Oklahoma City was even or ahead of Miami for 36 minutes of Game 2. Seriously. The second quarter of Game 2 was tied, the Thunder and Heat each scored 28. The Thunder won the third quarter by a point and then owned the fourth quarter 29-22.
Miami only won one quarter, the first one.
But that start — Miami raced out to an 18-2 lead, led by 17 at one point and won the quarter by a dozen 27-15 — is what decided Game 2, a 100-96 Heat win that evened the series.
For the second game in a row this series the Thunder dug themselves a hole from the start, and this this time it was too deep to climb out of. They had chances, they faced some bad calls late, but they lost this game in the first 8 minutes.
And to a man the Thunder owned up to that afterward. They know that Miami has too much talent for them to expect to come from behind every game.
They know the consequences of this trend continuing.
“That was the game. We can’t start off down 18 to 2,” Kevin Durant said.
“When you get down 17 too many things have to happen well for you and perfect for you,” Thunder coach Scott Brooks said.
“We got off to a slow start, we can’t keep doing that,” James Harden said in a televised interview after the game. “It only can work sometimes where we can come back.”
Why is it happening?
“Good question, I don’t know,” Harden said after the game. “We’ve done a good job all postseason of having very good starts, especially at home, and these last couple games have been slow. But we’ll pick it up in Game 3.”
If you’re looking to assign blame for the start you’ll be pointing at Russell Westbook, who was 1-7 shooting and was not facilitating for teammates. Not that they were hitting shots either — as a team the Thunder shot 25 percent in the first quarter. But the problem was team-wide, not just Westbrook. The Thunder starting five has not been consistently impressive all post season.
The ball movement and off-the-ball player movement on the weak side seemed to disappear for the Thunder in Game 2. The Thunder’s defense was a step slow to start the game and couldn’t contain Dwyane Wade, who came out aggressive and started getting into the lane. Once Wade got going there was no stopping him.
There are some small adjustments Brooks and the Thunder can make — less Kendrick Perkins (who was awful at both ends of the floor) and more Serge Ibaka. They need to play better defense to help get stops, which allows them to get out and get some transition buckets early.
It’s really about energy. More than design it’s execution. It’s about knocking down shots — Westbrook just missed shots he usually hits. Kevin Durant was 1-for-3 in the first quarter. They all need to step up.
And they need to do it from the opening tip.
