Thunder: 3 Areas For Improvement From Game 1
By Max Seng
Win The Rebounding Battle
The NBA’s top rebounding team was outrebounded 56-41 in Game 1. A point of strength became a glaring weakness, including giving up 14 offensive rebounds.
It became clear that Houston was able to hunt down every long rebound, while Oklahoma City was standing under the rim, waiting for the ball to drop within the restricted area. One of the oldest adages of basketball is “long shots, long rebounds.”
Attempting the most 3-pointers per game has taught the Rockets to prepare to chase down those long rebounds and they excelled at doing just that.
It was also clear that Adams, Gibson and Kanter were disoriented and uncomfortable finding themselves away from the rim so often, forced to stretch out on the defensive side guarding snipers such as Ryan Anderson, Trevor Ariza and being forced to switch onto Harden.
The Thunder’s trio are traditional bruisers that like to mix it up in the paint and the opportunities to do that were few and far between Sunday night.
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That Patrick Beverley out-rebounded the combined output Adams, Kanter and Gibson tells you all you need to know.