBA history. They did so by bombing 39 3-pointers a game (most in the NBA) and scoring nearly 15 percent of their points on the fast break (sixth in the league).

While a small sample of what may revert to norms during the series, the Thunder was successful stopping what it set out to cease in Game 1: the 3-point line and fastbreak points. The Rockets shot just 10-of-33 from 3 and scored only 5.1 percent of their points via the fast break.

The problem Sunday, a carry-over from their final meeting of the regular season, was the paint points. The Rockets scored 62 in the paint, or 52.5 percent of their points.

Some were offensive rebounds, like Ryan Anderson swooping in untouched for a tip in between Gibson and Adams for one of his 12 boards. Others were manufactured by James Harden, whether it was the Rockets utilizing two screens to get Harden driving at Adams in the pick and roll before passing to a cutting Nene, or the crafty lefty getting matched up one-on-one with Kanter.

Kanter did his best, close enough on Harden to deny the 3-point shot, but backed off enough to give ground in case of a drive. Harden was simply too shifty, then blew past him.

When the bigs are on an island as Kanter was in the third quarter, that’s where the rotational help comes in.

“We just need to do a better job on help-side defense,” said Kanter, who’s instructed to stay in front of the ball (easier said than done) and deny the 3-point shot when on the perimeter. Harden shot just 3-of-11 from 3-point range. “When they drive, we need a better job of communicating.”

It’s not Donovan’s dream to have Kanter isolated on Harden, but multiple screens by the Rockets in the same sequence create mismatches with little time to adjust. It’s one reason why the minutes have already tilted in the more athletic Jerami Grant’s favor. Grant played 27 minutes to Kanter’s 16 on Sunday, and cameras caught Donovan in the fourth quarter appearing to say to assistant coach Maurice Cheeks ‘Can’t play Kanter’ after a lob dunk to Clint Capela.

“It’s not the initial action, it’s the second or third one,” Donovan said.

Rather than dropping the big man in pick and roll while having a guard like Andre Roberson or Victor Oladipo pursue the ballhandler over a screen, the Thunder could opt to push the big up and have two players closing on the ballhandler. But ...

“If you want to send two guys at Harden to get the ball out of his hands, then you create (3-point) closeout situations elsewhere,” Donovan said.

Nobody said this would be easy. It’s why the Rockets won 55 games, why Donovan called it a “pickyour-poison” scenario Sunday night.

It’s a situation Taj Gibson’s been in before. He played on a string of defensive-minded playoff teams in Chicago under coach Tom Thibodeau. But even Gibson feels the defensive pressure of the postseason, comparing it to cramming for a final exam.

The Thunder happens to be getting tested against a historic offense.

“You know if you don’t ace this, you’re gonna fail,” Gibson said. “It’s like that every game. It gets more and more intense. Every possession is like that. Every missed screen.

“And the whole team is feeling it, from the bench to the players on the court. Every play.”