A lot of the calls have been iffy, definitely, but it's not all the refs' fault. Durant gets himself caught in awkward positions on defense, and leaves himself vulnerable to someone like Joey Crawford whistling him for two or three questionable calls.
For instance: Durant's fourth foul could have gone either way, but it never would have mattered if he hadn't served up a half-assed swipe at the ball on an easy LeBron layup with a minute left in the second quarter. Not only did he give LeBron an easy And-1 there, but he picked up his third foul, opening the door for an iffy foul to change the whole game in the third quarter. So yeah, Scotty Brooks sat his superstar, and after a classic Evil Westbrook stretch missed three, missed lay-up, charge Russ sat down, too.
After that, the team left on the floor immediately got a 4-point play from Derek Fisher, then didn't make a field goal for the rest of the quarter. With good defense and a few breaks on offense, the Heat turned a point hole into a two-point lead going into the fourth, including two different fouls on Heat three-pointers, giving Miami six easy points.
For OKC, this was ugly: Durant's dumb fouls, Westbrook's wasted possessions, and then Brooks deciding it would be a good idea to sit them both for the final five minutes of the third. If the theme from the first six weeks of the playoffs was that "the Thunder are all grown up! Afterward Durant said, "We had a nice little rhythm going at the offensive end [in the third quarter]. For it to just stop like that with me going out, it's kinda tough.
I hate sitting on the bench, especially with fouls. Late in the fourth quarter, Durant made almost the exact same mistake he made in the second quarter -- stepping in front of LeBron, this time trying to take a charge and save two points on a fast break, and instead he picked up his fifth foul and gave up another three-point play.
Those are fouls that just make no sense, and there's definitely something Durant can do about it. On Miami's side, it was defense and rebounding that made the difference. LeBron guarded Durant for most of the fourth quarter and repeatedly denied entry passes to KD on the wing, instead forcing him to catch it out on the perimeter.
Durant's pretty much unstoppable these days, but it's little things like that go a long way toward preventing point outbursts in the fourth. The Thunder scored 2 points over a 5-minute stretch in the heart of the fourth.
Meanwhile, the Heat got six offensive boards in the fourth, LeBron attacked the rim, and LeBron scored when they needed it, the defense held up, and Miami had just enough to win a game where neither team really played well offensively. The effort continued into the second frame as the Thunder forced an additional five turnovers while also holding the Heat to just 27 percent from the field and 37 percent from deep. We just got some good stops, got the rebound and tried to beat them in transition.
I feel like we did a good job of that in the first half. By the end of the night, the third-year wing went 8-of from the field and 4-of-8 from behind the arc. Nowhere was that more evident than in the blocks column. We think he can be a really good defender in this NBA. After shutting down a comeback led by Kevin Durant and winning Game 2, the Heat carry major momentum heading into tonight, putting OKC on their heels and at a disadvantage.
For the Thunder, Game 3 is an important one for a win. They don't want the Heat leading the series, and they need to win their first game on the road to make people forget about their performance in Game 2. OKC has a tough task ahead of them, but for a team that's in their first Finals appearance in Oklahoma City, they have shown that they can dominate and did it in the second half of the first two games of these Finals. OKC, suffering their first home loss in the playoffs this year, will try to stop LeBron and company from dominating the first half, something they have done in the past two games.
In the first two games combined, the Heat have outscored the Thunder
0コメント