NO LOST LEAD LATE.
Defense answers challenge and ensures big lead doesn’t go to waste in Westbrook’s return
The Rockets had their usual early run, their familiar first-half lead. There was little reason to believe it would last or suspect what was to come.
That run turned out to be just warming up, barely a hint of what was to come.
For two maddening losses in the series, the Rockets had not built a lead they could not lose. They took no chances with a repeat. The Rockets blasted the Thunder in the second half, flying to a 25-point third-quarter lead to blow out the Thunder, 114-80, and take a 3-2 series lead.
“Everybody gives up 15-point leads now,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said. “That’s just the nature of the way the game is now. Everybody’s trying to play faster. It just doesn’t mean anything. We were upset about giving up 31 points in the second (quarter.) That’s what we were ticked off with at halftime.
“We came out and righted the ship.”
Russell Westbrook returned from his strained quad, giving the Rockets a jolt of energy, but making just 3 of 13 shots, scoring seven points in his 24 minutes with seven assists and six rebounds.
The Rockets, however, found scoring wherever they turned. While James Harden scored 20 of his 31 points in the first half, Robert Covington had 22, hitting a career playoff-high six 3-pointers. Eric Gordon’s 20 points sparked the third-quarter romp. But the offense was not even the key to the rout.
The Rockets’ defense took over the game, starting when they had been challenged most, holding a shaky three-point halftime lead.
“Defense played the bigger role,” Harden said after the Rockets held the Thunder to 31.5 percent shooting, the worst for a Rockets playoff opponent in franchise history. “It’s always going to play the bigger role. Offense and making shots is a bonus for us. Defensively we were engaged. We locked back in and got stops when we needed to.”
The Rockets 13-point first-half lead had been erased, as if the Thunder were following a script assigned for the series. The Rockets were dealing with the same issues that had led to the breakdowns in Game 3 and 4.
Then the second half began, and the Rockets were never better.
Covington began the half with a 3-pointer, starting him on his best run of the postseason. Harden, Westbrook and Gordon followed with drives. Harden and Gordon produced steals that led to rapid points on the other end.
The Rockets’ 19-2 burst in less than 4½ minutes was part of a 31-6 run that gave the Rockets a 20-point lead that would swell to 25. They never looked back.
Along the way, the Thunder lost their leading scorer. P.J. Tucker was called for a moving screen set on Dennis Schroder. When Tucker confronted Schroder, he landed a head butt. Officials reviewed the video, found that Schroder had hit Tucker below the belt. Tucker was given a technical foul, Schroder a flagrant foul, penalty 2, and both were ejected.
Until that third-quarter run, even as the Rockets took their customary double-digit lead, it did not seem built to last. The Rockets built that lead with Harden rolling and Lu Dort, OKC’s designated Harden defender, left wide open to miss 3s.
Eventually, Harden sat and left the Rockets to find offense without him. And Dort would leave the court when Harden did, taking all those missed shots with him.
The Thunder rallied with a 13-3 run to cut the lead. Even when the Rockets took a 48-45 lead into the second half, it seemed a small, shaky cushion.
By then, the game looked similar to the Rockets’ losses in the series.
The formula, however, changed as soon as the second half began. The Rockets’ defense forced the Thunder to take the shots the Rockets wanted them to take while getting any shot they wanted on the other end.
“Just winning, just trying to win,” Westbrook said of the goals while returning to the court. “Series tied at 2-2; we wanted a win and to make a statement. That’s what we did. I think everybody played the right way, put us in position to close the game out.”
They also moved into position to close the series out, having seemed to have found that way to make a lead last and grow.