Thunder Clocked By Clips In Adams' Absence
By Randy Renner, Senior Writer
Missing your defensive anchor and also playing the second night of a road back-to-back is generally not the best recipe for success.
The Thunder were doing both Monday night and the results were about as you’d expect.
Clippers 120, Thunder 98.
But head coach Billy Donovan is not one to just accept things and he was clearly disappointed with how well his team performed.
“We’ve gotta be able to get the ball stopped in our pick and roll coverage,” he said. “Defensively we had made some strides over the last five to seven games but this wasn’t one of our better defensive games.”
The Thunder gave up 62 points in the paint to L.A. on a stunning 70.5 percent shooting. OKC seemed to be totally defenseless down low despite several moves and switches Donovan and coaches tried.
“We tried to do some different things, just in terms of not wanting to be constant. We switched some, tried to get in different coverages. I’m not sure if anything was better than the other it was just that we struggled keeping the ball out of the paint.”
Adams was held out of the game because of a concussion he suffered in Sacramento Sunday night. His status going into Wednesday’s game at Golden State is very much in doubt.
But the Clippers have been dealing with the loss of Blake Griffin over the last several weeks and last night point guard Chris Paul left the game in the first half with a sprained thumb.
They made do…the Thunder did not.
“I think we were certainly capable of doing a better job (in pick and roll coverage) when the ball’s coming down hill and you hold coverage too long, you got two guys on the ball, a guy rolling, then guys falling behind and that’s a recipe for either a dunk or a three and that’s what happened a lot of times when they got going downhill.”
Jerami Grant filled in for Adams in the center spot and at times played well, scoring nine points, pulling down eight rebounds and blocking three shots but going up against DeAndre Jordan was also at times a physical mismatch.
Using up a lot of energy the night before to hang on to the win in Sacramento didn’t help the situation but Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook refused to use that as an excuse.
“We just have to be ready to play,” he said. “For the most part we came out a little sluggish, not being the more physical team. They started off with better intensity than we did.”
Westbrook finished with 24 points, five rebounds and four assists falling short of his 21st triple-double.
The Clips scored 23 points off 15 Thunder turnovers and also shot a tick under 55 percent while holding Oklahoma City to just 42.4 percent shooting.
“We had a hard time generating baskets,” Donovan said. “We certainly didn’t make enough shots.”
The Thunder have a day to rest up before taking on former teammate Kevin Durant and the Golden State Warriors who are coming off a 126-91 beat down of the defending NBA Champion Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Thunder are not practicing today so an update on Adams’ status is not expected before Wednesday morning’s shootaround.