Paul Shoulders Blame for Game Two Loss
A dejected Chris Paul sat in his postgame press conference, saying, "I gotta do more." During the 37 minutes, Paul was on the floor, Oklahoma City was outscored by 36 points; according to Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman, that is the lowest plus-minus of his 15-year career.
With numbers like that, it's hard to argue against Paul's point. During game two, the Thunder were good enough to get beat. 111-98 looks better than the tail kicking they took in game one, but make no mistake about it; they are in trouble.
When asked to be specific about what parts of his game he was disappointed in, Paul responded, "It's a lot, it's a lot, I'll go back and look at the film, but I know what it is, it's a lot."
Paul has never been one to point fingers at his teammates here in Oklahoma City, and he's going to start now. Even with plenty of people to point fingers at for the Thunder being down 0-2, Paul will shoulder the blame.
The most alarming part of Thursday's loss was the Thunder improved from their game one performance. They played with pace, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was involved in the offense, they were getting into the lane (36 points in the paint), they didn't do it long enough.
Right now it doesn't look like the Thunder has any answers for how to beat the Rockets, but, we've seen series turn on a dime, can anyone say 2016?
The Rocket's zone won't allow Oklahoma City to pick and roll them to death, so the Thunder will have to play their style of basketball, which means scoring more in transition and getting back on defense.
The Thunder doesn't need to be worried about winning the series; they need to win one game. The question is, is even that task too daunting?
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With more than 20 years of experience hosting local and national radio shows, Erik Gee is a fixture of Oklahoma sports media. He has covered the Oklahoma City Thunder for the past six seasons. He is also the co-host of the Pat Jones show on 97.1 The Sports Animal in Tulsa.
