The Oklahoma City Thunder will not beat the Houston Rockets if their bigs do not rebound the basketball, it’s that simple.
In Game 1 of this highly-anticipated series between OKC and Clutch City, the Rockets beat the Thunder at their own game. Houston out-rebounded the Thunder 56-41. The 6-foot-1 Patrick Beverley had more boards (10) than Steven Adams, Taj Gibson, and Enes Kanter combined (nine). That’s significant, considering the Thunder led the NBA in rebounding in the regular season with 56.2 boards per contest, per teamrankings.com.
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They’ll need their big men to do the dirty work inside to help out MVP candidate Russell Westbrook. For Oklahoma City to keep up with the other MVP candidate in this series, James Harden, they’ll need all the extra possessions they can get.
The Thunder doesn’t have the firepower to stick with the shooters on the Rockets, who made the most threes per game of any NBA team. Beverley went off with four triples, and he really put the game away in the third quarter.
That said, they’re going to need to at least have near the same amount of opportunities, if not more. Oklahoma City only grabbed seven offensive rebounds, compared to Houston snagging 14. The Thunder cannot bank on the Rockets shooting 30.3 percent from three-point land in these games, either.
The score could have been much worse if Houston were more efficient with their threes. It’s also too bad that Oklahoma City couldn’t make good use out of Andre Roberson going four-of-six from three. I wouldn’t bet on that kind of shooting from him again in this series, but maybe he’ll prove me wrong. Typically, leaving him open is a sound strategy.
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The other end of the spectrum in the rebounding game is the potential for transition buckets. It’s not as if Houston plays lockdown D, but if the Thunder are going to win this series they’re going to need Russ, Victor Oladipo and others to get out on the break for layups and dunks off. Adams, Gibson and Kanter need to be big on the defensive glass, too. Houston is going to get their points, so the Thunder need as many chances as they can get to make this a competitive series.
If not, Bev is going to have more and more TV time. I don’t think Russ wants to see any more of Mr. 94 Feet in postgame highlights, by the way.
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