League tries to calm tensions
Monty McCutchen, the NBA vice president and head of referee development and training, is attempting to improve the increasingly tense relationship between referees and players.
It’s never as bad as it seems.
After Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony and Steven Adams combined to miss four of 10 free throws in the final two minutes of a 100-99 loss to Boston on Tuesday, the Thunder still faces the toughest remaining strength of schedule in the NBA.
With nine games to go, the Thunder’s remaining opponents have a league-best .578 winning percentage. But there are asterisks to the final three weeks that make the Thunder’s remaining schedule palatable:
The Rockets and Warriors may not be full strength
The Thunder has four road games left that each appear daunting. Two have massive implications: at San Antonio March 29 on the first night of a home/ road back-to-back; at New Orleans April 1. The other is at Miami on April 9.
At home against Golden State (April 3) and at Houston (April 7), while important for the Thunder to stay ahead of Minnesota, San Antonio, New Orleans and Utah in the win column, may not be a difficult as they appear on paper.
Houston has all but wrapped up the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, jumping out to a four-game lead on Golden State as the Warriors nurse injuries to Stephen Curry (right ankle sprain), Klay Thompson (broke right thumb) and Kevin Durant (rib fracture).
Each is projected to be back by the Thunder-Warriors matchup, but it will also be the front end of a stretch of five games in seven days for the Warriors – four of those games coming on the road – to end the regular season. Don’t be surprised if players are rested.
Meanwhile, Houston remembers the fatigue James Harden faced last postseason and the injury history of Chris Paul. They’ll want to avoid excess stress to their star guards, particularly if there’s no seeding race to play for in the final week.
Even with potential player rest, writing down Thunder wins in those games would be presumptuous.
Road weary opponents
Miami and Denver are both good teams, just not on the road. The Thunder gets the luxury of playing each at home in the next week (Friday and March 30).
The Heat is 17-20 on the road and has lost nine of its last 10 on the road, its lone win coming by one point over the Lakers last week.
Denver’s road record (11-23) is the worst of the Top 10 teams in the Western Conference, one game in the win column better than Phoenix.
When the Nuggets come to Oklahoma City, they’ll be in the final game of a sevengame road trip in which they will have played four teams in playoff contention and suffered a loss to Memphis to start.
By then, winning a potential head-to-head tiebreaker with Denver will likely be irrelevant since the Nuggets are currently four games back of the Thunder and have a brutal remaining schedule (second toughest in the NBA).
Again, writing down Thunder wins in those games would be presumptuous, but those are games with clear advantages against sub-.500 road teams.
Spread-out games
The Thunder gets three days of rest to gear up for the road games against Houston and San Antonio.
Then again, you could negate every bullet point above with the notion that few games have been easy for the Thunder this season. But a combination of timing, home/road splits and rest days theoretically make this nine-game stretch easier to navigate that it appears.
L2M shows Celtics miscues
On Wednesday, the NBA released its Last Two Minute report from the Thunder's loss to the Celtics, a report which documented multiple Celtics miscues which went uncalled in the fourth quarter.
Three times in the final two minutes the Celtics committed traveling violations, according to the NBA, including immediately prior to Marcus Morris' gamewinning 3-point shot. Morris "moved his pivot foot prior to the release of his dribble" with 3.4 seconds left before shooting, according to the report. On the same play which put the Celtics ahead 100-99, Morris also didn't release the inbounds pass within five seconds, which should have resulted in a turnover.
Boston guard Terry Rozier also traveled at 1:47 and with 37.8 seconds left, each time moving his pivot foot, according to the NBA's review.
On the report, each violation is cited with bracketed information but doesn't receive a definition of "Correct Non-Call," which is the standard for a play in which the league determines an official correctly abstains from making a call. Per the NBA, "plays that are only observable with the help of a stop-watch, zoom or other technical support, are noted in brackets along with the explanatory comments but are not deemed to be incorrectly officiated."
In brackets, the traveling violations were deemed "observable in enhanced video," while the fivesecond violation was noted as "detectable with stop-watch."
Triple-double watch
Making the postseason (and avoiding falling into the seven or eight seeds in the Western Conference) is the Thunder’s priority, but here’s a snapshot at Westbrook’s chances at averaging a triple-double for the second consecutive season.
Over the final nine games, Westbrook needs 76 assists and 113 rebounds, or averages of 8.4 assists and 12.5 rebounds per game, to hit the mark.