Westbrook unfazed by opening-game loss
Teammate, coach suggest adjustments to contain Rockets
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook appreciates the hustle of Rockets guard Pat Beverley, but he balked at the suggestion Beverley is a great defender.
“He’s a good defender for their team, but I don’t worry about nobody and how they’re defending,” Westbrook said Tuesday after practice at the University of Houston. “I can pretty much do what I want to do.”
Pretty much, except that Beverley and a handful of his fellow defenders stymied the MVP candidate Sunday in the opening game of a first-round playoff series.
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is 7 p.m. Wednesday, and the Thunder pledge they have made a heap of adjustments following a 118-87 loss.
‘We’ve cleared it up’
“We’ve cleared it up a lot more, the bigs and guards,” center Steven Adams said of the Thunder’s confusion in dealing with the Rockets’ pick-and-roll offense and movement. “We just have to come out more aggressive with more physicality.”
Oklahoma City guarded the long-range shot effectively against one of the top 3-point teams of all time, as the Rockets were 10-of-33 (30.3 percent) in the opener. But the Rockets hushed the Thunder on second-chance points (31-4) and points in the paint (62-38) in overwhelming OKC’s scheme to keep the Rockets in check from long range.
“(We can’t) let them have 3s or transition 3s,” Adams said. “That emphasis is still there. We just have to clean up the other stuff and we should be OK.”
On the ball
The Rockets cannot afford to take Oklahoma City’s emphasis on adjustments lightly, considering the Thunder won their second game last year at San Antonio in the Western Conference semifinals, after opening with a 32-point loss to the Spurs. OKC wound up winning the series.
Second-year Thunder coach Billy Donovan has spent the past two days trying to come up with the lineup to combat the Rockets’ attack. It’s not easy, he said.
“Any time you’re going against a good, quality team, you can (emphasize) defense and have difficulty scoring,” Donovan said. “You can go with a lot more scoring and have a difficult time getting (defensive) stops. It’s a mixture and a balance of being able to be efficient on both ends of the floor.”
He added the defense of the Rockets, renowned for their offense behind their own MVP candidate James Harden, is underrated.
“People talk about their defense, but when they sub with their second group they’re like a top-five defense (in the league),” Donovan said.
Meanwhile, Westbrook, the first player to average a tripledouble in the regular season since Oscar Robertson in 1961-62, had an eventful interaction with the media following Tuesday’s practice. He played with a ball early in an interview and failed to catch a pass from one hand to the other. The ball knocked off a reporter’s glasses, and the oft-contentious Westbrook dubbed it an accident, then winked.
He followed up on a comment before the series that the ball — aka “Spalding” — is his only friend on the court, complete with salty language upon which the FCC frowns.
“Y’all misunderstood what I was saying — y’all don’t understand the importance of what I was saying,” said Westbrook, who was 6-of-23 from the floor (22 points) in the opener. “Y’all think it’s a joke or some (stuff). It’s a serious thing — it’s something that’s important.
“All these guys here are my brothers — my teammates are my brothers. James (Harden) is a friend of mine, and there are other friends I have in the league.”
Unguarded philosophy
Westbrook, 28, then held the ball with one hand and pointed at it with the other.
“At the same time, when I get on the floor, this is the most important thing to me,” Westbrook said of the ball. “This is how I do what I need to do. It’s actually not a joke. It’s some real (stuff).”
So is this series, as the Thunder try to prove they’re capable of advancing without Kevin Durant, now with Golden State. Last year Oklahoma City lost in the Western Conference finals to the Warriors; this year they’re underdogs to advance to the semifinals, thanks in large part to a Rockets team on a roll. Off a pick.
“They really try to manipulate you with the pick-and-roll,” Adams said. “You get over to help and they find open teammates — it’s kind of crazy like that.”