Thunder’s defense led to another late comeback and tied the series
Dennis Schroder had a career playoff-high 30 points, Chris Paul added 26 points and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander notched 18 points and 12 rebounds as the Oklahoma City Thunder came back after a 13-0 run for Houston and beat 117-114 the Rockets to even the series 2-2 on Monday.
The Thunder trailed by as many as 15 points in the third quarter but due to their quality of defense and ability to knock down shots from deep, they managed to close the gap with a buzzer beater three-point shot by Schroder to reduce the difference to only one point (93-92). This season they have been leading the league in huge comebacks late in the second half as they have notched 17 wins after trailing heading into the fourth quarter.
"I think our team all season has dealt with adversity really, really good," Paul said. "We just tried to keep playing, keep fighting and stayed in the game."
It's a matter of confidence and self-esteem I would say and this team seems to have both and we saw that during the regular season but not in the first two games of the series against the Rockets. However, with incredible perimeter defense (with Dort on Harden and everyone else contributing to this), consistent response in terms of shooting the ball and leadership by Paul and Schroder - here we are and have ourselves a series to watch. After the first two games and how efficient were the Rockets from the three-point line, many including myself believed that the Thunder couldn't deal with a team that shoots the ball so well. Well, the Thunder reminded us that they are such a great defensive team that plays at its own pace and strengths and nobody should downgrade their game and skills.
"I always believe we can turn it around," Schroder said. "Just bring a little bit of energy, get stops as a team, take the good shots and we will be in good shape. We have been doing it all season."
James Harden had another 30-point performance with 32 points, eight rebounds and playoff-high 15 assists, shooting almost 50% from the field and 6-of-15 from the perimeter. Eric Gordon added 23 points, three three-point shots and three assists. Daniel House had 21 points and six rebounds. Robert Covington had 14 points and 6 rebounds. Rockets shot 45.1% from the field and 39.7% from the perimeter.
"Teams are going to make runs, but it's the way they made their runs," Harden said. "We weren't getting our shots offensively, and defensively, we weren't sticking to our principles. So it was a disaster on both ends."
"This game, we needed better individual defense," Gordon said. "They really had it going and they just tried to spread us out and go one-on-one. We scored enough but they just continued to keep scoring and that was really the name of the game."
Game 5 is on Wednesday.