Maybe it’s the Westbrook effect. Hell, George went from star to..this, and Oladipo went from average to all-star.
Okc owns the tiebreaker vs Utah and cLippers They lose any tiebreaker vs Denver, Minny, Nawlins and Portland. They tied the season series with San Antonio, but SA has a better division and conference record than OKC and Okc's next 3 games won't change that so they also lose the tiebreaker to SA. If we stay as is and start the playoffs today, OKC is the 8th seed (due to the tiebreakers) and would face Houston in the 1st round. Hey, but they still got time to figure it out. #OhBrother(eyeroll)hood
I don’t think field goal attempts are necessarily correlated directly with the amount of meaningful touches he actually gets. Playing with guys like Westbrook and Melo has got to mess with his rhythm. Not knowing when the offense gets to run through you or if you’re going to be relegated to watching Melo iso for 20 seconds.
From the times I've watch OKC this season, Melo seems to sort of float through the game like a zombie. He isn't really doing ISOs. He's basically a really expensive role player at this point. But that's Westbrook. Westbrook turns everyone into a role player. Durant was just so exceptional he was able to rise above it.
I haven't religiously watched OKC this year, but I did see yesterday's game vs the Dubs and Savs hit it on the head. Melo is seriously a system player...he's bought in to whatever Donovan wants him to do and I think its either to pacify any negotiations with Presti towards his last payday or he knows that the open market is going to be brutal and his tenure in OKC will last one more year after he opts in to his final year. Either way, Melo isn't the ball stopper. Its Russ for sure and to his credit he was finding good looks for his guys yesterday, but they were just missing wide open shots. OKC is top heavy and doesn't have the talent necessary to be legit title contenders, particularly cause their top 3 don't really fit well with each other. Melo and PG are glorified overpaid spot up shooters. When PG's number is called, Russ just hovers on the weakside perimeter and there's no movement. Its literally an iso 2 man game between Russ and the PnRer (usually Khadams). Either way, they're f***ed in the postseason if they make it. But something tells me they will continue to fall into some luck as they have all season long (ie Dame had to be carted from the locker room to the team bus last night due to a bum ankle, Dubs are without Steph, SA is without Kawhi...the Blunder will probably draw one of those teams in the 1st round and have a "chance" cause each of those teams are hobbled).
He is having too many 15-17 pt games on shooting lines like 5-15 with 5-7 turnovers and just not impacting the defensive side at all as compared to pre all star break.
No one must watch OKC games. Russ dominates the 4th quarter only. For the first 3 quarters he tries to feed Adams and George. Melo is a zombie pretty much, almost zero iso’s Per game. Just a weird weird team. PG is also out there against second units and meant to be the scoring punch with the reserves - and he just can’t create good quality shots for himself or others.
Thank you very much for the breakdown here. I was really curious how it would all go down or what OKC needs to do to miss the playoffs. Dang, I wish DEN didn't have as tough a schedule....
Guilty. I haven’t watched a OKC game other than their games against us. My assessment was literally just guessing how OKC plays given the reputation of their main players. And I’m biased because I mainly just wanted to defend PG13 so I can convince myself that any of his issues would not carry over to our roster
At this point - and this is a very honest assessment - PG looks like a mediocre jumpshooter on a team that does not know how to use him properly. Maybe it's the system, maybe it's Westbrook, and it's possible that George is really not feeling it at all and simply wants the season to end so he can get out of there. Or it's a combination of those factors.
You're welcome bro...yeah its a tough schedule for Denver for sure and they don't even know when Harris will get back. Good news is that tomorrow's game vs Minny has Butler doubtful for that game. The next time they play Minny will be on the last day of the regular season and so many things could be settled by then so maybe that could be a throw away game. When it comes to the Blazer game, hopefully Dame is still day-to-day for that game and decides to rest his ankle and that is a realistic possibility since they have a 3 game lead on the next team to threaten them for the 3rd seed, so Dame has plenty time to rest up. That cLipper game will be huge though since both of them are on the outside trying to get in...should be a good game. I don't like Denver, but I really would love to see OKC drop out of the playoff picture, so for the next few days I'll be a Nugget fan.
Oh ya, if OKC misses the playoffs that's a nail in the coffin for PG chances of staying with OKC in my opinion.
Two out of three? Losses...? Houston needs to keep momentum. Miami needs the win. Maybe even Memphis could play spoiler?
I’ve watched enough OKC games since the all star break and there’s just no flow. Even when Westbrook tries to get the other guys going, it looks forced. He either attacks and makes them spot up shooters or dumps it to PG/Melo and they iso. No semblance of a true offense. George hasn’t quit on the team but he rarely looks fully engaged. He doesn’t seem to know when his shots are coming because nobody really knows when Russ will pass or shoot. Also has to be tough watching Westbrook start chucking 3s early in the shot clock when they’re late in games. It’s going to take a monster postseason from OKC to give them any chance to keeping Paul.
So Denver just needs to win out and okc just needs to lose 2 out of 3 They have Houston and Miami left, then the grizz at the end Good news is Denver has momentum and won 4 straight, while OKC is losing.
